CoUnTEr- inTUiTivE

KATE
BUSH
And The Power of Being
Counterintuitive
borkowski.do
The
WISDOM
CROWDS
OF
Insanity in
individuals is
something rare
– but in groups,
parties, nations,
and epochs
it is the rule.
– Freidrich Nietzsche,
Beyond Good and Evil, 1886
It shouldn’t take
a publicist to tell
you of the wisdom
and peril of the
crowd. Leaders
in philosophy,
mathematics, and
literature have been
exploring the idea
for centuries. But in
the age of Big Data,
it is perhaps worth
focussing on the
numbers to put some
of this wisdom into
perspective...
In
1906, the renowned statistician
Francis Galton attended a country
fair at which he observed a
competition to determine the
weight of an ox. Being of an inquisitive
nature, and particularly curious
about numbers, Galton conducted an
investigation to determine how close the
crowd could come to guessing the actual
weight of the ox. To his surprise, the
mean average guess of the eight hundred
people present (1,197lbs) was startlingly
close to the actual weight of the ox
(1,198lbs). In his words, “the middlemost
estimate expresses the vox populi, every
other estimate being condemned as too
low or too high by a majority of the voters”.
In other words, the collective knowledge
of the crowd was better than that of any
individual within it. What does that have
to do with publicity, I hear you say? Well,
quite a lot actually.
In the Now! Economy, being noticed
is a constant struggle for survival. Brands
and celebrities are going to great lengths
to have their voices heard through the
white noise as the choices available to
consumers expand at an ever-increasing
rate. Acts once perceived to be creative
or outlandish have been copycatted and
marketed to the point of boredom: bullet
bras, meat dresses, wrecking balls – we’ve
seen it all before – the gimmicks, racy
parties, image reinvention: it’s dull.
Nowhere does the desperate need for
a few column inches crystalize itself better
than in Sanrio’s recent stunt claiming that
its product Hello Kitty is not in fact a cat,
but an English child. Clutching at whiskers,
much? Miaow. What really takes the biscuit
is the fact that Sanrio are not the only brand
to have pulled such a desperate stunt, with
McVitie’s claiming that their Chocolate
Digestives are intended to be eaten
chocolate-side-down earlier in the year.
But all is not lost. Being liked is far too
easy these days, and brands that want to
have an impact must be loved, adored,
revered. This is when it pays to dare to be
different, and no single individual could
have embodied the spirit of this sentiment
better this year than Kate Bush.
KATE
BUSH:
How
Curiosity
Conquered
the
Concert Hall
The first female
artist to ever
achieve a number
one with a song
she had written
herself,
Bush
defied all odds
and sent the
mediaintofrenzy
last month after
returning from
the wilderness
to execute her
22-night Before
the Dawn tour.
What is particular about Bush is not
just her talent, but also her all-out refusal
to engage with the media for almost four
decades. Bush has managed awe-inspiring
success despite breaking almost every rule
of the fame formula: the 80,000 tickets to
Before the Dawn sold out in 15 minutes,
and Bush has maintained her place among
pages 1-3 in the UK newspapers for days.
Why? Well, we would argue it is because
she has created a brand that is loved rather
than liked, and because she is a woman
who has managed to harness the curiosity
of the crowd to her advantage. If this were
simply a question of phenomenal ticket or
album sales, the story would already be
over. But Bush has tapped into something
deeper: the currency of experience. She
has managed to keep the story alive by
creating a series of events. Events that
will provide several thousand people with
experiences to talk and Tweet about with
countless others, and which will keep her
name in the headlines.
Unlike her contemporaries, Bush has
refused to pander to the whims of the
media. At no point in the genesis of this
tour has Bush attempted to reinvent
herself or her image: her art remains
central to it, and her message to her fans
via her website remains humble, friendly
and simple. She has circumvented the
glamorous, sexed-up shots of yesteryear
by returning to the stage as Earth Mother.
