From April 3rd
I know I bang on a lot about blogs here, and I can imagine you rolling your eyes at this point, but they're worth paying attention to because they're a useful testing ground for looking at the way corporately owned and created media is going to interact with the individually owned and created stuff. I was reminded of this by a fantastic new book called Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely. You're going to hear about it a lot, it's the kind of book particularly beloved of planners trying to push bold new strategies, because Mr Ariely uses all sorts of interesting little experiments to show how people make decisions, and unexpected those decisions sometimes are. He's a behavioural economist, so unlike in classical economics where everyone is assumed to be rational, he tries to understand how things work in the real world, where people are emotional and illogical, though still predicable (You can see where he got the title).
Anyway, we were talking about 'corporate media' versus 'personal media' and Mr Ariely has some neat experiments that illustrate the dilemmas that pop up when the two meet; when 'market norms' meet 'social norms'. He asked various respondents to do simple, menial tasks for different rewards; a gift like a chocolate bar, or a reasonable wage, or a token payment or sometimes just as a favour. There are two scenarios in which people are happy to do the task; when they're adequately compensated and when they're following social norms like friendship (in fact they tend to work harder when they're doing it as a favour). Problems occur though when the lines are blurred, when market norms and social norms are confused (even as trivially as mentioning the price of the chocolate bar when offering it as a gift.) When social exchanges and market exchanges are mixed up people get uncomfortable. And grumpy. And this, for me, explains many of the pickles brands are getting themselves into, particularly in their relations with personal media creators like bloggers.
Blogging is mostly a social thing, social norms apply, especially between bloggers. But, naturally enough, when brands want to engage with bloggers they act as though market norms apply; to most brands, blogs are just another media choice. You get the same effect on YouTube or Facebok or on all sorts of social networks. And some of the same confusion crops up in the real world, when brands are too matey and conversational in their communications. If they're going to talk like your friend they'd better behave like your friend when things go wrong, or confusion will quickly turn to bitterness. All those banks and building societies trying to be cuddly better be clear whether they're offering us a social relationship or a market one.
I thought the same thing about the social norms and market norms and social media. I think it's actually a useful way to think about it, and fits with the "uncanny valley" that you wrote about.
Posted by: Dino | June 12, 2008 at 09:26 PM