Please ask clarifying questions.

The misguided belief in the democratization of everything.

Tue, 21 May 2013 08:41:00 -0600

“… [with so many people taking photographs] there’s really no such thing as professional photographers anymore,” (though she acknowledged that there are “different skill levels”). - Marissa Mayer, Yahoo! CEO

I could go on and on about how this pathetic attitude dismisses the entire history of human civilization and art, but business school people only understand money. So, in terms they’ll understand:

I could get my brother-in-law (he has a nice camera and takes lots of pictures) to shoot my ads / editorial / etc. But with talent costs, deadlines and one chance to get it right, I will choose to pay a large sum to a professional photographer who has been training most of his/her adult life to pre-empt any possible mistakes, knows details of exposure / light / capturing a moment, and has a proven track record for results. And from a creative perspective (which she obviously doesn’t understand), a “professional” will make it better.

Despite technology’s misguided dream to disintermediate every act of creation, there’s a reason you pay people.

Moment of clarity

Wed, 08 May 2013 07:32:46 -0600

I had one of the most beautiful walks this morning and saw the world as it is for the first time in a long while. On every face, the hopes, dreams, frustrations and insecurities were so obvious. The overwhelming beauty of the human condition set on the backdrop of grand human achievement (Chicago architecture) played out like an art film in front of my eyes.

I miss that. Like so many people, I get trapped in the bullshit of day-to-day existence, my own insecurities and fears, not to mention the panic an fear of so many around me, and lose sight of the beauty all around.

In the last 24 hours, I confronted a tremendous obstacle in front of me, received validation of everything I believe in, then, was able to purge all the shit cluttering my mind. It was the first pure moment I’ve had in an extraordinarily long time.

Damn, it was beautiful. I’d kill to have that feeling for just 10 minutes every day.

For those of you not familiar with nonsensical jargon, a translation.

Tue, 07 May 2013 15:34:00 -0600

Accenture buys design firm, Fjord.

“In order to capitalize on the disruptions being created by digital, and to sustain engagement with consumers, our clients need new services and experiences that are powered by technology, analytics, mobility, and scalable marketing operations,” said Brian Whipple, global managing director of Accenture Interactive, in a statement.

Translation: “Our shit isn’t pretty enough.”

In defense of John Hegarty

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:30:05 -0600

When you’re 18, you think you know everything. When you’re old, you know you know nothing.

I very clearly remember in my youth rolling my eyes whenever I heard an “adult” say “in my day” or “kids these days”. But as you grow older, that feeling naturally begins to set in. You see change through the very limited lens of a 20-30 year range from your teenage innocence to middle-age responsibility. And the limits of that lens often cause longing for “better times”.

Unfortunately, it’s a myth. In 20-30 years, very little has changed besides you. Is it really more crowded? Or do you have less patience for lines? Are the kids louder? Or has your tolerance shrunk? Do people drive worse? Or are your reflexes and eyesight failing you?

John Hegarty of BBH has taken some flack criticizing our industry saying, “our work isn’t as good as it used to be”. Many were quick to conclude he was doing the old man thing, commenting on the difference between his youth and his adult-hood. But I think John may have been trying to make a bigger point.

If you step back from that 20-30 year difference in your own life and look at a broader historical context, you quickly realize the world doesn’t really change that much. Sure, it always seems faster and the tools we use to keep up are different. BUT, the fundamental human motivations are always the same. Civilization has pretty much taken care of the bottom rung or two of Maslow’s hierarchy (at least for the people we’re advertising to), so, what we’re left with is belonging, companionship, validation, etc.

What is a post to social media besides an attempt at validation? How many people liked the photo of your kid? Are people retweeting your joke? How many of your peers are reading your blog?

I believe this is one of the key landmarks for aging. Too many get trapped in the myopic vision of their own 20-30 year maturity cycle and simply long for the good ol’ days. And with the disruptions in technology and advertising happening so quickly, anyone who isn’t a cheerleader for the latest fad from SXSW is looked upon as such. The immediacy of everything forces everyone so much into the now we lose site of the fundamental human motivations that have been true for thousands of years.

Only a handful of people are able step outside of their own experience and see the larger human forces at work. And unfortunately, our business which is more focused on margins than ever before, has eliminated those senior people who were able to guide the next generation to see beyond themselves.

