The Brand As Utility
Piers Fawkes
PSFK
Organization &
Management Seminar
Columbia University
Monday Nov 13 2006

The rationale for my investigation into Branded Utility is to look at not
what the future of branding is , but to understand the future of brands.
For so long, a brand has been a badge that represents a company or
product - represents in an accurate or even inaccurate manner. For a
long time, such branding was forced. Forced by television, retail
distribution monopoly on a population with few media outlet.
Today that has changed - our access to channels has multiplied and
even more importantly maybe, our ability to share information and
opinion about brands has never been greater.
I’m going to spend part of this presentation talking about the modern
landscape for brands and a new opportunity available which has been
called Branded Utility. Branded Utility is a theory that has only started to
be considered. I am no expert on the subject, but it excites me so much
that when Howard invited me to speak today, I set myself to find out
more and present the results to you today.
Over the last few weeks I’ve spoken to several thought marketing
leaders and you’ll see them quoted throughout the presentation.
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mleak/

The Modern Landscape For Brands
• Multiple Channels
• Questions Over Relationship With Brands
• New Brands Emerging
• Emerging Consumer Trends Out Of Sync With Brands
• Advertising Industry Slow To React
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mleak/

Multiple Channels
Digital Is More Than Just Another Channel

55 Million Blogs: Everyone Has A Personal Magazine

YouTube Gives Everyone A TV Channel

The Rise Of 3rd Screen
Growing capabilities
Growing multi-use

Multiple Channels
• Nichecasting
• Fragmentation
• Difficulties to target en-masse
• Costs to reach large groups increasing

Questions Over Relationships With Brands
•Brands overstep the mark
•Brands become more powerful than governments

Brand Values Don’t Sync With Consumer Trends
• CREATE
– Blogs, Video, Customized Products
• CONNECT
– MySpace, Facebook. Dodgeball
• SHARE
– Flickr, YouTube
Ref: Josh Rubin, Coolhunting.com at Future Trends 06

New Brands Emerging Ignoring The Old Model
• Brands being built on their usefulness to the consumer
– “… many new companies have built great brands not by interrupting people
and telling them how they should feel or think, but rather by spending time and
effort to be useful in people's lives. Starbuck's provide a place for me to get
online and hear new music, Yahoo gives me answers.”
• Johnny Vulkan, Anomaly
• Peer to Peer recommendation becoming more important than brand
advice
– E.g. Amazon reviews
• Digital technology driving change
– Does a shopper in GAP ask the staff what they think about an item - or does
she take a photo with her phone and ask her friends

Consumers Having Their Own Fun Without Brands
• Once we needed advertising!
• It paid for a lot of our entertainment : TV, Radio, Print
• Advertising, was useful!
• But now we can use digital tools to have our own fun

Flash Mob Clubbing
A group of
people assemble
suddenly in a
public place, do
something
unusual for a brief
period of time,
and then quickly
disperse.

Online Gaming
A subscription-based online
gaming service that allows
players to play games with or
against other players around
the world or over the internet.

Digg - We Media

Advertising Industry Slow To React
• Taking offline principles and applying online
• Faddish
• Urban Spam

Ad Industry: Replicating Offline To Online

Ad Industry: Faddish

Ad Industry: Urban Spam
YouTube Ref: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdHlob1lSUo

The Modern Landscape For Brands
• Multiple Channels
• Questions Over Relationship With Brands
• New Brands Emerging
• Emerging Consumer Trends Out Of Sync With Brands
• Advertising Industry Slow To React

Missed Opportunities
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/urbanphotographer/

Opportunity: Flickr Uploader
The Unbranded Flickr Uploader
- missed opportunity for Kodak?

Opportunity: Teabuddy
• Regular bursts of popularity, no maintenance
– “That’s one of the things I love about online. Things can just live on forever,
getting discovered by new audiences up to years after they originally
launched. It’s something that clients are often uncomfortable with, they’re
used to campaigns having a launch date and a finite lifespan. Those rules just
don’t apply any more. I guess that’s the long tail of advertising.”
• Iain Tate, Partner at Poke
• Why didn’t Lipton or PG Tips make this?

Opportunity : Branded Utility
• If small teams can create applications that people love - imagine what
could be done by a big brand with budget?
– “I think that the most interesting branded utility opportunities are actually
among big companies that have a massive reach. Why? Well, for a lot of
applications, you don't need the backing of a big brand because a couple
guys in a garage can go ahead and build it on their own. However, there are
certain apps that can't happen unless you're Nike or Apple because it requires
integration on so many different levels. Sometimes it takes giants to move
mountains.”
• Jack Cheng,Freelance Creative Director

Brand Utility
• In order for brands to remain relevant, they must become useful:
– “It’s where the brand creates a commitment to a relationship. It’s where the
brand creates something useful to you, something that’s a utility in your life. The
consumer will feel more confident with the relationship if the brand will
continue to be part of your life.
Branding has been about cultural relevance – what we’re saying is that it’s not
so much about relevance as usefulness. Brand messages need to be in a useful
format.”
• Benjamin Palmer, Barbarian Group
– “Brands being genuinely useful to their customers, employees, suppliers and the
people they touch.”
• Johnny Vulkan, Anomaly

Examples?

ViaMichelin

Widgets Are The Big Buzz On The Web
• Immediate opportunities of brands.
• More reading:
http://www.typepadhacks.org/2006/11/why_the_whole_w.html

King Of Widgets: Flickr Badge

Walmart Entertainment Station

Run London : Utility Online & Offline

Nike+ : Moving Branded Utility Offline

New Companies Are Building Branded Utilities
• Teknision

Where Next?

What Drives Branded Utility?
• Online reach, online costs
• Vast amounts of money are being spent on 3 month campaigns that are
switched off
• Maybe we could channel some of that budget for useful projects…
• Long term relationship building

Remember
• You still have to get the Utility out there
• Yes, there will be advertising…
– “At the end of the day you have to let people know about your Branded Utility
and one of those ways will probably be through advertising.”
Russell Davies, Planner OIA
• But more partnerships and content share.

Branded Utility
• At the end of the day, it’s about making great products

PSFK
• PSFK is a team of future thinkers. This presentation has been given by Piers Fawkes to
provide debate on an idea.
• For more information - or if you would like Piers Fawkes to come and present these
ideas to you and your team, email Piers at piers@psfk.com or call him on +1 917 595
2227.
• All content © their appropriate owners.