Subha Chelvam-Lewis

Let’s get something straight. I am not and haven’t been a teenager in a LONG time.

So if you think my foray into TikTok indicates poor judgement, you’re probably right (face-palm).

Writing this post, I find I’m conversing with myself, debating the ethics of meddling in social platforms traditionally geared at younglings, which I cannot call myself. This is indefinitely a symptom of the sudden onslaught of time and introspection that social distancing and current events have now afforded us plentifully (all jokes aside, take care of yourselves, guys).

But whether or not I am “peng”, use the word “peng” or don’t get terrified by the interface of TikTok or even the new favourite Houseparty (I GET IT, MY FRIENDS ARE IN DA HOUSE), TikTok has reached new levels of popularity, whether you’re considering cross-pollination (as @dudewithsign poetically put it, “Keep TikToks on TikTok!”), or audiences. This is a public service announcement to all teenagers: YOUR PARENTS ARE NOW ON TIKTOK.

(Runs for cover)

It was inevitable, really. With many families forced to self-isolate together at home, parents are infiltrating the group dance challenge, with the necessity of three or more (right now, it’s “Blinding Lights” by The Weeknd); and as Buzzfeed explicates: “Even as we socially distance, there’s nothing like a dance challenge to bring us together. Safely. With people we are already isolated with.”

A song released by Vietnamese officials to encourage hand washing has also led to a TikTok dance challenge SENSATION. The BBC reports that “even Unicef has promoted Quan Dang’s dance video on Facebook, writing: ‘We love this hand-washing dance from Vietnamese dancer, Quang Dang. Washing your hands with soap and water is one of the first steps to protect yourself from #coronavirus.’”

Seemingly anything now has TikTok potential. Currently, Matt Lucas is bringing some joy to our days in isolation with this new remixed baked potato song in honour of THE COVID MONSTER. My husband is a particular fan.

As a non-teen, but a consumer of influencer content and an avid fan of visual social platforms, TikTok challenge trends like “flip the switch” and the “hand challenge” have surpassed TikTok and made their way into Instagram stories and influenced content there too. That is to say, I didn’t know that HALF of this stuff came from TikTok until I bothered to sit down and do some research.

I asked Immediate Future’s Digital Designer and resident TikTok interpreter Chantal El-Bikai about what she sees in it. “I love being able to scroll through to unwind, have a laugh and see how genuinely creative people are on it,” she finds. “Also… some videos are hilariously relatable.”

Relatability. That’s the crux. As working professionals, with families or not, most of us (if we’re lucky) are in these plastic bubbles, but we’re all in them [together]. As marketers, escapism is what we should be providing. Human connection is something we’re all craving, shared experience and relatability, humour and empathy.  And if this new way of communicating and sharing creatively is the way forward, then #challenge accepted.

*This post was originally published for the immediate future blog.

Start with the ‘why’.

This is [or should be] the mantra for any effective content marketing strategy. This is particularly important with social, where often the hard-sell message needs to take a backseat to genuine engagement and sensitivity when it comes to why social users are on that platform, and why they should even bother following you, let alone buying whatever it is you pesky kids are peddling!

Kidding.

But not really. Cultural references are a sure-fire way to relate to your followers, trigger conversation and engagement. The key is understanding the demographic, not of just the market or the channel; but better understanding who your campaign is aimed at can give your brand insight into your user’s age, backgrounds, geography and thusly enable you to adjust your tone, language, references, and subsequent visual styling and imagery. Using cultural references and tapping into a user’s nostalgia is an effective means of generating an emotive response and a connection that might further a customer along the buyer journey. Yes. But’s it more than that.

If social platforms are king, recycling content or resurrecting old posts is the lady Macbeth that made him king in the first place. We are constantly presented throwback or time-hop style content via platform algorithms, tempting us to re-engage with posts/images from yesteryear. Engagement with the past, rekindling friendships, reminding yourself of how you used to look or what you used to consider a personal politic: these are the platforms of the platforms. Which means that culturally, if we are engaging in social, we want to engage with the past.

On nostalgia in marketing, Forbes discusses how “those memories counteract loneliness, boredom, and anxiety. In addition to fostering positive effects and strengthening social bonds, nostalgia increases generosity and tolerance to strangers — and that leaves us open to brand messaging.”

I wasn’t alive in the 80s (awks), but even I can see the genius of Coca Cola tapping into the memory of the “New Coke” launch failure of 1985. Coke is no stranger to retro concepts or nor nostalgia, so a partnership with the “Stranger Things” fandom and phenomenon of Netflix resulted in a myriad of creative opportunities for social using one iconic 80s film reference after another. The possibilities, like the upside down, were indeed, endless.

What makes this trend even more exciting? IT’S NOT A TREND.

Social media has literally changed our lives, language, and literary habits. Rebecca Watson identified in the Financial Times, how social media has affected design in all formats (so did we).

“I loved the [book] cover because it spoke a language I had learnt from Twitter and Instagram, not, at first, from books…This disjunction was almost thrilling. Social media is often dismissed as devoid of intellectual substance, but its interaction with literary culture goes beyond authors promoting themselves on Twitter. Readers are fluent in the internet’s visual language — crude memes, glitching web pages, piled-up browser tabs — and the book world has learnt to participate.”

