Brand As API - SXSW 2012 Presentation

a core conversation SxSW Interactive 2012 #brandasapi Peg Faimon & Glenn PlattArmstrong Institute for Interactive Media Studies Miami University, Oxford, Ohio

WHAT’S OUR PREMISE?The philosophical and tactical underpinnings of APIs offervaluable insights into successful brands in the new economy.Today’s brands need to focus on developing and nurturing anopen relationship with their customer built beneath thecommunication layer.Customers can build new, unique, and useful things with brand“primitives.”Brands, then empower customers to innovate and customersempower brands to evolve.

WHAT’S AN API?An application-programming interface is a set of programming instructionsand standards that allows developers to access web data to build new applications powered by their functionality.

WHAT’S AN API?

HOW DOES AN API WORK?

WHY LOOK AT APIs? They are ubiquitous. Every time you use Facebook to login… link Instagram to Foursquare… use a smartphone app for Netﬂix… you use an API.Programmable Web lists over 5000 APIs. APIs are assumed.Just ask Google what the biggest complaint about Google+ was when it rolled out? No API.

WHY LOOK AT APIs? programmableweb.com

CONSUMERS CHANGING? MAKERSWe have become an economy of makers/doers. Today’sconsumers are not passive, they are active in their brandenthusiasm and passion. It’s about doing things. Today’sconsumer doesn’t want to be told what to think abouttheir brand. They want to be able to tell the brand whatthey think.

CONSUMERS CHANGING?

CONNECTIONS? Brand as API is an analogy,process, and checklist to be sure that your brand is connecting with your customer. On their terms.

IS A BRAND A PROMISE?A brand is the fulﬁllment of the promise. A brand is not a fantasy or ideal. It is the reiﬁcation of the intangible. It is borne out in action, ownership, connection, and tethering.

WHAT ARE WE BUILDING FROM? Brand as API learns from, but is different from... Transparency Crowd-sourcing Brand Utility Marketing with Meaning Open Brand

WHAT ARE WE BUILDING FROM?Building blocks from current models… Solving problems/improving lives Being there at the right time/place Outsourcing innovation & insights Live testing & rapid iteration Ongoing conversations Not closed campaigns

HOW IS BRAND AS API DIFFERENT? How is the Brand as API model unique/distinct from other current models?

WHAT ARE BRAND PRIMITIVES? The LCD of your brand.More than “brand essence”, these are the building blocks of the “brand essence”.Each primitive adds value independently.

How does theanalogy of APIwork to evolve brands?

API KEY =Customizing and monitoring each customers’relationship with the brand. Managing access. Personal point of entry.

RATE LIMITS = Open more to superusers,brand evangelists, and inﬂuencers.

DEVELOPER COMMUNITIES = Customer communities.

DEVELOPER MARKETING = Marketing about the open relationship and ease of accessing it. Marketing about utility.

BUSINESS MODELS = Get over the control hangups.Explore alternative revenues models. Opening the brand to internal constituents, preferred partners, and your customers.

EXAMPLES =Show people how others connect to the brand.

DOCUMENTATION =Make connecting with the brand a no-brainer.Lowest possible barriers to entry and extensive just-in-time help to do it.

MASHUPS =Can customers build brand mashups?

RADICAL BRANDING?We don’t think so. Brands that will win, brands that arewinning, are doing so because they are rethinking theirrelationship with their customers.They are not only opening the brand up to the customer,they creating the conditions for innovation by simplifying,empowering, and building bridges between their customersand their brands.Most importantly, these two way bridges aren’t ﬁxedbridges, they move.

RADICAL BRANDING?Connecting with the brand has to be more thanengineered utility.It has to be organic and market-driven utility thatrepresents the diversity of ways that customers feelconnected to their brands.Our Brand as API framework provides a roadmap andchecklist for doing just that.

CONTACT US PEG FAIMON about.me/pegfaimon GLENN PLATT about.me/glennplattARMSTRONG INSTITUTE FOR INTERACTIVE MEDIA STUDIES aims.muohio.edu BRAND AS API SITE brandasapi.com

“PRIMITIVES” Marketing Models http://www.marketingwithmeaning.com/ http://www.resource.com/o-p-e-n http://www.brandutility.net/ API Primers |Reviews |Discussion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r7QpIDEI_ohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSUnBPv4iQ0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKhK8E7bXZw http://vimeo.com/33499514 http://vimeo.com/33268308 API Resources http://programmableweb.com http://readwriteweb.com http://mashery.com Examples of APIs for Best Practice Analogieshttp://twillio.com (Marketing and Documentation) https://stripe.com/docs/api (Documentation) http://urbanairship.com (Making it Easy)

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Brand As API - SXSW 2012 Presentation

by Armstrong Institute for Interactive Media Studies, Miami University

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