one of the biggest challenges and opportunities we face is bringing to life our collective understanding of people in meaningful and engaging ways. beyond the demographic, beyond the observation or statistic, beyond the quote or the screen-grab ...there lies insight and understanding of people (I nearly typed consumer there) that inspires, influences and dictates the best of what we do.
its awesome then to see such interesting work emerging from the boys at BAMM, who sent me a note describing what they'd done for Nokia in Africa...
"As part of an international project for Nokia we looked at bonding behaviours in different cities across Africa, Asia and Europe. The team spent a week with a middle-class family in Lagos. We observed, interviewed, photographed and filmed Amaka with her extended family. We were guests at the naming ceremony for her eight-day old baby, which gave us better insights into how her community bonds."
in a world where more information about more people is more available all the time, experts who can go somewhere, experience a place in time and the people within it, and return with valuable, genuine and actionable insights about what they saw and heard becomes increasingly valuable. whenever I see what these boys do I redouble my own efforts to go beyond the observations and stats and mine for myself the insights that make our communications as meaningful and effective as they deserve to be. brilliant stuff.
you can see the video of what BAMM did for Nokia here
yesterday Mediatel held their annual Media Playground and Mediation popped along for the afternoon seminar discussing Digital Broadcast. it's a broad topic area, covering emerging technologies, content, changing consumer behaviours and rapidly evolving business models. one thing is clear - we have a lot more questions than we have answers.
it was apparent that we're entering an age of complexity in how content is created, deployed and consumed. no one solution will predominate. Bruce Daisley - Agency Leader at YouTube - observed that it's less about the platform, and referred to a 'long tail' of competitors. that content rules, was echoed by the panel...
Rhys McLachlan - head of implementational TV at MediaCom - noted that this is, ultimately, what consumers will resolutely follow. this was echoed by Jon Mitchell of Spotify who suggested that Hulu - recently down 3% - is plateauing. they have (as opposed to Spotify) a limited amount of content, to thrive in a digital content economy you need ubiquity of supply.
and where eyeballs go commercial impacts follow right? not necessarily. McLachlan, in one of several soap-box moments, commented that "clients are increasingly risk adverse" and that "it's hard to invest in channels that are unproven. there's an absence of valid metrics out there ... we are retreating to rather than flighting to quality. people who want a share of my broadcast budget aren't making a strong enough case for their platforms"
McLachlan went on to comment that "we're complicit in perpetuating a trading model that was created in the 1950s ... we need to move on from this legacy model, a model that's been broken for some time".
it occurred to me that it's not the only model that's broken. what so often get's lost in the maelstrom of how to aggregate and commercialise impacts in the new world of digital broadcast are the opportunities to engage audiences beyond the spot. the spot is important and will not vanish into history anytime soon, indeed Daisley noted that YouTube's best performing ad (Gorilla of course) out-viewed their best performing piece of longer-form content (Wallace and Gromit if you're interested) by a ratio of forty toone "YouTube", he said, "is empirical evidence that great ads work".
but the spot ad no longer sits alone in the communications toolbox, and to approach commercialising long-form on-demand content by interrupting with ads really does defy belief. interruption in a on-demand world is at best a contradiction in terms and at worst a failure to grasp the brilliant opportunities that on-demand offers the brands (and for that matter agencies) willing to embrace it...
because if anything is true as we negotiate the future of media and communications it is this; that brands and brand communications have - like everything else - to be in demand.
a beautifully sunny idea for what will hopefully be a beautifully sunny weekend... welcome to the Disposable Memory Project, which has the simple aim of telling the stories of cameras left in random places around the world. the idea is that people will pick them up, take a few photos and pass them on, with the cameras and the photos they hold eventually returning home.
it's a simple, elegant idea for an age when experiences have higher value than things, when social aggregation can be virtual and where narratives aren't predetermined or linear. I don't know if a brand is behind this, but I bet plenty wish they were.
at the heart of this idea are jeopardy and mystery. if I leave a camera somewhere will it be found? by whom? what photos will they take and will those photos make it home? there are no guarantees; something that feels exciting and different in a world - and marketing landscape - where amazing solutions vie for our attention and unbeatable answers clamour for our questions.
