Spam is the New Mass Media

What's wrong with spam?

Well, the problem is that it is an heritage from mass communication understanding. It's basically playing a game if numbers (the more you send, the more you get - although you have a below zero return rate). It's the heritage from the age of interruption, in the age of engagement and networking.

First of all it misses 3Rs of digital: Right People, Right Place, and Right Time. What's more it's obviously not the right product neither.

On the other hand, for those who subscribe to the idea of "frequency", the ad should pass through the cognitive filters of the consumer. Unless receivers gets it, it doesn't matter how many times you send a message.

Now's time for clever advertising that adds value, not that devaluates!

Trying to Fly with THY is Real Headache! :(((

I tried to buy a ticket from THY on the phone... I'm in London and I call that +90 212 444... number of Turkish Airlines...

And finally, it took me 22 mins and 23 seecs on an international call to be able to buy my pre-booked ticket! On average of £1,5 per minute (perhaps I'm too optimistic about tthe tariff) just the call itself costed me more than £35 - which is an İstanbul flight ticket price at EasyJet!

What's more amazing, is that I have an AmEx credit card from Shop & Miles program (a mile earner program held jointly with THY and Garanti) which has 15 digits (that I learned while trying to process it) but it goesn't though THY's tele POS!!! Why? Because the POS requires a card with 16 digits. And it returned me an error. With my waiting time on line, which costed me around 7 or 8 more minutes. Finally, I couldn't buy the ticket on the automated system from THY, with a credit card with THY logo on it (see the card below). And re-started wih the another 16 digit card...



Should I also mention that the "tele" system didn't recognize my PIN entries through phone's keypad? Well, that seems to be a slighter issuecompared the ones above...

Artist Needs that Story

It's not the work, it's the artist speaking. On any piece, the artist can talk for hours...It's not the work, but the artist or perhaps better said it's the story we buy!

However in interactive design, we experience the work. We live it... We understand it throughout own engagement, and we require no description. And particularily in advertising at both conscious and unconscious levels. Although, a story still can be added on top of it, it's not that necessary as it is in art. Indeed, advertising work has to speak for itself.

What if you set your KPI to "clicks" - only?

Well, here's the result:



This banner above is sure an amazing click getter (you should have seen it in action). It attracts you with motion, it invites you through interactive gameplay, aptures attention... and also it provoques you. What's more, it blames you to be "a looser "when you don't interact. Like all good ads pushing the consumer into buying, it pushes you into click. - who wants to be a looser? However, it is without brand message, without selling promise and without anything relevant. Basically you just get "clicks" and does nothing else.

So you - as a marketer - should be aware of indications of KPI and therefore have better a holisctic approach, rather than stucking into a KPI.

The New Alchemy: Turnind Sand into Gold

Development is the new alchemy. The art of creating gold out of land and sand. How? Basically through buildings.

Value is what we agree to give in exchange. So, isn't it amazing that one agrees to exchange few kg.s of gold against few tons of sand - which is in abundance and found eveywhere?

Than comes advertising and marketing into the scene. The science of persuasion. Through magic, the cognitive value for both become interchangeable.

Equipped with financial and marketing tools, developers connect their projects into dreams and sell them against few negligeable kgs of gold...

This is new alchemy: turning sand into gold

Limited Creativity Explained

Limited Creativity is the term I employ to determine "user created content" through and within the tollset we provide them.

My recent work for Kotex few years ago at 2FRESH is a good example illustrating this fact. I designed an online app, which enabled users to design/create their own cotton bags online. Later on, awarded bags were actually produced... The thing was to provide them a toolset - with limited assets, and to see the output. What girls have done with it were amazing indeed!

Limited Creativity lies in the core if engagement, and it might take various forms indeed. You can design graphics, fabrics, fashion, music and pretty much everything. Combined with online medium it enables millions to interact with it - a quality hard to achieve in physical life.

Attraction! As shop owners know it

Today, seduction lies in the very core of consumerism.

