May 18, 2008
free cartoons as “social objects”
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When I first started putting up cartoons onto gapingvoid in 2001, they were in a small, 400-pixel-wide format, just like the “Love Letter” cartoon you see above.
Then about 2 years ago, I started posting them in high-resolution, like the “Dinosaur” cartoon below [Click on the image and the high-res version will pop up].
This meant people could actually download the images and start using them for their own stuff. Like I said in my licensing terms,
Hey, if you want to put the work up on your website, blog, or stick it on paper, t-shirts, business cards, stickers, homemade greeting cards, Powerpoint slides, or whatever, as far as I’m concerned, as long as it’s just for your own personal use, as long as you’re not trying to make money off it directly, and you’re giving me due attribution, I’m totally cool with the idea.
As a “Social Object”, a cartoon that one can actually print out and hang on their cube wall, or put on a t-shirt, a business card etc is far more powerful and useful than say, YET ONE MORE IMAGE you can find on the internet and e-mail en masse to your friends.
i.e. The cartoon itself hasn’t changed, but the interaction between it and the “End User” is suddenly far more meaningful.
So of course, the next layman’s question is, “Yes, but… how do you monetize it?“
And of course, the answer is, “Indirectly”.
For example, in October, 2006 I post the Microsoft Blue Monster cartoon. Within a few months Microsoft is somehow paying me a lot of money to do other drawings for them. Without the former, the latter would never have happened. And without the latter, Sun Microsystems would never have approached me. Everything feeds into everything else. Exactly.
In other words, I don’t create the online cartoons as “products” to be sold. I create the cartoons as “Social Objects”, i.e. “Sharing Devices” that help me to build relationships with.
As with all things, the REAL value comes from the human relationships that are built AROUND the social object, not the object in itself.
I’ll quote my friend, Mark Earls one more time. This is from his second book, “Herd”:
“Cova is surely right to suggest that much of modern consumer behaviour is social in nature. We do it not just in a social context (tangible and immediately present or over distances) but for social reasons — that is the object or activity is the means for a group or tribe to form or interact. This also echoes a lot of what Douglas Atkin describes in his study of cult brands — brands which have developed a cult status (like Apple, and Ford’s bestselling pickup) seem to serve an underlying social need within each individual (just as religious cults do): a need to belong. The real draw is probably not the brand but… other people.”
And I’ll also ask my favorite question, one more time: If your product is not a “Social Object”, how on earth do you manage to stay in business?
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Tags: Cartoons on the back of business cards, Herd, High Resolution Prints, Mark Earls, Microsoft, social Objects, The Blue Moster Cartoon
Something that sounds so normal or completely rational for you, me and many many others, for much much more other people it sounds soooo extraterrestrial!
Thanks Hugh. A cartoon that clarifies why I’m so bloody annoying, I guess (the dinosaur one).
Should we give up on the dinosaurs? Or is it possible for them to evolve into a collective of feisty little mammals?
Imagery is very communicative but does the metaphor HAVE to fit?
I dream of examples of dinosaurs who pull off the evolution trick.
Maybe there are no such thing as dinosaurs, just collectives of feisty little mammals who are cloaked as lumbering dinosaurs by their current costumes?
Absolutely!!
This is a fantastic example of building a brand through building relationships.
Relationships create value.
Brilliant. Do what you love and the money will follow. Build your relationships and following first without yelling “pay me!” into people’s faces over and over.
>If your product is not a “Social Object”, how on earth do you manage to stay in business?
Low costs? Great location / distribution channels?
Not every product category has the luxury of being a social object. If you are in the business of, say, bananas, you don’t really need to make people talk with each other about bananas. In fact, I’m not sure would it work. Vast majority of people who buy and eat bananas just don’t care enough about bananas to have banana-related conversations. Of course, you might be able to build a passionate online community of banana-freaks having banana-conversations with each other, in a nice little banana-echo-chamber. But would that make a dent in the banana producer’s bottom line? I’m not sure about that, unless you are a niche luxury banana producer focusing on the niche of passionate banana-lovers.
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Note: I’m not talking here about my own employer (= Nokia), as we are very much in the “social object” business. And for such businesses, I very much agree with your line of thinking
I can’t express how much posts like these have help focus and direct my thoughts as I create my own brand.
Thank you for sharing not only your cartoons, but you thoughts on social interaction and marketing.
excellent.
you’re on a roll
Heeei, I have a Coffee Cup with that Dino!
Hugh — your dinosaur cartoon made me laugh out loud. A laugh I sorely needed. Thank you.
Your mind is SUCH an interesting place. A social object in and of itself.
Hugh — your dinosaur made me laugh out loud. A laugh I sorely needed. Thank you.
Your mind is SUCH an interesting place. A social object in and of itself.
I see what you’re saying, but for a cartoon to be considered a social object, does it have to have a message behind it? Or can it just be whimsical and fun and be appreciated on those merits by people? Or does that give a group of people nothing to talk about? I understand why, say, an iPod has to have a marketing message behind it because how would you discern it from other MP3’s otherwise? The reason I’m asking is because I’ve always chafed at cartoons that have some “message” behind them (see: Doonsbury), but at the same time, if something is just whimsical, does it give people anything substantial to talk about?
The unspoken complexity in your premise is that everyone is able to create something inherently “social,” i.e., something other people actually WANT to talk about, AND create an “object,” i.e., something other people can use and, presumably, would be willing to pay for (in the proper context).
If people can’t create “objects,” they’re probably not in business in the first place. But making that object “social” is the magic bullet that seems much easier than it actually is. Otherwise, we’d be talking endlessly about EVERY company under the sun — and when was the last time you spoke passionately about bike tires, dog food or turtlenecks?