For good or otherwise, Bush’s silence has
made us curious to know more, and has
given the crowd ample time to percolate
stories of whispered intrigue around her
image. The singer’s insistence that the
audience does not take pictures at the
venue only does more to fuel this. As Ed
Power from the Irish Independent put
it, “In an age in which it feels we know
almost as much about pop stars as about
our immediate family, Bush is a rarity:
an enigma who fuels our fascination the
further she withdraws from the limelight”.
After her first month-long tour in 1979,
Bush started a slow and complete retreat
from public life with the exception of her
artistic output. Unlike other artists who
have returned to the limelight (often for
money: think Monty Python, Led Zeppelin,
Leonard Cohen), Bush has not sought after
a large venue such as the O2 for her tour,
but has returned to the Hammersmith
Apollo, an indie haven in its heyday once
known as the Hammy-O, or Odeon. She
has entrusted theatre legend Adrian Noble
to direct the tour, and has placed her son
as its creative director. The whole thing,
right down to her bare feet, screams of
openness and integrity – a rare pearl in
a pool of gimmickry. Such integrity is in
no small part responsible for the tour’s
success: she has let her art speak for itself.
Having a back catalogue of great songs
doesn’t hurt, either.
“She is a
woman who
has managed
to harness
the curiosity
of the crowd”
Mysticism
and the
Art of Influence
Whilst every brand may
not possess Bush’s gifts,
or the wealth of mystique
built up over a selfimposed 35-year media
hiatus,
there
are
a
number of lessons all
brands can learn to
develop their influence.
At Borkowski.do, we have
decades of experience
helping brands identify
the
strengths
and
stories that truly inspire
the crowd. Here are some
of our top tips:
1.
The Age
of Reach
is Dead
Reach as far as you want,
it doesn’t matter. This is
the Age of Influence.
Viewing
figures,
page
views, and sales volumes
still seem to be the
measure
of
success.
Numbers, we are told, rule.
It
doesn’t
take
much,
however, to see that this
isn’t true. Online, page
views mean next to nothing.
What
counts
now
is
engagement, return, and
conversion, in other words:
influence.
2.
Influence
Means Making
Things Happen
How do we measure influence?
Getting someone to look at you
is one thing, but in this digitally
frenetic
world,
maintaining
someone’s attention is quite
another. Our eyes and ears are
everywhere now: reading the
news, watching the latest show,
listening to the latest songs,
all at once, on the move, and at
increasing speeds.
Whilst sales might be one way to
measure influence, they are not a
measure that can be applied to all
brands. A persona, for instance,
doesn’t have a price. Numbers
can’t quantify real influence – it is
quantified by events. Because true
influence makes things happen.
3.
Gimmicks
Never
Work*
Search Term topics: Interest OVER Time
kony 2012
Average
2005
psy
robin thicke
2007
2009
2011
2013
*Brands’ ECG Monitor shows
they’re dead in the water.
T
hey can reach billions, but change
nothing. Psy’s Gangnam style has
now been viewed over 2 billion
times on YouTube. Its global success
relied on two things: a catchy tune and a
repetitive hand gesture. It’s infectious, but
transparent. There’s no mystery. All that
remains of Psy now is a YouTube record
and a dance move. The phenomenon feels
like ancient history now.
The same goes for Robin Thicke. In May
it was announced that his single “Blurred
Lines” had sold over 1.5m copies, and was
the most-downloaded song of all time. But
then, if the song’s misogyny wasn’t bad
enough, he was pictured groping a woman.
His wife divorced him. The blogosphere
scorched him. His latest album – dedicated
to his estranged wife Paula – sold only 530
copies in its first week. For all the talk, he’s
now just another pop blip, a one-hit wonder.
Two years ago, a video called “Kony
2012” went viral. It has been viewed
almost 100m times, and was shared across
the world. A call for action, it demanded
that everyone watching bring Joseph Kony,
a child-abducting warlord from Africa,
accountable for his crimes.
It seemed like it could work. “When
you get 100 million Americans looking at
something, you will get our attention,” said
one US senator “This YouTube sensation
is gonna help the Congress be more
aggressive and will do more to lead to his
demise than all other action combined.”