Mediation finds it more than a little comforting that in an on-demand world where we expect to be able to get whatever we want whenever we want it, some things aren't set in stone. I intend to join the project and set me own camera on it's way. I look forward to the uncertainty of its fate, and meeting - through shared virtual experience - some other people on the way.
Monsters vs Aliens; Hollywood's latest digital offering
Pearl & Dean are hosting their first annual Film Festival today... think presentations interrupted by movies (or vice versa depending on your attitude). Mediation popped along this morning and heard a couple of cracking presentations.
the first - Peter Buckingham from the UK Film Council - outlined the Council's view of cinema's future. he observed that whilst "cinema has stubbornly maintained its analogue status", digital technologies would herald a new "platinum age" for the industry. its predicted (by Charlotte Jones of Screen Digest) that there will be 250 x 3D cinemas in the UK by 2010, up from the 172 on which Monsters vs Aliens (above) launched earlier this month. a good job too, considering Jerry Katzenberg - who knows a thing or two - has apparently predicted that within 5-7 years all movies will be 3D.
but 3D is only one aspect of cinema's revolution in the making: archive films are proving popular, as are "more obscure films" such as Man on Wire, indeed as Buckingham noted, "the big alternative content success [in cinema] is live Opera". add to this live sport in 3D (as being trialled by Sky) and the concept as cinema-as-studio (broadcasting the Shine a Light premiere to other cinemas for example) and you get an idea of where cinema could be heading.
at the heart of the UK Film Council's digital cinema vision is community; cinema "in the hands of local audiences", with cinema as "facilitator as well as curator". Buckingham cited locally produced UGC from schools and collages, Nollywood movies making it big in East London, and broadcasting of events such as Royal Society lectures as further evidence of this "democratisation of culture".
unfortunately talk moved on to brands, where the vision is apparently a little more limited in its scope. producer Phil Streather observed that brands had the opportunity to make ads that made full use of the 3D 'punch'. why is it that we can't attach some of the "platinum age" thinking to brands?
why settle for ads? if the vision and hope is that cinemas become locally-centric centres of culture and content, why are we slapping the outdated and outmoded format of an ad on the front of them. cinema's opportunity is the same for brands... how can we use these screens as platforms for our points of view on the world? what could we create and curate for these screens that say more about us than 30" of stuff with an awareness aim.
we're better than this, and if the promise that digital cinema offers is realised, audiences will expect better; platinum brand work for a platinum channel.
Free TV : Ustream
the idea that there will ever again be a status quo in media planning has surely got to be abandoned. technology and interaction are now evolving at such a pace that the challenge is not just how best to use what's out there but firstly to know what's out there.
he's not alone. loads of people are doing it. assuming you have a good enough phone (current limiting factor but this will change), you can upload your clips direct to your own broadcast stream. better than that - if you see something cool you can start live broadcasting it - there and then - from your phone to your mates, or whoever...
I never thought I'd say this, but I guess we all have a thing or one to learn from P Diddy. if he can do it why aren't brands? how often are we and the clients we work with creating reasons and incentives for people to engage there and then with experiences that are happening right now in the real world?
it's difficult, but the reality is that we're moving to a world of video being everywhere always. that's a lot of competition for our precious advertising space. I for one - no matter how much I sometimes feel I have yet to learn - want to understand this now... cos the brands that get this sooner rather than later may be the ones that don't just thrive, but survive, in a digital world where any status quo no longer and will never exist.
