Corporate Brands – Stand By Me

You’ve probably seen the Stand by Me video on YouTube by now – the one where street musicians from around the world each sing a part.  The video has over 15 million views and 17,000 plus comments. But it wasn’t produced by a major brand or media company.  It was made by a group of 5 individuals.  The video is from a documentary this group created back in 2003 and uses music (something we can all relate to) and street musicians (people we have all seen and experienced) to tell a story and to build community at an international level.  A small budget video and sound crew managed to evoke a transformative experience for viewers who (fast forward to 2009) then further spread the word using social media.    It doesn’t take a large corporate budget to create humanistic advertising and distribute to millions via social media.   It does take a new way of thinking for corporations – not what does advertising do to people, but what people do with advertising.

Small businesses by nature takes a  humanistic approach to marketing by being an integral part of their community through face to face interaction, participation in local events, membership in service organizations, and contributions to local charities.  The individuals in the community who support their local businesses crave this connectedness. In this modern day society, communities are eroding because of the changing economic and social institutions.  As a result, the Internet is creating new communities every second. The Buy Local campaigns have been successful by using advertising to create social identification and cohesion.  So how does a corporate brand collectively connect individuals to an advertisement in such a way that the individual is enlarged? Create humanistic advertising that individuals will want to share. And T-Mobile does that literally with the Life’s for Sharing YouTube video – the improv styled video where 100’s of individuals started dancing together in a Liverpool Street Station.  Over 15 million views, 14,000 plus comments and zero cost for distribution on YouTube.

The democratization of the internet has created a new birth of freedom for corporate marketers.   Social media provides a platform where corporate brands can loosen up with lower risks.  In general, corporations tend to keep to the surface or the veneer of the brand’s story.  However, people relate to humanistic ads and the emotion that is revealed by the ad as opposed to effect-driven ads which are more about aesthetics than what is real.  In this day and age, this approach is not connecting with customers who are craving community.  This holiday season Starbucks, the #1 brand on Facebook with over 5 millions fans, is cutting back on TV buys and pushing forward with a humanistic social media approach.  Starbucks is offering a “Love” cd with purchase (music), increasing their giving from a five-cent donation to a two dollar donation (charity), and creating a holiday photo sharing campaign on Flickr and Facebook (community).

What stories are coursing through your organization?  Which stories want to come into the world through your brand?  Something wants to come into the world through the individual – better serving the soul and self.  What are the forces of energy behind the success of your brand – these are archetypes which are not nouns but forces of energy.  In the past individuals only received a glimmer of your brand story by a TV commercial, print ad, or billboard.  Today, when used wisely, corporate brands can utilize humanistic advertising through social media to open the aperture to illuminate their brand’s story and create a transformative experience for the individuals who are co-participating and connected to the story.