Aligning Tone to Intent with TWAT Corp.

TWAT Corp. is a fictional US branding agency headed up the crass but brutally honest, ‘Chief Values Officer’, Terry Toenails.

Through the voice of this crude, cynical protagonist we are able to poke fun at the less noble activities of the marketing community.

There is much talk of ‘tone of voice’ but little discussion of the intent behind communications. Where there is a disconnect, TWAT corp is able to point to the real objectives in a way that is often ignored by those that claim to be brand strategists. Terry is crass and boastful, gleefully highlighting his real agendas as he maps out the way that this is distorted in the eventual messaging.

The marketing community is larger than it has ever been and includes groups that might not necessarily hold the knowledge, experience or skills that they aspire to master. This group are often desperately keen to highlight their credentials through various behaviours. This often includes mundane, school -level posts with obvious work methods labelled as ‘insights’, superficial discussion and ultimately in the production of self published books where they outline supposed keys to marketing success.

All of these TWAT cop posts are experimental and have a time limit applied. The development of each idea, the production of assets through to posting must take no longer than 1 hr. There is an element of professional scorn here- we will not put in more effort until this community is willing to put more effort into developing their critical thinking and required skillset.

This is quick fire, social media trash and it is treated as such. This clumsy production reflects the lack of sophistication of the antagonist and the attention span of this audience. Oscar Wilde wrote about ‘playing nicely with ideas’. It may be that it’s not appropriate to play nicely, until those within the playground learn to treat each other with less cynical disdain.

The posts are often confused and confusing, misrepresenting history, facts and attitudes, highlighting a trend for social media activity that promotes misinformed ideas across a spectrum of arts and design activity.

We do not know where this will go, what conversations it might generate but we do feel that it is important to question behaviour that is disingenuous in nature.

A SELECTION OF POSTS

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Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Graffio ArtsAugust 14, 2023social-media, marketing, culture, experimental, satire, brands