the rather lovely above video - by jabi - neatly sums up the collective dilemma of how brands, marketers and, specifically, agencies address the challenge of social media. the issue was the topic of discussion last night at the IPA 44 Club's inaugural event of 2009:
The future of advertising in a networked society. quite the session it was... here's the gist:
part one - report findings
social media = the online tools and platforms people use to share information, thoughts, opinions, content etc
problems is that brands are "crashing the party rather than hosting it" (Russell Davies)
many brands are experimenting but not getting traction in the area
we need a model of comms that reflects 'ME' as opposed to 'brand'
a model that's about conversation and participation rather than interruption and engagement
which succeeded in concentrating the feeds into and out of it's online space (64% of upstream and 84% of downstream feeds came from 10 sites each)
planning social media should focus on targeting the few, that demonstrate: (1) expansiveness (propensity to chatter), (2) popularity (propensity to filter and target) and (3) reciprocity (likelihood to act)
network size is predictable, as is network flow, as is circulation
part two - agency survey
brands in a socially-networked world are more responsible for creating and disseminating the right information - brands should be more discretionary in what they produce [Mediation found this less than substantiated and at odds with Clay Shirky's comments at the MGEITF this year on filtering in a content-abundant world being after the fact, ie produce then allow the network to filter]
the way to reward brand advocates is not through financial incentive
the industry disagrees on two areas: (1) that advertising principles are the same in a networked society and (2) that social media behaves in a fundamentally new way
it is believed that most revenue is up for grabs in content creation, then data & insight, then market research & insight gathering (amongst others)
these new revenue streams represent £11bn of additional revenue opportunity, with another £5bn potentially
...which would be (exactly!) enough to meet the £16bn shortfall in industry revenues by 2016 predicted by the IPA's Future of Advertising and Agencies report of two years ago (£16bn = the difference between the IPA's 'Central' and 'Consumer' Scenarios)
part three - the discussion
I won't bullet this because it's getting late and you had to be there, but this was the better part of the evening with discussion ranging between philosophy of brands in a social media space to the (inevitable) measurement and accountability of such activity.
for me a kind of rose-tinted consensus was reached; consensus that went along the lines of:
marketing has always been about great social networking, the challenge is the same - getting the right content in the right place, its just that...
(1) people power is more potent (we have 500 networked connections not 50 disparate ones) and (2) we need to react to the context our message are in rather than control the context our messages are in
it's brilliant because we can react to real people in real time in the context of a real conversations
social media isn't a bolt on, it has to be woven into every brand touchpoint
brands need to behave differently, and understand that their relationship with consumers is - to consumers - much less important than consumers' relationships with other consumers
so in a nutshell social media is great because it's as old as the hills, better than the disruption model, measurable ...and there's a freak-off big commercial opportunity for the brands and agencies that get it right.
I just don't think that it' that easy. our industry is woefully
unprepared for the future. there's some brilliant thinking and debate
going on, but the commercial models, joined-up industry measurement
systems, and marketing best practice principles - from a 'what works'
as opposed to a 'self-regulatory' point of view - just aren't moving
fast enough.
most importantly, not enough consideration was given
to the integration of broadcast and social media. they're not going to
exist in isolation and broadcast media is going nowhere. iTunes didn't
kill CDs and Amazon didn't kill Waterstones. social media certainly
won't kill mainstream broadcast media; the same mainstream broadcast
media that in the vast majority of instances provides social media
users with the content they comment on, pass on, or reappropriate for
their own ends.
the other interesting question is how the
behaviour of digital natives will evolve... we're familiar with the
media 'hubs' that are the current crop of adolescent's bedrooms;
they're multi-tasking away across ten devices and infinite bits of
content. but what happens when they grow-up? how much of their social
media behaviour will they take with them into adulthood and how much
will they replace with the aggregated broadcast consumption of their
parents?
we live in interesting times; and I guess we wouldn't have it any other way.
one last word, I urge you to read JVW's post
about the event and specifically his debate on how the IPA can use social media
to get their social media report into more people's hands whilst not
impacting on revenues. a pleasure and a joy.
Keith Arem's graphic novel Ascend, for which a game is currently in development
it's now been over two years since Faris bought transmedia planning to our attention in his post of the same name on TIGS. the theory has been well expounded in the period since then; with a post by Jason Oke at Leo Burnett Toronto which explored the TP concept within the context of a single ad quickly kicking things off.
