Getting real in a virtual world

Channel 4’s Black Mirror has captivated viewers with its technology-obsessed dystopian futures. But these cautionary tales should also act as a warning to brands as they continue to embrace the world of digital argues the Media Native.

I’m a sucker for a good TV drama and I think the last couple of years will be remembered as something of a golden age for the genre. I’m particularly indebted to Channel 4, not only for bringing us some of the best US drama in decades (e.g. Homeland) but also for commissioning two of the most original UK drama series we’ve had for quite some time.

Utopia has been a delight, constantly shifting tones and keeping the viewer off balance. But it is Black Mirror that gets the plaudits in the Brennan household, raising a bunch of philosophically unsettling questions around any number of dystopian futures that might just happen.

My pick of the latest series featured happily married couple Ash and Martha. When Ash dies unexpectedly, Martha overcomes her grief through the purchase of an app that trawls Ash’s extensive social media presence to produce an algorithm of him that can ‘converse’ via text and messaging.

Soon she upgrades to one that can replicate his voice and mannerisms, enabling flirtatious phone conversations with the recently-deceased, before she decides to go the whole hog and purchase a cloned version of Digital Ash.

The cloned version is really good in bed but proves to be a bit of a disappointment otherwise. You see, Digital Ash is not the real thing; he responds to social stimuli in a recognisable way, but something is missing. Oh yes, that’s right, it’s his soul.

There is something deeply creepy about a partner who does everything they are expected to do, no more and no less (even if some of us occasionally dream of such a relationship from time to time). Eventually, Martha consigns Digital Ash to the attic, only to be resurrected as an occasional plaything for the kids.

To me, this signifies something that is missing when we look at anything purely through the prism of the digital world twenty years after the revolution began. There is a parallel with the world of big data; all of those terabytes making up our combined digital footprints, and algorithms to predict our behaviour, but not nearly enough to really get to the heart (or soul) of who we truly are.

Fragments of information based on limited behaviours and casual conversation on social media do not add up to the sum total of a human being. I happen to believe that it will be a very long time before we will see any fundamental challenge to that statement, owing to the complexity and unpredictability of the human condition (as well as the tightening grip of the privacy laws).

But I think there is also a message for brands in all of this. As brands become ever more virtual, how do they avoid the Digital Ash syndrome, and make us feel they are real, solid entities?

There are many ways this can be achieved, and media can play an increasingly important role in the whole process.

CRM needs to be made more ‘human’ – many online brands have a totally virtual CRM function, which makes talking to a real human being about the brand or problems with it nigh on impossible.

Insight needs to be more reflective of the real world. I’ve always been hyper-aware of the limitations involved in conducting online-only research or data analytics. Sometimes we need to meet respondents – the customers – face to face, and to gain insight through observation of what happens in the real world, including but well beyond ‘digital’.

Brands need to take a position in the real world. Physical presence counts for a great deal in building trust, creating familiarity and deepening relationships with the consumer. Channels such as branded events, point of sale and sampling can be used to create this physical manifestation; it can even be achieved through obvious means such as using printed mail instead of always assuming the digital route is the most efficient or cost-effective.

Online brands especially need to create a presence through offline media in order to show themselves as more than their virtual selves. It has been interesting to monitor the growing share of TV spend that is accounted for by online brands in recent years; that revenue more than compensates for the losses in advertising income created by regulatory restrictions and the collapse of the COI in recent years.

In other words, in an increasingly virtual world, brands need to demonstrate that they have a soul; they have a depth that goes beyond their online presence and screen-based display.