November 22, 2004
expressive capital
1. First we had Human Capital. You There! Go to the next village and kill everybody because I’m the Chief of this village and I say so etc.
2. Then came Physical Capital. Land, property, factories etc.
3. Then came Financial Capital. Currency, credit, stocks & bonds etc.
4. Then came Intellectual Capital. Our widgets are better than your widgets because our engineers are smarter than your engineers etc.
5. Then came Emotional Capital. People love our product more than they love our competitor’s product etc. This is the space “Love Marks” plays around with so successfully: “A Love Mark is a brand that is loved by its user beyond reason” etc.
So naturally, as I ponder over The Hughtrain, I’m thinking, “What next?“
How do you out-Love-Mark the Love Mark?
Perhaps…
6. Expressive Capital. Our products make it easier for the end user to find and/or express meaning, narrative, metaphor, purpose, explanation and relevance in his/her own life than our competitor’s products.
You tell me…
[UPDATE:] Tony Goodson has a really good follow-up point to this:
We read weblogs that are expressive, we express through our weblogs, we want products that help us express ourselves.
There’s a line in The Hugtrain in a similar vein:
We humans want to believe in our own species. And we want people, companies and products in our lives that make it easier to do so. That is human nature.
So I guess that’s what The Hughtrain is really all about: Welcome to the wonderful world of Expressive Capital etc. Heh.
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This frightens me. I do not like the idea of people defining themselves and/or their lives through products.
Perhaps what you’re driving at is that the intangibles like meaning, love, relationship, purpose, etc are the next step in valuation rung. OK, I can see that. But as a customer, I’m never going to “buy the line” that your product helps me FIND meaning. Remind or inspire my own recollection of meaning, fine. More attuned to the value of meaning in my life, fine.
The problem *is* that brands think THEY manufacture meaning or are somehow the purveyors of meaning. It’s the same issue I have with The Culting of Brands, by Douglas Atkin. A child in America is more apt to ask: How do you make babies? while a child in China asks: How do babies grow?
I’m in middle of writing more about Atkin’s book and the backlash against consumerism in regards to globalization and why that’s a result of the externalization of meaning…but that’s later this week.
Revelant Post (see Bedbury’s quote; uh, there’s a typo in there; eXternal, not eternal):
http://evelynrodriguez.typepad.com/crossroads_dispatches/2004/09/two_deadly_sins_3.html
i’d like to say that materialism can’t continue it’s aggressive spiral outwards. that there will be a backlash. but since people really do have an emotional involvement with some products i just can’t see it happening. it’ll be too hard to let go. we’re teaching our kids the same values we have; money cures boredom. (hell, i know i’d let a whole bunch of friends go before i let go of my ipod).
…Metaphorical Capital. Our gadgets or products make it easier for the end user to use them to create or customize their own meanings, narrative and identity for brodcast to different audiences / circles, turning themselves into a personal brand.
Gladwell’s talk at PopTech gives this metaphorical thing some credence, that is, people chose objects that allowed, simplified, or at least didn’t complexify, their explanations. Being able to explain was very important.
Sometimes I think the meaning-in-life approach that disavows the material context is itself a cult fetish, that its supposed purity gives meaning-in-life to the adherent. Of course we cathect everything we perceive with meaning. That is the dance that underpins desire, acquisition, or disengagement. And we all operate it to decide, persuade, and exploit, all the time.
Wow. Some really interesting/intellegent points going on here, Everybody!
GK: I just added “explanations” on to the list on your prompt =)
Thanks!
Hey, I like that No 6 idea. I write and read weblogs, I use a Tablet PC and MindManager, I’ve just bought a Wireless Mouse, the books I most want to buy right now are about design and expression — Painting. My RSS feeds have been culled to only expressive Webloggers. I don’t have to love them.
It’s not Love I want, it’s Expression.
Goodbye Kev, Hello Hugh.
and of course, you could call your book No 6, with a glum looking advertising exec trying to break out of “The Village”!
