Very Viral...

Certain clients seem to like the idea of “viral” but tend to not fully understand its execution. Keeping it a surprise and not revealing too much, allowing the various users to uncover things is really what makes a viral campaign successful. Passing along funny stuff works for certain brands especially the ones consumers are religious about only because its basically branded content that serves as entertainment and helps solidify the consumer loyalty but with less known brands I think there needs to be a bit of faith on the part of the client to allow the agency to really build a mystery and let the users uncover what it is they are trying to say.

Collaboration is really what the web is all about and the ability for users to pass along something interesting and discuss it, analyze it and play with it is where the success is found in a true viral initiative. Many clients want to simply PLUG IN whatever it is they have into a viral campaign and many times they don’t realize that they are trying to put a square peg into a round hole. Viral campaigns are often looked at as a less serious endeavor because it does cost less and people tend to pay more attention to projects that cost more to develop. Take viral seriously and it will serve its purpose.

late night thoughts and responsibility in advertising

When I compose my entries into this blog I try to evoke emotion and thought, I am not looking to solve anything specific, rather open up a forum to study it. I once wrote an essay about the Super Bowl and the ads geared towards the beer guzzling folk who are probably the majority watching the big game. As a Producer in the advertising industry I feel that by adding to the persona of the “beer guzzler” by giving him commercials that further ruin his view on women, sex, responsibility and the environment is a crime and that if we know that the "element' watching the game does tend to allow their views to be dictated by the ads and the content they watch so intensely perhaps we have a responsibility to at least try and guide those views in the right direction. Having this country fall to the wayside because we want to sell more beer and we are willing to degrade women and the environment to do it is simply wrong. Advertising is a responsibility and by misguiding the consumer public with fantasies that distort real relationships on many levels is deadly. Why not sell beer by showing that an intelligent, responsible and hard working man can come home or go to a bar and relax with a cold icy one? Get where im going with this? Why go down to a person’s lowest level when you can raise them by getting them to associate themselves and the products they buy in a positive way.

Its so easy to throw a naked woman on the screen and say BUY THIS there is no challenge there, try doing it in a positive way, that’s where the real success is...

Small Agency Response numero deuce

Why does a definition on Wikipedia need to necessarily define an age old industry? Sure we all need the safe definitions of things in order to put them into their place when things get chaotic but when things are not chaotic are we really willing to break away from those safe definitions and color out side of those lines you speak of?

Agencies have a hard enough time producing creative work in general, how many campaigns end up being timeless? Now they are expected to deliver media technologies as well? Smaller interactive agencies have been doing this for years now; we have been innovating new ideas for launching all kinds of brand messages. Minisites, rich media banners, environmental installations, unique kiosks, online games, viral techniques, uploading, downloading, cross loading and more! Agencies are having a hard enough time keeping up in general when it comes to the web. Web 2.0 is all of the things I mentioned above and more, it requires breaking many of the rules that have been established in the Ad Biz and redefining what works and what doesn't and requires going completely against conventional wisdom.

It seems to me that the point isn't are agencies willing to invest in new platforms, because its simply not their core competency, the question is are they now willing to play second fiddle to companies that are creating new platforms. Old habits are hard to break and the agencies have been holding on to the corporate reigns for a long time now, they manage the accounts, come up with the ideas and distribute the money but perhaps that role is now being reduced because of the overwhelming emergence of technology that smaller and younger companies have a better grasp on.

Rather than buying up these smaller companies and driving them into the ground by making them adhere to old rules, why not just play nice and let the experts do their jobs in the environments that suit them best (smaller interactive firms) and let them drive the campaigns. Ideas thrive in smaller open environments and when the stresses of the corporate world take over then the ideas suffer, creating new platforms and ideas requires breathing room and coloring outside the lines and that means that new lines can't be drawn once the color is in place, you cant assume that an agency is ripe to now become a technology firm just because it has the money to do so, sometimes it takes adversity and struggle of being small in order for great ideas to emerge. –Craig Elimeliah, new york, NY

We Are Back!

