Pierre d’Huy
Experts Consulting
p.dhuy@experts-consulting.com

Translated from the French by Stanley Moss
CEO, The Medinge Group
Founder, Diganzi
diganzi@medinge.org

P. d’Huy: ‘PowerPoint: Rhetoric Machine’, tr. S. Moss, The Journal of the Medinge Group, vol. 1, no. 1, August 2007.
Microsoft Word version | Version original

‘With the device of rhetoric, what is offered at the beginning—and appears at the risk of collective aphasia—are the raw materials of reasoning, of facts, of subject; yet what is found at the end is a complete language, structured and armed for persuasion.’—Roland Barthes: ‘L’ancienne rhétorique’, Communications, no. 16, 1970, B.0.4, p. 197.

PowerPoint is a Microsoft program which allows the user to create electronic presentations in the form of a succession of slides, often linked by simple animated visual effects. These slides can contain pictures, text, films, sounds, moving figures and different computer graphics or hyperlinks. This presentation application is used in great numbers internationally by businesspeople and students alike. Microsoft estimates 30 million PowerPoint presentations are made every day all over the world.
   The success of PowerPoint is so considerable that its emergence cannot be explained away solely by the recent fall in the price of computers and projectors. In itself, PowerPoint seems to constitute an emerging medium of societal communication. Such unprecedented success inevitably attracts the eye of the médiologue. Rather than dismiss PowerPoint as a minor event, let us take time to re-examine it.
   Over a long period, the uninterrupted use of PowerPoint as reference support has evolved a particular form of speech. It models a distinct manner of thinking, demonstrating, and persuading. Since its creation twenty years ago, PowerPoint has survived inconspicuously, a hegemonic example of constitution of norm.
   One is tempted to wager that soon the young generation will no longer be able to express themselves orally without help of a tool of presentation. In this respect, note that PowerPoint is reported to be more and more widely used for wedding speeches. Even more troubling, there may come a day when people cannot listen unless a speaker expresses himself in conjunction with PowerPoint. Faced with the “little music” that a rhetorical machine produces, classical speech could become inaudible.
   PowerPoint abets the impression of clear presentations. Steve Jobs made such a demonstration when he launched iPhone at Mac World 2007 in San Francisco.¹ Like a pianist who perfectly controls the independence of left and right hands, he linked a simultaneous projection of text and pictures to illustrate his purpose. Thanks to PowerPoint, the quality of audience reception was maximized, and understanding was made easier.
   PowerPoint also allows the manipulation of audiences by the fundamental use of argumentation founded more on effect than on proof. On February 7, 2003 the American General Colin Powell introduced a PowerPoint document to the Security Council of the United Nations, the intention of which was to demonstrate confirmation of the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. (See attached reproductions of certain slides used).
   The perverse effects raised by PowerPoint’s detractors revolve around five major problem points:

• problem of the user: while PowerPoint aids good presenters, it always renders the mediocre ones unbearable. PowerPoint is a complex professional multimedia instrument placed at the disposition of an insufficiently competent general public;
• problem of writing: rare are the PowerPoint presentations which play the game of brevity and are an instrument of the supportive kind. The better part of PowerPoint presentations are talkative and laboured;
• problem of effectiveness with principles of demonstration: the logical fluidity of classical speech is at odds with thoughts broken apart by the succession of PowerPoint slides. PowerPoint often stutters;
• problem of manipulation: the principle of juxtaposition exempts the presenter from the logical necessity of linking reason to effect in written text. To juxtapose is not to show. Often the syllogisms of demonstration found in PowerPoint presentations are weak or contestable. But they are difficult to refute because the presenter can overlook the first parts as he pleases. The mind of the audience is under the control of imposed rhythms and enforced reading in fragments;
• problem of use: explanation is the job of the presenter. PowerPoint is often sent by electronic mail without explanation, as a reference document. This is a bit like giving a person the apparatus of a conjurer and expecting them to competently perform magic tricks on stage. By removing the obligation to support a presentation, PowerPoint corrupts the information which it is intended to carry.

   For all these reasons, doubt is growing over the real pedagogic effectiveness of PowerPoint. Associations of parents of American pupils are seeking a ban on its use in secondary schools and universities in the USA.
   To look in greater detail at the opinion of its detractors, it helps to refer to the very effective work of Edward Tufte² and to articles such as ‘PowerPoint Makes You Dumb’³ in The New York Times^, or ‘Point of View on PowerPoint’⁴ in The Guardian.

PowerPoint: simultaneous speech
PowerPoint comes from the world of Apple Macintosh, that is to say from the world in the ’80s which first allowed the general public access to computer science. The world of Apple is that of the visual, of “creatives” and of graphic designers, the world of those who free themselves from the dictatorship of the parallel horizontal line, the unmoving characters of print. This is the universe of the mouse, of the cursor which drifts freely across the screen and finishes in the blinking vertical line, of letters arrayed on the keyboard. It is the Macintosh brush and mobile characters in opposition to the static Underwood typewriter. The mind freed from drawings can visualize on the electronic screen. One recollects the freedom of the Calligrams of Guillaume Apollinaire and the technical difficulty of their reproduction.
   PowerPoint multiplies the battery of effects at the disposition of the speaker, and in doing so compounds its means. PowerPoint “effects” are the new rhetorical devices of our time. The pictures, schemata, graphs, pop videos, computer graphics, animations, or illustrations are like digital cousins to metaphor or metonymy. This somehow justifies calling the toolbox of its capabilities an ‘auto-content wizard.’ Richard Mayer, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, studied its human features in detail, looking at the system of information, segmented by how it sees itself and those instructions which it agrees to follow. He determined that simultaneous contact to both channels allows the public not only to better understand, but to better persuade. It is the ‘dual channel’⁵ effect, a key element of the mechanics of firm belief in PowerPoint.
   Let us pause for an instant and reflect on an interesting mixture of typologies, since in PowerPoint, the visible splits the legible into two distinct parts. PowerPoint creates a new behaviour here: collective reading onscreen. To reference the three ages of Régis Debray,⁶ someplace new has been created which exists between the graphosphère and the vidéosphère, between appearance and publication, since the text is read and seen, simultaneously and collectively. This perhaps explains its success. PowerPoint plays on thresholds. PowerPoint is a machine to conciliate what is written and what must be seen. Picture redeems itself as behaviour through the counterpoise with written text. As the text gets lighter, it is elevated by pictures.
   PowerPoint automatically formats and gives life to slides consisting of text, pictures, figures, and effects, all at the same time. Here one rediscovers the simultaneity of the Surrealists, which one can find in La Prose du Transsibérien et de la petite Jehanne de France. In 1913 Blaise Cendrars captioned this poem, illustrated by drawings of Sonia Delaunay, as the ‘first simultaneous book’.
   PowerPoint software understands that to communicate definitively and persuade, it is necessary to multiply statements in parallel, all at the same time: see a picture–read a text–hear the voice of a presenter. The rhetorical figures of PowerPoint are built in the gaps between the three dimensions: picture, text and voice. The three statements synchronize, are repeated, or—to the contrary—move, move apart, collide.

PowerPoint: presentation or performance?
First regarded as a simple tool of support, the PowerPoint program is on the way to becoming a universal language used by both professional and academic worlds. These are the places where speech is carefully staged. These worlds seek to prescribe order which successfully coordinates image, movement and writing. Every multinational today has meeting rooms endowed with big screens designed to receive presentations. Any information arrayed there is invariably transformed into presentation. Each presentation repeats, constructs, takes up time, times its interventions. If the medium is the message, then with PowerPoint everything turns into show business. To such an extent, speech becomes more important than the transmitter. To such an extent, the searchlight and the newscaster end up merging.
   More and more press websites offer their visitors slide shows in PowerPoint. The Newspaper of the Net, in partnership with the AFP, offers this type of slide show, for instance, designed to explain the economy in 675 frames. Business Week adds slide shows to many of its online news stories. These presentations automatically activate, and display as a programmed succession of slides. They constitute a kind of intermediary between written articles and that of short video subjects. They show wonderfully that a good PowerPoint can very effectively operate without a newscaster or presenter.
   This explains why the PowerPoint presenter is compelled to deliver theatrics. It is due to the overlap of information and not the synergy, of competition with the PowerPoint presentation. Facing a huge screen, the presenter is encouraged to make more of it than really exists. A simple purpose then becomes a presentation; a hypothesis suddenly becomes a claim. The presenter is compelled, often in his defending arguments, to prove, to demonstrate, even when he has nothing of substance to offer. Bereft of real reasons, presenters get carried away. They display only glittering facets of their case. It is the most serious reproach which can be made about PowerPoint: PowerPoint does not like stories, PowerPoint kills narration. Narrative migrates in an opportunistic scenario, sequencing inappropriately, defended by the language of firm belief.

