Using case studies from three yogurt brands, I explore the ways companies can combine social and traditional "passive" media to resonate with audiences on a cultural level.

1. Active
Cultures
Linking Value and Digital
Marketing as Told
Through Yogurt
by Steve Gottschling

2. Last May, Andrew Blakely
repeated for us a tragic story
his boss had told him.
(you can read the whole thing here)

3. “This morning my yoghurt
told me to find it on Facebook.
It didn’t tell me why, it just
told me to find it. Why on
Earth would I want to find a
yoghurt on Facebook? It’s a
yoghurt!”

4. Up until that moment, the
poor yogurt brand probably
thought they were doing
everything right.
For starters, they understood
the importance of
engagement, of tapping into
the new
“empowered, connected
consumer.”

5. They knew the internet had
changed the relationship
between brands and
audiences, and they chose to
act.

6. But, as it turns
out, simply being there
wasn’t enough. They
lacked an
understanding of the
ways their brand fit in
their audience’s lives.
And the result was not
just rejection but
complete bewilderment.

7. To Andrew’s boss, yogurt was
a commodity with no other
meaning. He therefore had no
reason to engage with it
online.

8. In the coming slides, we will
show how brands can
successfully combine digital
platforms with traditional
“passive” media to resonate
with their audience on a
cultural level.

9. We will show how this sort of
cultural resonance allows
even commodities like yogurt
to weave themselves into the
stories consumers tell each
other, the stories they tell
about themselves.

10. When everything goes
according to plan, the
audience will not be
scratching their heads,
wondering why they
should ever engage
with your brand online.
It will make sense from
the start.

11. Before we continue, it’s
important to realize
that the ingredients
that make for effective
digital strategy are the
same ones that helped
traditional “passive”
media win over
audiences for years.

12. And the key ingredient is
what Bernard and Veronique
Cova call Linking Value.
Source: Tribal Marketing: The Tribalisation of Society and its Impact in the Conduct of
Marketing

13. In other words, good brands
help audiences situate
themselves in their social
landscape, to imagine
themselves as part of
something bigger.

14. Modern identity is
malleable, able to be
shifted and bended in
an entirely conscious
way.
Every social
interaction can be
seen as an act of
maintaining or
reshaping identity.

15. On the social
web, this is more
true than it ever
has been before.
Participation in
social spaces online
requires users to
construct digital
selves from the
ground up.

16. With linking value, brands
function as building blocks in
that process.
They connect our identity to
ideologies, to broader
contexts, to communities of
peers with similar
enthusiasms.

17. And the best part…

18. Most of this takes place in
our imagination.
Although social interaction is
key for identity building, no
one else needs to be present
for us to change the way we
see ourselves.

19. I can be completely alone in my favorite chair
and still imagine myself as part of the Go Green
movement, as a LOMO enthusiast, as a modern
health-conscious mother. The list is endless.

20. This imaginary component is
what makes passive media
like print or television a
primary provider of linking
value.

21. We’re all familiar with
the ability of passive
media to illustrate and
dramatize benefits.
But its real power is to
create linking value by
imbuing brands with
cultural meaning.

22. Let’s see some examples.

23. (Click to see video)

24. Note the use of familiar
symbols: the cubicles, the
muted colors, the clear social
roles of the characters, the
business attire.
This TV spot uses these
symbols to conflate AT&T’s
Blackberry Torch with the
middle-class white collar
milieu.

25. The Torch thus becomes a way
for its audience to identify
with the values of that milieu
and to imagine themselves as
part of it.
Even though the Blackberry’s
features can be found on
many other smart phones, it
is the cultural associations
that differentiate the Torch.

26. The Pepsi ads of the 1960s are
a slightly more obvious
example.

28. Here, the source of the linking
value is right in the tag line.
Audiences are asked to
imagine themselves as part of
a broader “generation,” a
spirit or a movement.

29. And now for a completely
different kind of
medium, observe the changes
that have taken place in
McDonalds restaurants.

31. McDonalds recognized its
audience had developed
epicurean aspirations– a taste
for good design, comfortable
public space, glimmers of the
upscale.
By overhauling its interior
spaces, McDonalds created an
ideological bridge to the cultural
context its audience desired.

32. Why do we spend all this time
with passive media?
Because effective digital
engagement harnesses the
same principles of “cultural
invocation.”

33. While passive media has the power to
invoke imagined cultural
membership, social media makes that
membership more real (or at least makes it
seem that way).

34. Users can locate other users
in the same community rather
than merely having to
imagine their existence.

35. But in the end, nothing has
changed.
The real magic of social
media, like passive media, is
to give consumers a way to
situate their identities within
a larger cultural context.

36. Now, let’s look at three yogurt
brands that infuse their
product with linking
value, elevating it above mere
commodity status.

37. First, let’s discuss Fage

38. Though Fage Greek Yogurt
has received a brand tune up
from both Ogilvy and Mullen
since 2007, the brand has
always aligned itself with an
upscale epicurean worldview.

39. (click any
image to
see video)

40. Notice how this TV spot
excises altogether rational
benefit descriptions.
No one even mentions what
the product is.

41. Instead it presents a view of
the world– a passion for
beauty and aesthetics with a
slight bourgeois undertone.
To purchase Fage is to align
yourself with a community of
aesthetes.

42. You can see this cultural
association in past work as
well.

46. How does this meaning-
making translate to the
digital space?

47. Currently, Fage’s Facebook
page promotes heavily its
“Greek Getaway” contest.
By doing so, it performs a
balancing act of advancing the
brand and inciting discussion.

