Smartest Band In The World

OK Go should win Marketer Of The Year.

Through the last few years, the band has created a brand through content other than music. So much so that their latest video – over 14 million hits in two weeks – is sponsored by State Farm Insurance.

State Farm Insurance. There is no natural brand synergy there. But OK Go’s videos are now a communications channel. Content as channel. We see it happening with iAd in iPhone apps.

OK Go understands the inherent nature of new communication strategy. Stand for something – and deliver for the audience. Old school is thinking that advertising is – on a generous day – 70% about the brand and 30% about the audience. New reality is determining what the brand stands for – and the fusion of message and behavior into a delivery of what they want, and not just what I want to say.

Sure we’ve been saying for a long time that we’re trying to attract audiences and loyalists with our message, but 99% of car ads – one of the larger brand and utility purchases consumers make – is really a one-sided conversation of companies talking at you in their own way.

Look at OK Go’s videos – the goal is not about broadcasting a band image. It’s creating an experience with a set of (brand) principles at its core. It’s behavior over image. They treat themselves as a vehicle for the audience’s experience. And this necessitates creating an experience with the idea: what does the audience get out of it? Audience first. This is the essence of a brand putting guest engagement at the core of its messaging.

In the digital realm this is more essential than any other medium. It truly is an exercise in: if a tree falls in the forest and no one heard it, did it make a sound? Because digital is self-curated, and unless you make something that audiences inherently want – you didn’t happen. “Build it and they will come” might fly in an Iowa cornfield, but it doesn’t happen online.

But this doesn’t mean that this kind of communication strategy should be limited to the domain of digital. Did OK Go hire a director and production company to create their latest videowunder? No. They hired Syyn Labs – a company of creative engineers that create interactive experiences and digital gizmos. People who inherently understand the nature of experiential.

Anyway – soapbox aside – here’s the video. And special kudos to how they were able to elegantly synchronize so much of the motion and environmental sounds to the music itself. Exceptional work.

And here’s Stephen Colbert’s version for his show…again created by the always impressive Syyn Labs.