It’s not like we actually went anywhere but we are back and we are better than ever. Who are we? I will tell you who we are, we are every kid that got laid off in the late 90’s and early new millennium, we are every guy and girl who was accused of over hyping the web and forcing the economy to plummet and we are the believers that never for a second lost faith in the web. We are older, a bit more mature a lot more experienced and wanted more than ever for our abilities to innovate and understand a web that has quietly healed from its prepubescent awkwardness into a powerful and healthy medium.

Once known for our fickle work habits and our lack of commitment to any one company, for our distractions and our toy collections at work, for our inability to conform to company policies and dress codes, and most of all our over inflated expectations for the virtual world we live in day in and day out. We are a group of people who are fueled by the infinite possibilities of the web and would be doing what we do at work at home for free anyway. We develop web applications, graphics, utilities, code, and games. We innovate new ideas and work out difficult problems facing user experience, interface and environments. We make the web usable for all. We soak up the internet like sponges and know exactly what is out there and what is still needed. We are the ex-girlfriend who was dumped because we caused too much drama and now that we have grown up and into our bodies we are lusted after more than ever.

Ok enough of the dramatics I think I got my point across.

We are entering a new age, an age when the business world is on their hands and knees to reconcile the relationship that was broken up at the turn of the century’s dot com bust. Everyone agrees that the web is here to stay and that it has proven itself to be one of the most powerful communication platforms known to mankind. Not everyone fully understands its depth but the select few that do are now in high demand by every corporation out there. What changed? Initially the web promised the world automation, it promised instant access to information and services that was never before made available, and it offered globalization and community on such a precise level that most people didn’t know what to do with it when it was first introduced. The financial world was not mistaken when they poured billions in venture capital into the pockets of young developers with bright ideas and those young developers were not selling empty promises either. Every marriage has a period of time when the young couple must acclimate itself to one another, us youngsters back then weren’t ready to handle the fame and fortune being served to us on a silver platter and those financial folks didn’t realize how drastically different we lived our lives.

Sure there were many young companies who blew every dime of venture capital on stupid promotional events, ridiculous office spaces and all kinds of other nerdy things, salaries were so over the top and stock options were given out like candy. Mistakes were made and times were fast but then again every revolution needs a period where chaos rules, we had the depression, the wild west, the new world, all throughout history whenever massive change took place there was always some economic precariousness. What started in the mid nineties was no different and looking back I don’t think it could have happened any other way. There is a certain feeling of accomplishment when a new innovative technology changes the world, throws it into disarray and then shortly after it all works itself out and we are all much better off because of it.

So now we are back in business, we have quietly licked our wounds and recovered from being banished from the business elite and are now once again desperately needed in order to innovate and make the most of this ever growing World Wide Web. We are a bit older, a bit more grounded and definitely more cautious with our roles as keepers of the web. There will be no more extravagant toys and offices, no more stock options and definitely no more empty IPOs. Flash and other web technologies have trained us to deliver our ideas in a more powerful and robust way, we can now roll out websites that not only live on the web but are the interface for the world. As the chosen people to guard the vast channels of information and to create conduits for delivering the information we must now assume our roles and take our place amongst the elite as the guards of the information super highway.

My response to Getting a Grip...

Noelle Weaver write a very interesting post on her Small Agency Diary Blog she entitled it Coming to Grips in the Advertising World. Although I think this is a great title I think that she didnt even scratch the surface of what should have been written based on the title. Shame. I responded with some emotions and ideas that I had, here goes...

This post is appropriately titled “Coming to Grips” because that is exactly what is going on in the advertising world. People are now having to come to grips with the fact that the media convergence is taking place faster than most people can make any sense of it, it puts many of the “numbers” people in a very precarious position because in this transition period they are forced to put their faith in places that they may not be so comfortable with. Interactive agencies are seen as the New Kids on the Block, the new jacks who are trampling all over ad world and stealing the glory away from the prestige of TV, radio and print.

