explaining millennial arrogance.

This weekend, while doing some volunteering at OYP, I heard the now tired rant about my generation (the 'millennial' generation) and the apathy, entitlement, and arrogance that define us.  I'm going to do my best to explain some of that, if not justify some of it.

The internet is likely the biggest alteration to human interaction with information, since written language became commonplace.  I don't think this is hyperbole.  The written word allowed stories concepts, ideas and information to exist without being directly shared, and to have a life beyond the individuals, and even the cultures, that created that content.  The internet allows instantaneous communication, collaboration, and access to mankind's collective stored information, and has the ability to make physical and temporal distance irrelevant.  It has changed everything, and the millennial generation is the first one to consider it as a given and as a right, rather than as a tool.  The way we envision communication, culture and problem solving is based on this level of connectivity, which did not exist when current leaders learned how to solve problems.

Every generation thinks that it is living in the apocalypse times.  We don't have nuclear war (yet), but we have the strongest economies in the world collapsing, the spectre of rapid climate change, and asymmetrical insurgent warfare, on top of everything else.  We've inherited a pretty ruined world, and after a lifetime of being told we wouldn't have pensions, or steady jobs, or social security, we are being told that expecting a career, or a stable environment, is unrealistic.  We also can't help but notice that many of these issues are at least partially traceable to the generations preceding us.

We were raised specifically in rebellion to the discipline and sacrifice taught to our parents by the Greatest Generation.  Most millennials have been told from childhood that they are valued, they should expect to be heard, that they have valid ideas, and that expecting fulfillment in one's work is a bare minimum.  The education system in many areas has been shifted to one that doesn't consider failure an option until the early teens, and in my experience we've created a culture where we expect that 75% of students can be above average.  This inherently results in apathy regarding results, as expectations are absurd, and/or grading criteria are meaningless.

Now put this person in the workplace.

They have ideas, they are excited and motivated to finally have a chance to do something that MATTERS, that will be judged on functionality, not an artificial standard.  This is not the reality of the working world.

The people in leadership positions, in most corporations, are people who don't like being presented with entirely new ideas, especially not by people who are considered untested.  Most business structures are still operating on a pre-internet base, or at best with a thin veneer of new technologies applied to old structures.  Old structures are resistant to new ideas.  And millennials in the workplace quickly realise when they are in another situation where what comes before is dictating the options available to them.

We don't subscribe to the idea of paying dues before you get to make change, because in our minds, everything has changed, and the people who have the status necessary to influence things don't understand it.  If you'd like proof, the best example I can give is record industry execs admitting that they didn't hire anyone to help them with technology, because they wouldn't know who to hire.

To a millennial, every industry looks like that, or will soon.

We were raised to think this way, we have been presented with a well and truly ruined world, and when we actually try to do something about it, we are told we will have to wait a decade or so, to establish the credibility necessary to get anyone with influence on our side, or we are shown by others to strike out completely on our own, and make the change we see as necessary without support from older structures.  While being told to wait a decade, we are also hearing that we have a decade or so to change everything before the world falls apart.

We can see how bad things are, the world over, in more detail, and more personally than any other generation in human history.  And we keep getting told that the only thing we can do, for now, is business as usual.

Not sure if you've noticed, but business as usual has failed.  Miserably.  And doing the same thing, with hopes for different results, is the definition of insanity.

Of course we come across as arrogant, as entitled, as apathetic.  The entire world has changed, the way the human race interacts has fundamentally changed, since the current leaders of the world have entered the workforce.  Speaking to close friends and family members even ten years older than me is astounding, because they cannot speak 'internet'.  And we're being asked to wait, and to stick to failed structures.

You'd be arrogant, entitled and apathetic, too.

charitable donations manifesto.

I will, for as long as I deem fit, follow the following rules in regards to any and all charitable donations I make, including volunteering my time, expertise, advice, or funds.  Obviously, there will be unforeseen circumstances that require me to bend these rules, but I think they should be recorded so that others can reflect on them or adopt them.

1. I will not respond positively to any unsolicited phone call asking for donations to a charity.  I dislike my information being recorded on a list, and re-used without my permission, and I will not encourage this to happen further.
2. I will not respond positively to any unsolicited request for donations on the street, unless I am particularly interested in the charity in question, and have free time available.  Neither of these conditions will ever occur immediately surrounding 9am and 5pm, especially not in winter.
   