PowerPoint: ownership of speech
PowerPoint’s response to Barthes’ idea of rhetoric is to offer a description of the machine, defined by Microsoft, as ‘The most prevalent form of persuasion technology’.⁸ This means that the argument (‘fidem facere’ of Probatio) tells and moves at the same time (‘animos impellere’) and thus persuades by what is seen. PowerPoint directs our attention to the art of persuasion. This art has been left fallow since the time of Napoleon III, the epoch of the last important treatises on rhetoric, when it constituted the backbone of the education of all ruling classes since Athens in the fifth century.
   Rhetoric is a contemporary of Democracy, and a language conceived to entice the jury during courtroom trials. It is not by chance that PowerPoint is of American origin, the product of a nation enamoured with litigious business, who first aligned PowerPoint to the principles of computerization. This ‘first rhetoric’ is disparaged by Plato in Gorgias.⁹ Socrates compares the ‘make believe’ of rhetoric, contrasting it to the ‘informing’ of the philosopher. Calliclès answers that ‘rhetoric does not need to know what the things are about which it speaks; it has simply discovered a technique which serves us for persuading.’ PowerPoint has no knowledge as its objective, only firm belief. It lies far from the Socratic maieutics, the search for truth by dialogue and confutation. Rhetoric contents itself with its status as a machine of persuasion. Any likely simplistic assemblage is acceptable, provided that the target is reached.
   Barthes said to us in 1964, in his seminary at the École des Hautes Études, that rhetoric is a social practice, as well as a privileged technology, since it is necessary to pay to acquire it. It allows the ruling classes to gain definite ownership of the word. With PowerPoint, one also definitively gains the ownership of speech. This occurs thanks to a format of content, which is taught and which one learns. It is a pure technology of persuasion, in search of firm advocacy from its audience. This is an art ‘of persuasion, a group of rules, recipes, wherein the implementation intends to persuade the listeners of speech, even if that of which they must be persuaded is wrong.’¹⁰
   PowerPoint is, finally, a tool of education. Occasionally during some university orals, a student might wonder if the oral was more about a financial year, a lesson driven by PowerPoint, first of all. The question is no longer to prepare students for the job, but to create good rhetoreticians. On this point, Gorgias explains to Socrates, ‘And whoever is the man presenting an argument in favour, compared in debate, the speaker will persuade that his argument be chosen, rather than that of his opponent; because there is no subject on which the speaker would speak in a more convincing manner in front of a crowd, so great and appealing is the potency of our art’.
   The contemporary translation of this statement could be that it is better to have a good PowerPoint introduced by an incompetent, than be given a speech by an expert. So, to persuade about the urgency to struggle against global warming, it is better to have the PowerPoint used by Al Gore in the documentary An Inconvenient Truth¹¹ by David Guggenheim than to provide speech of the most erudite climatologists.

PowerPoint: show, to provoke thought
It would be inadequate or inexact to dismiss the success of PowerPoint solely for its triumphant packaging of content. PowerPoint often supports a sophisticated rhetorician, a technician.
   The médiologue can also discern the numerical resumption of a more Aristotelian rhetoric, a rhetoric less subjugated by its own power, a rhetoric more in the service of truth and beauty. There is nothing worse than when PowerPoint renders rhetoric heavy, when it is badly used. Of course, one can see it coming, an annoying aspect of the control of the progression of thought. The presenter is there to persuade, but after all, the firm commitment apparent in the flux of a well-written text is worth the artful juxtaposition of a PowerPoint presentation, if the reason is fair.
   We have seen a Minister of Finance¹² skilfully use a PowerPoint presentation as a kind of supplement. His bright and open speech was simplistically interspersed by dynamic zooms into a slide or swift transitions from one to the other, to the delight of his audience. By recalling the conditions of a dialectical exchange, reinstituting dialogue with his public like a midwife might, he revitalized the foreseeable fixity of his PowerPoint. Pictures came in support of words and provided more evidence that yes, in order to persuade the young generations one needed to divert eyes taught to dart from screen to screen. Such technique was needed, at the very least. It proves that a good visual speech, that is to say a speech which constructs a “point of view”, is a universal speech bearing firm belief, one which transcends national languages. A picture does not require translation.
   PowerPoint is a rhetoric machine adapted for the Doubting Thomases of the world, who believe only what they see. PowerPoint, sits at the peak of the vidéosphère, the worship of appearance. During the first film screened by the Lumière Brothers, the seated audience dropped down under their chairs when they saw an engine entering the railway station of La Ciotat. What sequence of slides could be placed in a row today to produce the same result?
   A century later the young generations have an advanced disposition to the screen. Consequently they understand that the picture of the engine signals no danger. Their enormous experience with an ongoing succession of screens has conferred upon them three new talents.

1. They learned to read pictures, and not only texts.
2. They know how to read several speeches at the same time, from multiple sources, without being unsettled.
3. They demand a connection which enables interaction (i.e. Wikipédia¹², continual interaction with a “living” encyclopædia).

   PowerPoint answers the first two points wonderfully by arranging the reading of picture and writings hierarchically. For the third, let us note that in its 2007 version, PowerPoint’s new connectivity allows collaborative tasks and hyperlinks with the Internet universe. In doing so, Microsoft upgrades PowerPoint in the hypersphère¹³ of Web 2·0, reinforcing the potential to perpetuate its already considerable success.
   PowerPoint is a sign of the times, ardently American, giving everyone the possibility of creating amateur cinema, and of conceiving small illustrated visions of the world. Even when it occurs in a clumsy manner, even if its assertiveness of firm belief is applied for the poorest of reasons, it has its worth. PowerPoint understands that it is necessary to demonstrate in our contemporary world, and thus to compel people to think.

Notes
   1. Steve Jobs, MacWorld 2007, San Francisco, Calif. Video of available speech at http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/j47d5200/event.
   2. E. Tufte: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, 2nd ed. Cheshire, Conn.: Graphics Press LLC, 2006.
   3. E. Tufte: ‘PowerPoint makes you dumb’, The New York Times, December 17, 2003.
   4. ‘Point of view on PowerPoint’, The Guardian.
   5. R. E. Mayer: Multimedia Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001.
   6. ‘The most prevalent form of persuasion technology.’ Readers will appreciate the ambiguity of the English word prevalent, which means at the same time spread and predominating.
   7. R. Debray: Cours de Médiologie générale. Paris: Gallimard 1991, reissued folio, Paris: Gallimard 2001.
   8. Plato: Gorgias.
   9. An Inconvenient Truth, film by David Guggenheim, 2006.
   10. R. Barthes: ‘L’ancienne rhétorique’, Communications, n° 16, 1970, p. 197.
   11. This refers to a presentation by Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
   12. Wikipedia is an online-based collaborative encyclopædia, www.wikipedia.com.
   13. L. Merzeau: Cahiers de médiologie, no. 6, 1998. ‘This will not kill that.’

Pierre d’Huy is an international consultant specializing in the Management of Innovation, and a professor affiliated with the Management Institute of Paris. He teaches at CELSA Sorbonne Paris IV. His most recent book is Collective Innovation from Éditions Liaisons Sociales. There is more to come in February 2007 in another book, Collective Imagination.
   Stanley Moss translated this essay from Pierre d’Huy’s original text in French. Mr Moss is CEO of the Medinge Group, a Stockholm-based think-tank on international branding. He is also founder of Diganzi, an international brand consultancy, www.diganzi.com.

Pierre d’Huy
Experts Consulting
Professeur associé, Management Institute of Paris
p.dhuy@experts-consulting.com

D’Huy: ‹PowerPoint, la rhétorique universelle›, The Journal of the Medinge Group, vol. 1, no. 1, August 2007.
Version PDF | English translation by Stanley Moss

Êtes-vous PowerPoint? Il faut du courage pour se lancer aujourd’hui dans une conférence sans la ressource du précieux logiciel de mise en écran des textes et des images (ou de ce qu’il faut en retenir). Mais cette pensée PowerPoint peut faire aussi quelques dégâts.

‹Dans la machine rhétorique, ce que l’on met au début, émergeant à peine d’une aphasie native, ce sont des matériaux bruts de raisonnement, des faits, un «sujet»; ce que l’on trouve à la fin, c’est un discours complet, structuré, tout armé pour la persuasion› – Roland Barthes: ‹L’ancienne rhétorique›, Communications, n° 16, 1970, B.0.4, p. 197.

PowerPoint est un programme de Microsoft qui permet de concevoir des présentations électroniques sous forme de succession de diapositives. Ces diapositives peuvent contenir des images, du texte, des films, des tableaux de chiffres et toutes sortes d’infographies ou d’hyperliens. Cet assistant de présentation est utilisé massivement partout dans le monde par les hommes d’affaires et les étudiants. Microsoft estime à trente millions le nombre de présentations PowerPoint élaborées par jour dans le monde. Le succès du programme PowerPoint est si considérable qu’il ne peut être expliqué uniquement par la baisse récente du prix des projecteurs et des ordinateurs. Il constitue en soi un fait de société qui semble aller de soi. Ce type de succès inaperçu attire immanquablement l’œil du médiologue. Plutôt que de le relativiser, prenons le temps de le revitaliser. L’utilisation continue de PowerPoint, comme support de référence, construit, à la longue, une forme particulière de discours et modélise une certaine façon de penser, de démontrer, de convaincre. Depuis sa création, il y a vingt ans, PowerPoint poursuit discrètement un travail hégémonique de constitution de norme. Il y a fort à parier que bientôt les jeunes générations ne pourront plus envisager de s’exprimer à l’oral sans assistant de présentation. On observe à cet égard que PowerPoint est de plus en plus utilisé pour … les discours de mariage.
   Plus inquiétant, elles pourraient ne plus pouvoir écouter un orateur s’exprimer sans PowerPoint. Face à la petite musique que produit la machine rhétorique, le discours classique pourrait leur devenir inaudible. PowerPoint permet de concevoir des présentations limpides, Steve Jobs en a fait une démonstration lors du lancement de l’Iphone au MacWorld 2007 de San Francisco.¹ À la façon d’un pianiste qui maîtrise parfaitement l’indépendance des aides de sa main gauche et de sa main droite, il associe une projection simultanée de textes et d’images pour illustrer son propos. Grâce à PowerPoint, le confort d’écoute est maximum, et la compréhension est facilitée. PowerPoint permet aussi de manipuler son auditoire par l’utilisation de principe d’argumentation fondé sur l’effet plus que sur la preuve. Ainsi c’est sur la base d’un document PowerPoint que le Général américain Colin Powell présenta, le 7 février 2003, la confirmation de la présence d’armes de destruction massive en Irak au Conseil de Sécurité des Nations Unies (voir reproduction jointe de certaines diapositives utilisées).
   Ainsi des effets pervers, soulevés par ses détracteurs, peuvent se résumer autour de cinq points majeurs:

• problème d’utilisateur: si PowerPoint améliore les bons présentateurs, il rend toujours insupportable les médiocres. PowerPoint est un instrument professionnel multimédia complexe mis à disposition d’un grand public insuffisamment compétent;
• problème de rédaction: rares sont les présentations PowerPoint qui jouent vraiment le jeu de la brièveté d’un instrument de type ‹support›. La plupart des présentations PowerPoint sont bavardes et laborieuses;
• problème d’efficacité du principe de démonstration: à la logique de fluidité du discours classique s’oppose le principe haché de la successivité des diapositives PowerPoint. Souvent PowerPoint ânonne;
• problème de manipulation: le principe de juxtaposition exonère le présentateur de la nécessité logique d’enchaînement de cause à effet du texte rédigé. Juxtaposer n’est pas démontrer. Souvent les syllogismes de démonstration des présentations PowerPoint sont faibles ou contestables. Mais ils sont délicats à réfuter parce que le présentateur peut à sa guise en escamoter les premières étapes. La pensée de son auditoire est sous le contrôle d’un rythme imposé et d’une lecture partielle;
• problème d’utilisation: le support PowerPoint, qui a nécessairement vocation à être porté par un présentateur, est souvent envoyé par courriel, sans explications, comme document de référence. C’est un peu comme si on envoyait les accessoires d’un illusionniste et que l’on charge la personne qui les reçoit de reconstruire le numéro qu’il fait sur scène. Détourné de son statut de support de présentation, PowerPoint corrompt l’information qu’il est censé porter.

   Pour toutes ces raisons, certaines personnes doutent de la réelle efficacité pédagogique de PowerPoint. Des associations américaines de parents d’élèves réclament l’interdiction de son utilisation dans les collèges et les lycées. Pour entrer plus dans le détail sur le point de vue de ses détracteurs, il suffit de se référer au très efficace ouvrage d’Edward Tufte² et à toute une série d’articles comme celui du New York Times intitulé ‹Power Point vous rend idiots›³ ou encore ‹Point de vue sur PowerPoint›⁴ du Guardian.

PowerPoint, discours simultané
PowerPoint provient de l’univers Apple Macintosh, c’est-à-dire d’un monde qui a permis l’accès du grand public à l’informatique dans les années 80. Le monde d’Apple est celui de l’image, celui des créatifs et des graphistes. Le monde de ceux qui s’affranchissent de la tyrannie de la ligne horizontale parallèle des caractères mobiles d’imprimerie. Le monde de la flèche de la souris qui se promène librement sur l’écran et s’additionne à la barre clignotante des lettres du clavier. Le pinceau de Macintosh contre le caractère mobile et la machine Underwood. L’esprit libre du dessin peut s’envisager sur l’écran électronique. On songe à la liberté des Calligrammes de Guillaume Apollinaire et à la difficulté technique de leur reproduction.
   PowerPoint multiplie l’arsenal des effets à disposition de l’orateur et ce faisant, superpose ses moyens. Les ‹effets› PowerPoint sont les nouvelles figures rhétoriques de notre temps. Les insertions d’images, vidéo-clip, schémas, graphiques, infographies, animations, illustrations par des images diverses sont comme les cousins numériques de la métaphore ou de la métonymie. Ce qui justifie qu’on le qualifie d’auto-content wizard, de magicien de contenu automatisé.
   Richard Mayer, professeur de psychologie à l’université de Californie à Santa-Barbara, a étudié dans le détail une particularité humaine: posséder un système d’information séparé pour ce qui se voit et ce qui s’entend. Il a aussi constaté que s’adresser aux deux canaux simultanément, permet au public non seulement de comprendre mieux, mais de convaincre mieux. C’est l’effet ‹Double Canal›,⁵ élément clé de la mécanique de conviction PowerPoint.
   Arrêtons-nous un instant sur un intéressant mélange de genres, puisque en PowerPoint, le visible se dédouble dans le lisible. PowerPoint crée ici un nouveau comportement: la lecture collective sur écran. Quelque chose qui se situe, pour reprendre les trois âges de Régis Debray,⁶ quelque part entre la graphosphère et la vidéosphère. Entre l’apparition et la publication puisque le texte est lu et vu, simultanément et collectivement. Ceci est peut-être une explication de son succès. PowerPoint joue sur les frontières. PowerPoint est une machine à réconcilier ce qui est écrit et ce qui doit être vu. L’image se rachète une conduite par le contrepoids du texte écrit et le texte s’allège, s’élève par l’image.
   PowerPoint met en pages et conçoit des diapositives comprenant du texte, des images, des chiffres, des tableaux, simultanément. Le simultanéisme, propre aux surréalistes, que l’on trouve dans la Prose du Transsibérien et de la petite Jehanne de France en 1913. Ce poème, illustré par des dessins de Sonia Delaunay, fut sous-titré, par Blaise Cendrars, Premier livre simultané. Pour bien communiquer, et convaincre, le logiciel PowerPoint a compris qu’il faut multiplier des dires en parallèle: voir une image-lire un texte-entendre un présentateur, tout cela simultanément. Les figures rhétoriques de PowerPoint s’effectuent dans les écarts entre les trois dimensions: l’image, le texte et la voix. Trois dires qui se synchronisent, se répètent, ou tout au contraire, se décalent, s’éloignent, se percutent.

PowerPoint, présentation ou représentation?
De simple support, le programme PowerPoint est en passe de devenir une langue. Une langue universelle utilisée par le monde professionnel, comme par le monde universitaire. Le discours y est soigneusement mis en scène. Y faire son cinéma, c’est le mot d’ordre. Toutes les salles de réunion de toutes les multinationales du monde sont aujourd’hui dotées d’un grand écran pour l’accueillir. Toute présentation s’y transforme invariablement en représentation. Chacun répète, construit, monte, chronomètre ses interventions. Si le médium c’est le message, alors avec PowerPoint tout est show business. À tel point que le discours devient plus important que l’émetteur et que l’on finit par confondre le projecteur et le présentateur.
  De plus en plus de sites de presse proposent à leurs visiteurs des diaporamas en PowerPoint. Le Journal du Net, en partenariat avec l’AFP, propose ce type de diaporama pour comprendre l’économie en six cent soixante quinze images. Business Week conçoit un ‹Slide Show› sur la plupart de ses thématiques. Ces présentations sont auto-animées, elles se présentent comme une succession de diapositives. Elles constituent un intermédiaire entre la proposition d’articles rédigés et celle de courts sujets vidéo. Elles démontrent admirablement qu’un bon PowerPoint peut, en réalité, très bien se passer de présentateur. Ceci explique pourquoi le présentateur de PowerPoint est contraint à la théâtralisation. C’est parce qu’il se trouve souvent en porte-à-faux, en situation non pas de synergie, mais de compétition avec sa présentation PowerPoint. Face à un écran géant, il est poussé à en faire trop pour exister. Un simple propos devient alors une présentation; une hypothèse, une revendication. Le présentateur est entraîné, souvent à son corps défendant, à montrer, démontrer, même quand il n’y a rien à voir. Sans raison réelle, on s’emballe, on étale, on paillette le propos. C’est le reproche le plus grave que l’on peut faire à PowerPoint. PowerPoint n’aime pas les histoires, il tue la narration et la fait migrer, en la séquençant de façon inopportune, en discours de conviction.

PowerPoint: propriété de la parole
PowerPoint répond point par point à la description de la machine rhétorique de Barthes, il est défini par Microsoft comme ‹la forme de technologie de persuasion la plus aboutie›.⁷ Convaincre (fidem facere, de la Probatio) par ce que l’on dit et simultanément émouvoir (animos impellere) par ce que l’on voit. PowerPoint. C’est le retour d’un art de la persuasion qui n’a été laissé en jachère que depuis Napoléon III, époque des derniers traités rhétoriques d’importance, alors qu’il a constitué la colonne vertébrale de l’enseignement de toutes les classes dirigeantes depuis Athènes au cinquième siècle. La rhétorique est contemporaine de la Démocratie, c’est une langue conçue pour séduire les jurys populaires des procès. Ce n’est peut-être pas le fait du hasard que ce soient des Américains, grands amateurs d’affaires judiciaires, qui imaginent avec PowerPoint le premier principe d’une application informatique. Cette première rhétorique est décriée par Platon dans son Gorgias.⁸ Socrate y oppose le ‹faire croire› du rhéteur au ‹faire savoir› du philosophe. Calliclès lui répond que ‹la rhétorique n’a aucun besoin de savoir ce que sont les choses dont elle parle, simplement elle a découvert un procédé qui sert à convaincre›.
   PowerPoint n’a pas pour objet la connaissance, mais la conviction. Loin de la recherche de la vérité par le dialogue et la réfutation de la maïeutique socratique, la rhétorique se contente de son statut de machine à convaincre. N’importe quel type d’assemblage de simples vraisemblables lui convient, à condition que cet objectif soit atteint. Barthes nous rappelle, dans son séminaire à l’École Pratique des Hautes Études, en 1964, que la rhétorique est aussi une pratique sociale, une technique privilégiée (puisqu’il faut payer pour l’acquérir) qui permet aux classes dirigeantes de s’assurer la propriété de la parole. Avec PowerPoint, c’est bien de cela qu’il s’agit, s’assurer la propriété de la parole. Grâce à une mise en forme de contenu, qui s’enseigne et s’apprend. Une pure technologie de persuasion au service de la conviction d’un auditoire. ‹Un «art» de la persuasion, ensemble de règles, de recettes, dont la mise en œuvre permet de convaincre l’auditeur du discours, même si ce dont on doit le persuader est faux.›⁹
   PowerPoint est enfin un enseignement. Ainsi parfois, lors de certains oraux d’épreuves universitaires, on se demande si l’oral n’est pas, tout d’abord, un exercice, une leçon de PowerPoint. Puisque la question n’est plus tant de faire des étudiants des hommes de métier, mais des bons rhéteurs. Gorgias s’explique à Socrate sur ce point: ‹Et quel que soit l’homme de métier que lui opposerait le débat, l’orateur persuaderait qu’on le choisisse lui plutôt que n’importe qui d’autre; car il n’y a pas de sujet sur lequel l’orateur ne parlerait de façon plus persuasive que n’importe quel homme de métier devant une foule. Tant est grande et belle la puissance de notre art›. La traduction contemporaine de cela pourrait être qu’il vaut mieux un bon PowerPoint présenté par un incompétent, qu’un discours d’expert. Ainsi, pour convaincre de l’urgence à lutter contre le réchauffement climatique, mieux vaut le PowerPoint d’Al Gore dans le documentaire Une vérité qui dérange de David Guggenheim que les discours des plus érudits climatologues.

PowerPoint: donner à voir, pour donner à penser
Ce serait un raccourci inexact de ne considérer le succès de PowerPoint que comme le triomphe d’un contenant sur un contenu. PowerPoint est souvent le support d’une rhétorique sophiste, manipulatrice. Le médiologue peut aussi y voir une reprise numérique d’une rhétorique plus aristotélicienne. Une rhétorique moins subjuguée par son propre pouvoir, une rhétorique plus au service du vrai et du beau. Il n’y a rien de surprenant à ce que la rhétorique PowerPoint soit lourdaude lorsqu’elle est mal utilisée. Bien sûr, on la voit venir, avec le côté irritant du contrôle du cheminement de la pensée de celui qui reste à convaincre … mais après tout la conviction du flux d’un texte bien rédigé vaut bien la persuasion de la juxtaposition adroite d’une présentation PowerPoint, pour peu que la cause soit juste.
   On a vu un ministre des finances¹⁰ utiliser habilement une présentation PowerPoint comme une sorte de stock. Son discours brillant et libre fut simplement émaillé par de brusques zooms sur une diapositive ou une autre, au gré de ses échanges avec son auditoire. En reconvoquant les conditions d’un échange dialectique, en réinstaurant le dialogue avec son public à la façon des maïeuticiens, il revitalisa la fixité prévisible de son PowerPoint. L’image vint en support au verbe et l’on se dit que oui, peut-être, pour convaincre les jeunes générations et détourner leurs yeux habitués à virevolter d’un écran à l’autre, il fallait au moins cela. Un bon discours visuel, c’est-à-dire un discours qui construit un ‹point de vue›, un discours universel de conviction qui transcende les langues nationales. Parce qu’une image ne se traduit pas. PowerPoint est signe de son temps, américain en diable, il offre, à tous, la possibilité de faire son petit cinéma amateur, de concevoir des petites visions du monde illustrées. Et, même si cela se produit la plupart du temps de façon maladroite, même si sa puissance de conviction est parfois utilisée pour de mauvaises causes, il a du moins le mérite d’avoir compris qu’il faut donner à voir à notre monde contemporain, pour lui donner à penser.

Notes
   1. Steve Jobs, à MacWorld 2007, San Francisco. Vidéo du discours disponible sur http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/j47d5200/event.
   2. E. Tufte: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, 2e édition. Cheshire, Conn.: Graphics Press LLC, 2006.
   3. E. Tufte: ‹PowerPoint makes you dumb›, The New York Times, 17e decembre 2003.
   4. ‹Point of view on PowerPoint›, The Guardian.
   5. ‹Dual channel›, dans R. E. Mayer: Multimedia Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001.
   6. R. Debray: Cours de Médiologie générale. Paris: Gallimard 1991, rééd. coll. Folio essais. Paris: Gallimard 2001.
   7. Platon: Gorgias.
   8. An Inconvenient Truth, documentaire de David Guggenheim, 2006.
   9. R. Barthes: ‹L’ancienne rhétorique›, Communications, n° 16, 1970, p. 197.
   10. Il s’agit de Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
   11. Wikipedia est un encyclopédie collaborative, www.wikipedia.com.

Pierre d’Huy est consultant International en Management de l’Innovation, Professeur associé au Management Institute of Paris, Enseignant au CELSA Sorbonne Paris IV. Dernier ouvrage paru L’Innovation Collective, Éditions Liaisons Sociales et à paraître en février 2007, L’Imagination Collective, Éditions Liaisons Sociales. Pierre d’Huy est consultant International en Management de l’Innovation, Professeur associé au Management Institute of Paris, Enseignant au CELSA Sorbonne Paris IV. Dernier ouvrage paru L’Innovation Collective, Éditions Liaisons Sociales et à paraître en février 2007, L’Imagination Collective, Éditions Liaisons Sociales.

Jack Yan¹
CEO, Jack Yan & Associates, PO Box 14-368, Wellington 6241, New Zealand
jack.yan@jyanet.com

J. Yan: ‘Online Branding: a Definitive Guide’, The Journal of the Medinge Group, vol. 1, no. 1, August 2007.
PDF version

Executive summary
Successful brands on the internet depend on certain ingredients. And unlike offline brands, the process surrounding vision, research, exposition and image differ slightly, even if the ingredients of brand equity remain the same. Importantly, a loose vision, informal research, and tapping into consumer advocacy all help build a strong brand on the internet. All these additionally contribute to whether a brand has acquired secondary meaning in a legal sense, although the existing test needs to be reconsidered.

1. Introduction
Despite some major texts on branding in the last 10 years, from Wally Olins’s The New Guide to Identity,² to Nicholas Ind’s Living the Brand,³ and the Ind-edited Beyond Branding,⁴ branding is a very divisive field. Few have done studies to connect the organization’s vision to business performance, which this author did in 1999, and the majority of companies have still failed to appoint marketers to the boardroom. Meanwhile, others are leading the cutting edge of branding, such as Stefan Engeseth with his new work, One.⁵ There is little bridging research into the integrated marketing communications’ model and the cutting-edge, consumer movement papers; and certainly very little on how brands can be built using the internet.⁶
   Before delving into this paper, it is useful to cover what branding is. As outlined in one of the author’s earlier papers,⁷ it may be thought of as:

the methods in which the organization communicates, symbolizes and differentiates itself to all of its audiences.

   The word branding has altered in meaning, even amongst the experts such as Olins.⁸ Traditionally, the ‘brand’ was part of ‘identity’, which may be defined as:⁹

the explicit management of all the ways in which the organization presents itself through experiences and perceptions to all of its audiences.

The brand was merely the part of this management that was directed at a consumer, or an audience member, external to the organization.
   However, perhaps through media coverage and Naomi Klein’s seminal No Logo,¹⁰ which questioned the ethics behind branding, the word brand entered the vernacular. At the same time, the branding model evolved somewhat: Olins began touting the brand as an ‘attitude’ that described the organization,¹¹ and branding consultants became a little more obsessed with the message being sent to consumers, perhaps in the wake of No Logo. It, therefore, became important to make sure that the vision of the organization took into account the message it would send to consumers as one of its earliest steps, and to make sure what was being communicated inside the organization was identical to what was being communicated outside. The word brand began taking on the meaning once given to identity.
   This coincided with another development: the “mainstreaming” of the online world. With consumer input now being sought readily for things such as product development (e.g. online surveys became common and were thought of as a means through which the most current data about the market-place could be sought), and consumers themselves becoming powerfula dvocates for brands (spreading good news via emails, or indeed, bad news), there was less of a distinction between the marketing departments of organizations and the customers themselves.
   Therefore, the branding model began looking quite different. Once, organizations could depend on training their staff to tow the official line, expressing the brand in the way dictated by head office. But consumers could not be managed in the same way. They needed to be incorporated into brand-communication decisions, either by (a) inspiring staff members and getting them to work so closely to consumers on the hope of “infectious enthusiasm”, or (b) turning those consumers themselves into a de facto marketing department.¹²
   There are good examples of each. The former group is typified by companies in Ind’s Living the Brand,¹³ notably Patagonia. The sportswear company has staff that use its products, while consumers are prepared to talk up its goods. The latter group includes many of the networking services on the web, including LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com). Arguably, the initial growth of Yahoo! (first built while its founders were still at Stanford University), Google (which uses its user base to spread news of its new products), and Flickr (which is being found by web users frequenting blogs and similar services) could be credited to the second method. The author refrains from using the viral marketing term here, largely because it has become hackneyed.
   But how does this online growth actually happen and how does it contribute to the strength of a brand? And if this happens, can the internet truly impact on brand equity¹⁴ and related issues, such as providing a brand with secondary meaning¹⁵ in the eyes of the law?

2. The branding process
The logical place to begin is in the regular branding model.¹⁶ The brand begins with a vision, or, indeed, a slogan (if it is far-reaching enough to guide the whole organization). The important things are that the vision is unique and able to summarize the organizational “attitude”. Audiences learn of the vision through such things as the logo and the communications that surround it. These should ideally express the brand’s attitude. They form an association between the symbols such as the logo and the values of the organization.
   As stated in an earlier paper, ‘Semiotics are key’:¹⁷

Symbols, logos, etc., signify certain things that form mental pictures in our mind when we interpret them. [A branding] campaign ensures that the correct pictures are formed and that incorrect or earlier ones are replaced.¹⁸ Repeated exposures reinforce meaning, which is why consistency in branding is important.

   This leads to brand equity, which is the added value that a brand endows a particular product or service. The author wrote of its consequence:¹⁹ ‘As audiences—whether they are shareholders, future customers, students or any other group—select or think of the brand more frequently, they ultimately contribute to the organization’s business performance in economic or strategic terms.’
   Online, the psychological process remains largely the same. In 2001, when the author last explored online brands,²⁰ there were more audience members specifically seeking certain companies’ products and services on the web. Other than online advertising, many web-based brands were not discovered unwittingly, unlike many that appeared on television or in print. However, there was an indication that this was changing as the web became more commonplace.

2.1 Online brands today
It is almost difficult to remember how western business was conducted without the internet and the World Wide Web. The web is often the first destination for any researcher today, for instance.
   But there is still no follow-up from the author’s earlier work on how some online brands capture the public’s consciousness and others do not. Most people discovered Google, for instance, through referrals. (At the time of the earlier paper, Google was still unknown, although the firm existed.) Blogger.com, the service that enables web users to maintain public online journals (web logs, or blogs), spread through its logo appearing on the blogs it hosted on the internet—and gained a secondary meaning as a result. Yet other brands remain online, and have done so for years, without influencing the public.
   It may be easy to say that Amazon.com, for example, was so revolutionary that by being first-in-sector, it gained mainstream media coverage. That may be so, but there are other ventures that were firsts in their sector that never received that coverage—Fashionbrat, for example, was New Zealand’s first online fashion magazine, but has become forgotten beyond this author’s own coverage. Even some of the first fashion magazines on the internet in Australia (Marie Claire, Fashion Australia) and the United States (Fashion Internet) never captured huge public attention and do not survive today. Something else must be at work.
   The author’s earlier work²¹ illustrated that there were some strategic and structural differences between successful online firms and successful offline ones.
   Vision. Visions were more fluid, so ventures that were defined too tightly failed: Pets.com and Boo.com, which admittedly had other issues, were defined narrowly and could not shift into new businesses when their original failures became apparent. At the time, the author cited one of his own properties, Lucire, which has survived as a web site and online magazine; while the other two businesses cited have changed only because of changes in their founders’ personal lives. Up to the times of their changes, they had survived well, based on a “loose” vision. By equal measure, Amazon.com survived by branching out from books to DVDs, toys and even lawn furniture.
   One issue that was apparent in 2001 was the need to have corporate citizenship. This shift toward more socially responsible firms has become stronger in the last few years, with greater awareness of “anti-brands”.²² Internet audiences tended to be more alert to these anti-brands, some preferring products from entrepreneurial, independent firms.
   Research. The earlier research also illustrated that there was a lower-cost and shallower research process, with online entrepreneurs willing to begin their ventures on instinct and relationships with other organizations and customers. Successful online firms were willing to employ modern communication techniques.
   Exposition. In communicating the brand, the organization partners with others to help it get its word out. Independent contractors, freelancers and other web sites (through links, and, today, mentions on blogs) become “advocates” for the organization. Those that began offline tended to retain the same brand. (Exceptions exist, such as Condé Nast’s Style.com, the online version of Vogue, though that can still be reached in the United States via Vogue.com.) They also tended to be global in their approach, quoting, for example, US dollar prices, despite their location, and made little use of their own country’s symbols. They also attempted to use as much offline media as possible.
   To reach the public, they relied more on below-the-line marketing, and not above-the-line. Part of the reason is budgetary, but they also managed to put out distinctive products or services. The successful firms examined tended to have a more personal and positive “attitude”. They made use of a cynicism against big business to their own advantage.
   Image. No changes to how brand image—the consequence of branding—were found between offline and online firms. In other words, all the “hard work” is done earlier, with the results of a strong brand—image, business performance and secondary meaning—unaffected by the medium.
   Two brands today may be instructive, as their growth is happening at the time of writing and are considered successes by the media. One is Flickr.com, a photograph-sharing service recently acquired by Yahoo!.Its growth has been gradual, but it shows that a company that did not have a huge marketing budget can become an integral part of the web. (At the time of writing, Flickr has 158,000,000 hits on Google, while a search for “US Supreme Court” results in 37,400,000 hits.) If it follows the pattern of Yahoo!, Google et al, which it is expected to,²³ it will become a normal way for people to share digital photography.
   A second brand, which is more fleeting, is the name of a movie. New Line’s Snakes on a Plane, starring Samuel L. Jackson, began pre-production in 2005. The name was mentioned on a blog in August 2005, and its star insisted that the film be called that, after the studio attempted to change it to a more generic Pacific Air 121. Because of its odd name, it began circulating around the web, mostly with bloggers. By the end of the year, Wired had published an article about it in its print edition,²⁴ and unauthorized cups, T-shirts and even a blog (Snakes on a Blog) had been created. Some even went so far as to say that snakes on a plane had become a common phrase akin to ‘C’est la vie’ and had input it into the Urban Dictionary, a site where colloquialisms and slang can be entered.
   The buzz was so strong that New Line went back to the studio to shoot for five extra days to satisfy fans.²⁵ A fan-designed logo even became the official logo for the film, to be released in August 2006.²⁶ One news source even believes that a parody line that appeared on a blog will make it into the film.²⁷
   Finally, it may be worth considering Google, since it was not as strong at the time of the earlier study. An upstart search engine is now the primary search engine on the internet, with 80 per cent of searches for the author’s own web site coming from it. Google has branched from its core search service into Google Earth and Gmail, neither of which would appear, on the surface, to be connected to finding information. Google Ads has become a force in the online advertising arena, and might be influential enough to branch into offline advertising.
   These three represent three very different parts of the web. Flickr is part of the much-vaunted ‘Web 2·0’, which in a layperson’s terms is a more interactive evolution of the World Wide Web where everyone has a chance to create their own dialogues, networks and web sites, with richer user experiences.²⁸ Snakes on a Plane is an intentionally fleeting choice: it was not set up as an online venture per se, and is merely reflective of a conversation taking place on the web. Google is well known and began as a single application in the time of Web 1·0, but is adding services (and has added services) such as Blogger, representative of Web 2·0.

2.2 Do they fit into the branding scheme?
2.2.1 Flickr.com
   Flickr’s offering, however, is simply stated. It is a photo-sharing service, with a difference: it allows users to tag their images, thereby ordering them under different topics. Those searching for images for tsunami, for example, will find all photos with that tag, regardless of photographer. Prior to that, photo-sharing services tended to be grouped by users, so they were shared only as far as one user was able to spread the word.
   The idea, perhaps, is not new. Del.icio.us, another Web 2·0 service, allows users to group blog posts. Professional photo libraries have been grouped using keywords. Flickr democratized not just the library, but the ability to create those keywords—tags under the latest parlance. The difference was that there was an intent about sharing, and the site is typical of the “social media” made possible by the internet.
   But on the surface it appears to be a well defined company with a single offering, enough to tempt Yahoo! into acquiring it. (Google was reportedly interested, too.) However, the original vision was not necessarily of this service.
   Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield, suffering from food poisoning, had a dream about a multi-player game ‘built around sharing photographs.’²⁹ The original Flickr site actually centred on instant messaging with some digital photography support. Early members were gamers and bloggers, with an interest in photography. Butterfield made use of Flickr’s loose vision to emphasize the strength that was emerging from its user base: users who were conversing but setting the tone using digital photography in their instant-messaging.
   That same looseness meant a certain level of experimentation, rather than formal research. Flickr noticed where its strengths were by letting users find their own feet and interests.
   Flickr does partner with others to spread the word. But rather than through formal alliances, it does this by bringing its users into the fray. Users become the editors for sorting the photographs. In effect, organization and user are on the same side, in an expression of the One principle espoused most heavily by Engeseth.³⁰
   Its strongest advocates were its users, and Yahoo!’s own interest came from an email from a ‘Flickr fanatic in Bangalore, India’.³¹ That eventually led to a $30 million deal.
   Flickr is now ranked 90th in Alexa, the service that examines where web sites are placed on the web. It can be said to have a strong image, if measured in brand equity terms: it has ever-rising brand awareness, it is positively considered by its users, there is a great deal of loyalty to the service, and its perceived quality is high. The value of its proprietary brand assets—its trademark and intellectual property—may be considered to be high, given what Yahoo! had paid for the company.
   Flickr confirms the original criteria set down by the author for a successful online brand.

2.2.2 Snakes on a Plane
   Snakes on a Plane is an unusual choice for this paper. It is not a venture, therefore it could not be said to have a vision per se. It is a movie title whose quirkiness led to an initial round of blogging, an article in Wired, and a decision by the studio to shoot for five more days given the buzz on the internet. That prompted more mainstream media coverage.
   The author first heard of Snakes on a Plane as Pacific Air 121, when Lucire was first asked to participate in the movie. The studio, New Line, states now that Pacific Air 121 was a working title used to solicit support, though there are claims that it had wanted to change the name to avoid ridicule.
   Its Google references have gone up and down since word first got out that Snakes on a Plane was the decided title. Before January 19, 2006, they rested on 96,900, rising to 461,000 by February 1. However, there was a fall from that point: 380,000 on February 5 and 176,000 on February 15. It was New Line’s decision to shoot extra footage that piqued the interest of the mainstream media, and the hits started on an upward trend: by March 25, this had risen to 880,000.
   Given there is no “organization” that is called Snakes on a Plane, it is hard to consider if it had a loose vision or not. Perhaps one could say that its producers had an open mind in considering all the attention the film had received on blogs; and that if the vision was “tight”, there would not have been a reshoot. Nevertheless, this inquiry cannot be academically rigorous.
   However, other branding aspects can be considered from the perspective of the production company. Evidently, research was informal and inexpensive: the preference for Snakes on a Plane was signalled most by bloggers, not by the studio. Samuel L. Jackson chimed in to say that the title should be retained, but that appears to be a more recent development. Listening and monitoring blogs indicates a willingness to incorporate modern technology in researching how well the Snakes on a Plane title was being received.
   The communication of the name has come from not just the studio—New Line pays lip service to it on its web site and snakesonaplanemovie.com, the official site, is barely more than a home page—but from the internet audience. Therefore, the “advocacy requirement” for a successful online venture is more than present—it could even be said now to be Snakes on a Plane’s raison d’être.
   The consequences ofall this cannot be measured at this time. Providing the interest in the venture does not wane—as it did in February—then Snakes on a Plane will enjoy a sizeable audience. Perhaps with the extra footage, it now will, because New Line was willing to show it would participate in the dialogue with its advocates. Only then can one measure brand equity—whether the brand loyalty is strong enough to be maintained until the film’s release in August.
   Snakes on a Plane could be said to be a brand, notwithstanding the absence of a vision. It symbolizes, communicates and differentiates a product. Furthermore, like Star Wars figurines and the like, the Snakes on a Plane name has extended into cups and T-shirts, even if they are not formally merchandised and endorsed by New Line.
   But only on certain aspects can one say for sure that Snakes on a Plane fulfils the earlier criteria. However, on those that can be considered at the time of writing, they are met.

2.2.3 Google
   There is less similarity between Google and the other two brands examined to date. It is the oldest venture of the three and has received the most coverage. Its name has become so ubiquitous that it is now a verb: to google means to search for something on the internet,³² specifically using the Google web search service.
   The history has been dealt with many times before, and is a familiar story: two Stanford University students began tinkering. Larry Page had a fascination for back links pointing to any given web site and built a program to compile them. The offline press began noticing Google as early as 1998. The Google culture, however, was not one of formality. New ideas emerged from Google’s staff and many were implemented, the most famous being Google News. Google never intended to be in the news-editing service, but Google News analysed stories that a web spider found and ranked them on a page of headlines. By 2000, it had introduced AdWords, a keyword-targeted advertising service. Other acquisitions illustrated that Google was not just about search. If it had a tightly defined vision, none of these developments would have been encouraged, let alone see the light of day.
   As told by Heilemann in GQ:³³

But beneath the comically clichéd trappings, Google was becoming something interesting—and powerful. Having cut deals with an array of companies, most critically Yahoo, Google was processing more than 100 million searches a day and indexing an unprecedented 1 billion Web pages. Fueling this growth was a relentlessness about innovation. [Founders] Larry [Page] and Sergey [Brin] were openly, brutally elitist when it came to hiring engineers. (Job applicants, no matter their age, had to submit their college transcripts.) In software and hardware, Google’s innovation was remarkable. Using off-the-shelf components, the company was building what was, in effect, the planet’s largest computing system. And its official mission—“to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”—extended far beyond searching the Internet.
   “I did not understand when I came to the company how broad Larry and Sergey’s vision was,” [Former Novell CEO Eric] Schmidt says. “It took me six months of talking to them to really understand it. I remember sitting with Larry, saying, ‘Tell me again what our strategy is,’ and writing it down.”
   At the same time, the boys had fostered an environment that was flamboyantly idealistic. Search was all, profit peripheral, “Don’t be evil” the corporate motto. (Asked later what the slogan meant, Schmidt would say, “Evil is what Sergey says is evil.”)
   In short, Larry and Sergey had already encoded the DNA of the company Schmidt was supposed to run. The character they instilled in Google could be summed up in three phrases: Technology matters. We make our own rules. We’ll grow up when we’re damn good and ready.
   The boys’ reality took some getting used to for Schmidt. It wasn’t just the dot-com fripperies that fazed him or the dogs trotting up and down the halls. It was the squatter in his office. (The interloper was an engineer frustrated with the bustle in his own shared quarters. After first attempting to evict him, Schmidt gave up and endured the situation for several months.) He also found himself frequently occupied with grounding Larry and Sergey’s flights of fancy. There was the time the boys suggested having Google enter the business of low-cost space launchings. And the time Larry reportedly tried to ban telephones from a new Google office building.

   In terms of research, Google relies on the inspiration of its staff. This informality has almost become legendary, shunned by some traditional business experts and praised by those who believe an entrepreneurial style should be maintained by an organization. At its first post-IPO investors’ meeting, Google was so informal its chef wound up explaining the food on the menu—a move heavily criticized by the Wall Street establishment.
   Its growth did come from people spreading the word about the search engine. The initial 1998 press came well before Google secured large financing, and was a direct result of everyday users. Given that the late 1990s and early 2000s saw a dot-com downturn, Google weathered this thanks to users spreading the word and, of course, through delivering a quality service.
   Its brand equity is strong. The initial public offering, according to CNN, indicated a worth of $24 billion in 2004.³⁴ Its brand loyalty and perceived quality are high, given that rivals have not managed to dethrone Google. Brand awareness can be little higher—Alexa ranks it at no. 2, behind Yahoo!. Google was found to be a top brand according to Brandchannel,³⁵ while branding shop Landor found it in second but predicts a Google win for 2006.³⁶
   There is some negativity relating to its more recent developments—offering Red China a censored version of its search engine, Google.cn, for instance³⁷—but not enough to signal that its image has been tarnished in a major way. Again, only recent events have indicated that Google is anything but a dynamic, entrepreneurial and almost anti-establishment firm—even if its founders are multi-billionaires who have the financial worth of the establishment.
   Google also confirms the author’s earlier work on the ingredients of a successful online brand, though it may be useful to examine the consequences of its most recent actions in Red China with Google.cn. The Chinese market itself may opt for other services should the political climate change and the people enjoy greater freedom.³⁸
   The three brands examined also illustrate that while the author’s earlier work was directed at Australian and New Zealand enterprises, the rules apply in the United States, too. Indeed, the author advances that they are universal, given the global nature of the internet and very similar online browsing habits between all cultures and creeds.

3. Secondary meaning
It may be worth, in a legal inquiry, to see if the online branding model can endow a brand with secondary meaning.
   Traditionally, brands have acquired secondary meaning through ‘advertising or massive exposure’, establishing a trademark ‘in the minds of consumers as an indication of origin from one particular source.’³⁹ Tyndall offers a fairly standard explanation:⁴⁰

A descriptive name, word, term, or mark will have achieved secondary meaning when a significant quantity of the consuming public for the goods and/or services in question understand it to refer exclusively to a particular party. …
   Courts examine the following factors in determining whether a name, word, term, or trademark has acquired secondary meaning:
   1. The length and manner of use;
   2. The nature and extent of advertising and promotion; and
   3. The efforts made in promoting a conscious connection between the name, word, term, or mark and the product, service, or business in the minds of consumers.

It is accepted that the antecedents of branding, even in an offline model, do not necessarily provide a brand with secondary meaning. This is usually due to insufficient exposure.
   In the internet world, where there is a potential global audience, do the standards for secondary meaning differ? The three examples in §2 can be said to have acquired secondary meaning: they cannot be mistaken either for anything else or having been from anyone else but their creators. They had got there without heavy (conventional) advertising or promotion; instead, it was their user bases or fans that propelled them into the minds of consumers in their market-place.
   Indeed, an inquiry into the length of use may be less applicable on the internet: Snakes on a Plane has been mentioned only since around August 2005 and has managed 880,000 hits in Google (in seven months). The internet is not the only place where timeframes are more compressed than they were many decades ago: the same pattern can be found in new product development and in the product life cycle.⁴¹
   Only the third factor quoted above may be said to have relevance in an inquiry about secondary meaning in online branding.
   One approach may be to obtain Alexa statistics of all web sites, making a judgement on each one to see where a cut-off point might lie between online brands that have acquired secondary meaning and those that have not. However, this may prove unreliable: there are offline brands that have ventured online that have a low Alexa ranking⁴² but possess secondary meaning, such as the New Zealand clothing brand Karen Walker.
   The best approach is to examine, instead, how well linked they are on the World Wide Web. As advocates will post about their favourite brands, and provide links to them—especially in the age of citizen media or social media—they will get picked up by search engines.
   Google, which ranks sites in its index through an algorithm, is best placed as an analysis tool. The algorithm includes a consideration of how many web pages link to a particular site, and even how credible those pages are. It is partly based on web traffic. Further, it is an international consideration, of consumers worldwide, although given the United States’ position as the leading nation on the internet, there will be more American viewpoints covered. It is also, fortunately, independent: no one person can influence the Google algorithm, even if some lawsuits have been started over it.
   Flickr, Snakes on a Plane and Google are all unusual words or terms, but Amazon is not. A search for Amazon does not come up with the river, but Amazon.com, the retailer, first. The first mention of the rainforest is the third site. Only two in the top ten do not refer to the retailer. Within its market, it is highly unlikely anyone would consider Amazon to relate to any other organization but Amazon.com.
   In short, if a brand has met the criteria from the author’s earlier paper, summarized here, then it can qualify as a ‘strong online brand’. If, in addition to this,⁴³ it has achieved some success in the Google index, then a future court should regard it as having acquired secondary meaning.