In the "give & take" economy, today's consumer expects to get something back for almost everything. It's more like "I will listen to your ad, but what will I get in exchange?" approach. This is the basic reason why we have advertising which entertain us today.

On the surface it might sound contradictory to David Ogilvy's position in "Confessions of Advertising Man", however considering the fact that his book reflects 60s it's not true to judge it in terms of 2000s. In 60s people didn't buy from clowns, but they do now.

Today it's nothing but a rituel of flirt between brands and consumers. And any flirt act takes/involves two parties. It's not something a brand can do it on its own. The brand is better invite the consumer to dance!

So the nature changes more into buyer-seller into man-woman relationship. Where each side carries masculine and feminine attributes at the very same time.

That's why brand should be attractive to consumers. They should be inviting to dance, to interact. The only way to seducton passes through interaction.

Interestingly, this knowledge has been available to marketers (I mention local market sellers here) or shop owners - whose destiny depends on the stopping power of their shops. Again we see the same strategy here: Stop > Let in > Make loyal. Perhaps you realised, there is no selling mentioned here - although it's the core of it!

I strongly recommend to take a walk in local market (Greenwich, Portobello are great spots) and let yourself flow with it. You will have a far better understanding of attraction, interaction and perhaps seduction. Enjoy ;)

Welcome to Engagement!

Engagement is becomming a cultural phenomenon. Not just online, but in everywhere. These photo shots are from a lovely coffee named "Biscuit" where I stopped by for a cup if coffee today.

What Biscuit does, is to enable its costomers to paint their own coffee equipment for a relatively small fee. Actually, this is quite similar to what we've been offering on digital for a while - which I call "limited creativity".

As Biscuit customer, you select the pot, the color and paint. The coffee is designed like an art studio, so that you enjoy feeding your artistic side during an hour in the hassle free way. You don't just drink the coffee, but you get into it and take part.

You are engaged!

Psychological Research is not the End, just a Mean

Psychological research provides data. It's a mirror, or microscope which reveals the hidden motives or as a proof of our very subjective ideas...

The real challenge is to work on these motives, address to them in the most effective way to create more sales eventually.

The magic is in the hands of ad men. Still, psychological research provides a valuable input for the strategic-creative process. Psychological research is about clearly identifying what to say and how to say (also whom yo say, where yo say, etc.). Like any good insight, it has to be processed and translated to make it work in the field. It's a great tool and help for the ad men, rather than being a standalone tool of success.

Science vs Wisdom

Science has always been struggling to keep up with speed of thought. Perhaps, as it follows the thinking far behind. However the age of mechanical production seem to put positivism in a favorable position few centrues ago.

The "artificial light of positivism" seem to formulate eveything with formulas, numbers and statistics. This favours the dumb - as every fact is translated into stats; while punishing the genious - as he always has to proove his thoughts and wisdom through stats, most of them are just not available at that moment. So, things come to a point where "if it ain't statistical, it's not belivable", which embaraces the average guy with access to virtually all data of the world through his Internet connection (and his credit card on hand).

Thanks God that today research is the magical box, out of which you can get anything you desire! If you want a "yes" result there is one you can get, just below the "no" resulted survey. And guess what! There is a "maybe" just below it...

Quote - Bernice Allen on Happiness

"We have no proof that more material goods, such as more cars or more gadgets has made anyonone happier - in fact, the evidence seem to point in the opposite direction"

Bernice Allen

Discussions of Morality Around Psychological Research

Well, no big deal! Why? Because, psychological research is just a tool. And not the end. It's basically an input to be processed in minds and hands of the ad men.

However, if one believes in that the information might be in wrong hands, perhaps. But, it's more than simple burden of researchers.

What's moral by the way? Is it our seek of social or pdychological approval for conformity in what we do? If so, isn't it a mere extension of the way we were rised, educated, fed or programmed? Is there a universal truth or good? Or something else?

On the other hand, selling to people through addressing their deeper weaknesses, anxieties, aggressiveness, conformity, sexuality, etc. is another issue.

