Casual Collapsing - So what?!

One of the major trend watching article published this year was about the Generation C. This Generation is known basically for “Content”, but there is a lot more to it – CASH, CREATIVITY, CONTROL, CELEBRITY and my personal favorite – CASUAL COLLAPSE. The best way to describe the Generation C is that it

“captures the avalanche of consumer generated ‘content’ that is building on the Web, adding tera-peta bytes of new text, images, audio and video on an ongoing basis.”

I could go on forever on this topic but I’d just be plagiarizing the good work of another website. I will actually focus on my favorite one, the CASUAL COLLAPSE, as I believe it has a specific impact on Marketing and Brands nowadays and it’s still hasn’t been developed onto a full fledged article.

CASUAL COLLAPSE refers to a supposed loss of moral values, laws and beliefs that were a given truth ever since we can remember. This loss of basic societal rules was already predicted by our elders – the World was going to a wrong path as youngsters were letting go of the good old notions of honesty and truth. The fact is: the World didn’t go that bad when these morals were lost. Ergo the CASUAL part. Indeed, with the acceptance of gay marriages, woman rights, casual attitude towards life and the reversing of the age roles – the old teach the young – only made the World shift their ideas towards a new evolution. It’s a Nietzschian conduct towards life – to be beyond Good and Evil. And the Web 2.0 only made it easier to happen – we all have an equal voice online, we all show what we are, regardless of common misconceptions we avoided questioning in the past. There has been a collapse but it was so normal for the generation who were responsible for it that it didn’t make much of a bruise on society.

Why is this important for Marketers and Brands? Because of two reasons - the concept of “disruptive campaigning” and the thin line dividing the “Old” World from the “New”. These two reasons are intertwined together. Most Brands are still being managed by a generation that still retains certain rules of societal approach that are old fashioned for most of the younger targets. In that sense, they try to fight it by demanding disruptive campaigns – or campaigns that shake the foundations of the symbolical universe society shares – from the Marketers. The Marketers themselves have a thin line amongst them – some still don’t understand how this target ticks, while others are completely in line with these thoughts – it’s “suit & tie” vs “t-shirt & sneakers”.

The outcome of each of these groups thinking can be placed in two scenarios:

- The first group tries to create a campaign that sounds completely artificial and exaggerated to the target. When they present it to the Brand she’ll love it, because being part of the “Old” World, they believe it’ll be “disruptive” enough to appeal to the Target. They release it and the results aren’t that good – a good example is The Undetectables by Gillete, where a supposed big budget “integrated marketing campaign” resulted in a shallow game with a nonsensical connection to the product. Once again, this is the most common scenario – exceptions can happen;

- The second group creates something that isn’t exaggerated or out-of-the box for the target but is completely strange for the “Old” World – think about the MTV Staying Alive  ads filled with sexual connotation in a trendy design and with a noble purpose, or the abrasive MTV Life is Shit Without Music. In most cases, the Brand will think about it and take it down a notch or two just to be safe. Those who “dare” to go ahead with these campaigns end up with a whole new level of Brand Affinity with this target.

What learning can we take out of this? When dealing with the Generation C, if your Client asks of you to think of something “disruptive” for their Brand, be sure you do two things:

- Don’t be “Old” world. Get involved with your target’s culture until it become your own. Only then will you be able to grasp the thin line between exaggeration and cool, porn and sexy, offensive and funny. Get to a point when the “disruptive” becomes “normal” to you.

- If your clients are “Old” world, make sure your presentation explains your target and concept in a thorough way. Spend 30 slides if you have two, but make sure you let them have a taste of exactly what are they dealing with. Don’t assume they’ll understand it by just stating two or three slides with statistics. Show them that the collapse they feared happened, but it was indeed casual. If you are able to do so, not only will you gain the Clients trust regarding all issues addressing this target as you’ll be able to make all the actions of your campaign without major cutbacks.