And that, I believe, was the point John was trying to make.

Does "big data" nullify "word-of-mouth"?

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 15:20:00 -0600

There’s a contradiction brewing which could completely reshape the ad industry, but somehow I feel like I’m the only one who’s noticed it.

With the explosion of social, digital agencies jumped on the “word-of-mouth” bandwagon. Problem is, it was nothing new. Look up the various writings of Ogilvy and Bernbach, for instance. Everyone’s been preaching it for 100 years. So, clients didn’t have a clear choice as to where to assign their social business. Ad agency? Digital agency? PR agency? Specialized “social” agency? Your answer is probably defined by which one you work in.

But then the latest flavor of the month came along, “big data”. Promising to micro-target people at ridiculously granular levels - “single moms with curly hair, who carry a balance on their credit cards and haven’t bought Ritz crackers in the last 6 month,” for instance. (An insane example, but I’m sure it would be a valuable to someone). Let’s call her Sally456A.

Contrary to many people’s beliefs, advertising doesn’t have a creative problem, but it does have a HUGE media problem - fragmentation of attention has made the combo of reach, frequency and efficiency nearly impossible. The budget is effectively flat, but media choices are infinite. So, big data is the hoped-for savior.

If you’ve been paying attention, you see the problem. If the product is amazing, then word of mouth will happen organically. But lets face it, there are VERY few amazing products, and they don’t do a lot of advertising and don’t need people like us. Just get a few of them in the right people’s hands and viola!

Commodity products spend with agencies to create a value proposition/positioning so people will talk about it (And yes, companies should spend more on making their products great vs. coming up with ways to make a mediocre product sound better). But, the micro creative meant for the “big data” targets isn’t capable of generating serious word of mouth. How many people like Sally456A are there? And if we change any one of the factors, we’re now speaking to Sally456B - who sees a different execution as part of a different media buy.

Super Bowl ads that play on a basic human insight that relates to “most of us,” gets the word of mouth around the water cooler Monday morning. Great for word-of-mouth, but not exactly effecient.

But will Sally456A and Sally456B have anything to talk about? And even if they did, would either of them have been one of the 1/100th of a percent who actually clicked thru?

At some point, we’re going to have to make a call. Do you want word of mouth? OR, do you want media efficiency? Not sure anyone can have both. And I think agencies will have to decide which side they specialize.

Just a thought.

Redefining luxury - the first step to saving the planet and the economy

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 23:22:00 -0600

Like a lot of people, I think about the problems of our economy and what “growth” (the supposed prescription for the economy) does to our environment. I’m entirely too old to believe in the utopian fantasies of us all living collectively on a kibbutz. And given the natural gravitational pull all civilizations have had towards income/wealth disparity, I don’t have much faith in humanity solving that equation.

But there are a couple fundamental truths/trends, that when lined up correctly, could at least get us to take a step forward.

We must help the bottom 5+ billion people on the planet get to a basic standard of living. I’m obviously not suggesting they get to the standard of living the top 2 billion have now because that would wreck the planet even faster. But I do believe it’s a fundamental moral imperative that the poorest in the world have access to clean drinking water, basic medical care, etc. To do that, they need some sort of job.

The top 2 billion, and I’m really talking about the top 10% of them, consume the vast majority of resources on the planet. Yes, I’m one of them, and so are you if you have electricity and access to the internet. And we simply need to consume less. If you don’t believe that, I’ve already lost you…and you’re probably a selfish asshole. So, there.

There are promising signs the affluent on the planet want to have a smaller footprint. Sure, there will always be some jackass who will build a 20,000 sq ft house, buy a jet bigger than he needs, etc., but it’s encouraging to see the trend among the “liberal” affluent recycling, putting solar panels on their homes, purchasing Prius/Fisker/Tesla’s, trying to buy food in-season in their region, etc.

The problem with affluence isn’t so much the things themselves, it’s the fact that the things are a mode of “keeping score.” If everyone has the $200 model, you need to the $1000 model. It’s in us. It’s in our DNA somehow - maybe 50,000 year old mating rituals or something. Again, I don’t think that’s going to change much in the near term.