3. Advertising that is based on tapping in to some kind of religious guilt, or general shame, will be disregarded.
4. Charities that have a massive corporate structure, and are not extremely clear about what is done with the money raised, will be generally disregarded.
5. Preference will be given to charities recommended by friends, or charities that tap into a specific interest or issue I take to heart.
6. Preference will be given to charities with a sustainable model for both fundraising, and distribution of funds.
7. Preference will be given to charities that focus on 'teaching people how to fish', rather than 'fish supply'.
8. Charities that demonstrate a bias in favour of a religious group, or political party, will generally be disregarded, excepting those that are fighting political corruption or dictatorships.
9. Charities that attempt to address first-world problems in the developing world, such as a lack of networked technology in places where malaria and clean water are vital issues, will generally be disregarded.
10. Marketing / Branding initiatives that work in co-operation with charities are acceptable, assuming all previous conditions are met, and the charity is the focal point, above the involved brands.

The above list is obviously informed by my own experiences with charity, as well as my stances on religion, corporatism, and politics.

penny arcade, authenticity, and branding

Yesterday morning, I downloaded the demo of Penny Arcade Adventures: Episode One: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness.  Then I purchased the full version.  Then I played the whole thing before I went to sleep, told at least 5 people how much fun it was, had a long conversation about how it was accessible*, in relation to my recent post on gaming and exclusivity, and woke up this morning wanting to play it again.

This post is going to be able the game, yeah, but more importantly it's going to be about authenticity, in an odd way.

Penny Arcade is an absurdly popular webcomic, it has a colossal audience, and it has an untold amount of influence in terms of the videogaming media.  This includes PAX, a hugely influential convention, and Child's Play, a charity that, frankly, is the only piece of evidence you need to throw in the face of someone who says young people today only care about themselves and their toys.

We're talking about a pair of guys, and the company that is built around them, who are best known for brutal sarcasm, frank appraisals of fail, and a great collective sense of humour.  And although anyone successful is accused of selling out, I think they've remained very honest and very connected with the dynamic that made them famous.  This is despite massive amounts of money, creating promotional content for major studios as a kind of side business, and now, creating their own game.  

When someone starts out as a critic of sorts, then moves to being a collaborator with the large, supposedly evil companies, then begins creating in the medium that spawned them, it usually does not go over well.

Authenticity, in my conception, is more accurately described as the ability to grow and evolve without making your audience feel as though you have betrayed them.  That feeling of betrayal is simple enough to understand - they have been using allegiance to your brand as a sign of their intended persona.  They associate with you because you help define them clearly to others, whether this is conscious or not.

The short version is, people like brands because they want to be seen as like that brand.  Lots of people want to be associated with the what the fictionalized Gabe and Tycho represent.

There are many reasons the PA guys are seen as remaining authentic, and I could reference the tendency of the target market to accept corporate success as a goal, or the particular brand of sarcasm, etc.  But the two main things that come to mind are quality, and what seems like a complete refusal to consider compromise on core values.

By and large, everything that comes out of PA is good.  Varying degrees of good, sure, but none of it feels like an out and out cash grab, because it is 1) absurdly niche, and 2) totally willing to bite the hand that feeds.

That willingness to bite is the refusal to compromise I was talking about.  They will shit on your brand, the game you really needed to be a blockbuster, your promotions, your screenshots, whatever you happen to do that will offend them.  And they will smile as you take your business elsewhere, because, from what I've seen, they won't work with you if you suck anyways.

What I'm trying to say is there is a certain brand of antisocial, unreasonable geekery that is integral to a brand like Penny Arcade, with that level of scope, maintaining the qualities that make people everywhere in their niche, want to be associated with them.  Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness is a lot of fun, and it's a great game, but really it's impressive because nothing was toned down, nothing was taken to an extreme.  It was faithful.  Barely anything switches from one medium to another and remains faithful. [There is another post in here somewhere, I'll find it.]

The funniest part is, I don't think any of this was intentional.  This was, for lack of a better word, an authentic representation of the personalities behind the comic, not a strategy.