I think that you’re definitely onto some here, Hugh. I tend to use things that reduce the friction between my ideas and the ability to share them. Whether it’s editing video, taking photographs, writing and finding and sharing all of these things, if I find a product that makes it consistently easier to express myself, I’ll go for it and love it because it allows me to be myself with less noise.
this blog is a product like it or not
and it’s a pretty good one as it
makes it easier for the end user to find and/or
express meaning(adding to the forum), narrative (original plot we contribute to)
the metaphor, (erg big word don’t know)
purpose, (if other people do it there must be some relevance here)
explanation and relevance in his/her own life than our competitor’s products
it’s relevant to us because we seek it out
and because i work in advertising
this blog does try and find some relevance for my vocation but because hugh is such a cynical bastard he only trys to highlight how irrelevant advertising is and i agree
blogging=super brand expression/communication device
Great stuff here. Left out, or the next layer might be -
7. Spiritual Capital. Our god is better than your god so we must save your soul. We see this played out in politics, education and of course war. It is only time before this becomes a dominant tactic of the brandists.
Like Chris, I gravitate to products that remove barriers to my connection with my creative self.
I would like to see time somewhere in the equation. Product/Service A is better than Product/Service B because it gets there faster or it works faster.
Spiritual Captital — This product gives you a sense of belonging to the “bigger picture,” or provides you with moral guidelines much broader in scope than simple emotional comfort. This fills in “the void.“
By far the scariest.
Evelyn/Jack.. people have always been possessive and always will be in some way. Materialism is one way to express ourselves (like Tony G/Chris C said) whether it’s how many wives you have designers you wear or books you own, we’re all susceptible in some area.
But,I’m too harried and literal-minded to have a well-developed creative self. Sell me something with a nice design that I could never think of, that lets me do cool things/look stylish/show a new face to the world and doesn’t make me feel dumb trying to do it, and I’m sold.
to me, metaphorical capital doesn’t quite connect with the times we live in. the term should reflect the inflection point we are experiencing. i read through the hughtrain again and the vibe seems to be more about “getting” or understanding the customer in order to succeed with them. the best method to “get” anyone is to develop a relationship and relationships are formed via conversations.
so, i lean more toward cluetrain and the “market is a conversation”. based on this, i believe customers will respond to and embrace the company that listens to them. i am not a psych type, but don’t people better respond to someone who listens to them? it doesn’t seem that much of a stretch to believe we would embrace the company that listens better.
based on these assumptions and the assumption that blogs will continue to expand the premise of cluetrain, i believe that conversational capital is the key for thriving in today’s market. conversation capital is the ability to rapidly gather, assess and respond to the voices in the marketplace. or something like that.…..
Brands that help express meaning. Not sure what you mean, but it sounds like it’s close to the mark.
I think that successful brands can trigger an experience that we identify as meaningful, and that we want to express. A movie franchise, or a can of coke, or even a decent blog posting does this.
Of course this gives people who contribute to the prominence of a successful brand a big big head. Because they are successfully toying with people’s confusion.
A sense of meaning is derived from reflecting on relationship between ourselves and other things/beings. This seanse is copnsidered GOD by some, it’s a nice exhanlted state. But I think it’s overrated because once we “have got” an experience that “means” something, the relationship is officially shattered — the realization effectively takes us out of relationship. Oh no — maybe another shot of that meaning-inducing brand will do the trick…http://www.gapingvoid.com... oh no, diminishing returns…
It’s all us baby. At each point in our lives relationship is rewarding. But for the most part, “brands” as such are just concepts stamped on things that take is into a sense of “big meaning” and away from real relationship. Screw brands, anyway.
Hello.
I’ve been thinking about this topic for a couple of weeks. The thought seems to boil down to the brand that can inspire faith is powerful. Whereas faith is loyalty beyond reason (unconditional? parental?) — the deep trust a consumer places upon the brand that it’s governed by a moral compass. Didn’t Chris Locke write something along this line in Gonzo Marketing? That brands that attempt socially relevant/responsible strategies are ultimately in it for profit?