But two weeks later, Jason Russell, the
film’s creator, director, narrator and star, had
a public meltdown, and was filmed naked in
the middle of a busy street, pounding at the
floor and shouting at Satan.
We saw too much. Scrutiny increased, and
cynicism prevailed. No-one turned up for the
main event. Social media activism became
slacktivism. 100m people watched Kony
2012, and Joseph Kony is still on the loose.
4.
Mysticism
is the Key to
Reverence
To wield true influence,
you have to have the allure
of a Sun god. You have to
give people what they need,
even though they don’t
exactly understand how
it works. To be revered is
to wield influence. You
could call it magic, good
PR, or, in Google’s case, an
unfathomable algorithm.
But seeing isn’t believing.
Believing is a leap of faith,
and hope and faith have
always been the opium of
the masses.
N
owhere is this clearer than in our
continued adulation of the Monarchy,
or the keenness with which we
exchange our private data with
companies such as Google, Facebook or
Apple. These juggernauts fight every day
to snap up the juiciest bits of our data: just
think of the speed with which Facebook
bought WhatsApp.
The perfect example of reach and
influence can be found in a young woman
called Kate Middleton. You might have heard
of her. She had a wedding, and 24.5m of
us tuned in to watch.
Although we weren’t just watching:
we were buying into a fairytale. Since
the wedding, Kate has become a cultural
phenomenon. Kate has taken the role of
the People’s Princess, first forged by Diana,
to a whole new level. Unlike Diana, Kate
has managed to steer clear of drama (for
now) and simultaneously maintain a notion
of privacy whilst crafting a wholesome,
mystical, and ethereal public image. The
clothes she wears sell out. When she wore
a Séraphine maternity dress, it sold out
in two hours, and created a month-long
waiting list.
Whilst the privilege and luxury of royalty
is decadently illogical, it’s this lack of sense
that makes us love the Monarchy. It’s an
eccentric quirk of that harks back to the
days of Empire, and it is a sentimentality for
glory days passed that keeps us hanging on.
If our love of the Monarchy is our
adulation for the remains of the Old
World Order, then our trust in Google
and Facebook must mark a love for the
benevolent dictators of the Brave New
World. ‘Benevolent’ in that they give us
what we want. At a price.
Google has become one of the most
essential tools of our age - the axe of the
digital world. We use it to simplify and
make sense of the web. Like a librarian, it
curates and organises all the information
we need. But unlike an axe or a librarian,
how it works is mind-boggling and its
functions appear almost magical.
In its role as the gatekeeper, Google is
also able to track our movements online,
and collect vast amounts of data on every
one of us. And with this information, it
has the power to influence. A recent study
suggested that it could even help decide
the outcome of an election.
5.
Sociality
Talks,
Reality
Walks
Whilst you’d have to
be stupid to deny that
Facebook
and
Twitter
can sometimes change
the world, there are very
clear disparities between
people’s
engagement
on social media and the
lengths they are really
prepared to go to for a
brand or an idea in reality.
W
hilst there have been a number
of positive trends, such as the
adoption of social stunt memes
by charities to raise money and
awareness (think of the ALS Ice Bucket
Challenge), there is still a disconnect
between people’s purported commitment
and their actual allegiances when it comes
down to the crunch. This is particularly
apparent in the world of politics.
On the face of things, politicians are
doing well in the world of social media.
MPs have 4m Twitter followers combined:
equating to just over 6 per cent of the
population. But this isn’t enough. As I’ve
pointed out before, the average Twitter
account only has one follower. Although
my new favourite stat is that almost 50
per cent of Twitter’s 970m accounts have
never sent a single tweet.
Where the meaninglessness of these
figures really hits home is at the polling
booth. In the last sixty years, political party
membership has flatlined. Since 1951,
the Tories have lost millions of members,
while Labour’s numbers have fallen from
876,000 to just 190,000. The last three
elections have had the lowest participation
since the start of universal suffrage. In
1950, 84 per cent of the UK public voted.
In 2010, turnout was 65 per cent. The pols
just can’t get the proles to vote.