*[In relation to my post on accessibility, this game still does what I was complaining about - it's major reference points in game play are those great old adventure games, like Final Fantasy.  It runs on more or less the same mechanics.  But it was fun for someone like me, because, well, I loved those games.  And it transcended them because the writing, the art, and the humour were very, very original.  Go Play It.  You'll probably like it.]

public relations and the future.

A month and a half ago, someone asked me what I do on this website. I gave him an answer that was accurate, but felt insufficient. Something to the tune of 'I blog about media and strategy, focusing on the stuff that interests me - trends, change, etc', but less articulate.

At this point in my life, PR is what I do. I love parts of it - the writing, discovering a good angle, building relationships and creating strategy. There are parts of it I don't love - the reputation the industry has in some circles, and the grind aspect to some of it. But the only thing that worries me about Public Relations is that it doesn't seem to have much of a plan for the future, and I don't want to end up in another music industry.

PR is heavily reliant on old media. TV, Newspapers, Magazines, Radio. Each and every one of these is in the midst of some kind of decline, weather in earnings, in relevance, or in audience. And most of them have less than no plan for what comes next. TV is still scrambling to understand that it doesn't matter how or where people watch you shows, just that they get watched (advertising strategy should be shaped by viewing patterns, not the other way around). Newspapers are ignoring the one advantage they have (respect for their status) and are hacking away at journalists and fact checkers, and trying to emulate blogging in an attempt to stay relevant. Magazines still have validity, but haven't really defined a new space for themselves - they've just avoided the need to panic quite as totally thus far. Radio is more important as a means of connecting an iPod to a car stereo than it is as a medium. Internet radio is well on it's way to being killed, and that's coming from someone who's hopeful.

All of this means, more or less, that PR needs a redefined role. It isn't just about industry attention or media coverage, but those have been the major doorways to public attention and ubiquity for a long time.

The short version of my point? Most PR firms don't have a solid strategy for social media. This isn't shocking, it's been shown time and again that most advertising firms, and most marketing firms don't either. The difference is, PR is ABOUT social media, in a very inherent way. An advertiser wants you to see things, and develop an interest in them. PR wants your friend to want you to care about the thing they care about at the moment. It's different routes to the same place - PR has the benefit of trust (whether warranted or not) in media outlets.

Old media outlets are losing ground to individuals and new media very quickly.

The core of what I do on brokengent is look at this approaching problem, although I definitely didn't think of it that way when I started. I had no aspirations of being in PR at the time, but I happily stumbled into it. If PR has a future, it's in learning how to deal with social media, as a facilitator, but not as an irritant.

Bloggers hate PR intrusion, usually. I can see why, as much as I dislike the fact. Part of it comes to the same reason people hate Marketers and Ad People. Sometimes we have to represent something that isn't (at least on the surface) what people want. It's easy to generate interest and buzz for something that is desired. At those points, PR is one of the best businesses in the world, because all you do is explain, discuss, and nurture. If someone cares, you give them more information to care about, more context. I love this, PR as a form of cultural curation. It only works with trust.

It's more complicated than I'm making it seem. Sometimes the wrong person is spoken to about the wrong product, and efforts come across as selfish and lazy. Sometimes efforts are selfish and lazy, based more on a desire to get to as many as fast as possible, rather than helping to build relationships. But personal experience tells me that individuals, especially online, don't really trust the PR person, for any longer than it takes to get the new toy or experience before the regular public.

The problem comes when the pressure from up top, as found in old media orgs, no longer keeps an uneasy truce between both sides. The problem is that not being trusted as a starting point is instant fail in social media in online communities.

I recently updated my little 'about' blurb with the following: 'everyone has a voice, so you need strategy that can anticipate any number of contradictory stakeholders, while maintaining a consistent message and meaning across media.'

PR, as an industry, needs to learn how to be a valuable member in online communities, consistently. We need to serve both clients, and the population. We need to do it in a way consistent with the meaning and values of each community. Anyone who can't or won't do both is going to have a hard time in the coming years, and this applies to Advertising and Marketing as well. PR, more than related industries, is reliant on the current media iteration. And we need to start planning for when it shifts.

So, this is what we do here. Hope that clears things up.

note to publishers.