However, there’s a way to manipulate that in a moderately simple way. Redefine luxury. Luxury should not be scarcity of some morally / environmentally suspect un-obtainium (fur, diamonds, platinum, etc.) Two months salary isn’t luxury for your bride to be. It’s stupidity that funds wars and child soldiers. If you’re going to spend more money than you have to, at least invest the money in something that gives some benefit back.

Luxury should be about how many jobs the thing created. It should be an affluent person’s snob appeal. “Oh, you have the $500 model, the one built by robots oversees. Mine cost $8,000 because it takes 9 guys in a workshop down the street two weeks to hand build it.” Keeping score and creating jobs.

We spend so much time trying to appeal to our better instincts. I think playing to the base ones might do us more good.

A delusion I need to let go

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 21:51:09 -0600

I was able to have dinner and drinks in NYC tonight with friends I worked with a long time ago. It was as if we hadn’t seen each other in weeks vs the years it’d actually been. As we talked, I realized these were people I’d let borrow my car, watch my son, etc. I also realized there are 50-100 people in this category. Almost all of them were from a time long ago.

After the jokes of “getting the band back together”, I had and old man’s wish for better times. The days when you genuinely cared about the people you worked with. I miss the trust, compassion and empathy of those days.

What happened to that? Is it our profit for profits sake culture? Was I just naive and younger? Who knows. But I need to get that back.

It's time.

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 12:24:35 -0600

Realistically, I only have about 9,000 days left in my life. When you start thinking about it that way, you quickly realize you’re not going to get to everything you hoped you’d do.

So, it’s time. Time to let go of everything I’m holding onto. Time to stop thinking I’ll ever get it back. Time to stop believing in the artificial sense of security. Time to do something that matters (at least to me). Time to run towards something I care about vs running away from things I hate. Time to stop killing myself trying to preserve someone else’s outdated business model. Time to skate to where the puck will be. Time to love what I do again. Time to have fun.

No specifics yet. But it’s definitely time to figure it out.

The end of growth and the fallacy of acquisition and innovation.

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 14:31:26 -0600

I’m regularly writing about what’s wrong with the ad biz, clients, etc. But as often as I occasionally think I “nailed it”, I realize there’s something bigger going on I haven’t quite put my finger on. A bigger societal/macro-economic issue driving “management” to do all kinds of stupid shit based on misguided faith in inductive reasoning.

The holding companies keep the consolidation going. The demands to meet unmeetable quarterly numbers are consistently undermining the product we make. Clients unrealistic short-term expectations of what “marketing” can achieve. The “real-time” social response efforts which attempt to compress consideration to a single instant. Etc. All of it conspires against everything we know that builds brand preference over time.

The cold stark reality is that the basis for our entire economic model - growth - is never coming back. It died in the 80s, but the financial market machinations of the 90s gave us a last-ditch (albeit delusional) respite. But none of us want to accept it. We don’t know how. Growth is fundamentally the reason corporations take on debt - “we can grow our way out of it”. But the old methods of taking on debt to build a new manufacturing facility, enhancing distribution, etc. don’t work anymore. The vast majority of products in the world have reached their saturation points in distribution, consumer wallet share (I can’t consume any more Diet Coke than I already do), etc. And sadly, these are the products we’re asked to advertise.

That would be bad enough, but our lack of acceptance of the end of growth, leads many back to a LOT of flawed business school reasoning. I’m terrified by the number of “businessmen” who still wholeheartedly buy into the flawed beliefs of Michael Porter / The Monitor Group. In fact, these beliefs creep into our marketing briefs with unacceptable frequency. Wars over shelf space at retail, exclusive distribution agreements, and “brand positioning”, we’re still tasked with the outdated goals in building sustainable barriers to competition. This has never worked over any significant amount of time, and yet, there they are.

Clients continue to invest in these “sustainable barriers” vs simply making their products better. And who better to tell them what’s wrong with their products than their agencies. We’ve sat through a million focus groups. We know what’s wrong. We’re consistently working around their flaws. We know the emperor has no clothes, but it’s against our business model to tell him.

