Games Bros Play
“You just got iced!”
There’s a new social game coming soon to a college town near you. “Icing” is its name, and here are the simple rules:
At any time, if one is presented with a bottle of Smirnoff Ice, one must subserviently drop to one knee and chug the bottle. The Smirnoff can be presented personally or passive-aggressively (eg. “Hey, can you look under that pillow for the remote control?”).
The only defense is an Ice Block. If the victim of the icing has a concealed Smirnoff already in his possession, the perpetrator must chug both bottles.
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I don’t believe this is a stealth viral campaign setup by Smirnoff (it’s a binge drinking game that sometimes encourages drinking and driving). Nonetheless, the company is to receive credit for the conception of Icing as if it were their own marketing.
What this is, really, is a case-in-point of “critical gravity,” something I defined a year ago last week (here, as commentary on Keyboard Cat videos).
The Smirnoff Ice meme has been building momentum for years, and Icing now indicates the critical gravity point. Smirnoff has wanted to break their Ice line free from a reputation as the girliest of all girl drinks, but with every new tropical malt beverage flavor introduced— every green apple and strawberry-acai— they’ve pushed themselves further into stigmatization. A feverpitch of femininity.
They willed the creation of Icing.
They made Icing happen, and Icing will finally kill the meme.
Some analysts might argue the exact time of death. I take a liberal stance and say it’s already happened. Fruity Smirnoff Ices are already in the hands of males, something a true bro would never before have let happen. Furthermore, drinking the Ice is an event, worthy of filming and sharing the film. Icing videos will receive thousands of views each. The most clever of those will get huge exposure.
It is now acceptable for a man to drink this girl drink.
The epilogue to the story will be ironic consumption or actual enjoyment sans game. Neither of these are relevant to the case. Smirnoff itself can’t stop it or propel it, and they shouldn’t try. Their work was done before Icing began.
Earlier this month, in an open forum hosted by the The Times Online, business writer Malcolm Gladwell was asked what the big communication ideas, in relation to marketing, will feel like in the future. His response was that he had no idea and “neither I— nor anyone else— should be trusted to make a prediction.”
I feel I have a realistic vision of that future.
Marketing identifies, creates and retains customers. Those happy customers advertise to other potential customers. But, in the future, marketing will manipulate people, who may not even be customers, into becoming voluntary memetic engineers for the company or product. The engineers will not be advertising, but instead be propagating abstract ideas to the masses. This format will be called memetic architecture.
The memetic architect will craft the long-range goals of the customer base (creation and retention); and rather than responding to the market, he will respond to his memes. He will act mostly alone, whereas current marketing teams require up to hundreds of consultants.
It may be necessary (probably even prudent) for the architect to work as an officer in the company and simultaneously sit on the board. He is, ultimately, steering the company in a longer haul than any one executive will have the eyesight to foresee. The chief executive will report to him for new and amended initiatives. The chairman will report to him to determine resource allocation, to review the project performance of the CEO and to outline how to report to shareholders. Imagine a CMA— chief memetic architect— on every board of directors. Ubiquitous in all operations.
There will be a commonplace communication takeover of corporations. Companies will need this type of structure to survive. Their longevity will be determined by the HR decision they make in hiring the CMA.
This is the exciting future of high-level communication and it is starting now.