Okay, when it happened with James Frey, it was an eye opener. It shouldn't have been, but it was. And now this. How much longer can publishers really justify not shelling out a little cash to check the validity of memoirs and 'true stories' published? It has to be cheaper than a recall of a book poised to become a best seller.

Welcome to 2008. People WILL find inconsistencies. Crowley's First Rule.

persona management: wal-mart.

Wal-Mart, to put it bluntly, has an image problem. Sure, they offer great selection, and prices that are difficult to match. But they also exemplify the sheer force that a dominant business model can exert over all related industry. Wal-Mart knows that people think of it as an evil, faceless corporation.

And, because the standard solution to a corporate issue is whatever the big trend was 10 months ago, they have turned to blogging. They've even made the big step, and moved to a more transparent model, because 'The lesson seemed clear: Create an authentic blog or do not create a blog at all.'

Authenticity, in practice, means persona management. But no one wants to admit that, because the whole point is making the enterprise seem guileless.

While Wal-Mart has made the important distinction that some actual transparency has a positive effect on the overall image, what's embarrassing is that the IHT has bought in whole-heartedly. This isn't a daring stunt, or a reversal of corporate policy. This is the same thing as buying a bunch of rainforest and declaring it a reserve, while clear-cutting in B.C.

It looks like a job half done, from my perspective. A better, more curated experiment, would have the bloggers ('authentically', but generally nicely) comment on issues in the Wal-Mart store, and business model. Certain issues could be hilighted, and then the company could take into account employee/blogger input, and make actual changes to the way the business works.

Obviously, the greater model couldn't be changed. And some of the alterations would, of course, be nothing more than lip service. But it would fight allegations of empty talk, and would more or less guarantee a spread of awards and cover stories about Wal-Mart moving beyond market dominance, and now creating a shared culture between the business and the people who make it great, both inside and outside the store.

The glowing coverage, however, is an excellent example of why persona management, or artificial (curated) transparency is a good plan. Social media is unavoidable, if you want a meaningful media strategy. And artfully curated work is substantially more beloved than 'thinly veiled extensions of Wal-Mart's public-relations department'.

Both links are to the International Herald Tribute story mentioned above. This post directly dovetails the artificial persona and transparency: revisited.

dirty denim and brand values.

Starting with a polemic: Jeans are more or less interchangeable. There are obviously differences in fit and finish, but more or less everything is based on the original designs by Levi Strauss, which are more or less ancient.

The idea that 'Denim maniacs know that the only way to wear raw selvedge denim is to wear it often and never wash it so that the denim develops natural wear and incredibly unique features like a patina, whiskers, and honeycombs' is something I have been exposed to before (and something I'm currently practicing), but it was put back into my head when I read about the Evisu Dirty Dozen + 1 Project.

The general idea is to pass around a pair of jeans, and add value to it by creating a history and a story. Another, similar idea, arguably even more attached to the idea of authenticity that I have encountered is sending the jeans to be worn in farming communities for 6 months, then selling them worked in. (as referenced in this PDF)

What amuses me is the core idea, wearing in denim over time, creating a personal attachment and story, and stepping outside the brand for value, is completely lost. Buying raw denim and wearing it in yourself can be seen as a signifier of dedication, understanding of fashion, and to a certain extent, individuality (the jeans are yours, partially created by you, and unique). But someone else wearing them in, in a particularly authentic fashion, strikes me as missing the point entirely.

This is the same brand of authenticity which seems to mean 'fake in a real way'. This is the brand of authenticity that makes PBR the beer of choice for hipster trust fund kids.

Associations are all powerful, when creating a brand story, and Evisu is obviously counting on that to overcome the questionable authenticity of having cool people wear jeans to increase their value.

My immediate reaction to dirty denim is that it has the value of placing the consumer directly into the brand story - the product is then unquestionably authentic, because it reaches it's value only when used, and even then, only when used in a manner determined by those dedicated to the idea. The jeans are the same product, whether washed or not - but expressing an understanding of the 'proper' course of action is basically a statement that the brand considers their time with the product preparation, and the consumer should consider it the same.