The convergence of media is an example for us all to follow suit and converge ideas, practices and abilities and to try our best by marrying the old and the new. The only way we are going to get a grip on this thing is if we all respect and appreciate each very important role we all play in this very fast evolution that our industry is going through. I especially liked what Noelle said about knowing our audiences intimately, the web is a portal, people date on the web, buy food on the web and even have sex on the web, how much more intimate can we get with our audiences than the web?

When I think about all of the issues being brought up in this blog and I look at what the web and interactive offers us as far as metrics, intimacy, results and the impact of the media itself it is quite clear that we can find most our solutions by embracing the web and accepting it as a major ad platform. Growth is painful and transitions can be awkward but when emotions and fears get involved with decisions and obvious choices, clients rely on agencies to be their eyes and ears, but when the eyes are shut to the obvious because the obvious forces change then it’s the clients who get burned and the industry as a whole suffers.

I think it is now our job to funnel the massive expansiveness of the web and its abilities into real solutions for our clients and to harness the power interactive presents to us as far as delivering the numbers, the results and the expectations of our clientele.

Defending the Web

I feel like I constantly have to defend the web, almost like a preacher defending a religion. I have been defending it since the mid 90s when I had to explain to my clients that the web isn’t going anywhere, that it wont go down and that it hold endless possibilities for creative messaging.

Here is a comment I recently made to add to my list of defensives…

Once again I feel the need to comment in the name of Interactive. We keep asking ourselves these questions of how sticky something is but it seems like an exercise in futility. Who can predict the fickle habits of the public? The web can! We know where people are going, where they came from and how long they stayed, we know what they looked at and what they clicked on and as Interactive evolves more and more into the top spot as the anchor of a campaign we can come up with more creative ways to market. For example, an interactive agency can potentially create two or three campaigns at once, if something isn’t working or need adjustment it could potentially be tweaked on the fly. The level of control is limitless. Agencies need to understand and embrace the flexibility of the medium to be able to feel out and test the public reactions as they change. The web is a dynamic world, results are practically instant and adjustments can be made based on feedback, its interesting that any interactive project can be deemed a failure, unless it is way off the mark, but when adjustments need to be made or a direction needs some tweaking it can be done in a million different creative ways. I think that people are real and when dealing with the fantasy world of advertising and the over hyping of products and services of our clients we need to understand that people know that realistic expectations are set based on exaggerations and that those exaggerations are simply a form of entertainment of sorts to help create an emotional attachment to the brand and just like a relationship needs to be coddled and formed so to does the user, before now you got what you got because the medium only allowed for static presentations but the expectations set by the web now create a demand by the public for more effort from the advertisers to entice their audiences. Attention is hard to get in this world of many distractions and in order to grab that attention we need to understand the more complex habits of the consumers and how they want to be marketed to. The web offers us so many more opportunities for success and if used correctly our failure rate should decrease dramatically as long as the campaign is on target. The question posed was What Sticks? But perhaps we should be asking ourselves How Many Chances to We Get to Make it Stick? You can never know for sure is something is going to work but the web offers us the ability to at least adjust if we see that it isn’t working.

Creative Approval

Creative is probably the most unpredictable aspect of our game. Why? Because there is so much emotion involved. A good creative will not always be recognized by all and often times even the most perfect comp is going to get dragged over hot coals because of a lack of faith on the part of the client and the fact that clients simply think that they MUST comment or change something to get more bang for their buck.

I dream of the day I submit a creative and hear the client say “Wow that is perfect”, to me that would be paradise.

Many production schedules have been compromised because the client simply cannot sign off on a creative. Another issue is that clients often times look too hard, I compare it to looking at a word long enough and eventually the word looks silly. That is what tends to happen with client reviews, they are over examined from the get go and there is no faith that the design will be flushed out as the project goes on.

Signing off on a creative should mean that everyone is on the same page, that the overall creative works, it is the job of the designers to make sure that before anything is launched that every detail and idea is carefully touched up. Clients are not in the creative field and when you put something in front of them they most likely don’t know how to properly evaluate it the way a professional art director or creative director would.