The dichotomy of mixing references of platforms, mediums, media and cultures is what makes social media exceptionally exciting to create for; because the lack of boundaries makes it easier to narrow in on what will make your audience really feel something.

*This post was originally published for the immediate future blog.

Last week, while we were discussing Instagram ethics, the internet broke the story of the social experiment of all SOCIAL experiments. A youtuber revealed that a series of Instagram posts chronicling her seemingly luxurious holiday to Bali, was intentionally staged and planted to test her followers, utilising the variety of homewares, settings and accessories available at her local IKEA.

Youtuber Natalia Taylor announced on her channel that she had in fact “faked” the holiday, even leaving little Easter eggs via the large white IKEA tags in some of her posts, to see who was REALLY paying attention. Natalia animatedly proclaims and snaps that one shouldn’t “believe everything you see [snaps an arch] on ‘The Gram’.”

Mentioning the massive influx of manufactured content infusing the tidal movement of youngsters fighting for their place in the influencer-market, audiences have clearly grown increasingly angry at the lack-of-trust created by photoshopped scenarios featuring the perfect sky, oceanic reflections, candy-floss clouds, wind-swept outfit and strategically placed flock of birds (to indicate movement and REAL-NESS, duh). And there have even been a flock of “influencers” posting images of other individuals’ escapades and passing them off as their own. Shameful, really [insert photoshopped tiny violin].

So, if you’re a brand, how does a skilfully lit and set-designed shot of products in-situ fit into the mix? If you are setting yourself beside influencers who might be artificially (or strategically) crafting a visual experience unrepresentative of their true offline selves, do the same rules apply? Is crafting or curating content a no-no?

Audiences consisting of 16-25-year-olds especially expect gratification, and if it’s instant, all the better. But moreover, they want choice. They are hard sell averse. They are on the cusp of self-actualisation (lol or so they think) and are using the brands they choose to define themselves. But the entertainment factor is key. In inbound marketing terms, this is the delight stage, that comes after you’ve closed a purchase and what could then turn a buyer into a promoter.

The realisation of the double-standard comes from the fact that influencers, or rather “content creators”, are PEOPLE (we hope). And that they are trusted by followers because of their relatability, humanity and the premise of honesty. The influencer coin dropped long after that relationship was established. So, when it comes to brands, let’s be honest, audiences aren’t expecting a human. Where young’uns aren’t using social platforms to communicate with brands, they ARE consuming their content.

So if you need to utilise some Scandinavian furniture and strategic lighting, by all means do it.

Just don’t lie about it.

*This post was originally published for the immediate future blog.

This weekend I had a genuinely delectable dining experience.

The food was Persian, modern, and perfectly-portioned for a pair. The menu was small; with the heavy presence of pistachio and rose, as I anticipated. But what I couldn’t have anticipated was the polished approach to a Scandinavian-Mediterranean hybrid of pale salmon walls, a wall-length booth made of olive green velvet, twenties style lighting hanging prominently over the bar– discouraging drinkers yet exuding nothing but an elegant trendy capital M-O-O-D “mood”.

I questioned the relevance. Is it passé to illustrate cultural clichés at restaurants nowadays–especially where foreign cuisine is considered? Is it politically correct to depict one nation in a city that is an amalgamation of so many? And how much of the effort that went into this aesthetically-pleasing design was a marketing strategy, developed to entice the “nano influencers” that we seemingly ALL are?

“[Instagram] is making the client really aware of the importance and the power of design, whether it’s in way-finding or branding or experiential design.” says Laureen Moyal, founder and partner at the branding and design studio Paperwhite.

Angus Pride, manager of Evelyn’s Café Bar in Manchester, mentioned in a Guardian article titled “Is Instagram changing the way we design the world?”, that his café puts a premium on design that has “longevity over something more contrived for the purposes of social media”; this despite the café’s innate Instagram appeal.

Of course, there is the authenticity argument especially pertaining to influencer marketing, where genuine content wins big, and sponsored fluff gets pummelled for its lack of transparency or the convenience of affiliation. This is especially relevant now in content produced by travel or experience-led brands—you can learn more about this in our latest report. If that doesn’t satisfy you, simply google “Instagram vs. real life” and prepare to lose yourself in the meme ether.

However, is it not still true that if our favourite “content creator” is generating said content in front of an aesthetically pleasing assemblage of hague blue, monochromatic line drawings and eccentric foliage, it’s more likely to take our fancy (if that genre floats your boat). Especially if there’s some ambient bounced lighting and an appropriately applied filter present, that led to our choosing its thumbnail amongst the other curated crap in our feeds. The threat of insta-worthy content is that if it is produced JUST for the platform, while it might attract customers for the photo, if the visual isn’t overtaken by the experience (the food, the smells, that intangible atmosphere), the only takeaway might then be “been there, done that [just for the gram]”.

Effective social media marketing, especially where Instagram is concerned, has to prove genuine. If the food or service is high-end (but actually), then that warrants luxurious interiors. If it’s not, embrace your rustic or kitschy aesthetic. Customers are more likely to question brand authenticity, so while designing to please Instagram may not always be the most noble of causes, if done right, it can turn snap-sneekers into regulars.

But of course, this isn’t a restaurant review, and I’m no food critic.

*This post was originally published for the immediate future blog.