Masterminding programs to 'create' wear in an authentic manner is amusing, because it's no different than taking a belt sander to the product for 30 seconds and shipping it - except that it also contains a strong whiff of colonialism, masked in the hunt for authenticity. I would be more impressed by the notable charitable value in providing work clothes for farming communities, if it didn't intentionally piggyback on an existing trend. I suppose it amuses me that the charitable aspects are related to getting residents in developing nations to pre-wear jeans for western markets - everything else has been outsourced already.

discarding people vs using them.

I've been reading Chris Matthews 'Life's a Campaign' while in the bathroom for the last couple weeks. The most important lesson, thus far, is one thrown in the book jacket, which, imho, makes the book worth buying (or receiving as a gift), the gist of which is that people don't mind being used, they mind being discarded.

This, I am starting to think, is a universal truth. How many problems in your life, or in the modern world, can be traced to someone being abandoned and ignored after they were used. A large part of me thinks this is the real issue behind a lot of the war on terror - if you train someone, convince them to risk their lives, and point them at an enemy, they probably aren't expecting abandonment afterwards. So, when abandoned, guess who the new, worse enemy is?

However, I've only recently started considering this in terms of branding and advertising. I complain a lot about the use of 'authenticity' as a buzzword panacea for any failings on the ad front for anyone. And generally, I've thought of authenticity as a bullshit substitute for actual value. The only people I encounter who use the word authenticity work in branding-related fields, for are insufferable hipster-stereotypes who think of it as something conferred by drinking cheap beer, and spending the savings at Urban Outfitters.

But consider authenticity in terms of the using vs. discarding argument. Advertising is about creating associations, and using those associations to create desire. At a base level, it's about creating a desire to be the things associated with the brand in question. So, if a brand needs to maintain a justification for those associations to avoid making the consumer think that their identity, which has, to an extent, become an offshoot of the collection of brands they accumulate, then any glimpse that those associations were a transparent attempt to bring more customers is the same as discarding the originals.

To put it more simply, authenticity isn't the issue. Brands needs to develop organically, in a way that makes sense based on the associations they have claimed in the past, or abandon those who have used the brand as an identifier.

When a brand you have taken on as an aspect of your persona changes inorganically, they have discarded you, and everyone of their previous customer-base.

So. Either I misunderstood, and everyone who was talking about authenticity meant this, or authenticity is still a bullshit buzzword in the world of branding, but one with a hint of truth behind it.

More importantly, take the advice to heart. Using people is fine. Discarding them is where things become problematic.

advertising vs. data collection in monetizing social networks.

I promised to follow up on this post around two weeks ago, but I think I can be excused due to the holiday madness that filled that time period.

In the previous post, my general complaint was that the amount of initiative necessary to elevate advertising in social networks from an annoyance to a service is negligible in comparison to the potential returns, both directly and in terms of reputation. The example at hand was Facebook, and the mediocre targeting that let me know a band I like was touring in my country, but didn't bother to take it a step further and actually point me to venues near me, and a place to purchase tickets.

The problem goes deeper than that, and it's pretty simple to explain. Facebook, like most social networks, has made the assumption that having a business model based on advertising revenue means you are a company that works in advertising. Looking into Facebook's brand promotion 'Fans' pages, etc, there is a lot of useful space in which to inject a brand identity. They've also made a point to keep the structure fairly rigid, which I respect - this feature was, at first, the major differentiator from MySpace. I'm not trying to question the advertiser focused initiatives that Facebook has created. I'm just wondering why they were necessary at all.

Facebook is not an advertising company. Facebook, like all social networks, is more accurately a clearing house of user data. Facebook has a lovely, massive community of people, many of whom are highly engaged with the 'social utility'. Most of whom have made vast amounts of personal information available. This is what Facebook is selling, first and foremost - the ability to identify a useful target market for ads, services, etc.

So why are they taking it further than that? You want fan pages for Brands, sure. This makes perfect sense to me. But beyond that? What you have to offer is a community, and your collected information about them. Leave the rest to people why can actually make creative, targeted advertising work. Don't further the spread of the pseudo banner ad by putting them into the News Feed.

Offer the information. Leave strategy to the same guys who handle the creative in other, slightly less closed systems, all the time.

When reading about advertising and the future, the word that is thrown around a lot is authenticity, because us youth of today have finely tuned bullshit detectors, etc etc. My stance is that it's often quality that's more important - you can't make something an ad, and hide that you are trying to sell me something by coating it in a fine layer of authenticity. But you can make me care, and sit through the ad, because the content is good, relevant to me, and entertaining.

