Convergence Culture Talk

Yesterday morning (3/14), for work, we attended the morning session of an advertising symposium in Boston. We heard a few speakers the most interesting of whom was Henry Jenkins -- co-director of the center for comparative media studies at MIT.

His area of focus is fans, and fan culture, particularly how fans influence, and alter a brand. He had a great series of dichotomies in a string of his slides that highlighted the change in the media-scape and that create challenges for the marketer and the brand manager.

Interactive
Participation

Individual Consumers
Collective Intelligence

Mass Markets
Brand Tribes

One Size
All Size

Attraction
Activation

Sticky
Spreadable

The most interesting insight that he provided, however, was that "we [marketers/brand managers]don't control the whole brand and that we've already lost control." Rather than try to control it we need to find ways to embrace this fan participation and use it to our advantage to improve both the brand and the brand's communications.

This loss of brand control was also echoed by Jim McDowell, VP of Mini Cooper USA. There is opportunity in the ambiguity -- always.