And it’s not just clients, agency holding companies have wholeheartedly embraced the notion. The belief in talent acquisition, acquisition of digital shops, etc. Mistakenly believing that these acquisitions will create some sort of sustainable barrier against competitors. Problem is, the word sustainable. It can’t be sustained for any amount of time. Human talent (particularly creative) is the most fluid thing in the system. Yet, these beliefs continue and drive ridiculous expectations for growth. In a flat or declining business, four holding companies hold 90% of all marketing dollars, it’s mathematically impossible for all to grow at double digit rates (or any of them for any sustained period of time). They’re taking on debt to make acquisitions mistakenly believing it’ll fuel growth. It’s nothing more than a short-term accounting trick to hide the fact that organic growth is never going back to double-digits. Ever.

Growth is dead. So, we fall back on outdated and flawed business models of acquiring sustainable barriers to competition.

A handful of corporate leaders who’ve seen the writing on the wall (though never speak it’s name in public) have now put their faith in a new false God - innovation. Corporations across the world are investing in their own “innovation labs”. If it were genuine, there might be some sort of hope, but if you look at the mandates for these groups and the products coming out of them (“Oooh, there’s cheese IN the crust.”), you quickly realize that all they’re trying to do is build up short-term barriers to entry for their competition. Nothing more.

Your brand is an idea - not the products you sell.

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 10:54:04 -0600

There’s not a new idea in here, but it’s one adland seems to have forgotten. We and our clients often get trapped in the bubble and get so lost in the details of product benefits/claims we lose sight of what brands actually are. I’ve written about this before, that simple idea consumers have in their heads when making purchase decisions.

Corporations are sitting on tons of cash, desperate for innovation. But what they’re asking for, and what their agencies are trapped delivering (due to outdated business models) is still just an ad about products. Only when we step back, free ourselves from product claims no consumer will ever remember, dig for the soul of the brand, and ask the questions our clients don’t think to ask, can we actually bring the innovation forward.

I’ve been reminded of this due to a couple recent projects. One took almost nine months to get a client to see that they were so much bigger (and actually more important to their consumers) than their current product. Now, the work about to launch is extraordinary. Another, was due to the simplicity of coming up with ideas once a client got to the soul of their brand - I was walking two blocks with the client and made up three ideas.

More of this, please.

Eleven years ago, I got a lesson in perspective. I was living in...

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 08:33:14 -0600

Eleven years ago, I got a lesson in perspective.

I was living in Battery Park in lower Manhattan. I was on the street, just two blocks away, and saw some horrible things you don’t need in your head. Afterwards, it was almost three months before we could get back to our apartment.

I lost neighbors. I lost my neighborhood. And I lost my delusional sense of having control over my life.

Like a lot Americans, particularly those who were in the immediate vicinity, I had to deal with some level of post-traumatic stress disorder. But a few months later, something interesting happened. America went off on a revenge-fueled jingoistic rant, and I had found some perspective.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a horrific day. And we should do everything in our power to prevent anything like it from happening again.

But, 3000 Americans also died of heart disease that day - just like every day. 3000 Americans died in automobile accidents that month - just like every month. The attacks that day, though tragic, weren’t an “existential-level” event. America will go on. The human race will go on.

We have to recognize that we’re living in the least violent time in the history of humanity. And to treasure the opportunities that gives us every single day.

It helped me.

*Photo above was the view from my apartment

Accept that you don't know what you're doing and embrace the chaos.

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 20:28:00 -0600

None of us know where the world is going. Take the disruptions going on in the entertainment and advertising business, then layer on the constant changing digital landscape and your best bet is to find something you believe in and ride it out. I always say I walk in every morning with no idea what I’m doing, but I consistently seem to be able to figure out today by around 2:30. The only way to move forward is with open arms into the chaos and embrace the change coming at us

That’s what’s wrong with the advertising business now. All energy is focused on revenue and business-model preservation. But what they’re trying to preserve is a diminishing-return commodity. We’ve crushed margins. Commited to unrealistic timelines. Etc. Which, as a creative, is quite painful. I’m judged on “good work” which by definition means something which connects viscerally in a “human” way. But in most cases, that’s in direct opposition to the business model of the industry I’m in. (A very scary realization.)

The only constant in all of this is our collective human-ness. All the shit around us changes, but 50,000 years of evolution has us pretty hardwired.

