The Importance of Language in Dealing with Consu...Audiences

By: Sam Ford, PepperDigital

I'm not sure how to follow Rob's inimitable introduction for me last week, but I'm glad to now be part of the PepperDigital blogging team.  As background for those who didn't read that post, I have contributed regularly and will continue to write a couple of times a week for the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium blog, where I write about media audiences and trends.

In my posts on this forum, though, I want to think particularly how the latest audience trends affect relations between companies and the various audiences they communicate with.

Notice that I avoided using the word "consumer" there, because a lot of my research interests have to do with how the language used by an industry begins to frame the way we think.

In today's convergence culture (and I'd be skeptical if you tried to prove it was different in previous eras as well), it seems a little simplistic to claim that corporate products are "produced" by a company and "consumed" by recipients, whether those be other businesses or individual customers.

Sure, if a company produces physical goods or definite services, those snack cakes or power tools or communication platforms are directly purchased and used by a "consumer."  However, no brand wants to end up in "the commodity basement", as Grant McCracken puts it. Yet, as a company strives to produce more than a commodity, that process of brand-building can’t be undertaken alone.

Much as companies would like to have complete control their image, the very nature of being a dynamic entity larger than the widgets a company produces requires collaboration.

In other words, for any company with a brand developed enough to require the need for public relations, it's generally acknowledged that the public plays a substantial role in deciding what that company is.  The word "consumer" eliminates all that nuance.

There have been several words suggested to describe these active audiences: for instance prosumers, as Alvin Toffler says in The Third Wave; or else produsers, as Axel Bruns writes about in Gatewatching.

Bottom line, when it comes to spreading branding messages, every company is transformed into a media entity.  And in a digital landscape, there's really no way to pretend that audiences are just passively consuming your brand's messages, no matter what you want to call them.

Oh, and believe me, Rob.  When I'm in front of pro wrestling crowds, there's no question that I'm no longer in control of how the brand "Sam Ford" is defined.  Sometime, I'll tell you all the things I've been called...

Comments

[Scott Ellington]

I once had an acquaintance (not a friend) who named his dog Consumer, and fed the poor, neglected wretch table-scraps, exclusively.

My acquaintance said he hated housework, so the ugly, disreputable animal served the noble purposes of a vacuum; something to do his bidding, clean up behind him, something to abhor, naturally.

Not the animal-hater you probably envision, this acquaintance simply longed for a purebred Collie, a beautiful creature whose lineage, needs and character would soon become the organizing agent of its owner's future, better life.

Consumer, by comparison, was like a set of training wheels that would be discarded the moment my acquaintance traded up to the heavenly creature he'd name Customer.

Last I heard, poor old Consumer died of chronic neglect, and Customer is still just the unaffordable, unpassing fancy of my acquaintance, John Q. Contempt. There's always hope (he'll become extinct).

A consumer, or a vacuum (in this peculiar context) is a dead thing that mindlessly accepts all product conforming to certain formulaic principles. Conversely, a customer is an independent lifeform that's sufficiently intelligent to have customs, preferences and (idiosyncratic) loyalties.

I'm in strenuous agreement with your taste in labels.

[Sam Ford]

Thanks for the comment, Scott. And great story. :) The idea of the brand that has contempt for the customer unfortunately permeates throughout the culture. Some people get so wrapped up in this idea of brand that they get the idea that the audience is getting in the way of what the brand wants to be. Well, as I've said multiple times, the best way to let the brand be whatever it wants, to have complete control of the brand, is to not be popular. Then, you can control all the meaning you want, because you're the only one the brand means something to. I know that, in pro wrestling circles, contempt for the consumer as "a mark" dates back to carnival culture, where the ideas was that pro wrestling was a show yet the dumb people paying for tickets in the crowd didn't know any better. Of course, truth is that often wasn't the case, but it still has some resonance today, where you occasionally get the feeling that people are raking in money while having disdain for the people paying the bills.

[Scott Ellington]

Vince Latiano has been a highly-reputed and sought-after drummer around San Francisco for the past 25 years.

He says that early in his rise to fame and fortune he chose jazz over the more popular forms of popular music, because he didn't much care for adoring, fanatical crowds. He still makes music, rather than millions. I can't imagine a more respectable, responsible position to take with regard to customers.

[Sam Ford]

Great points. There comes some balance between our desires as fans, I think. On the one hand, we really like the idea of creators, brand managers, etc., to listen to our desires if it's something we're a fan of. On the other hand, we want there to be creativity and autonomy. Finding the balance is quite difficult. Sometimes, people decide they're going to solve their creative problems by "giving the audience what they want." However, that may not be WHAT the audience wants.

The balance is between respecting the audience and their desires and having creative control. Veer too far in either direction and it can get dangerous. Too far toward the audience ends up with a text that becomes boring. Too far away ends up with something you have complete autonomy over as an artist but which only you may want to see.

This is akin to my former MIT colleague Alec Austin's argument that it's about an implicit contract. The best shows are variation on a theme: they are different enough to be creative, but they are close enough to the audience's expectations that they are considered good.

When someone comes along and completely breaks the wall, it's often not appreciated at the time or with that audience. A later audience may look at it from a different point of view however (take some of Andy Kaufman's acts, for instance) and realize its genius...

[Scott Ellington]

I haven't studied The Beatles, but I nonetheless believe that their unqualified success as a band led to their dissolution; because their projected career course (possibly forever) meant frequently appearing in public to perform the same-old-same-old for screaming multitudes who would not hear them; a formidable brake on creative experimentation and the fundamental urge to innovate.

The Beatles, as an institution, was a deeply repellent precognitive vision that demanded dissolution of the band, who were each other's customers; unqualified success was the hammer that shattered the contract.

[Sam Ford]

Great point and case study. It's fascinating to see the number of bands who dissolve for this very reason, yet come back together later in their careers for a "reunion tour." My song-writer of choice has always been Paul Simon, as he is able to weave in and out of great public acclaim for the same few songs, yet constantly innovate with new albums. Or how about Johnny Cash? Those last five albums bucked country music tradition completely, yet it earned him critical fame and an entirely new audience in the process, thanks in part to the vision of Rick Rubin and in part to Johnny's willingness to let his age show through in voice. Country music stations wouldn't play his songs (and he had a nice thank you for them when he won his 2000 Grammy), yet he won over a college audience that wasn't even around for his initial rise to fame and who, in the process, became fascinated with his storied career...

[Scott Ellington]

The only consideration I'd like to add to that which you've already said is that the implicit contract(s) between the players and the contract(s) with their audience are composed of largely unconscious articles and propositions, and that the agreements reached define a kind of sacred covenant (rather than a legal contract).

The theological inflection serves to imply that the agreement is based in whatever the participants regard as holy, and that it remains in force until the covenant is broken, like an oath.

[Sam Ford]

Very good point. Because it's not mired in legalese, that also helps explain the sense of deeper betrayal both sides often feel if they think the other has broken part of the agreement of their relationship. If anyone is interested in more on the idea, see Alec's work here.