Who's Your System? by Jeannette Hanna

Looking to nature for inspiration in uncertain times for

the creative profession is not as crazy as it initially appears.

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If you want to understand the future of marketing, advertising, branding and design, look no further than this: biomimicry. This is not science fiction. It represents a seismic shift in how to understand the way businesses, markets and customers are interacting today.

Biomimicry is a simple concept – using insights from nature to solve human challenges. (Science writer Janine Benyus popularized the term in the 1990s.) One of the prickly conundrums for marketers is the sheer complexity of today’s marketplace. Not only have new technologies blasted mass media into thousands of fragments, they’ve enabled a dynamic, real-time, super-networked economy that every day lays bare a very simple fact: We live in a world of increasingly complex interdependencies. However, our textbook brand and marketing models were built for simpler times when the idea of “brand engineering” – brand as a machine that could be controlled by a few simple marketing levers – seemed enlightened.

But that mechanistic approach makes for blunt management instruments in a participatory age of instant global communications, customer empowerment and virtual communities. Toss in a new culture of transparency and accountability with professional watchdog advocates and the challenges for marketers hit an all-time high. Customers are no longer passive “consumers.” (Maybe it’s time to retire that lexicon!) They too can become broadcasters and connect with millions, quickly. They can self-organize and mobilize, with world changing impact. Just ask Barrack Obama.

So, how does a marketer make sense of all this? Where’s the primer on coping with complexity? It’s timely that the Canadian Marketing Association’s 2010 Leadership Series kicks off with a biomimicry-inspired white paper that reminds us how nature knows best when it comes to working with complex systems. The white paper, entitled “Brand Ecosystems, Simple rules for managing brands in complex times,” argues that ecosystems provide invaluable insights on how to thrive in a dynamic, interconnected marketplace where symbiotic (win/win) relationships make the world go ‘round. The new mantra for marketers should be: Feed the network.

In an ecosystem, every member generates value for the system. The rule of the game is reciprocity and fair trade. Sure, you know all about identifying your high-value customers. But what is your contribution to the system as a whole? What role do you play in the network? It’s in the best interests of every brand, to the best of its ability, to not only create value but also share value in ways that contribute to the success of the system as a whole. Loyalty programs like Aeroplan or Air Miles are dependent on the vitality and effectiveness of their partner networks. Apple has parlayed ecosystem thinking into game-changing new business models – iPods/iTunes and iPhones with their 100,000 third-party apps. Thriving ecosystems are in a continuous state of evolution based on feedback loops. The more dynamic and diverse the feedback, the more the system can adapt successfully as conditions evolve. This is one reason social media is such a powerful new resource for marketers.

It’s time to ditch the static models of Marketing 101 and look to nature for some of her best communication tips. As author Margaret Wheatley notes, “If nature uses certain principles to create her infinite diversity and her well-organized systems, it is highly probably that those principles apply to human life and organizations as well.”

Jeannette Hanna is a principal at Trajectory, the strategy/design/engagement firm established in 2009 and co-author of Ikonica, A Field Guide to Canada’s Brandscape. To continue the dialogue: jeannette@trajectoryco.com.

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Comments

Nathalie Bertin

February 09, 2010 09:31 AM