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106
Interview
POWERLIST 2010
The digital
revolution
will not be
televised
Creative company ebb&flow is carving out a niche as a new-media
brand-building boutique. Yinka Michael meets two of its main men
Take a look at the following facts: “Look at where branding has gone,” he adds, by way of
• There are more than 200m users registered on MySpace. illustration. “We had mass communication; it was all about TV,
• Google sees 31bn searches every month – in 2006 the yearly total billboards, things that are highly visible outdoors. They talk to a lot
was only 2.7bn. of people at a time; but they are not targeted and focused and for
• In December 1992 the first commercial text message was sent. some companies that is not good enough.
Today the number of text messages sent and received, exceeds the “Now we have witnessed a move from mass communication to
total population of the planet. personalisation. You have a website that says ‘hello’, it knows who
• The number of internet devices in 1984 was 1,000. Today there are you are and can search its database and communicate with you with
more than 1bn. the sort of advertising that you are specifically interested in.”
In the minds of many, this in itself would be cutting-edge, but
he digital revolution that has changed our lives so Liburd says ebb&flow has already identified the next phase in brand
T
drastically is having an enormous effect on the way busi- building: it is called lifestyle communication. “It’s about moving from
nesses talk to their customers. And the rise of boutique monologue to dialogue. We think about the lifestyle of the consumer
creative firms that understand this new world better than and we find the essence of the lifestyle experience within that target
many of their older competitors offers clients a range of choices. audience,” says Liburd.
Not so long ago, if a company decided to change its image, the To illustrate, he cites some examples. “Take a person from a
options were few. Typically they would have involved going to a privileged background who has lost their wealth. They’d still have
marketing or advertising agency that would probably try to sell it a the ethics of a privileged background, albeit in a lesser environment.
campaign involving 30 or 60-second commercials, or posters. So you would still talk to the same individual with the same cues.
Not any longer, says Michael Liburd, CEO of ebb&flow, a “Take a car company, for example. Certain people, no matter how
creative company that specialises in branding, design and lifestyle well they have done in life, will say a Rolls Royce doesn’t fit with who
communication. Liburd believes that a set of circumstances fuelled they are. We all make lifestyle decisions that are about how we are
by digital technology is conspiring to make brand building a different brought up and how we want to be perceived.
proposition that requires a revised mindset. He says that for some “Angelina Jolie could turn up to a film premiere on a push bike
companies the old ways work just fine, but for others there are now or in a Morris Minor and we’d go ‘wow’. Victoria Beckham’s brand is
far more impactful ideas for engaging with a customer or client. different so she couldn’t do that, but her husband could turn up in a
“Consumers no longer make product choices, they make choices battered old jeep and we’d be impressed. His brand allows that.”
that compliment their lifestyle,” Liburd says. “This has created a new Ebb&flow, says Liburd, understands what a consumer is trying to
dynamic, where the relationship between brands and audiences has do and bases any subsequent campaign around that understanding,
become fluid and intertwined. rather than focusing on an indiscriminate, one-size-fits-all solution.
PowerList10_IS02_P106-107.indd 1 07/09/2009 23:43
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