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MDRN Logic's Allan Gungormez: Strong Brand Personalities Trump 'Authenticity' Every Time
Focus on being recognizable, consistent and believable
Allan Gungormez believes fandoms can teach brands and agencies a thing or two about forging meaningful, lasting connections.
“I’m fascinated by what people do when they actually care about something,” says Allan. “The theories, arguments, inside jokes, collecting, obsessive attention to tiny details. There’s a lot marketing can learn from watching people who weren’t asked to participate and do it anyway.”
This belief informs his view that too many brands focus on spurious notions of “authenticity.” Instead, they should seek to meet fans where they are, adding to the experience in memorable ways that feel unforced and relatable.
Allan is currently chief strategy officer at MDRN Logic. He provides strategic oversight across a variety of disciplines and partners in both the entertainment and brand sectors. Previous tenures include MOCEAN, hi5.agency, Laundry Service and Fanscape/TheMarketingArm. He’s contributed to campaigns for PlayStation, Beats by Dre, Spotify, Netflix, Converse, Amazon, Pepsi and more.
We spent a few minutes with Allan to learn more about his background and inspirations and how algorithms are changing up the landscape for brands.
Was there an “a-ha” moment that made you realize what you wanted to do?
I didn’t grow up thinking I was going to work in advertising. But I remember being weirdly fascinated by magazine ads, and I loved commercial jingles. I still remember an unreasonable number of them. Looking back, I was always meant to end up here.
What’s your secret productivity habit?
An ungodly amount of caffeine. I’m somewhere around 700–800 milligrams every day.
What brand is doing the best job of building community right now?
Gentle Monster. They’ve built something that feels bigger than eyewear. The stores, collaborations, product design and entire visual world give people something to participate in and obsess over. It feels less like a brand trying to build a community and more like a world people have decided they want to belong to.
A newsletter, creator or account everyone should follow?
Dave Trott. He has this ability to take something complicated about creativity or strategy and make it feel painfully obvious in about three paragraphs.
Who changed the trajectory of your career, and what did they teach you?
There are likely a dozen people I could name who changed my career at different moments. Some gave me a shot before I was ready. Some taught me how to think. Some showed me what kind of leader I wanted to be, and a few definitely showed me what kind I didn’t want to be.
What’s overrated in marketing right now?
“Authenticity.” It’s become such an overused word that I’m not even sure what we mean by it anymore. Brands aren’t people. They don’t need to be authentic. They need to be recognizable, consistent and believable. I’d take a brand with a strong personality over an “authentic” one any day.
Tell us about a recent project you’re proud of.
We’ve been working with Riot Games Music on an ongoing social campaign around their virtual artists and music releases. It hasn’t felt like a traditional campaign where you make a bunch of assets, launch them and move on. We’ve been able to build around fandom, story, music and the way these communities actually behave online. Riot has characters and artists that people have genuine relationships with. So, the job isn’t really to manufacture attention. It’s figuring out how to give that attention somewhere interesting to go. That’s been a fun problem to work on.
You’ve got 2 minutes with the industry. What’s your hot take?
We still talk about social media like brands are building audiences they own. They aren’t. The follower mattered when following determined what you saw. Increasingly, algorithms decide distribution based on what earns attention at that moment. Somebody who has never heard of your company can see your post before somebody who has followed you for five years.
That changes a lot more than media strategy. It means the job isn’t accumulating the biggest audience. It’s continually making something people choose to watch, send, talk about or remember. We spent a long time trying to collect followers. The more interesting question now is whether anyone would notice if you stopped posting.
2 Minutes With is our regular interview series where we chat with creatives about their backgrounds, creative inspirations, work they admire and more. For more about 2 Minutes With, or to be considered for the series, please get in touch.