I'm sure that the idea of TP has cropped up in most media, comms and ad agencies by now... it certainly has in Mediation's. but we've yet to see - as far as I can make out - a significant campaign emerge based on TP principles. the same is actually true of the entertainment industry; in an interview with Games TM magazine(edition 75), Henry Jenkins - the Godfather of TP - concedes that truly persuasive examples have yet to arrive.
they're doing better than us though. transmedia planning should be everywhere by now. the theory is familiar and is not only relatively unchallenged, but is offers the very solution to some of the biggest marketing challenges of the moment. of its many advantages, the primary benefit has to be the extent to which it pays back on the time taken to consume it. Jenkins goes on to observe that "regardless of the commercial motives behind it, transmedia entertainment done well also provides rewards for fans".
so why is getting the theory working in practice so difficult? here's some starters for ten...
firstly, the financial investment required. the reason the best examples of TM largely remain in the entertainment arena (the Matrix, Cloverfield, Heroes, Lost etc) because it takes a significant chunk of investment to develop and then create the content often required. the commercial models for Fox or Paramount are set up to do this, the commercial models for marketeers often aren't.
but this is a bit of a cop out. for the cost of making three 30 second ads you can certainly afford to make an episodic drama for online distribution. and no it doesn't matter if it's not going to go on broadcast TV because those people who consume AV content online are exactly those people most likely to 'get' transmedia narratives... this means of course that the media budgeting has to evolve just as much as the production pot.
no, the real issues in making TP happen lie much closer to home than 'we don't have the budget' territory. they are twofold, the first of which is we're bound to the conventions of the media spaces we use. in the Games TM article mentioned above, Keith Arem discusses the TM principles behind his graphic novel Ascend (the image above). he observes that:
"if a project requires a 30-minute budget introduction, games can do that, but the medium could just as easily offer six high-budget five-hour episodes to revolutionise the story. film and television are still limited by rigid series structures and minimum lengths".
advertisers on those channels are bound by those same conventions; conventions we as an industry - planners, buyers and media-owners (and indeed Ofcom) alike need to start challenging. it's the limitations of the spot model that in many cases is preventing transmedia's breakthrough into broadcast channels; and as long as transmedia only exists online, it's unlikely to capture the imagination of marketeers or the budgets of FDs.
but the final barrier to making TM happen in brand comms is the closet to home of all. Jenkins notes that TM experiences can "be a source of ... frustration [for consumers] if it's inconsistent, undermines the coherence of the work, or promises insights it never delivers". Arem's solution is simple: "have a good team of like-minded individuals around you ... my philosophy for all of our projects is to have a core team to supervise all creative and technical aspects of the production. the main focus of that team is to keep the story and assets consistent, and integrate them with the entire franchise".
I think you know where I'm going with this. agency structures are lucky if they can do this internally let alone with other agencies, resulting in the presention of a joined up and unified transmedia solution to a client. not only might different creative agencies have to work to one vision, but that vision has to be molded by the space planned by its media agency, and of course vice versa.
the reality is that as long as the conversation with a client only gets as far as "how big is the pack shot?", both agencies and clients will be bound to a dynamic that not only acts as a barrier to transmedia planning, but actively works against it emerging into the mainstream where it so surely deserves to belong.
you are officially invited to create and explore the world in 2019. but be warned, it's not going to be pretty. the Institute For The Future has developed Superstruct, an ARG that aims - with a massive number of players' help - to chronicle the dark future they predict for us, then help them fix it.
"With Superstruct IFTF introduces a revolutionary new forecasting tool:
Massively Multiplayer Forecasting Games (MMFGs). MMFGs are
collaborative, open source simulations of a possible future. Each MMFG
focuses on a unique set of “future parameters,” which we cull from
IFTF’s forecast research. These parameters define a future scenario: a
specific combination of transformative events, technologies,
discoveries and social phenomenon that are likely to develop in the
next 10 to 25 years. We then open up the future to the public, so that
players can document their personal reactions to the scenario." [source]
its a fascinating concept. taking the ARG to the next level and using Surowiecki's Wisdom of Crowds to capture and identify our most likely (and most successful) responses to multiple 21st Century threats. you can join the simulation and watch videos outlining the 'superthreats' we face on the Superstruct website.
