Take a look at the following facts:• There are more than 200m users registered on MySpace. • Google sees 31bn searches every month – in 2006 the yearly total

was only 2.7bn. • In December 1992 the first commercial text message was sent.

Today the number of text messages sent and received, exceeds the total population of the planet.

• The number of internet devices in 1984 was 1,000. Today there are more than 1bn.

The digital revolution that has changed our lives so drastically is having an enormous effect on the way busi-nesses talk to their customers. And the rise of boutique creative firms that understand this new world better than

many of their older competitors offers clients a range of choices.Not so long ago, if a company decided to change its image, the

options were few. Typically they would have involved going to a marketing or advertising agency that would probably try to sell it a campaign involving 30 or 60-second commercials, or posters.

Not any longer, says Michael Liburd, CEO of ebb&flow, a creative company that specialises in branding, design and lifestyle communication. Liburd believes that a set of circumstances fuelled by digital technology is conspiring to make brand building a different proposition that requires a revised mindset. He says that for some companies the old ways work just fine, but for others there are now far more impactful ideas for engaging with a customer or client.

“Consumers no longer make product choices, they make choices that compliment their lifestyle,” Liburd says. “This has created a new dynamic, where the relationship between brands and audiences has become fluid and intertwined.

“Look at where branding has gone,” he adds, by way of illustration. “We had mass communication; it was all about TV, billboards, things that are highly visible outdoors. They talk to a lot of people at a time; but they are not targeted and focused and for some companies that is not good enough.

“Now we have witnessed a move from mass communication to personalisation. You have a website that says ‘hello’, it knows who you are and can search its database and communicate with you with the sort of advertising that you are specifically interested in.”

In the minds of many, this in itself would be cutting-edge, but Liburd says ebb&flow has already identified the next phase in brand building: it is called lifestyle communication. “It’s about moving from monologue to dialogue. We think about the lifestyle of the consumer and we find the essence of the lifestyle experience within that target audience,” says Liburd.

To illustrate, he cites some examples. “Take a person from a privileged background who has lost their wealth. They’d still have the ethics of a privileged background, albeit in a lesser environment. So you would still talk to the same individual with the same cues.

“Take a car company, for example. Certain people, no matter how well they have done in life, will say a Rolls Royce doesn’t fit with who they are. We all make lifestyle decisions that are about how we are brought up and how we want to be perceived.

“Angelina Jolie could turn up to a film premiere on a push bike or in a Morris Minor and we’d go ‘wow’. Victoria Beckham’s brand is different so she couldn’t do that, but her husband could turn up in a battered old jeep and we’d be impressed. His brand allows that.”

Ebb&flow, says Liburd, understands what a consumer is trying to do and bases any subsequent campaign around that understanding, rather than focusing on an indiscriminate, one-size-fits-all solution.

Creative company ebb&flow is carving out a niche as a new-media brand-building boutique. Yinka Michael meets two of its main men

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Interview

The digital revolution will not be televised

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Jon Daniel, ebb&flow’s executive creative director, says: “The key thing is insight into a brand and how it fits. What is the context for this particular dialogue right now? How does your brand fit within this landscape? You have to be able to communicate with the audience in the media and channels that relate to them and sometimes it may even be necessary to invent a way to talk to them.”

For example, he says, the advent of communicating via Facebook or Twitter has created a form of nano-branding where brands have to think about the power of their identity on small screens and hand-held devices. And it is this kind of understanding that helps inform the branding approach. It is also where boutique firms, with their fresh approach, can often have a distinct advantage.

A look at some of the projects ebb&flow has worked on is instructive. When Keep A Child Alive, Alicia Keys’s Aids charity, wanted to launch in the UK it turned to ebb&flow, which created a campaign titled Lets Start a Virus to End a Virus, and they put a mobile phone at the centre of the campaign as the “virus carrier”, with the text messages acting as the virus itself. “The mobile phone, effectively became the billboard for that campaign,” says Liburd.

When United Bank for Africa, one of the oldest banks in Nigeria, wanted to launch their wealth management division in Europe, ebb&flow created the right look, feel and language; and when Esposito, a US-based financial services company, wanted to rebrand their global presence, ebb&flow endowed them with a classic style,

more akin to the world of fashion, to reflect Esposito’s clients’ lifestyle choices and values.

But lifestyle communication only works with a particular type of client, ideally medium to large-sized corporates or the equivalent. First, because they are more likely to appreciate the limitations of the old-style, big-media approach in the first place. And secondly, because they are probably mature enough to understand where they want to take their company. And prescience, says Daniel, is invaluable. “You’ve got to be able to anticipate where your brand is going.”

Some would argue that brand building is an imprecise science that comes with no guarantees, and question whether it is a bit of a luxury.

Daniel is unequivocal: “We see it as crucial. Why wouldn’t you give business the best chance of success?” he asks, somewhat incredulously. “Why would you leave the look and feel of your company, and how it communicates, to chance?”

Liburd simply points out that the facts are the facts: “We are changing our social, political, cultural, environmental, technological and commercial landscape. From inherited localised communities to chosen like-minded communities; from political activism to consumer activism; from eco-apathy to eco-responsibility. Our lifestyle communications approach and audience engagement strategies tap into the heart of this new, ever-evolving digital landscape.”

More info: www.ebb-flow.com

‘You have to be able to communicate with an audience in the media and channels that relate to them’

Michael Liburd (left) and Jon Daniel of ebb&flow

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