Though this may seem like terrible news
for Westminster, such apathy may not be
entirely bad news. On Facebook, the most
‘liked’ UK political party is Britain First, a farright group that splintered from the BNP.
These shiny-headed bigots have 405,000
likes, whereas the Tories have 258,000,
and Labour has 185,000. The disconnect
between social media and real life, is, in this
case, probably a saving grace. If you take
just a handful of Britain First’s more popular
posts on Facebook, then you already have
more likes than people who voted for them
in the last European election: just under
20,000 people supported the candidates
they fielded earlier this year. It’s all bark and
very little bite – and this is the reason I’m
so sceptical towards social media. When
a lot of people hear the phrase “the reach
and influence of online activism” they think
“transformative”. All I think is “what a myth”.
This is not to say that online activism
doesn’t have its place, but merely, that like
any craft, it must be mastered. Successful
online campaigns – the driving force
behind websites such as Avaaz.org – are
underpinned by a few select, common
factors: they tackle a single issue and
have a rolling ‘Use By’ date (i.e. when the
issue has been resolved). When the vox
populi clamoured together against the
Bedroom Tax on Facebook, the campaign
successfully wrangled promises out of
Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP in
Scotland to repeal the law.
LOVE
Me
Hate
Me
OR
it’s still an obsession
T h r o u g h o ut
history
people
have
been
endowed
with
the gift of an
opinion,
but
fortunately for
us, we haven’t had
to hear many of
them. Grumblers,
moaners,
fans
and evangelists:
the only voice
left to posterity
was that of the
commentator.
#myNYPD #myNYPD #myNYPD
#myNYPD #myNYPD #myNYPD
#myNYPD #myNYPD #myNYPD
#myNYPD #myNYPD #myNYPD
#myNYPD #myNYPD #myNYPD
#myNYPD #myNYPD #myNYPD
#myNYPD #myNYPD #myNYPD
#myNYPD #myNYPD #myNYPD
#myNYPD #myNYPD #myNYPD
#myNYPD #myNYPD #myNYPD
#myNYPD #myNYPD #myNYPD
#myNYPD #myNYPD #myNYPD
#myNYPD #myNYPD #myNYPD
S
ocial media as changed all of that,
however, and has made little emperors
of all of us, sending brands to stardom
or their doom at the punch of a
hashtag or the click of a ‘like’ button.
The formats that are available to us to
express our opinions are defined by their
polarity: the like button, the up vote, the
like/dislike bar. The crucial effect of this is
that it makes Marmite out of every brand.
There is no middle ground: everyone’s
verdict is red or green, and everyone’s
verdict is public.
It’s impossible to rely on middle-weight
opinion in the Now! Economy: brands
must learn how to inspire love, whilst
incorporating measures to manage hate
when dealing with the general public.
When things do go wrong – and they
can go badly wrong (NYPD are still licking
their wounds following their Twitter gaffe
in April) – it is important to move quickly.
But also carefully. Dud moves to appease
the crowd can cost a brand more than the
original blunder. In such situations, a steady
and seasoned PR hand can help – if nothing
else, to provide safe, reasoned counsel.
But don’t throw the baby out with the
bathwater, such powerful polarity provides
huge opportunities for brands if they can
manage it well. Just look at Miley Cyrus.
Whatever you think of her twerking,
homeless-person-touting stunt tactics,
she has managed her crowd with aplomb.
Armed with a catalogue of pop hits, in the
last year she has entered the top 20 of
the Forbes Celebrity 100 index, with an
estimated worth of $36m. Whatever the
public think of her, she has the last laugh.
Daring
To Be
Different
How to succeed by
being counter-intuitive
in the Now! Economy
Without
promotion,
something
terrible
happens...
Nothing!
– P.T. Barnum
A
fter the heart attack and lollipop
to the eye that marked the end
of David Bowie’s Reality tour in
2003, many fans thought they had
heard the last of the Thin White Duke.
With the exception of a couple of oneoff performances in 2005 with Arcade
Fire, and in 2006 with Alicia Keys, Bowie
retreated from public life and instead
turned to spend time with his daughter
and to focus on his painting. As a result
of the silence, a mystique has built up
around him in recent years such that
allegations of his appearance have become
a commonplace Internet meme.