The music business has been completely upended. Except for a handful of artists, record sales are a dramatically diminishing form of revenue. But it’s a lot more than changes in distribution. Digital has taken all the self-identification out of the equation for consumers. $.99 for a track, it’s so cheap to “try on” anything. Who commits and buys the entire album anymore? When I was a kid, saying you owned London Calling was enough to differentiate you. You had to beg your parents for two weeks to get that relatively expensive piece of vinyl - which you’d display proudly in your room. But now, the tribal badge value of owning music is gone.

But that’s what makes the concert business interesting. Ticket prices are at an all-time high. The disposability of the track has made the live event so much more important. Not just for artist revenue, but for the fans. It’s their only real way to commit/connect/share. The live show is all we have left (well, there’s the ringtone, the t-shirts, etc). Watch the film PressPausePlay for a more in-depth dissection. As we’ve become more isolated with our iPods on the train, locked in our cars in the ‘burbs, staring at computer screens all day, that collective/shared experience has become the thing that defines us.

We’ve dehumanized/commoditized so many things, we’re all subconsciously looking for those DNA-based “identify and celebrate with my tribe” types of experiences.

We’re seeing this with movies. Sure, I have a billion of them on my miscellaneous connected devices and they’re disposable. BUT, opening weekend for The Avengers who has my favorite stars in it, I check into the movie on Foursquare, share my thoughts and opinions on Twitter and Facebook. It’s yet another shared commitment event. Same with television. I can say I’m a fan of Glee, but if I’m tweeting #glee during the telecast, participating in polls on Facebook, etc., that’s showing my commitment, my fan-ness, and some sort of shared experience.

Brands have to follow the same path, particularly in the digital space. There are 999 channels and more inventory on the web than anyone can possibly sell. The old models of awareness, breaking through, etc. simply don’t apply anymore. We have to get people to identify and show their “fan loyalty” in the same way the music business does. Participating in the collective “events.” You can’t just “Like” Nike. You have to commit to wear them and buy the t-shirt. Participate in Nike+. Share your passion via social.

Selling the product is one thing, getting consumers to care and commit as fans and join the experience is quite another. But the ad business (clients and agencies) are still focusing on trying to sell singles and albums.

The Greatest Advertising Metaphor Ever....

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 21:21:00 -0600

“I once read about five monkeys that were placed in a room with a banana at the top of a set of stairs. As one monkey attempted to climb the stairs, all of the monkeys were sprayed with jets of cold water. A second monkey made an attempt and again the monkeys were sprayed. No more monkeys attempted to climb the stairs. One of the monkeys was then removed from the room and replaced with a new monkey. New monkey saw the banana and started to climb the stairs but to its surprise, it was attacked by the other monkeys. Another of the original monkeys was replaced and the newcomer was also attacked when he attempted to climb the stairs. The previous newcomer took part in the punishment with enthusiasm. Replacing a third original monkey with a new one, it headed for the stairs and was attacked as well. Half of the monkeys that attacked him had no idea why. After replacing the fourth and fifth original monkeys, none had ever been sprayed with cold water but all stayed the fuck away from the stairs. Being here longer than me doesn’t automatically make your adherence to a rule, or the rule itself, right. It makes you the fifth replacement monkey. The one with the weird red arse and the first to point and screech when anyone approaches the stairs. I would be the sixth monkey, at home in bed trying to come up with a viable excuse not to spend another fruitless day locked in a room with five neurotic monkeys.” - David Thorn

Best. Email. Ever. Just received this via anonymous email server...

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 21:19:54 -0600

Best. Email. Ever. Just received this via anonymous email server in Amsterdam (those still exist?) so I have no idea where it came from. But some geek somewhere turned a running joke I’ve had into a football-pool-style chart about my future. Whoever you are, this is awesome. Its going in my door tomorrow. And really? Euvetica? Interesting type choice.

Why the path to great advertising is becoming impossible to navigate...

Tue, 29 May 2012 08:33:44 -0600

There’s a deep-seeded angst amongst creatives. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t feeling it too. A sense of sensing something. Something seemingly insurmountable.

