THOUGHT (aka Centric's Blog)

Almost missed this: Ken Brady quoted by Business 2.0 on starting an office in China (as in, you know, the physical world, in case you thought we only did virtual stuff these days):

Ken Brady’s Wisdom

That’s all, nothing more to see here, move along.

So it seems that Ken Brady’s comments on "sustainable branding" caused some brain meltdowns at the State of Play V conference in Singapore. From the Terra Nova blog:

"My mind reeled at the collision of memes from greenspeak and marketing that "sustainable branding" contains, and down that road probably lies an illuminating deconstruction on its own . . ."

Cool. We like to make minds reel. Because that’s where new thinking starts, and we’re heading into an age that demands a whole lot of new thinking. Beginning with the concept of "sustainable branding," which Ken and I both believe is the only logical approach to branding in the emerging virtual worlds space.

And in the social media and networking space.

And in the maturing online marketing space.

And in the established conventional advertising space.

Because all of these spaces are interlinked. Conventional advertising prompts thousands of forum posts, both positive and negative. Memes that ping-pong through the social networking space get picked up by conventional media. Virtual worlds generate terabytes of photo and video content that feed social media. Suddenly, everyone who has an opinion about your brand can express it in dozens of different ways. A scathing blogpost. A "wow, did you see what XXX company did!" forum post. A photo of your friends having a get-together in a recognizable restaurant. Scans of old product packaging lovingly posted on Flickr. A spoof commercial on YouTube.

And in the future, the voice of your customer becomes even louder. Everything you say will be commented, analyzed, deconstructed, and judged.

Remember that: and judged.

Now, the people doing the judging may not be thinking, "Gee, let’s take a deep and analytical look at my feelings about this brand, and decide whether or not their current communications are congruent with them."

But if you proudly bring in a cup of your favorite coffee to work, and three of your friends curl their lips and say, "Wow, did you see what they just did with the rainforest/ocean/carbon footprint/CEO bonus/crappy ad/offshoring," then maybe, just maybe, you’ll look at that cup a little differently.

So yes, we’re dead serious about the concept of sustainable branding. "Sustainable" means just that. Something that can carry you indefinitely. Something that takes the long view. Something that doesn’t have any far-reaching side effects.

Sustainable brands aren’t pumped full of the synthetic hormones of hype and puffery. Sustainable brands aren’t created in the passionless factory of the bottom line. Sustainable brands aren’t woven from the thread of cheap half-truths and fabrications, regardless of the reality beneath. Sustainable brands aren’t there only for themselves, only for the quarter, only for the endless game of pushing the maximum quantity of Substance X down the mouths of as many people as possible.

A sustainable brand honestly reflects what you are, and offers solid value. It’s that simple.

And in an age where every bit of hype is laid bare, every avaricious beancounting exercise is deconstructed, and every fabrication uncovered, sustainable brands are the winners.

How sustainable is your brand?

You want wacky, huh?

You want cutting-edge?

Okay. So here you go. Beyond the Land of Video Podcasting, beyond the Social Media Space, beyond even Virtual Worlds lies a whole new universe: lifecasting.

Some of you already know justin.tv. Four months ago, he began broadcasting his life, 24/7.

Yes. You heard that right.

"But . . . you gotta be kidding me," you say, comfortable in your Nielsens. "Nobody would watch that."

Well, not only are a whole lot of people watching, Justin’s bringing on new streams from new lifecasters all the time. One of those streams is Alphageek.tv. Alphageek is, well, dedicated to covering the Lifestyles of the Cutting Edge, the Opinions Which Will Shape Our Future, and other Matters of Great Import as Relates to the Ongoing Change. Their first interview was with Chris Pirillo, and it pegged Justin.tv’s rateometer pretty hard.

Now they’re going to Gnomedex. Which is where we come in. Centric is sponsoring them. So don’t be surprised to hear our name mentioned as they prowl the halls, lunch with the next great luminaries, and pub-crawl with the alpha geeks of our world.

Where will this lead? We don’t know yet. Consider this another grand experiment on the edge of change . . .