However, the joke was on everybody
else last year when Bowie decided to
release the first single from his new album,
entirely unannounced, onto iTunes for his
66th birthday, allowing fans to discover
its presence for themselves, generating
entirely organic coverage that took the
media world by storm. The single topped
the UK iTunes chart within hours of its
release. There were no big publicity stunts,
and no exclusive interviews, just the quiet
confidence in an uncontested talent, and
the courage to go against the grain of
common pop publicity tactics.
The buzz about the release has created
a will he?-won’t he? excitement around the
name of the star, which peaked earlier this
month when rumours of his appearance
at the Kate Bush Before the Dawn tour
spiralled completely out of control. Earlier
in the year, Michael Eavis had leveraged
the power of such rumours to his
advantage by hinting that he might play at
Glastonbury this year.
However, none of this is to say that a
brand needs to go into seclusion in order
to make its publicity work: Bowie’s label
Columbia didn’t miss a trick with his little
shenanigan, and they replicated a similar feat
to the Next Day announcement with the
release of Beyoncé’s self-titled album when
it was released without any prior promotion
later that year. Each song on the album
was accompanied by a high-quality video
track, and the album debuted at number
one in the Billboard 200 chart. The content
spoke for itself. The fans had conversations,
shared, shared, and shared again.
It was in this vein that the release
of Weird Al Yankovic’s Mandatory Fun
followed later in the year. Instead of
publishing a pre-release single, Weird Al
opted instead to release the eight videos
for the album at once: “Well, here’s the
thing… there IS no “lead single” for my
new album. I’ll be releasing 12 “singles”
all at once on July 15 – so you can decide
for YOURSELF which songs are the hits!”
Though Weird Al had opted for some
more traditional modes of promotion, he
had tapped in to the most crucial thing,
that it was the power of the crowd, their
conversations, and sharing that would
determine the value of the album, realising
Galton’s parable of the ox in real terms. It
paid off: the album earned Weird Al his first
Billboard number 1 of his entire career.
Lessons
History
IN
Controlling the limelight
doesn’t mean switching it off
Success in counterintuitiveness is not
limited to the music
industry. Nor is it
limited to our day
and
age.
The
commercial
value
of being counterintuitive
has
been
proven
in
every
industry,
and
throughout
the
ages. Two particular
examples from the
turn of the last
century
come
to
mind: Harry Gordon
Selfridge and Edward
Bernays.
W
hen Selfridges first opened in 1906,
the notion of shopping for anything
but necessity seemed quite
ridiculous, and the idea of making
goods readily accessible for shoppers
to look at and touch even more so. But
Selfridge had the gall to go against the grain
and turn shopping into a leisure activity like
we had never known before. Tribute to
his success lies in much of the framework
upon which modern day consumer culture
and capitalism has been built.
Bernays, though not a household name
in the same way as Selfridge, is visible
wherever you see a woman in the street
with a cigarette in her hand. Bernays knew
how to manipulate the zeitgeist of the era,
how to leverage third party opinion, and
how to create a killer meme. He managed
to turn a social taboo – women smoking in
public – into a symbol of freedom on the
crest of the wave of Women’s Liberation
– thus opening up a huge new market for
his client and maximizing opportunities for
good publicity.
What is clear from these case studies
is that in every era, being counter-intuitive
has amazing commercial value. The way of
the media is changing. We must embrace
the chaos left in the wake of such change
if we are to succeed. Brand narrative
has to be about people and must drive
conversations if it is to be relevant. Jargon
reduces craft into content and people into
consumers, forgetting the instincts that
drive us as human beings and causing
cynicism and disengagement on both sides.
Understanding
and
relationships can only be
built by asking the right
questions.
The
muchmaligned crowd knows
this, and has reacted
with instinctive aversion
to the condescension
of the media machine.
Few people understand
these relationships like
Borkowski.do, and is this
deep understanding that
powers our thinking And
enables us to support
and advise our clients, no
matter the weather.
Say hello!
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