brands could learn a lot from this endeavour. at it's most basic, the IFTF - thru Superstruct - is encouraging a community of people to engage with an idea. that isn't a million miles from what most advertisers want people to do - only they generally use advertising to convey the idea. and are then a bit vague about how people can get involved; other than buy stuff of course.
but if a brand really wanted to break the mold. if a marketing team really wanted to explore and communicate something in which they believed by creating a platform thru which a community of people could genuinely engage with the idea, the brand and each other... they could. think how much more powerful M&S's Plan A campaign would have been if they had engaged with a massive community of people to explore ways to make sure we didn't have to resort to plan b. think how much more traction you could get by using media to communicate the project and report its progress.
the risks are huge. you have to be radically transparent; but most brands have to be radically transparent already. if you get it wrong no one will care; but if you get it wrong now people can filter your messages out. you have to be hyper-creative; but creativity has never been more important. you have to rely on people pro-actively and constructively contributing to the platform; but people demonstrate time and time again that this is something they're increasingly comfortable doing.
and if the risks are huge, the rewards are greater. get it right and you not only engage an audience in something your brand stands for, but your brand may even make a bit of a difference... as well as creating affinity and customer value - and therefore revenues - on the way...
at a time when its not always enough for brands to engage us with their ideas or imagery, it's no surprise we're seeing a host of alternatives to 'broadcast adverts' being explored. everything from events and experiences to content and applications are being developed to communicate with us on our - rather than brands' - terms.
in this context, where it has become the convention to be unconventional, an arms race inevitably develops: no one does events as well as Nike, or experiences as well as O2 etc. brands can be at best nervous and at worst avoid completely exploring such territory.
not Diesel. the above video is of their Spring/Summer 08 catwalk show in June at the Pitti Immagine Uomo fair in Florence. the brand brought brought together Barcelona animation studio Dvein (GGI visual effects and 3D animations) and Danish multi-media production agency Vizoo (technology) for the show, neither of whom had previously worked
on anything like this before.
the result is spectacular - a ground-breaking event, experience and subsequently content all rolled into one. as the CR blog post puts it "a perfect blend of cutting edge digital art and performance."
many brands would have stopped there, but Diesel took the crucial next step of maximising their investment by telling people about it. there's a marketing rule of thumb that for every pound you spend investing in an asset you should spent between one and three pounds telling people about it. of course as user-distribution (YouTube etc) develops these economies change, but Diesel still found time to make and deploy the little effort below.
by encouraging people to visit diesel.com to experience the holograms as they happened, the brand blended old and new world media (almost) as seamlessly as they blended live models and holographic sea creatures.
we talk a lot about new behaviours and emergent trends in our industry. so much so that we sometimes tend to forget the distinction between the behaviour and the motivation behind it.
take blogging. the number of blogs in existence is debated in the tens of millions. we think of it as an emergent behaviour. it's not. it is merely a new way of fulfilling a fundamental human need. to communicate to the world. we're reminded of this by the Orwell Prize who are - in a wonderfully 2.0 way of delivering pre-digital content - publishing George Orwell's diaries as a real time blog seventy years after they were written.
"In a curious way, reading what Orwell jotted down so informally as
events occurred, domestically and internationally, seventy years ago
will be far more intriguing for readers than when they are faced with
slabs of print. Next year I hope very much that it will be possible to
mark the weeks running up to the outbreak of the Second World War ... as an appropriate reminder of the awful events of what will then be seventy years ago."
whilst the need to capture and share our interpretations of the world is as old as culture, a digital world does offer significant advantages...
firstly, in a pre-digital age blogs (or diaries) would be unlikely to be published. now we all publish by default, we're all broadcasters now (as Clay Shirky observed at the MGEITF this year "we're now in a world of publish then filter - all the filters are after the fact"). secondly, because everything we publish is tagged, the outputs of our collective interpretations begin to self-organise. a blog isn't an isolated entry but instead an integrated part of a global conversation.
but these relatively new plus-ins to the conventional diary aside, the blog is just a new way of doing we very old thing. every generation thinks that they invent something for the first time. not so.
what each generation does is develop the new technology that allows them to
fulfill fundamental human needs in new ways
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