48. The page presents themes of
“getting the best from life,” of
leisure with an upscale bent.
It then asks users to
participate.

50. Also worth noting are the
Facebook updates that do not
align with the themes
expressed in the passive
media.

52. The brand creates
engagement by asking its
audience to discuss more
everyday topics like recipes
and flavors, departing from its
main brand message but still
holding the community
together.

53. Now let’s talk about
Stonyfield Farms

54. Digging up any sort of passive
media campaign for Stonyfield
is a challenge, as Stonyfield
invests less than half the
amount its competitors invest
in traditional paid media.

55. Instead, the bulk of
Stonyfield’s
marketing takes
place on its
website, which then
serves as a sort of
factory for cultural
meaning.

56. More specifically, Stonyfield
positions itself and its
audience as part of the same
grassroots activist movement.
In Stonyfield’s narrative, the
brand and consumer don’t
exist in separate camps.
Everyone is part of the same
whole, the push for
sustainable living.

57. Indeed, almost all of
Stonyfield’s marketing efforts
ask us to imagine “real live”
people in order to invoke
feelings of bottom-up
mobilization.

58. One example is Stonyfield’s
invitations for users to submit
content of their own.
Stonyfield then posts the
submissions, effectually
depicting an entire virtual
community as it participates
in the brand narrative.

59. (Click
image to
visit site)

60. “Just Eat Organic” is the
quintessential visual
representation of a brand
community.
Users post videos of
themselves following a
specific set of rules (in this
case, shouting “just eat
organic”), and others can see
the results.

61. With so many visible
participants sharing the
same ritual, a feeling of
solidarity emerges, an
esprit de corps around
organic food.

62. Stonyfield achieved a similar
effect with the Your Organic
Moment campaign.

63. (Click
image to
visit site)

64. In place of videos are written
anecdotes, but the idea is the
same– a visual representation
of the community surrounding
the brand.
Stonyfield doesn’t just ask its
audience to imagine a cast of
likeminded peers– it uses
visuals to make that
community real.

65. And we haven’t even
mentioned the interviews
with the farmers who supply
Stonyfield’s milk.

66. (Click image to visit site)

67. Meanwhile, Stonyfield’s
yogurt lids create a bridge
between this virtual
community of activists and
“the real world.”

70. Stonyfield is certainly not the
only brand to surround itself
with a virtual community.
But what sets the brand apart
is the way these tactics work
toward one cohesive brand
narrative.

71. Ultimately, Stonyfie
ld’s digital efforts
are about voices–
rounding up a small
choir of different
stories from the
people connected
with the company
and with the causes
it champions.

72. To purchase Stonyfield yogurt
is to lend your voice to that
choir, to become a part of its
grassroots environmental
movement.

73. And, finally, Yoplait

74. What sets Yoplait apart from
Fage and Stonyfield is the
huge role that gender plays in
its brand narrative.

75. Featured in Yoplait’s passive
media efforts are not just
descriptions of the yogurt
itself but portrayals of what it
means to be a modern
American woman.

76. Here are some TV spots to
illustrate my point.
Click each image to see the
spot.

77. 2008

78. 2010

79. 2011

80. First, note the use of
movement in each ad. There
is always at least one
character in fluid motion.
In the 2010 and 2011 ads, this
motion is backed by an
equally locomotive
soundtrack.

81. The ads’ constant motion
helps imply something larger
than the individual– the 2008
ad whizzes through one
woman’s life from childhood to
motherhood, while the 2011
spot features strangers
passing the yogurt from one
person to another.

82. Next, note the use of rational statements of fact.
These explanations are then coupled with
collective language like “we’re on the move and
we don’t want anything to slow us down.”

83. The collective language
creates linking value by
implying a greater community
of modern health conscious
women.
“We will not let a lack of
calcium slow us down! We will
act together!”

84. Yoplait also creates linking
value with its extensive line of
flavors, which many of the ads
mention either visually or
verbally.
The following TV spot makes
the flavors is chief focus (click
the image to view).

85. 2008

86. The ability of these flavors to
spur community engagement
becomes much more clear
when you visit Yoplait’s
twitter page.

89. On Twitter, Yoplait spends almost all
its time responding to individual
tweeters, often asking them to engage
with the community by discussing
their favorite flavors.
In this way, talking about flavor
(especially identifying with a certain
one) becomes a way of identifying with
the community as a whole.

90. Ultimately, the flavors alone
drum up respectable
community engagement, but
what’s even more important is
the way Yoplait uses passive
media to align itself with a
desirable cultural
identity, thereby creating
more excitement around its
digital spaces.

91. So what can we recommend to
that ill-fated yogurt brand
that tried to court Andrew
Blakely’s boss?

92. First, using only the popular
digital touchpoints like
Facebook and Twitter is not
enough to create meaning.
Brands need to find another
way to connect themselves to
broader cultural
contexts, whether through
traditional paid media or, as
Stonyfield shows, through
digital properties of their own.

93. Second, companies should
view engagement on
those social platforms as
the reward, the result of
consumers imbuing their
brand with greater
meaning.
Only when a brand has
become more than a
commodity will users
advocate it digitally.

94. Third, there is absolutely no
better time than now to
understand what
communities surround the
brand already, what meanings
the brand has already
adopted.

95. After all, linking value is only
useful when it connects people
to the community or ideology
with which they genuinely
want to identify.

96. In the end, it’s
tempting to see
digital media as an
upgrade, a “next
step up” from
traditional passive
media.

97. But this would be a
mistake. Instead, we
should look at both
media as equally
important in the creation
and dissemination of
meaning.

98. Thank
You
by Steve Gottschling