I made my second trip to Austin a couple of months ago and was struck again by the Keep Austin Weird ethos. Once you start seeing it, it’s fairly pervasive (i.e., tie-dyed souvenir shirts, tote bags, bumper stickers, keychains, etc. at the airport). Of course, memes become co-opted and corrupted. Here are two examples I found
A McDonald’s mural by David Soames gives new meaning to the term “counter culture”
Keeping Jesus Weird – a different and unpredictable faith conversation – offers a Ladies’ Night event, where women are the topic. I count two memes being repurposed here
I’m not sure that “Keep [thing that you're selling] Weird” is going to work (even in Austin) for every possible brand, product, service, religion, or combination thereof, but it’s amusing to watch the purveyors try real hard to make it happen!
Tags: austin, authenticity, city, culture, jesus, marketing, McDonalds, meme, slogan, texas, weird
On the other hand, there are the urban legends around Nike, Reebok and Levi’s turning into cult objects. The holy grail for any brander or marketer is for her/his ware to get co-opted by counterculture – and even if only a microscopic minority succeed, you can’t blame them for keeping on trying! Personally, of course I find this amusing at best and distasteful more often, even though I do believe and advise brands to proactively plug into culture and communities. But I wouldn’t advise them to approach it this way.
Comment by arvind 12.07.10 @ 7:11 pmArvind – good comments, thanks! In case you haven’t read it, you may like “No Logo” by Naomi Klein – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Logo
Comment by Steve Portigal 12.07.10 @ 9:55 pmThanks, Steve – I have read “No Logo” and liked it a lot. However, there is also an idealist in me who envisions (a return to…?) commerce as an integral subset of social ecology, and brands integrating with/merged into communities and subcultures. We do see this happening on the internet, but I would like to see this being played out in the tangible social world as well. For this to happen, marketers (and designers) will have to abandon their traditional positions and instead see themselves as asset-managers of social capital and architects of social glue.
Comment by arvind 12.07.10 @ 10:37 pmThat’s a great call-to-arms for marketers, businesses, entrepreneurs and yes, designers. I feel like the corporations don’t quite get this but the local businesses, such as those appealing to foodies (in cities like San Francisco or Portland), micro- and craft-breweries, food carts, arts collectives, etc. are really tapping into this in an interesting way. I’m sure there are other non-food
examples but my head goes that way sometimes 
Comment by Steve Portigal 12.07.10 @ 11:10 pmAbsolutely – in India too, the small business is far more organic and integrated with community; big business is a relatively new phenomenon. Have you read The Cluetrain Manifesto, by the way: http://www.cluetrain.com?
Comment by arvind 12.08.10 @ 1:45 amYes! I was just talking about it to some of the folk here because it keeps coming up in one way or another in our work, from project to project! Marketing as a conversation – they were reacting to “The Internet” but look at how every company is talking about “social” in every plan for marketing…the tools have really evolved and it shows you how far ahead of its time that book was!
Comment by Steve Portigal 12.08.10 @ 8:04 pmHaving just joined India’s (and probably one of the world’s) biggest and most-respected market research agencies (as ‘Innovation Mentor’ I tell you!), I am quite into the ‘research business/industry’ now. Lots of notes to compare with you – offline of course! But can you point me to some good ‘social marketing’ tools? There’s a lot of noise but I don’t seem to be able to find anything really new or even avant-garde.
Comment by arvind 12.09.10 @ 6:07 amCongrats on the premium gig and the lofty title! Our clients are asking how to make use of Facebook and Twitter. It isn’t about new tools for them, it’s about what to do with those tools, in terms of pushing info and in terms of listening. Lots of questions, lots of experimentation, not a ton of organizational support for the resources it requires to do these sorts of things well.
Comment by Steve Portigal 12.09.10 @ 8:09 amArvind – I haven’t read this piece but it was passed along to me yesterday and sounds like it might speak to the topics you are exploring – http://hbr.org/2010/12/branding-in-the-digital-age/ar/1
Comment by Steve Portigal 12.10.10 @ 11:07 amIndeed. What is even more fascinating to me is to explore how consumers’ online behaviour (and its influence on the decision-making process as well as relationship with the brand) might reflect back/boomerang on the contribution, value and design of the ‘offline’ brand elements. The ‘iterative’ and ‘less reductive’ (i.e. exploratory) consumer journey (as well as the post-purchase ‘enjoy, advocate, bond’ activities) sets up the value of co-creation rather nicely, I would say. Consumers are asking for more involvement and greater say in the value definition and delivery design process, and more ownership of the brand.
Comment by arvind 12.10.10 @ 7:24 pmMaybe this sounds naive, but hey, does it take rocket science for business to start (re)discovering (and behaving like) the social beings that they are, and stop thinking all that ‘strategy’ and ‘non-disclosure’ and ‘metrics’ and ‘RoI’ stuff for a while?! What I am salivating at is the prospects of co-creation (my current evangelical mission) going bigtime.
Comment by arvind 12.09.10 @ 9:13 pm[...] shared observations of Austin/SXSW, SXSW again, Austin again, Munich, Rome, and gleaners at the Munich [...]
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