I think it is dangerous and provocative to attach divinity to this, but I might be misinterpreting this entire conversation. That would be par for the course.
you missed one,
2) diet coke and fucking lime
also: glad to see STEP THREE is PROFIT!
OK, now you’ve done it…
…you’ve made me think. Stream-of-conciousness rant to follow–
First a working definition. “Capital: something that makes raw material more valuable.“
The first five items on your list capture a rough chronology of the “buzz” around (mostly) recent labels for capital. The sixth item is a place-holder for the next one.
In my view, these six items collapse to three: human-emotional, physical-tangible, and intellectual-intangible.
Human-emotional capital is the abiltiy to make human behavior more valuable by creating expectations of reward or punishment. This includes the unstated emotional blackmail of “leadership” and the ways products can “make it easier…to express meaning, narrative, purpose…” Some religious values (those that are grounded in the individual) are found here.
Physical-tangible capital is land, factories, PPE, and other “hard” assets that have the capacity to create physical things with higher value than the sum of their parts. Parts can be put in, with the expectation that higher value product will be created.
Intellectual-intangible capital is the knowledge to create value. This includes the processes employed in the factories above, the supply chain they are embedded in, the “brand”, patents, specific knowledge, and worker skills. This, in my view includes the entire market for financial capital– which is simply the ability to promise to return investments with a premium to compenstate the investors for the risk they assume (in other words, they’re an idea). Some religious values (those grounded in external heirarchies) are found here.
A capital-based marketing scheme would design, position, and promote products in the space created by these three dimensions. Our product is not a consumable thing, it is a value producer. The trick is, as always, to find the value sweet-spots for the target market.
Note that all are expectation-based. Some see this an element of faith or trust, while others see it as a time-shifting/saving strategy. Invest now, benefit later. Borrow now, repay later. Behave now, or pay later. Raw material now, higher value finished product later. etc. etc.
Anyway, have at it! I look forward to reaction.
“7. Spiritual Capital.“
Yeah, I thought of that. But it’s too loaded a word, it’s too vague a concept to really aid my cause.
Hmm, does this circle back to the AttentionEconomy concept? Does it count as Expression if nobody else perceives it?
http://webseitz.fluxent.com/wiki/AttentionEconomy
Bill, yes, it does count. Expression might have desirable outcomes which could later be deemed valuable, whether it had an audience or not. At least in theory…
Of course, the higher you go up the food chain with “Capital”, the more vague it gets.
What, it took companies how long? 20 – 30 years? before they started taking Emotional Capital seriously.
I’m waiting for “The Love Mark Backlash” to begin. Heh.
Hugh, I wrote a sort of letter-in-a-post to you on my blog (www.itjournalist.com). It’s long so I won’t post it here. I love your cartoons but I think you’re way out of line on the ‘branding the struggle to get closer to god’ cartoon, for various reasons (and I’m not coming at it from a religious perspective)! Anyway, keep up the good work — I love your cartoons, in general, they always leave me laughing, or thinking, but generally both.
Dan
Dan, the key word here is “empathise”, not “enabling”.
Dan, liked your letter a lot!
http://www.livejournal.com/users/dannybradbury/29166.html
In the context of the “closer to God” cartoon, God is a metaphor, regardless of your belief system.
Brands, too are metaphors… Gods and brands have much in common.
Social capital? Very popular concept at the moment re: social enterprises:
“The term social capital emphasizes not just warm and cuddly feelings, but a wide variety of quite specific benefits that flow from the trust, reciprocity, information, and cooperation associated with social networks. Social capital creates value for the people who are connected and — at least sometimes — for bystanders as well.“
From (first on the google list, but as a brief a description as fits the post):
http://www.bowlingalone.com/socialcapital.php3
A whole lotta right
Great stuff out there today for good marcom learning (all emphases mine):People are the value, tech is the conduit Mitch Ratcliffe in Red Herring in context of investment success, but with marcom application: