B2C – B2A2C (Brand Hack)

Project team: Alone

Project: University and beyond
Inspiration: No laws to check manipulation of digital marketing

Goal: Creating laws for technology is a slow process whereas technology itself progresses really fast, to find a way around it

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The digital era is full of brands that are marketing themselves online (target marketing) through social media and Google adwords, etc. The law and systems for digital content has not changed significantly although the progress of technology has been exponentially accelerating. Despite the problems of digital crimes such as unethical hacking, security of user’s identity and money, consumers have no way around it. The technology industry is increasingly dealing with aspects of safety, privacy and efficiency and the question arises, if and how it is possible to make improvement to the existing systems.

In non digital marketing realm, to display their displeasure towards brands, people “hack” the marketing effort of a brand by simply damaging posters and advertisement banners. The idea came to me when I saw a torn and slashed Louis Vuitton poster at a famous square of Venice. For research, I wanted to understand how that would play out in the current digital times. Was it possible to hack the marketing effort of a brand/company digitally? Business to consumer (B2C) are transactions conducted between companies and consumers directly. Businesses are no longer directly linked with Consumers, but go through an Algorithm for digital marketing strategies (insight).

The relationship has changed to

The question led to the hypothesis “B2C goes B2A2C – The relationship between Businesses and Consumers is now ruled by Algorithms“. Is it possible to hack a brand by making algorithms visible? I created my challenge (below), then worked with the statement and altered the challenge. Redefining this challenge created a functional focussed problem to create a concept strategy and in itself, it became a strategy.

“How can Algorithms be made visible to people?” redefined as “How can people make themselves invisible to algorithms?” If people are able to do that, even for a short time, the result will be very huge.

Facebook’s sponsored ads are targeted through user’s usage algorithm, but it is not entirely visible to the user

On clicking “Why am I seeing this?”

The demographics one is a part of

An attempt to work in private space, an invisible search browser engine

The layman language used for explaining the Privacy Policy. An excerpt “We’re writing this in plain english so it’s very clear how Epic works..”

 

The product concept I created is called Antirithm. Its function is to work completely opposite to how an Algorithm works, thereby making the result of marketing effort null.

The strategy concept used is 1 to n, creating a lot duplicates of data which multiplies and this product’s purpose is to operate in opposite parallel to Algorithm, thereby creating massive entropy. It has been named Antirithm.

Hence digital hack on the Algorithm is the possible future for disrupting B2A2C systems.

Tools used: Design thinking, Book-zero to 1