Last week’s dive into Snapchat ended up kicking off a period of fun and creativity for me that I haven’t seen with a social network since I realized that Twitter was pretty rad. If you’re still not sold on the idea of Snapchat, Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal has a great explainer video so go check that out real quick and come right back so we can talk about dick pics.
KIDDING! But for real: the insatiable memory hole that is Snapchat does incentivize, shall we say, off-brand behavior. And nothing is more interesting to advertising and media types than when brands go off-brand. Take for example, this twitter beef between famed purveyors of mostly-beef, Wendy’s and Burger King. The cynics among us might question whether a couple of social media community managers taking a 30 second break from feigning concern for botched value meal orders should be considered a news story. To those people, I say “@ me hoe, it’s 2016 and the only thing that matters is brands.”
REALLY KIDDING FOR REAL! Man, if only there was some sort of social media platform where I could do and say goofy things without having it appear on my permanent record. Where suburban dads and multinational corporations alike can swing and miss with little fear of the awkwardness of their tentative first steps on a new platform. Where you can close the taste gap without without giving the world ammunition for a random #tbt in the future. A platform like that might be pretty fun.
Periodically yours,
Bob Sherron
–30–