Clients must realize that when hiring a creative firm they are not just paying them money but also putting their faith in the expertise and talent of the creative team. On the flip side the creative team should make the client a “believer” so to say in their abilities to produce effective materials. A perfect creative is a rarity and to come across it means that the client trusted and believed in their creative team completely and that the creative team fully understood the objectives of the client.

Many clients haven’t clearly defined their objectives and that results in a creative that simply doesn’t work for the client. When the creative team and the client are really on the same page and communication is wide open then and only then do clients feel a better comfort level in the work produced. So next time your struggling with a client approval you should ask yourself if the client has clearly defined the objectives and if not perhaps ask the client to clearly write out what they are and compare it to the work presented. The client should also take a bit of a leap of faith and let the creative team do what it does best.

Just like a doctor who has performed a thousand surgeries is trusted based on past performance, a creative team gains its trust on the fact that it has delivered effective designs in the past. Nothing will ever be perfect.

A small side note… isn’t it strange how the less a project budget is the more carefully the design is scrutinized?

Customer = Customize

Customer = Customize

C'mon, try it, everyone is doing it... seems to be the corporate theme today. Customization is what I had been dreaming of since I was a wee lad. Painting my G.I. Joes and adding badges and new uniform mods, crazy gluing new panels to my Transformers to get them to the exact ultra coolness that I desired, even putting stickers on my old NES to get that perfect custom look I needed to have. I even wrote an article on this exact topic discussing how all the girls in junior high were so sweet on all my custom bleached Champion sweatshirts. The CONSUMER MASSIAH HAS ARRIVED!

Every company out there is working on some new customizable product, something that they can sell the masses but make every single one of those people feel like the product they have is a one of a kind. Granted some products are simply very difficult to customize but items like clothing, shoes, paint, computers, and yes even cars are all now available to be customized.

I attribute all of this to the Internet. When in history have we been able to log into a site and choose the color, size, fabric, trim, paint, roof, tires, flavor, and whatever else is offered up on a particular product? Trendwatching.com says about customization and I quote "still the biggest, most promising trend in the world of business." I simply love the definition they posted on the topic its as clear as I have seen it anywhere:

“The phenomenon of corporations creating goods, services and experiences in close cooperation with experienced and creative consumers, tapping into their intellectual capital, and in exchange giving them a direct say in (and rewarding them for) what actually gets produced, manufactured, developed, designed, serviced, or processed.”

Well said TrendWatching.com!! So companies finally decided that it is the consumers who have all the answers and that we actually do know what the hell we want and not only do we give the corporations the ideas for the products but we get to pay full price for them as well. Does this seem weird to anyone? Basically they tell us, we will let you tell us what you want, we will let you help us build it for you, design it and even market it and then we will let you go pay even more than you would have paid for the product before you customized it, now thats amazing! What a concept!

Lets take a look at the past. You had a tailor who would make you custom clothing based on your exact measurements, you would choose a collar style, cuff style, fabric, color and all the little details that go into making a customized piece of clothing and then he would sew it and deliver it personally to you and you would pay him top dollar for it rather than going to a department store and taking something off the rack. Makes sense?

Now you have companies like Nike, Scion, Fila, Puma and Mini all letting customers customize their products and you have companies like MasterCard, FireFox (Mozilla), L’Oreal and Chevy actually letting people create commercials. Trust me this is only a small list of companies leading the charge. Now that we have identified what is going on, lets ask another question, what does this mean?

The way I see it is that we are all humans, we all have common physical desires, interests and we all more or less fall into specific genres or interest groups, tribes and clans. We cannot escape human nature and its need to progress, to hunt and gather in its most primitive way yet using all of our wonderful technology and progress to drag back the most perfect Bison back to the cave. I use the term Webicratic for my Blog because I want to illustrate how the web is unifying and giving a voice to the people, actually allowing for a visible creative and collective consciousness to occur, so lets term this new wave Consumercratic as in letting the people drive the types of products that enter the market and literally dictate not only how they want them delivered but even how they want them marketed to the people.

