Brand Me
WHAT ARE THE SIGNS? FLATTR
WHUFFIE BANK
FARMVILLE TRACTOR SALES MYSPACE LAYOUTS
HANGING OUT AT THE MAC STORE
WHAT IS IT?
The relationship one has with friends is about history and personal heritage, and about experiences, and in this online space ‘brand me’ or ‘brand us’ will become a relationship of friendship as well as commercial transaction.
Individuals are more aware of their image and social media has put control firmly in their hands. Whether for commercial or social purposes they carefully curate and optimise their personal image across a multitude of channels. In an increasingly participatory society, social currency plays a key role – it’s not just about peer reviews of products, it’s about peer reviews of peers. People ‘like’ brands – but they are no longer ‘fans’. Brand Me links closely to We Are All Media (see Scrapbook).
WHERE IS IT HAPPENING?
Twentysomethings
Asia, Europe, South America, USA
MYBRANDZ.COM
CLAUDIA ROGGE’S ‘HUMAN PATTERNS’ COLLEGE STUDENTS ‘ICING’ EACH OTHER BUILDABRAND
WHERE IS THE TREND IN ITS LIFECYCLE?
PEAK
Phase
Teens
BRAND TATTOOS
Dr. Alex Gordon, Semiotician, Founder of Sign Salad and Canvas8 Thought Leader
WHO IS IT IMPACTING? Tweens
FACEBOOK ‘LIKE’
HOW HAS IT BEEN DEVELOPING? Always-on connectivity and instant status updates via handsets make the management of Brand Me a full time consideration. The introduction of geolocation services for smartphones has added another layer to this macrotrend, as people continue to define themselves with where, not just who, they are - posting visual updates of nights out, or tagging locations is a way of demonstrating expertise or cool. Brands who enable this communication, or share the values people seek to project, will be chosen to represent them.
The Chinese spent
$5bn on virtual goods in 2009
d
2 billion
The UK spent over $800 million
tweets
1billion tweets
a December 2009 May 2010
CONTENTS
since 2008
More than
320,000 .me names
have been registered, making it the fastest selling top level domain ever
The average facebook user is connected to
Time
RELATED TRENDS
80 community pages, groups and events
Social Participation
Codes of Conduct
Privacy and Control
Neo-tribalism
Mass Customisation
True Stories
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