Over last few years, I’ve watched countless colleagues leave the business. They go to a startup, take client-side jobs, and go to Apple, Google or Facebook. Some just say, “fuck it.” Based on the proliferation of articles in my Twitter circle, there seems to be a pretty universal theme - advertising’s not worth it anymore. Bernbach’s resignation letter shows up every couple weeks. Linds Redding’s bit in the SF Egoist was a big one. The article itself was insightful and damning. Then, the byline at the end…devastating. I lost an entire afternoon asking, “what the hell am I doing?”

George Parker blames the holding companies, which is part of it. Many more blame the always-on speed of digital. The quarterly desire for financial efficiency combined with instant measurement leave little room for considered thought. It doesn’t help that CMOs are job-hopping every couple years - the new one always wants to blow things up. But like everything creatives do, and everything that resonates with consumers, there’s something deeper going on in our subconscious. And those subconscious thoughts are what matter.

It’s pretty much proven most people don’t think much about brands. Our beloved “differentiation” doesn’t register with consumers at all. Consumer decisions aren’t based on the rational stuff we put in ads. Sure, a crazy Black Friday door-buster might get attention, but it won’t do anything for your brand. The purchase decisions are subconscious, particularly on commodity products - and let’s face it, what hasn’t been commoditized? How often do you think about glass cleaner? You don’t. But somehow, when you go to the store, something deep in your brain kicks in and you pick the one you irrationally think is better. A few seconds every few months is about all the thought you’ll ever give to glass cleaner. But there’s something there.

That thing in the back of your mind, yeah, that’s the brand. Good brands decide what they are and demonstrate it consistently for years. It’s not how it’s “new and improved.” It’s not about the great new package. It’s not about any of that stuff. It’s a vague notion of what a brand stands for which has been developing for years in your subconscious. You’ve never actually thought about it.

Where does that work come from? It also comes from a subconscious place. Great ads, the ones people talk about, are never rational. (If you can name one great ad that did well in testing, I’m happy to learn.) They tap into something deep in our collective human-ness.

Einstein once said, “Creativity comes from waste.” And there’s something to that. It’s a deeply inefficient process - because it has to be. You take a bunch of rational input, then after banging on it for a while, going down lots of dead ends, you stop thinking about it for a bit, something snaps in your subconscious, and there it is. You connect your brands purpose with scene you saw in a movie. A product innovation reminds you of a turn of phrase from your grandmother. Some irrational ethereal connection. (I could go on for days, but a considerably better written version is Jonah Lehrer’s book Imagine: How Creativity Works.) But there’s the rub, we’ve pushed efficiency to the point where there’s no time for input.

There’s that old joke, “If you can’t come in on Saturday, don’t bother coming in on Sunday.” We’ve never worked a 40 hour week. But we used to have more control over our time. If you were stuck, you’d go to a movie in the middle of the day. Or go for a long walk. Or, we could put it aside for a day or two and work on something else to clear our heads. Those days are long gone. We sit in 8 hours of meetings a day. Then, somehow, have to make stuff after hours all in the name of productivity. But the belief that working more hours leads to more productivity has been repeatedly proven false. We’ve squeezed efficiency on creative development to the point where there’s simply no way to sustainably come up with ideas. No time for input. No time to push it off to the subconscious. No time to step back and look at it.

Put that all together and you start getting at that thing bugging us. The immediacy of digital kills time to dig into those subconscious thoughts that’ll resonate with consumers. The margin pressures of public companies create additional pressures so we never have time to really get at it. We end up regurgitating the rational bullet-pointed list in the brief. And once you finally spend a year or two cranking stuff out, and starting feeling comfortable with the brand voice on a subconscious level, a new CMO comes in (or the account goes into review) and it starts all over again.

A sense of sensing…

And now I have to make people completely rethink 15+ years of behavior

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 18:49:16 -0600

That simple Zima banner ad on Hotwired.com so long ago, oh, the mess you left behind.

The first banners were little more than that - just a static image on a web page. Then, the animated GIF came along. First, we did the “Burma Shave” thing of three or four frames of copy, quickly learning best practices of keeping the logo and CTA on every frame to maintain our 10% click-thru rates (and no, that’s not a typo, it used to happen all the time).