Customer to car dealer - "I would like the car in Black, with Silver trim, Red seats, Orange panel, a killer MP3 system, 5.1 speakers, rear wheel drive and by the way tell me that it will make me sexier and faster than anyone else out there." Thanks!

Steve Ballmer has no shame

Steve Ballmer has no shame. He is personally trying to stand up and become the hero at Microsoft as its cold war against Google continues.

Microsoft, a hint: BUY YAHOO!!!

I have been saying for years, and actually developed and implemented what I have been preaching, ONLINE APPLICATIONS!!!! The web can now serve full blown applications that most businesses use, be it eMail, document publishing, interactive, whatever!

In my opinion Microsoft is looking worse and worse by the day. Ballmer is the worst "knight in shining amour" I have ever seen not to mention this past week Bill telling the world he wishes he weren’t the richest man alive!! What is going on? I have noticed that while every other company in the world is stepping up their images and getting into all kinds of cool viral, interactive, brand experience type of campaigns, Microsoft has done the opposite, no cool ads, nothing breakthrough and honestly no buzz whatsoever, how long do they think they can ride the dominance card they held for so long?

Apple is approaching... Apple is coming and Apple plays nicely with what the consumers want and need. iLife is taking the video, audio, iPod and every other personal application by storm, GRANDMOTHERS HAVE iPODS!!! Now that is penetration and conversion!

I’m ranting, happens when I get emotional and forget the rules of writing. Buts it’s my Blog so I can do that here.

My point! Microsoft has issues, major issues...

The name Microsoft - nothing cool about micro and only makes us think about how big their vision is and soft, well who wants soft? Even those cool Swedish pillows I love are hard, soft is done!

The Domination - Done, over caput! Google has offered all of us regular folk word processing, image, mapping and every other app FOR FREE!!!! and no one even thinks twice about making Google the home page on their browsers. Perhaps Google should create their own Broswer... OH WAIT! isn’t that Fire Fox?

The Image - OLD! People with dinosaur heads? C'mon that’s probably what it looks like over at Microsoft corporate headquarters.

Products - When will Microsoft fall? I predict when they fail to launch the new Windows OS. Apple is light years ahead of them in that realm. Soon Google will launch a word processing app as well as a spreadsheet and then its over, done, bye bye Microsoft, it will be a period of transition where companies will need to have whole staffs employed in burning all of the old Microsoft apps.

I love revolutions, I am a fan of Russian history, this is American history, and we aren’t involved in bloody battles of ideas rather corporate battles of position within markets. Bill had his run, it was good, got us to where we are today, he set the bar and it was smashed twice over, now step aside and let the real creative take over and run this industry into the next phase.

Google, Apple, Adobe come on up, its your turn...

Microsoft, IBM, SUN see ya guys, don’t let the door hit you on the way out...

Channel Internet - Video

Video has become the new trend on the web these days, so many sites are popping up offering to host video online for free.

Sites like Youtube.com and Google Video as well as corporate sites like Chevy, Old Spice and even a great site from PBS letting young kids create powerful content as well.

I recently had a friend of mine who is living in the Ukraine and who is a film maker tell me about his ability to post his films online and get a massive audience and even get some calls from news services and agencies that want to use his content. I find this to be revolutionary. What I love is that corporations, BIG companies are posting commercials and allowing users to post their own home made commercials online for everyone to see. This is truly viral, and in my opinion as Webicratic as it gets. I was amazed at some of the talent out there, high school kids creating amazing content. Where will this take us? What i like about this new trend is that it raises the bar for Hollywood content, with Flash going where its going and video being as easy as it is now to create we may find ourselves faced with an opossing force. The Public Vs. The Industry. I like competition, its healthy and it gives everyone the opportunity to "make it". So to all those starving artists out there fire up those computers and get to work, the stage is set now create!

FLASH in hand!