Facebook has the information to be astounding at determining the relevance of a product or service to it's users. But honestly, trusting either quality of content, or entertainment value to a company who openly and proudly has been built on unpaid, personal contributions by users seems more than slightly odd.

Hopefully it's clear that Facebook is interchangeable for any other social network or social utility here. The issue is that if the only thing you are actually bringing to the table is information, why are you trying to sell a full service, rather than just taking money for the information at substantially less overhead?

[Standard apology for radio silence.]

My good friend at Ghost Razor got me thinking about advertising and social networks. Well, he, the Microsoft-cash-certified 15 billion facebook valuation, and the fact that targeted advertising hasn’t really shown me much other than location targeting, and google style text ads that are based on the content of your screen / email / profile, etc.

The short version of this is there is a complete lack of creative work in these ads – text ads are boring. And text targeted ads result in some hilarious missteps, as well. Google is home of the brilliant proprietary algorithm, but I still get ads that suggest things based on sarcasm.

The response I’ve been seeing from advertising pros seem to be the most phoned in things in recent memory. I keep reading commentary about how targeted ads need ‘authenticity’ or how the essential missing ingredient is ‘engaging content’. For anyone who hasn’t been watching, this is the solution that is generally proposed by adver/creatives for anything in the universe. And it makes sense, because it’s important that spots be somewhat authentic, engaging, because these are code words for ‘not-insulting’ and ‘not boring’. Bravo.

There is place for creative content in targeted ads, and it just requires two major things – more work per account, and a better tool for profiling than just looking for keywords and spitting out the content that best fits.

My immediate reaction to being posed this problem was to think of profiling. Not in terms of looking for certain keywords and responding with certain ads, although that has a place. My interest is more in creating a dozen or so profiles for users that fit within the target market for your product, and then finding the interests, keywords, and relationships that identify these groups. This would require not only tracking the interests and usage of one person, but more important to track how interests spread between friends in the network – this could help in tracking the alpha consumers who are the holy grail. More importantly, it allows separation of users based on personality type, interest type in your product, related interests, etc.

Targeted advertising should be more than just sending people who say they care about something related to your product information, it should be about walking into the conversation of social networking, and treating different people with a past of different actions and different interests, differently. Treating people differently makes no sense in terms of broadcast model advertising, ie, advertising at scale.

This is different.

This is lucrative for both sides of the equation – the advertising agencies would now be creating multi-pronged campaigns with materials targeted to each of the X profiles created, so they would be (logically) charging substantially more. Also presumably logical would be increased effect from (actually) targeted advertising.

I guess all I’m saying is that targeted advertising means more to me than throwing the same content, or less involved content, at people who are more likely to care.

If facebook is worth 15 billion on the strength of the information it has gathered from it’s community, maybe targeted advertising should mean a little bit more in terms of giving people a personalized experience, rather than just very specifically aimed generic content.

what love?

Of all the things to bring me out of a blogging slump, Microsoft for the win. Who expected that? Anyways this 'Bring the love back' video and probable campaign is a very interesting beast.

First things first. Well done, kinda funny, but hardly a new message. Reading the project blog that I linked, the idea of conversation as the 'new' thing in the world of reaching customers online is floated at the end of april. This is not remotely a new idea. I can't even being to come up with the correct person to connect the idea to, but the internet as medium for conversation, and conversation as a medium for reaching consumers, is spoken about ad nauseum online. Not that it isn't completely true, but still.

The interesting part, however, is what is presented. It felt, to an extent, like an anti-advertising screed. The consumer complains about being ignored, is shown to be considered as only a section of a demographic, and desires something more than a discounted price or other form of 'bribery' for loyalty. Up until this point, it felt something like reading Adbusters. Advertising is the soulless pretty boy who doesn't care about the consumer at all, and the consumer has had enough. Except this isn't about rejecting marketing in all of it's forms, and arguing against urban spam. This is entirely about what messages are being shown to you via the channels you choose. This is about the tailoring of the message to the consumer.

I find this so amusing, because in essence, it's an anti-advertising clip, by Microsoft, and it might as well be a big ball of praise for Google.

