It’s been an interesting week where we’ve seen trending topics in our discussions with partners and clients that all revolve around the issues of authenticity, social media, transparency, “human touch” with a sidebar about advertising character icons in social media spaces.
The down and dirty: Are humans the only characters allowed in social media spaces?
Even then, can an individual’s [human] content be outsourced? What’s authentic and what’s transparent? Can “artificially intelligent characters” fit into the mix?
Our take is that social media platforms are sought after turf for Brands to connect on a more personal level with their audience/customer. And, this is an evolving space and new and diversified formats will all be accepted, provided the Content resonates and provides value (from utilitarian to entertainment) to the End User — “real” or “AI.” We accept that there are individuals who are focused on their “Personal Brand” in social media spaces and they appear less than enthused to compete with AI characters; this raises other issues about how a Personal Brand is (often) a fictional representation of a person, but we won’t go there right now…
In the middle of this we got to thinking about the iconic advertising fictional characters that have worked so successfully for Brands over the years — Michelin Man, Pillsbury Doughboy, Mr. Clean, and on and on…These “characters” are immune from the dictate of human conversation, since, well, they aren’t human to begin with. What a perfect opportunity for iconic fictional characters to reach out and engage in conversation, customer relations/service and engaging campaigns through the interactive writing and artificial intelligence platforms we provide at contentAI studios
Here’s a great list of iconic “characters” — wouldn’t it be great to chat with them?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_advertising_characters
21 August 2009