FLASH in hand! I am very excited about the new possibilities of Verizon and Adobe partnering up to enable and create FLASH content for cell phones. I think that FLASH has been quietly smiggling in a new breed on content developers. FLASH is now the most widely deployed video platform on the web, click here for an example, now anyone with a decent design prowess and a passion for creating media can develop for almost any platform out there using FLASH. To me the internet has now truly democrasized the world by giving everyone out there the tools to create impactful media from a home computer. Anyone with a voice, a poem, a product or a cause can move millions with powerful content that can now be viewed on cell phones lighting fast. FLASH files are tiny and easily saved, you can download them, pass them along and post them almost anywhere. Advertisers will especially love this new trend because they will now be able to send highly targeted engaging ads to cell phones everywhere. Will cell service now be free? Something to think about...

COMING 'ROUND THE BEND ITS INTERNET BY A HEAD!!

Each day I open up my web browser and peruse the various "ad" news, blogs and gossip sites I see a very clear path, this path is not only clear to me but to those who are seemingly being trampled along it. Television stations are now using their websites as a means to drum up more viewers and advertising. Since the inception of the web, television has been pounding its proverbial chest and standing tall atop the media mountain, some would say King Kong would be a great metaphor, the obvious signs of defense and protecting its realm. The humble and quiet internet kept chugging along keeping a steady pace not looking forward or back to see where TV stood. This is the part of the race everyone enjoys and is the reason people tune in... INTERNET HAS NOW TAKEN THE LEAD!!!! COMING 'ROUND THE BEND ITS INTERNET BY A HEAD!!

Television stations have now started to wave the white flag (I love when Lex Luthor does it in Superman 2) and realize that rather than dominate the media realm we can all share it happily. Does TV have to worry? YES! Will the internet have mercy? NO! But that is life, no struggle no progress type of attitude. What i find really interesting is that smaller affiliates are the ones embracing the internet, The smaller egos allow them to, they have amped up their websites and are doing some really cool stuff, one affiliate in Plattsburgh, N.Y. is letting people pitch commercials for local car dealerships. I think just like those cute rediculous commercials we all saw growing up on our local affiliate stations had an effect on us with jingles and local familiar celebrity, so will the web in featuring Bob's Used Cars in a super cool flash mini site that will be as rediculous as ever!

Thats what the web is all about, low cost interactive mass media.

Agency Disconnect

Recently I have been noticing a bit of a disconnect between agencies and interactive partners. Not understanding fully what is involved in creating an interactive module, or mini site can create havoc on a schedule. Small things like files sizes in FLASH and backend integrations can be easily overlooked by an agency producer and can result in them over promising on delivery dates. Unlike print, or traditional websites there cant be pushing and pulling on a schedule once set in place, especially when jobs are bid on a time and resource basis, making sure agencies understand what is involved in the job of the interactive producer and I admit that I have stumbled in that area a few times because I assaumed that the agency knew what was up. With that said, you fall, you get up and you move on, hopefully within the next few years there will be a merging of expierience and we can once again live in contractual and scheduled harmony with one another!

HD BLEW! BLUES!

Hardrive blew this morning.... doesnt it suck when you love and embrace technology, support it and advance it, dedicate your life to its functions and how to make it better for all human kind and it just spits in your face? ARGHHH!!!!

Take the Lead is taking the lead

Take the Lead is taking the lead and showing the rest of Hollywood how to properly advertise their films properly. The newest Mash-Up site to allow users to manipulate assets and create their own clips is taking the web by storm. I recently used the Chevy Tahoe site that allows you to create your own commercial for the car and send to friends and even send to Chevy and it was FUN! I really enjoyed "mashing up" the content and creating my own version of the commercial, in doing that I was instantly familiarized with the Chevy brand and its messages, it really works!

Now the movie Take the Lead, the newest chapter of A-list Hollywood actor to "teach" inner city kids some life changing lesson, now its dancing. The site is www.taketheleadmovie.com
you can go to the site and create dance routines, mash up music, scenes and more! This is where marketing dollars need to be spent, TV sopts have proven to be limited and tickets at the box office have dropped, but now giving someone an interactive expeirience before they see the film and after they see the film will make the connection with the consumer much stronger and it may even result in higher DVD sales or even repeat visits to the theatre to see the flick again.