Are there any rules for advertising, by the way?

Is Psychological Research Back?

Advertising scene of 2000s seem to be dominated by psychology again. Best-seller charts in marketing bookd were hit one after the other by psycho or neuro marketing books. Psychology of Persuasion, Buyology, Neuro Web Design, etc are few to name.

I'd rather prefer calling this field as "psychological research" and defining it as use of psychological methods to reveal real insights of consumers in order to discovers hit spots with better appeal to them while engaging them into buying.

However this notion of psychological research is nothing new indeed. Its roots dig deep into 50s, where the popular trend of the time was called "motivation research" or " motivation analysis". In 2000s, methods seem to change and to have progressed (with a more scientific sound); however the food being served seems to be just a reheated topic.

Psycho-Marketing... Angel or Evil?

Indeed, the information gathered through psychological research is nothing but a set of data. The importance lies in how it is used.

The first thought aspect of it is to manipulate people into buying more, whereas it can also be employed to manipulate other factors around humans to fit the best to people's real needs as well.

Getting into the Life of the Rich

Today we are given the most secret insights and details about the world of the rich. Preassumably we know every product they use by brand, so that we have the perfect possibility to recreate these lives on our own.

This information flow works in two direction. First, those who aspire get a perfect roadmap to what to do - as long as they are ready to spend. Second, those who feel the same (might) justify their preferences. Both function as out-communication of oneself's social class.

They don't look like advertising, but they sure are. Advertising isn't just ads as mag spreads...
That's why we are kindly given so much information and insights... Not to use a wrong product and therefore not to be excluded from the class we are or strive, by mistake - thank God!

Advertising in the Rest of the World

It's been always interesting to nd how awards are distributed in shows. Most of them are earned by countries like Brasil, India, etc. I can't kee myself thinking about it...

First of all, it's obvious that advertising should be subtle and should work quietly. This is how real adv is. Yet these awarded ads are most of the time are at visible level. They don't sell, they tell - or don't sell the product at least.

This fact seems to connect to the deep need if self selling of the ad men. This need, end-up with creation of appealing ads. And ads are not advertising. Perhaps just a small part...

Perhaps, ads are the only visible face of advertising. And, it's easy to share, to follow, to submit... You might see these ads in any publications, without having a clue about the social and psychological context they operate in. And, all ads are publicized (even in adv mags or ezines) without this valuable information. Why? It's either too precious to share or there is basically no depth underneeth.

Another reason might be to improve the image of advertising. As true advertising works under the radar, it's not visible. Like an iceberg, these pretty ads are the only visible side of it. And to improve the image, a tangiblized aspect is sure needed. The point I really regret that insiders and newcomers being affected by this virus, especially marketers on client side.

Unfortunately, prettyness doesn't measure or reflect results or effectiveness.

Awards also advertising in advertising themselves, as they sell ad men status through recognition.

As a result, there is a wrong and manipulted impression about advertising. True advertising doesn't tell, but sells. And it does this very deep and quietly!

What if you are shooting yourself with your ads?

It's interesting to see examples from history, where marketers used to shoot themselves with their own advertising. Few examples from 50s would be wonder fruit prune, instant coffee, sickly brewed tea, margarine or dry milk cases in 50s America, etc.

Fortunetely, these advertisements were spotted and fixed at their time. What about today? Who do you think are shooting themselves?

Upward Strivers as a Segment

Upward strivers seem to be an open and easy target for advertising. They know that they should spend money instinctively and they are ready for it!

If you are already in "up", it's a good chance that you already know or are grown up with norms and symbols, which you have herited from the family.

The interesting thing is that, there is a reverse dynamics in the up class. If a product is advertised heavily to be associated with the uppers, these people seem to stay away of it to protect themselves from strivers, wheras strivers di their best to buy it.

