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03.01.2011

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On Marketing With Irony and Play

Just Pretend You're a Rabbit

It’s something of a given to suggest that people are often attracted to confidence.

So it only follows that a brand manager would want to instill an equal sense of confidence in his/her brand.

And in our current era, confidence is best signaled by a mix of play, irony and self-deprecation.

The idea that you can afford to not take yourself seriously.

To this end, we’ve long been counseling our clients to champion elements of playfulness and irony in their brand positioning. Letting your customers know that you don’t take yourselves too seriously demonstrates that you “get it”—that you understand the vibe of our era.

But finding compelling examples of this practice proves really challenging. To be certain, there are examples all around us. It’s just that there are rarely companies or brands of sufficient size doing this well enough to prove relevant to our client base.

There’s an internationally famous bar in Seattle called the Mecca Café whose tagline is “Alcoholics serving alcoholics since 1929.” But this is not the kind of irony that translates well to the brand teams in the CPG business.

There are dozens of cute shops in Brooklyn with signs like these (below). Still, this just doesn’t jive so well with big business.

“Just pretend you’re a rabbit” is not exactly the kind of advice one would expect from a respected agency. Though to be certain, if I owned a small neighborhood shop this is exactly the kind of marketing approach I would take.

So we were more than elated when we finally found an example from a well-known global brand that simply nails the essence of what we have been speaking of for many years.

A team member recently ordered a pair of shoes from John Fluevog Shoes. We’ve long been familiar with the brand and, as many are aware, Fluevog is well known for their irreverence and creativity.

Among other things, this customer testimonial currently resides on top of their website:

"It's like having a party on your feet. And nobody ever breaks a chair or throws up, either."
- Imelda, Austin, Texas

But what really captured our attention was the electronic correspondence received after ordering a pair of shoes:

Your order has been assigned to a store.
Your awesome Fluevogs will be arriving to you from the store listed below (which is one of our best ones). If you have any quizzical questions, additional additions, or ch-ch-changes, please contact that store directly (contact details below) and one of its highly trained Fluevogologists will give you the quickest and best service possible.
It should be noted that when your order came in earlier, a few of us sat around at break and talked about how awesome your taste and decision-making ability was. We hope you had a wonderful time on the site, we enjoyed cyber-hanging out with you.

This is the essence of what we mean when we suggest that brands need to learn to be more playful and ironic. It might be tempting to think “Yeah, I get it. They’re just trying to be quirky so as to appeal to their target demographic.” But there is much more going on here than simple quirkiness.

The text “the shoes will be from the store listed below (which is one of our best ones)” is referencing the same classic routine waiters deploy when they tell you “Oh! That’s one of the best items on the menu.” This is a knowing wink to all of the pretense that’s ultimately involved in commercial, marketing-based relationships.

It screams “We get it!” more effectively than most spendy advertising campaigns ever could.

Again, the text “When your order came in earlier, a few of us sat around at break and talked about how awesome your taste and decision-making ability was” is yet one more poke at commercialization. If you must have a relationship based in commerce, at least have the panache to mock it.

And let us not confuse the ironic, self-deprecation described above with the currently popular TV and viral campaign as fun or quirky entertainment. Old Spice’s “I’m on a Horse” routine was bizarre and entertaining, but it didn’t speak directly to the customer.

Weird is easy, confidence is not.

Let’s consider a second email correspondence:

Your order is now complete!

Your order was carefully taken from our Dot Matrix and passed to our Fluevogian Elves, who started searching for your exact item(s).
Our well-trained packing specialist gathered everything needed to do the best packing job he could, especially for you. Only when completely satisfied with his deliverable, he sent word to the FluevogFleet using incensed smoke signals.
We welcomed the Fleet which always consists of three solar-powered FluevogVans - one for security, one for your package, and one for refreshments and supplies. We briefly chatted about what great taste you have and how good looking you are, but then they were off and on their way to make the final delivery. (Please note: We occasionally outsource transportation to our well-trusted partners, as demand continues to increase and running multiple Three Van Fleets gets expensive for a small, powerful shoe company.)

Again, the temptation to think, “Yeah, I get it, they’re just amping up the quirkiness factor,” is to miss the nuance.

The text “We welcomed the Fleet which always consists of three solar-powered FluevogVans…” is one of the most interesting sustainability plays we’ve ever seen.

It ridicules corporate sustainability communications precisely because Fluevog refuses to fall victim to the inherent pretense of such matters. Rather than acknowledging sustainability in a sober or serious tone, they simply invent a story about solar-powered vans and call it a day.

Do they follow sustainable practices? Who really knows. But if they did they would be far too cool to bore you with the details.

And the final touch, of course, is to acknowledge that their sense of irony and play is, indeed, purposeful. Here they manage to interject a post-modern recursiveness into the brand experience.

For at the bottom of the box one finds the following sticker:

Does your brand have this kind of confidence?

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