My hats off to Take the Lead for taking the lead and showing the rest of Hollywood how to really promote a new film!

Interactive expieriences

Interactive expieriences are something that seem to have evolved to become a theme in my life. At work, I am an interactive multimedia producer, we are trying to achieve the perfect blend and balance of the traditional ad campiegn with creating an entire interactive expierience behind the brand. (Most of my readers know my spelling sux) So I recently saw this act starring Sxip Shirey and Adam Matta that was seriously something amazing! These two guys were able to create an entire scene by using kazoos, harmonicas, their mouths and tiny bells and flutes. I was blown away by the simplicity of what was on stage and how complex the emotions and visualizations were for the crowds enjoyment. I encourage you all to check these guys out because as the ad industry and the movie industry as well as all media in general becomes more interactive you will see lots more of these types of groups becoming bigger and bigger, check em out! http://www.sxipshirey.com

Rebirth!

Rebirth! I am loving the news I read each time I open the New York Times and other industry rags about how much momentum is gaining for the smaller interactive shops within the ad industry. For years the BIG agencies have been running the show and now us small guys are starting to make some noise. Ron Berger said it so well when he used George Mason as an example from this years Final Four (I love sports mataphors) saying "Is George Mason being in the Final Four a statement that big-time college basketball is dead? Or is it a statement that the sport has a great vitality because talent is all over" To me this is another huge statement by an industry leader who recognizes that in order to achieve success in a multi tiered ad campiegn you must realize that the web and the interactive folks are just as big a player as the rest of the traditional media partners. Mr. Berger also said regarding the upcoming ad exec conference the 4 A's, that "These are people for whom the 'new media' isnt 'new media', Its 'media' " I love this statement because we were using the term New Media about 10 years ago and then it was really NEW. Now we have people like myself who have been toiling in Flash and interactive content for some time now and it refreshing to hear that the meduim is becoming not just the norm but the standard in which success is achieved.

Moving forward I think that the agencies will either put more money into serious interactive projects and rethink thier approach when putting together a campiegn or they will rebel and try desperately to hang on to the old standards of TV, Radio and Print and the rise of the smaller well established interactive houses that survived the .COM debacle will take place!

To me this is all so very revolutionary and I am simply loving it. Being a divorced father of 2 and a soon to be re-married father of 4 I am really hoping that my expierince of being an interactive producer will pay off in the paycheck department. Sometimes when you do what you love you dont think too much about how much your worth because you simply love doing what you do but when kids need to go to college and life starts shifting gears and coming at you fast (see www.lifecomesatyoufast.com) you have to start thinking about these things.... hang on folks its gonna get exciting!

A Profound Question

Recently I have been writing a lot about a profound question that was asked by Jim McDowell, the head of the Mini division of BMW. His question was:

"why do we start from a position of assuming that traditional media must be the core of a marketing plan, and that non-traditional elements can be added in only after clearing some threshold of justification?"

If you read the questions a few times it will become clear that this is not simply a question about what comes first rather he is questioning the entire advertising industry as it is today.

Traditionally you have your big agencies using smaller firms and even smaller firms and then even using freelancers to handle what until now was considered the minor part of the campiegn, the "web".

For years I have been having to justify the web to many clients and how its importance to advertising is basically biblical. I would get questions from old timers asking "is the web here to stay?" or "it a passing trend" to "no one really pays attention to those annoying ads anyway"... on and on and on...

Guess what folks, not only is the web here to stay, and not only is internet advertising extremely effective but it has now surpassed television as the pipeline into our minds. More and more people are watching television on the web, downloading movies, and looking for fresh and entertaining content rather than another Seinfeld rerun. YouTube, Google video and similar sites have become serious competition to the same old syndicated crap on TNT or TBS, im talking 12 - 15 million viewers. Even sports has become a popular web content viewed on screen along with its many statistics and interactive components, watching sports on the web will become something more and more common. Look at this years College Basketball tournament.