The blog for this clip makes a comment about wanting to offer the "unique assets [...] to help advertisers to reconnect with today’s consumer (look at in-game advertising, personal expressions in messenger, Xbox, etc)" but these are doors already opened. I like the idea (and constant repetition) of the importance of creating a conversation as a means of reaching people, but at the same time, I feel this one is started under false pretenses, essentially an argument that consumer don't want discounts, and the 'same old' advertising practices, but instead deeply desire losing every last refuge from advertising, including in-game worlds, personal messages and emails, etc. For some reason, I doubt that being out of touch with your consumer base is something that is changed by the medium you choose to reach them. The first thing that pops to mind while looking into this 'Bring the love back' idea is that the conversation would be just as unsatisfying for the consumer whether it had been face to face, on Live Messenger, in email, written in a letter, through a tv screen, on a blog, or via messenger pigeon.

It doesn't matter how closely you stalk someone's interests in the attempt to find a new arena to throw your message at them. What matters is actually creating messages carefully tailored to the current interests and habits of the individuals in question. The 'Bring back the love' clip alludes to that. Google does it every time I check my email.

on boundaries of content.

It's become fairly accepted of late that advertising has started to require the creation of compelling content, rather than just an image of a compelling product with some vaguely interesting copy. The public-as-consumers has begun to demand a reason to pay attention to advertising, both consciously and unconsciously. This is the whole point of the viral explosion, that is someone can create content to interesting it's self-distributing, it doesn't matter if it's a commercial. My favourite example is the deep love my mother has for the recent Tim Horton's spot which features an old man and his son discussing family and hockey while watching the grandson play, all over a hot double double. My mother actually stops conversations, and silences the family to watch this. (I spent 30 minutes scouring youtube, no luck. Sorry.)

So, advertising is supposed to be compelling content. This is painfully obvious, and yet, people still seem to be screwing it up. Which is how we end up here...

Long story short, a band is found to have been created by an advertising firm (Saatchi & Saatchi) specifically for use as a promotions platform. Part of me likes this idea, that someone looks at the commodification of music and goes 'well, better than having to argue with a real band about compensation'. This could have worked, but the same damn mistake that Sony made over the Christmas season with an attempted viral campaign. There are enough people, with enough time, on the internet to find out whether or not anything in popular culture is genuine, or authentic, or an attempt to get them to buy something crappy. I don't know if the hair products being promoted by phony bands are any good. I actually WANT a PSP for myself. But if those responsible for advertising the product are so desperate for positive associations that they create fake people or artists to draw attention to them, it makes sense to assume they suck.

The thing that kills me is this. The music is question was good enough to be played repeatedly on the radio. It caught interest, developed a reasonable enough following to crack that massive barrier. All of this indicates, to me, that if those in charge had been clear about the fact this was a promotional tool, and been very transparent about it, it could have been very successful. Hell, that damn Snakes on a Plane song got radio play, and it was very blatantly about a movie. The difference is, there was no attempt to dupe anyone into thinking it was a coincidental work of art.

Adbusters demographic aside, the issue isn't that consumers hate anything phony. If they did, advertising would not exist, and no advertising related character would ever become popular. It is more or less totally acceptable for something to be completely fake, as long as there is no pretense of reality about the thing itself. What people hate is being told something is genuine, when it is not. They either a) see right through the attempted deception and resent the campaign and product, or b) find out later that they were deceived, feel stupid, and REALLY resent the campaign and product.

Baudrillard was wrong about many things, but he was right about this; if a simulation is PERFECT, then it is effectively reality. What are the chances of a band put together by an ad agency being that perfect? And why risk it when, in all likelihood, a quality product that is openly a promotional tool could reach a more interested, and self-propagating audience through distribution online, in audio, video, podcast, etc. formats.

I understand the rationale behind the move here, but at the same time, it's a little embarrassing that in a world where so much is spent on advertising, no one considered that with quality content, it doesn't really matter to a large segment of consumers if the purpose is also to sell something. There's no inherent need for adverts to be invasive, or annoying. Therefore there's no real reason to be ashamed that the content produced is an ad. My mother is fully aware that the charming elderly asian man is an actor hired to sell her coffee. She doesn't care, because when he says 'Gimme my picture back' it makes her laugh and smile all the same.