4. Summary
Organizations cannot expect to employ the old, offline rules of branding in an online sphere. But at the same time, they cannot expect that the old rules will apply offline, either.
   Importantly, the internet has helped identify consumers who are conscious of corporate social responsibility, and public opinion now favours entrepreneurial-style firms over establishment-style ones. These trends have not changed since the author first examined online branding in a pre-9-11 paper.
   But even more vitally, the democratization of media—the emergence of citizen media or social media—has meant that individuals have become brand advocates. Online brands find success through tapping in to their respective advocates, providing them with a “reason to spread” their names. Those that follow these requirements have found success, and some of 2006’s most talked-about brands—new, fleeting and established—have done so, by and large, perhaps unwittingly.
   This has an impact on the way secondary meaning is to be considered by the courts, changing drastically any consideration into advertising. This needs to be replaced by a consideration of “chatter” on the World Wide Web, resulting in links or a high Google ranking. Secondly, the consideration into time needs to be altered, as brands can be built on the internet at a rapid pace.
   The internet has forced such changes that few organizations can have an offline-only existence, so the processes described in this paper need to be considered in any branding exercise or inquiry into a brand’s or trademark’s secondary meaning.

Notes
   1. LL B, BCA (Hons.), MCA. CEO, Jack Yan & Associates (http://jya.net); President, JY&A Consulting (http://jya.net/ consulting).
   2. W. Olins: The New Guide to Identity. Aldershot: Gower 1995.
   3. N. Ind: Living the Brand: How to Transform Every Member of Your Organization into a Brand Champion, 2nd ed. London: Kogan Page 2004.
   4. N. Ind (ed.): Beyond Branding: How the New Values of Transparency and Integrity Are Changing the World of Brands. London: Kogan Page 2003.
   5. S. Engeseth: One: a Consumer Revolution in Business. London: Cyan Books 2006.
   6. Many of the papers discussing online brand-building are general, without creating a credible model. See, for example, the papers collected at Allaboutbranding.com.
   7. J. Yan: ‘Online branding: an antipodean experience’, in Kim, Ling, Lee and Park (eds.): Human Society and the Internet. Berlin: Springer 2001, pp. 185–202.
   8. J. Yan: ‘The attitude of identity’, Desktop, October 2000, pp. 26–31.
   9. W. Olins: The New Guide, op. cit.
   10. N. Klein: No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. New York: Picador 2000.
   11. J. Yan: ‘The attitude of identity’, op. cit.
   12. Brand managers could well become managers of consumer perceptions some day, helping guide them and feeding them back into the corporate vision. The brand could become a pluralistic “collective of perceptions”, rather than a single idea under the current model. So far, that has not happened, but it is a logical outcome of today’s trends.
   13. Op. cit.
   14. D. A. Aaker: Building Strong Brands. New York: Free Press 1991.
   15. Secondary meaning arises when consumers have come to identify a trademark with its owner over time.
   16. J. Yan: ‘Online branding’, op. cit.
   17. Ibid., at p. 186.
   18. J. Engel, R. Blackwell and P. Miniard: Consumer Behavior, 6th ed. Chicago: Dryden Press 1990.
   19. J. Yan: ‘Online branding’, op. cit., a p. 186; q.v. S. T. Cavusgil and S. Zou: ‘Marketing strategy-performance relationship: an investigation of the empirical link in export market ventures’, Journal of Marketing, vol. 58, 1994, pp. 1–21; and R. Dau and P. Thirkell: ‘The relationship between marketing orientation and export performance: further empirical evidence’, Proceedings of the 1996 Australia–New Zealand Marketing Educators’ Conference. Wellington 1996, pp. 369–86.
   20. J. Yan, ibid.
   21. Ibid., pp. 190 ff.
   22. The term is a misnomer, since anti-brands work on the same principles as brands when it comes to the branding process. However, the vision will generally include a rejection of undesirable, unethical behaviour and the embracing of principles including fair wages and the use of sustainable resources.
   23. J. McClellan: ‘Tag team’, The Guardian, February 3, 2005, <http://technology.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1403974,00.html>.
   24. E. Steuer: ‘The best worst movie of the year’, Wired, vol. 14, no. 1, January 2006, <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.01/play.html>.
   25. B. Kit: ‘Fan frenzy for “Snakes” is on a different plane’, The Hollywood Reporter, March 23, 2006, <http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ thr/film/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002234847&imw=Y>.
   26. C. Elsworth: ‘Cult film fans are bitten by Snakes on a Plane’, The Electronic Telegraph, March 25, 2006, <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml? xml=/news/2006/03/25/wsnakes25.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/03/25/ixworld.html>.
   27. B. Kit, op. cit.
   28. Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media Inc. notes the seven ingredients of a Web 2·0 firm as: (a) services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability; (b) control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them; (c) trusting users as co-developers; (d) harnessing collective intelligence; (e) leveraging the long tail through customer self-service; (f) software above the level of a single device; (g) lightweight user interfaces, development models, and business models (original emphasis). See T. O’Reilly: ‘What is Web 2·0’, O’Reilly.net, September 30, 2005, <http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/ 2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html>.
   29. E. Schonfeld: ‘The Flickrization of Yahoo’, Business 2·0, December 2005, pp. 156–65.
   30. S. Engeseth, op. cit.; and S. Engeseth: Detective Marketing: Creative Common Sense in Business, 3rd ed. Stockholm: Stefan Engeseth Publishing 2003.
   31. E. Schonfeld, op. cit.
   32. The author believes the first high-profile usage of the term was in Maid in Manhattan, a film released in 2002. See J. Yan: ‘Branding to youth: the forces at work’, address to Sales and Marketing Executives International, Auckland, New Zealand, March 11, 2003, <http://www.jackyan.com/files/stuff-030311-smeiauckland.shtml>.
   33. J. Heilemann: ‘Journey to the (revolutionary, evil-hating, cash-crazy, and possibly self-destructive) center of Google’, Men.style.com, <http://men.style.com/gq/features/full?id=content_422>.
   34. ‘Google IPO priced at $85 a share’, CNN.com, August 19, 2004, <http://edition.cnn.com/2004/BUSINESS/08/19/google.ipo/>.
   35. R. Rusch: ‘The search is over: Google wins in 2005’, Brandchannel, January 23, 2006.
   36. ‘Brands in the news: winners and losers’, USA Today, December 28, 2005, <http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/ 2005-12-29-hot-brands-chart.htm>.
   37. See, e.g. M. Dickie: ‘Google to launch censored China service’, The Financial Times, January 25, 2006, <http://news.ft.com/cms/s/0cf3fc52-8d0b-11da-9daf-0000779e2340.html>.
   38. J. Yan: ‘Yahoo! and Google kowtow—would I?’, Jack Yan: the Persuader Blog, February 11, 2006, <http://www.jackyan.com/blog/2006/02/yahoo-and-google-kowtowwould-i.html>.
   39. Black’s Law Dictionary, 5th ed. St Paul: West Publishing Co. 1979.
   40. J. M. Tyndall: ‘Secondary meaning’, United States Trademark Law Overview, 2002, <http://home.att.net/~jmtyndall/ustm/secondary.htm>.
   41. See, e.g. K. B. Clark, and S. C. Wheelwright (eds.): The Product Development Challenge: Competing through Speed, Quality, and Creativity. Boston: Harvard Business School Press 1995.
   42. J. Yan: ‘Online branding’, op. cit., pp. 197–8.
   43. The two need to be considered together as the inquiry should be whether a brand has acquired secondary meaning, not a common word or phrase which may appear in the Google index.

This paper has also appeared in CAP Online.