You as striver, you sure need tips, cues and clues about the "up" living - which is unfamiliar to you. In this case, you would need as many insights as you can. Perhaps you watch TV, skim mags or check ups in the news... And advertising (not always as ads) would be more than happy to provide you with these insights - for fee.

Yet, it's guarantted that your striver status would be seen and spotted from 100 miles away by the "uppers" and that you will be classified accordingly. Perhaps, it's because you got the wrong symbols on or with you - not the really active ones within the class, but the ones basically advertised to outsiders.

Whispering through Digital Advertising

The old school adverisers talk about bringing the noise, wheras they should be talking about whispering!

Noise is so 50s. From the age where the mass communication was ruling the world. These times were about shouting as loud as possible, so that your voice is heard of as many consumers as possible.

However, in 2000s it's about whispering. Finding the right one among millions and whispering him straight inti the ear. No one else hears you. The communication is unique and personal. By the way, every individual hears a different message from you. There us no noise znd interference at all. This is how whispering works... deep and subtle like ant good advertisement should be.

Interestingly, noise is the unwanted thing in any professiobal communication, because it interferes and distorts the message. You simply can't get what you need with a broken message.

There is also the psychological ego reason behind the big noise. Big noise means big nose!?And, it is bwsically about the ad and not the product at all! So, it's the ad men, who simply becomes visible and credited through that talked about ads. A kind of self promotion or masturbation... You name it.

Besides, who makes the noise? Especillay the big one?? Answer: Crowds! So, whoever is referencing to noise, is referencing to masses indeed. Yet, I really wonder the relevance of it considering mass communication, reminding you thar we live in the age of customisation, personalisation and individuality...

It's all about whispering. Right words at the right time in the ear of the right person.

Quote - Kenneth Boulding on Democracy

"A world of conceivable dictatorship is conceivable, still using the forms of
democratic government."

Kenneth Boulding

Spending More while Relaxed?

Research says that consumers tend to spend more when they are relaxed.

Where's the most relaxed place? Home? In front of your TV, or computer screen? What do you have with you at the most relaxed moment, your mobile? Yes, you got it.

It was about to create a relaxed physical shopping experience in 1900s, whereas it's now bringing the shopping next to your relaxed casual experience, state. This is the digital shopping, and you are welcome in!

Perhaps, to be or to feel relaxed is another motive behind purchases. Yet again, it's strongly related with the relaxation state...

Quote - David Riesman on Selling to Children

"Today, the future occupation of all moppets is to be skilled consumers."

David Riesman

Cultural and Social Codes in Advertising

In short terms ads make use of cultural & social codes in the society and therefore help individuals to express their message to others through establishing a common language system of codes.

In the long term, advertising (beyond ads) creates the codes and values to make use associated with products. Once the common ground is set for the audience, there is more room to play with it. This is the main reason behind huge advertising spendings.

Advertising is not just ads, but is rathers meanings associated with products (and brands) which are communicated through a set of cultural and social codes....

The New Jungle: Supermarket

Our anchestors used to get their food and other vital support out of the jungle, through hunting or collecting. Our new jungle today is the Supermarket.

In supermarket we hunt for meat thanks to butcher, we collect tomatoes and many other junk flashing in front of our eyes and inviting us to consume... However, like the wisdom of our grand grand parents - who used to identify poisonuous herbs, dangerous animals, etc we should be able to identify good and dangerous.

Even though danger comes deceisively in nice and attractive packages.

David Perry: Will videogames become better than life?

The Lost Boys - By Frank Rose (from Wired)

Online gaming all night: Cool. Hour after hour downloading MP3s and porn: No problem. Thirty seconds so you can try to sell me something? Outta here. How the 18-34 male is reinventing advertising.

