Relevance Requires Ruthless Fluidity
Mike Ferguson, Fresh Ground Consulting
Not long ago I received an email from a client asking me if he should renew his ownership of various website addresses, all of which were either iterations if his company’s name or different domain extensions. Five years ago, I probably would have advised him to renew his ownership. Ten years ago I probably would have advised him to buy even more domain names. But a few months ago, I told him to let his claim on the extra domain names expire.
I think I was right, and I think I would have been right five and ten years ago. Domain names, once a critical component of brand architecture, have lost a significant degree of relevance. The Millennial Generation (Generation Next) does not type in or necessarily even read URL addresses. They click on links.
The relevance and credibility of any given link is established by the context or “community” in which it is found and its source, not the words contained within the URL.
In response to character limits in text messaging and social networking providers like Twitter and Facebook, there are dozens of URL shortening services online. Over 60% of URL’s posted in Twitter messages are “shrunk” down to a meaningless series of characters. There are arguments for and against this practices, but it works, as long as we are in the fluid online world.
In the offline world, we still use business cards and company stationary and purchase advertising. When Facebook offered users the opportunity to claim personalized URL extensions for their Facebook pages (e.g. www.facebook.com/aboutferguson) people clamored for their little chunk of URL real estate because the world of “fixed” documents still exists offline, where you cannot click on a link. We still need to provide pointers to our locations in space and time, in the real word and online. The specific words within a URL are increasingly irrelevant, but still useful, though perhaps only in terms of efficiencies.
The ideas around what is fixed and what is fluid are changing even in the hard-copy world. The lines are getting blurry. Even the classic example of “fixed” documents, books, are becoming fluid-like with the advent of Print On Demand technologies. And now that we all carry computers in our pocket, the practical if not psychological need for paper is dwindling. We may never see the prophesied paperless society, but I’m willing to bet that in 10 years, “beaming” a business card will be more commonplace that handing one over.
The point is not the pace of technological change nor the ruthlessness of fluidity when it comes to framing information. The point is how we respond. Are we questioning our operational and communication assumptions daily?
Are logos still sacred cows that should not be updated more than once every ten years, or can they be dynamic identifiers that can be adjusted frequently for context? What’s the point of having only one tag line or slogan if it’s only relevant to twenty percent of your target market, and only relevant to them twenty percent of the time?
Do you frame the information on your packaging the same as you do in your printed marketing material, and in your marketing material the same as you do on your website, on your website the same as you do in your blogs, in your blogs the same as you do on your Facebook fan page, and there the same as you do when using Twitter? Traditional branding discipline would say yes; and, perhaps those principles are still relevant, but I suspect their relevancy now finds its home within the narrowly defined boundaries of context.
The operations people don’t escape either. It’s fine if you still ask about where the volume price break is on a print run as long as you’re also calculating out the relevancy lifespan of the document. What is the true cost of that four cent brochure when it becomes irrelevant in three months? What is the true cost of using a brochure when your competitor is beaming “Bluetooth brochures” to everyone in the exhibit hall?
The answers are truly not as important as asking the questions. Questioning our assumption is where the rigor is required because the answers…the answers will always be fluid.