IntroductionLast week I began my discussion to Hanlon’s
Primal Branding. While I see the book helping move marketers in the right direction (that being a better understanding of the phenomena at play in audience groups and segments), it’s incomplete. Like Lewis Carbone’s
Clued In, it’s as if they’re dealing with a ship in the bottle. They have most of the parts in there, but lack the tools to pull it all together to provide a rich explanation for human action as it relates to brand building.
I believe that
Symbolic Convergence Theory (SCT) has all of the parts and the tools needed to help make the abstract more concrete and actionable; as it has rich explanatory power that addresses the meaning, emotion, identity, and motives associated in a group’s (tribes, organizations, communities, etc) symbolic identity.
Primal Branding claims that brands are a belief system that contains seven parts (creation story, creed, icon, ritual, sacred words, non-believers, and leader). These components are necessary but not sufficient when it comes to building a good brand and they do not capture the predictive utility of a good theory. Just because you have the ingredients, doesn’t mean you know how to make a recipe come to life, let alone tasty.
As Kurt Lewin said,
there’s nothing more useful than a good theory. Simply put, a theory parsimoniously helps us understand, explain and predict phenomena. While some may scoff at theory saying “that’s fine in theory, but not in the real world.” Well, then you didn’t have a good theory. I’d be happy to discuss in another format, but for the sake of this series of posts, a “good” theory is incredibly useful when were trying to better understand the meaning, motive, identity, and emotion associated with group (audience segment) behavior.
So, let’s talk about SCT, by looking at its technical terms to start to understand its utility in understanding group behavior. Symbolic Convergence TheorySCT explains the what, the why and the how of group identity and behavior in a symbolic reality. SCT was developed/articulated over 30 years ago at the University of Minnesota. I’ve had the good fortune to study under, research with, and work for John Cragan, who along with Don Shields, is one of the world’s experts on SCT. Cragan has used SCT to guide much of his academic research, publications and a powerful consulting practice. I’ve built Sanctioning Agent as a consultancy dedicated to helping organizations understand the meaning, motive, identity and emotions at play as groups participate in a symbolic reality.
A good start for understanding SCT is by examining some of its technical terms and providing and some examples for each term.
SCT Technical TermsRhetorical Vision - The Rhetorical Vision is a composite dramas that catches up large groups of people in common symbolic reality. This vision contain fantasy themes that depict villains and heroes in action. The Rhetorical Vision represent symbolic facts that help groups that help participants make sense out of potential confusing events.
Exemplar: Citizens of a country, members of a religion, participants in political party or movement.
Saga – the oft told, or repeated stories, that describe achievments and events in the life of a person, community, or organization.
Exemplar: King Arthur, Jesus, The ’85 Bears, Abraham Lincoln, Jack Welch
Fantasy Theme - A dramatizing message that triggers the shared "fantasy" of those participating in a rhetorical vision. Fantasy Themes are manifested in the form of word, phrase or statement which interprets past events and envisions future events; and are used in consciousness creating, raising, sustaining; and are used to "kill" old or competing visions.
Exemplar: A scandal that uses “gate” to dramatize and recall Watergate; Neo/another.
Fantasy Type – a stock scenario used to explain new events and may be more specific than dramatic.
Exemplar: Restoration; fulfilling a promise; fetching good from evil
Symbolic Cue - The short-hand version of the fantasy theme; such as a code word, phase, slogan, sound bite, gesture or symbol. Parts of entire dramas and symbolic identities can be reduced a single cue that can trigger meaning, motive, identity, or emotion. – positively or negatively.
Exemplar: "X" (Malcolm X); the peace sign; a handshake; a bumper sticker.
Dramatic Personae – the characters in the vision; heroes, villains and supporting cast in the drama. Helps identify who’s in and who’s out.
Exemplar: Slackers, Sweathogs, Flash Mobbers, Dead Heads, FIBS, students
Scene – symbolic location of the dramatic action, where the action takes place.
Exemplar: the wild west, cyberspace, the hearts and minds; land of opportunity, the new frontier.
Rhetorical Community – groups of individuals who possess some symbolic commonality, or share some symbolic ground.
Exemplar: organized religion, members of a political party, students, union members
Sanctioning Agent - The individual, person, concept or thing that legitimizes the symbolic reality. Also the name of my consulting practice.
Exemplar: a religion or myth’s god, the constitution, an expert.
Value of SCTBy understanding SCT, its terms, and analysis via fantasy themes, communication and brand practioners can better understand how to understand, explain, and predicate actions, behaviors, meaning and emotion of its audience segments. As noted, “Primal Branding” and “Clued In” provide a description of the necessary components of a drama, they fail to have a predictive component of what will positively or negatively resonate with desired audience segments and the extent that there’s a shared group conciseness to those desired segments.
NextThe next post will:
1. Look at the lifecycle/shelf-life of a rhetorical vision or drama. Whether it’s a Warholian fifteen minutes or a millennia, all visions are created, raised, sustained, fall, and die. Understanding your brand’s lifecycle position is critical to creating meaningful campaigns.
2. Address the master analogs (
position/segments) that compete for explanation within a community.
