“i” Versus “We”

The New York Times posted an article today that discusses the “i” phenomenon that has taken over advertising and marketing. For example: iScream (Friendly’s new promotion), iMac, iVillage, a new television show iCaught, etc. Michael Cucka, a partner at Groupe 1066, a corporate identity consulting company, said “It’s a nice strategy for borrowing some equity” from the better-known i-brands, “It seems to work because you’re associating yourself with the idea of trying to be cool. But when you start to do what everyone is doing, you start to lose the power of borrowing that equity. And perhaps the more people who do it, the less cool it becomes.”

Follow the leader only works for so long, its true. As the article states, the “i” is usually associated with a younger demographic who “live on the cellphones and computers.” In the age of user generated video and personal web pages, blogs, Flickr pages, Tila Tequila, Dell’s “Your Is Here” campaign, etc. the idea of the individual has been a strong marketing/advertising origin point. However, our guess is that the “i” is going to be replaced by the “wii” oh.. uh… we mean we. Don’t forget that beneath all of these individual pursuits are social communities and their principles. That was the big deal in 2004 – networks. However, these connection sites were never mined by advertisers in the way they could of been. Everyone latched onto the “i” (for a multitude of reasons from iTunes to LonelyGirl15) and neglected the “we” aspects – the joining, gathering and sharing with a selected community.

Maybe then wasn’t the time, but we argue that now is the time to create campaigns where people work, play, create together. Consider the success of the Wii. Unlike other consoles, the Nintendo platform is about playing together rather than alone. Or consider, ARGs. Those games are very much about playing with others. Facebook is about “others” and “joining groups.” The site really runs on connection to your friends in various ways (i.e. applications that let you throw sheep at friends or create a myriad of smaller groups) rather than MySpace, which was much more isolated. MySpace made stars. Facebook promotes communities.

The “i” will always be around, but as a trend – it’s over. For heaven’s sake – The NYT is reporting on it! Advertising agencies should consider working on these networks right below the “i” plane to create campaigns where people work in tandem with their social connections or strangers to achieve a brand’s marketing goal. It would be a great way to spice up the same old user generated contests and assertion of the “ego.” Also consider that the “i” is very youth, under thirty-five-centric and you know, that demographic is always looking for something new.