Permission to play…

“…because I love your brand I will create content for you and share it with the world…”

Within the social space consumers feel that they are awarded “permission to play” with you brand from 1 of 3 sources.

1. The brand has given permission – this is achieved by the brand amplifying the fun that society has had with the brand, and/or the brand creates its own content ie. Old Spice

2. The user assumes permission – while rare, this is typically the result of someone feeling so compelled to create content with the brand because they view themselves as a champion for the brand… and… they feel that the content they have produced is highly relevant for the brand (in their opinion).  This is the ultimate compliment for a brand, and these people are the first to give permission for others to play whether the brand likes it or not.
3. Society has given permission – this is achieved when point 2 – “User creation” is done really well, or ‘well enough’ many times, that other people feel that they too can create content for the brand.

A recent and great example of this is the double rainbow meme.  There have been many great remixes, greeting cards, more remixes, with many people inserting themselves into the meme or remixing it with other memes like Mel Gibson.  The double rainbow guy himself has been on Jimmy Kimmel, people have hunted him down to interview him and people are using his work as monologues and finally CBS has interviewed this guy.

As marketers we are constantly analyzing the reasons behind why and how this and other particular videos become such global successes.  Creating content that is shared to this degree is a goal of many marketers… and while some like Old Spice have had some success… there is still a sense of marketing behind the campaign vs. the authenticity of the double rainbow.

While marketers chase relevance in the social space, one strategy is to leverage viral videos like Double Rainbow.  Geico did this well in the past with Numa Numa (original) and saw good success from it. Success when they didn’t even include their logo in the video…

and now Microsoft is the latest brand to leverage a viral meme in their marketing by putting Double Rainbow in their marketing… only for them it is back firing.

Unlike people appreciating Geico’s attempt to leverage a meme, Microsoft is not receiving the same acceptance.

I see a few simple reasons for this (GEICO vs Microsoft)

1. Geico has always been a culturally relevant brand while Microsoft has not.

2. Geico maintained the integrity and point of the Numa Numa meme itself and simply inserted their marketing into it with subtle tweaks… where as Microsoft made a commercial out of the Double Rainbow meme.

3. Geico developed their content to entertain with a focus on you, the viewer, versus Microsoft creating their content to sell with the focus being on them, the seller.

Here are 2 good examples of my 2nd source of ‘Permission to Play’ where the user assumes permission to insert brands into a meme.

Taco Bell and KFC  have been injected into the Double Rainbow meme by @alexblagg. As per my 3 sources of ‘Permission to Play’ @alexblagg, a comedian in LA created this very funny video…

and DaveyWaveyRaw injected Starbucks into this meme with this video…

then we have the Double Rainbow Cheeseburger and many many others.

Because no meme is complete without a cat… I leave you with this final video and 1 question…

What would give you the permission to play with a brand?

Cheers,

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