ramblings

Original article here: –> http://blog.cheil.com/magazine/16742

Still weighing up the pros and cons of allowing Social Media widgets and other integration into your website and other digital assets? Don’t. You???ve got nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

Techno-socialists warn of a dystopian future in which humanity’s unhealthy relationship with technology forewarns of its own downfall. Looking at the larger picture, this writer sees the implications for humanity rather differently.

I’m writing this story from the point of view of my alter-ego, Sturat Herouin. does that make this a 4th person narrative?

After setting out to write a rather superficial piece on sandwiches, I discovered that they do more than merely satisfy our earthly needs.

It’s the sandwich that truly sets us apart from the lower animals. Not language, symbolism, opposable thumbs, the capacity for abstract thought and other higher brain functions, or the ability to make and use tools or operate machinery (occasionally under impaired conditions).

Chimps have been known to construct rudimentary tools from sticks and bone fragments, communicate with each other (and Jane Goodal) use sign language and even symbols. Elephants have exhibited abstract thought after a fashion – see their paintings, which have raised handsome sums for good causes. And I???ve even seen dogs on skateboards. But fluffy has never brought me a nice pastrami on rye with English mustard and extra mayo.

But enough of the meaningless ramblings; this article, by its reading so far, suffers from a sever lack of factual content (dare I say that, unlike a good sandwich, it???s 99% fact-free).

It???s a widely held (by schoolboys and trivial pursuit fanatics) but apocryphal notion that the sandwich was invented by the Earl of Sandwich. An avid gambler and card player, the Earl was said to have eschewed good manners in favour of remaining at the gaming table to take his meals lest he miss a moment???s action. In this regard a chunk of meat between two crusty slices proved the ideal solution; it obviated the need for him to join his dining companions at the dining table, and the bread soaked up the grease that would otherwise have fund its way onto the cards.

So where and when did the sandwich originate? It seems that the humble sandwich serves not only to satisfy our physical needs, but our spiritual ones, too. Indeed one school of thought on the matter directs us back some 2000 years or so to the first century BC and an influential Rabbi named Hillel. It is said that he initiated the Passover custom of sandwiching various fruit, nuts and bitter herbs between two matzos (unleavened bread). The now important Hillel Sandwich was a reminder of the suffering of the Jews before under the pharaohs and represented the mortar used by the Jews in their forced labour of constructing Egyptian buildings.

To this day the Korech Sandwich is eaten at Passover by Jews in observance of their deliverance from slavery. Of course there is much more to this story ??? more than is possible to discuss here ??? and I invite readers who may be so inclined to simply look it up on the web.

Coming back to the here and now, I began this article as a really light hearted piece inspired by my own love of food in general and chip butties in specific. Little did I know that my enthusiasm for this singular culinary art-form was shared by so many. A quick search on the web has revealed amongst others, a sandwich organisation (http://www.sandwich.org.uk/), an actual definition ??????any form of bread with a filling, generally assembled cold – to include traditional wedge sandwiches, as well as filled rolls, baguettes, pita, bloomers, wraps, bagels and the like, but not burgers and other products assembled and consumed hot???,??? art (both depicting and utilising sandwich ingredients) and of course a million recipes claiming to be the ultimate.

Some of my favourite sandwiches include: Reuben, Sub, Croque-monsieur, potato salad on rye, triple-decker Dagwood, bagels with lox, cream cheese and caviar, the perennial B&E and even just plain butter, sliced like cheese and laid on thick.

IN conclusion I say, the wheel may be a fine invention, but it doesn???t go nearly as well as the sandwich with chilled glass of Beaujolais or frosty beer.

Your Brand is too formal. A Social Media evangelist???s perspective.

Measuring and defining abstract concepts by projecting human traits onto them is not new. We can point to many areas of our lives in which this technique is employed to great effect. Cars have faces; think Volkswagen Beetle, with its classic eyes and smile. High end BMWs have super-aggressive, predator like looks, presumably dreamt up by astute marketing teams to appeal to the personalities of those who drive them. In literature we use a narrative device called anthropomorphism where the storyteller attributes certain human characteristics to inanimate objects in order to make a point about our relationships with each other or those of the characters in the story to that of the world in which they exist. Japanese vacuum cleaners look like cute little friends. It???s even popped up in psychology; Freud called it projection, although he used it in a negative context, in which the human organism projected unwanted feelings and desires onto some external aspect of the world, often another person, as a psychological defence mechanism.

When we ask the question, ???if a brand were a person, what kind of person would it be???? we???re naturally looking for descriptors that our audience can associate with; characteristics that we hope will encourage familiarity, even intimacy between our audience and our Brand.

It???s a powerful way to create connections. In the marketing world it ???s called personification, and it remains highly effective tool in our marketing box of tricks.

Problem is, the personas that many brands portray are too formal. The conversations that they have with their consumers occur primarily through formal channels and in formal settings.

I certainly wouldn???t want to have a beer with the stiff, client-meeting version of myself. But I???d love to interact with the cheerful, Facebook posting, nonsense-tweeting version of myself. He looks like fun. I may even ask him round for lunch.

See where we???re going with this.

It???s not enough to simply say that we want our brand to be friendly, outgoing, cool, (or any amount of marketing mumbo jumbo) if we???re not actually allowing our brands to go out into the world and meet the people they???re designed for.

If I were a Brand it would be difficult for me to be any of the above things if I were stuck in a print ad, with my logo a certain size and distance from the edge of the page. My tone of voice would never change, since by the extended metaphor emerging here, it would always be determined by the official corporate typeface. And perhaps most distressingly of all, I would always be square (or rectangular, at any rate).

Inflexible corporate websites are no better. I become positively grumpy when I???m confined to one of those.

Let me loose in the Social Media, and that???s where you???ll really get to know me. Allow me to lose my necktie of a logo for a change. Ditch the corporate typeface so I can speak to my consumers in their language.

Let me be social, my friends.

Formality has its place. But if you really want your customers to get to know your Brand, close the CI manual every now and again. Your Brand will thank you for it.