So when you examine Jim's question you have to really appreciate what he is asking. Why start with traditional means of advertising, print or TV? Why not start where it is most effective and then base your print and television ads on the interactive content and viral aspect of your web initiative?

Genious! Finally the power is starting to shift and us "web people" now have the ball in our court.

Worthwhile

I snagged this from a website i had come across and its so worthwhile to post:

"Even if you're not a genius, you can use the same strategies as Aristotle and Einstein to harness the power of your creative mind and better manage your future."

The following eight strategies encourage you to think productively, rather than reproductively, in order to arrive at solutions to problems. "These strategies are common to the thinking styles of creative geniuses in science, art, and industry throughout history."

1. Look at problems in many different ways, and find new perspectives that no one else has taken (or no one else has publicized!)

Leonardo da Vinci believed that, to gain knowledge about the form of a problem, you begin by learning how to restructure it in many different ways. He felt that the first way he looked at a problem was too biased. Often, the problem itself is reconstructed and becomes a new one.

2. Visualize!

When Einstein thought through a problem, he always found it necessary to formulate his subject in as many different ways as possible, including using diagrams. He visualized solutions, and believed that words and numbers as such did not play a significant role in his thinking process.

3. Produce! A distinguishing characteristic of genius is productivity.

Thomas Edison held 1,093 patents. He guaranteed productivity by giving himself and his assistants idea quotas. In a study of 2,036 scientists throughout history, Dean Keith Simonton of the University of California at Davis found that the most respected scientists produced not only great works, but also many "bad" ones. They weren't afraid to fail, or to produce mediocre in order to arrive at excellence.

4. Make novel combinations. Combine, and recombine, ideas, images, and thoughts into different combinations no matter how incongruent or unusual.

The laws of heredity on which the modern science of genetics is based came from the Austrian monk Grego Mendel, who combined mathematics and biology to create a new science.

5. Form relationships; make connections between dissimilar subjects.

Da Vinci forced a relationship between the sound of a bell and a stone hitting water. This enabled him to make the connection that sound travels in waves. Samuel Morse invented relay stations for telegraphic signals when observing relay stations for horses.

6. Think in opposites.

Physicist Niels Bohr believed, that if you held opposites together, then you suspend your thought, and your mind moves to a new level. His ability to imagine light as both a particle and a wave led to his conception of the principle of complementarity. Suspending thought (logic) may allow your mind to create a new form.

7. Think metaphorically.

Aristotle considered metaphor a sign of genius, and believed that the individual who had the capacity to perceive resemblances between two separate areas of existence and link them together was a person of special gifts.

8. Prepare yourself for chance.

Whenever we attempt to do something and fail, we end up doing something else. That is the first principle of creative accident. Failure can be productive only if we do not focus on it as an unproductive result. Instead: analyze the process, its components, and how you can change them, to arrive at other results. Do not ask the question "Why have I failed?", but rather "What have I done?"

Games Galore!

Games Galore!
Flash 8 has provided developers the ability to really produce some amazing games for the web. Coprorations are jumping all over this to create brand expieriences for users to come and play games that will not only make the corporate brands more recognizable to them but online games usually feature a send to a friend outcome that allows the user to pass the game on to friends and family.

Who doesnt love to play games? I recently played a game that was created for the console video game called BLACK. The game can be found here http://www.myblackvalentine.com this is certainly a great example of an addictive game that embeds the product into the mind of the player. I played this game for about 15 minutes. The firm I work for has developed similar type games for companies that are lots of fun. Another absolutely addictive game is http://www.sithsense.com for all you Star Wars lovers out there. YUP we did that one...

Get online and look out for games like these from some of your favorite brands. Building a relationship with the brands you use and enjoy is not only fun but informative. In my case whenever i find a product i love it always becomes harder to find once i am absolutely addicted to it but now with the Web you can always find and order the hard to get stuff you cant live without.