Then the magic of Flash came along. Problem is, we didn’t adapt much. The IAB had standardized things and Flash banners became little more than slicker animated GIFs. Sure, they could expand, hold video, etc. But for the most part, they were still little animated GIF stories executed better.

Now, you’re lucky if you get .02% click thru. We’ve trained consumers that clicking on them often take you to a place you’d rather not be. It’s even worse for mobile banners ‘cos you tend to leave the app you’re in to launch god-only-knows-what. So, we simply avoid them.

The simultaneous arrival of tablets and HTML5 changes everything. Flash doesn’t work on the iPad, and HTML5 can make anything (including a 300x250 space) an experience better than most full-blown sites. We’ve seen the cool scrolly stuff, the parallax stuff, etc. But, we’ve trained consumers to not interact for the reasons mentioned above. And that’s going to be our challenge.

We can now do so much more than before. We can create rich experiences. We’re effectively back in the experiential micro-site business again - the micro-micro-site. But undoing all our past sins will take a while.

Machine Readable World - How the uncanny valley just might save civilization.

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 11:56:42 -0600

If you’ve followed the miscellaneous crap I write about, you’ll know I’m fascinated with how technology interfaces with the evolutionary motivations baked into our DNA. And this is no different.

One of the earliest observations I had as a kid was the natural tendency we have to see faces in randomness. We see faces in clouds. In the patterns in carpet. In acoustical tile ceilings. It’s part of being human. Because virtually everything that could be a predator has two eyes, a nose and a mouth (there’s a Star Trek Next Generation episode that explains that one). The ability to see the lion’s face in the jungle was an evolutionary advantage passed on to all of us. If you’re ancestors didn’t have this basic skill, you wouldn’t be here. Survival traits passed down. Simple.

And that’s the way it was for the first 45,000 of the 50,000 years of humanity.

But, then civilization of the last few thousand years began to mess this up. The domestication of animals and development of agriculture gave us something to protect from others. We built villages, formed tribes, and eventually kingdoms and countries to protect/defend what we had. Our perception skills had to be honed to recognize people who were different from us, not part of our tribe. Skin color, facial features, and eventually flags became what defined friend or foe.This unleashed one of the most powerful forces (good and bad) in human history, cooperation for the tribe. Monuments have been built, wars fought, etc.

But, now it’s down to what brand of shoes you wear. For us to rally around something for the benefit of humanity, we have to broaden our sense of tribe back to the “human vs predator” level. And despite the hard-wiring, there is no evolutionary advantage anymore to identify simply as “human”. One of the biggest drivers of modern consumer culture is based on division. “Segmentation” of the modern marketing culture has sliced and diced us to ridiculous proportions. Our us vs them DNA is no longer about humans vs predators, but the silliness of jocks vs geeks, red vs blue, christian vs islam, goths vs metal-heads.

However, a new “threat” has appeared and its cognitive abilities are way beyond ours. The new “machine-readable world” is changing things. Computers are reading all the text on the internet and analyzing. They can understand human speech. With IBM’s stunt on Jeopardy, it’s apparent they can interpret some pretty nuanced stuff. And, they can see, recognize people, cars, microbes, etc. They understand our world, but we (the vast majority anyway) don’t understand theirs.

We’ve seen how people react to advanced Japanese robots and the freak out over the all-knowing world of big data. Will the uncanny valley take us to a new level of perception? Will we begin to notice the constantly observing world around us, yet most of us don’t understand? If so, will we see it as an evolutionary threat?

I’m not afraid of technology, I’m what’s considered the “digital elite”. BUT, knowing what I know about big data, location, databases, etc., I’m probably more consciously aware of what’s going on around me. And it does make me uneasy. Will everyone else begin to sense it? If so, could that shared unease be the thing which allows us to see all of humanity as part of one tribe again?

Noticed this couple hadn’t looked at each other for the...

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 18:44:03 -0600

Noticed this couple hadn’t looked at each other for the entire time we were at the restaurant. So, I just sat my phone on the counter and started filming. Wonder if they really hate each other, or are just oblivious…

Big data is here, and only creatives can save us from what many want to do with it.

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 15:07:36 -0600

When desktop publishing arrived on every PC, there was talk of the death of graphic design. The templates came pre-loaded on your machine so “anyone can do it.” Yet, 20 years later, graphic designers are more in-demand than ever before. Today, rumblings are beginning about how Big Data is going to reduce the importance of creative people.

Unless you’ve been in a cave, you’ve been hearing about the impact of Big Data. How it’s going to drive efficiency, personalization, etc. There have been numerous articles, including this one from Steve Lohr at the NYTimes. There are quotes like, “decisions will increasingly be based on data and analysis rather than on experience and intuition.” And corporations are eating it up. They see efficiencies in their media buys. Massive levels of personalization in their CRM programs. And there seems to be a misguided belief that all of this will somehow automate itself someday.

Some commentators have started to look at the darker side. Joseph Turow’s written a book about the lack of transparency of Big data, there’s a great excerpt from his Atlantic article here. Turow is looking at how consumers have no idea this is being done to them, how they have no control over it, etc. But the much more dangerous issue is the impending data discrimination that’s already begun. Content providers are , “performing a highly controversial form of social profiling and discrimination by customizing our media content on the basis of marketing reputations we don’t even know we have.” For example, the Google results I get are different than yours, even though we may have typed the same thing into the search box. As a friend of mine stated, “the web is a lot smaller to me now.”

And that is my biggest worry. As optimization progresses with content farms cranking out articles and videos targeted specifically to you, and “news” sites “optimize” which articles you see, we’re doing more than eliminating the serendipity of discovering something you didn’t know you were interested in, we’re effectively destroying everything that could be counted as a shared culture.

The fragmentation of media which started with cable and is now dramatically accelerating with big data optimization, is dividing us even more. The most obvious example is the red-state / blue-state divide in the US. I’m never forced to confront an opinion that I don’t agree with. I can limit my television to only networks and shows that reinforce my beliefs. I choose which sites to visit to get my “news”, and even on those sites, they’re customizing content to only show me things I believe. But politics is only the beginning. Virtually everything that could remotely be defined as “culture” is being sliced and diced so that you’re never challenged with anything new or unknown.

When homogeny of mass culture set in, we could always rely on the power of the internet to put something new, interesting and/or challenging in front of us. But we’re rushing headfirst to use the technology of the internet to effectively undermine its inherent promise. The genie is out of the bottle. It can’t be put back. However, I do believe there is hope.

In the midst of all this technology and optimization, there has also been dramatic rise in interest in behavioral economics. Mass awareness began with Freakonomics, which I worried was a one-off. But in virtually every airport, you can now find a copy of “Thinking Fast and Slow.” I apologize for the shorthand, but we’ve finally begun to realize that the vast majority of purchasing decisions are wildly irrational, and often emotional in nature. At the end of the day, human beings are wonderfully flawed. We can throw all the logical reasons in the world at them about why our product is best, but they’ll still make decisions based on some sort of short-cut emotional response.

There is going to be a HUGE amount of pressure to simply fill in the matrix of big data customization. And the easiest thing for a creative is to simply do what’s asked of us. So, there is the trick. Despite all the logical marketing machines we build for media efficiency, creatives still have to tap into the wildly wonderfully irrational things that make us human beings. We have so much more power in that which connects us vs. all the ways big data wants to divide us. The creatives (and agencies) that figure out how to leverage the shared humanity on top of the big data efficiency will rule the day.

Advertising: We are the 2-5%.

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 22:18:00 -0600

A couple people asked me why the Chrysler “Halftime in America” was my favorite SB spot. Well, here goes…

The median household income in America is still under $50k. AND, the average car on the road is now over 10 years old. If you’re in that household, you’ve also experience this economy first-hand. Either you, or someone in your close circle, has been unemployed for an extended amount of time. Your car’s paid for, and you may even have a few grand put away for a down payment. BUT, what do you do?

You can trade in that paid-off car and some cash and get a 4-year-old Camry or Accord. OR, you can buy a new Jeep/Chrysler/Dodge with a five year commitment. Are you that sure of your job?

The only way in hell you’re gonna buy that new car is if you believe that America (and American cars, by default) is poised for a comeback. ‘Cos if you don’t in your heart of hearts believe “Fuck yeah, America”, you’re gonna go for the used Camry.

And after that spot, I think we all said (even if it was in the back of your mind), “Fuck yeah, America.”