For broadcast television, Coke was it. The 50-year partnership of fizzy sugar water and network TV yielded some memorable moments, from the groovy "Things Go Better with Coke" spots of the '60s to the carefree "Can't Beat the Feeling" campaign of the '80s. But in recent years, the 19th-century elixir hit a rough patch in its relationship with TV. Since the big broadcast networks no longer deliver the mass audience the company needs, Coca-Cola cut its network ad spending last year by 10 percent. "Where are we going?" Coke's then-president, Steven Heyer, asked rhetorically at an Advertising Age conference in 2003. "Away from broadcast TV as the anchor medium." Acknowledging that many in the ad industry are afraid to follow, he added bluntly, "Fear will subside, or the fearful will lose their jobs. And if a new model isn't developed, the old one will simply collapse."

Heyer's speech was bold stuff when he made it, but lately this kind of television-bashing has become a staple of industry confabs. "There must be - and is - life beyond the 30-second TV spot," Procter & Gamble's global marketing officer declared last winter. "Used to be, TV was the answer," proclaimed the president of GM North America. "The only problem is that it stopped working sometime around 1987." The broadcast networks have been losing audience share for years, thanks to the remote control, TiVo, and all the new channels on cable and satellite. But when Nielsen Media Research announced last fall that young males - the hardest-to-reach and most intensely targeted subset of humans in North America - were watching 12 percent less prime-time network TV than the year before, Madison Avenue went on orange alert. True, the falloff was only 26 minutes a week - but in the ad business, a few lost minutes can add up to major trauma.

"It's not that men 18 to 34 have stopped watching TV," explains David Raines, the Coke VP in charge of divvying up ad money. "But they're doing a lot of other stuff, too" - going online, watching DVDs, playing videogames. "The bottom line is, ad dollars will follow the consumer." Last year, substituting product placements for traditional commercials, Coca-Cola followed them into The Matrix Reloaded and Atari's Enter the Matrix videogame. P&G and GM, the biggest advertisers in the US, tried similar tactics. So while the networks' ad take for 2003 was flat at $20 billion, Rishad Tobaccowala, chief of new media at the giant buying and planning agency Starcom MediaVest Group, projects that 15 percent of those ad sales could dry up within three years, taking with them as much as $3 billion a year in lost revenue.

Network executives freaked at the Nielsen news, but not everyone was surprised. In the five years that Jeffrey Cole has been running the UCLA Internet Project, he's found that Net users consistently watch less TV than other people - in 2003, more than five hours less per week. This pattern has held for every age group, for both sexes, and in every country he's studied, from Hungary to South Korea. Young men are simply the advance guard. "Broadcasters used to say, Internet users are different," says Cole. "But we show that as you go online, you watch less television." Last year, when Cole did a quick survey of people who do watch TV, he found that only 5 percent of them actually paid attention to the ads anyway. "The business model of television, which is to deliver viewers to advertisers," he declares, "is as troubled as that of the music industry."

Eager to reach the disappearing guy demo, marketers are experimenting with advertorial blogs, commercials that pop up in email, even human billboards running around Times Square with ad slogans pasted on their foreheads. Ad revenue to Web sites is soaring, and game publishers are hoping to hit pay dirt as well. For anyone who gets it right, big rewards are in the offing.

Starcom has been planning for this day since 1998, when Tobaccowala noticed that many of his new hires were taking time off to get broadband installed at home. They weren't about to go back to dialup after college, not when they spent more time online than watching TV. Last February, Starcom was named Ad Age's media agency of the year after winning the $350 million Coca-Cola account. Now the agency delivers ad messages not just online but through mobile phones, videogames, and word of mouth as well - the new new media. The idea is to keep up with the 18-to-34 crowd by moving beyond 30-second TV spots toward a more direct multimedia entertainment-and-branding experience. "People don't have to listen to you anymore, and they won't," declares Tim Harris, the 30-year-old co-chief of Starcom's new videogame operation. "I mean, I resent commercials - they make me push three buttons on my TiVo."

In a conference room at the Beverly Hills headquarters of Creative Artists Agency, whose clients range from P&G to the Farrelly brothers, 10 young men are seated around a massive table, offering up opinions like pearls on velvet. Videogames are great because they make you a participant, not just a viewer. TV sucks - but most of them watch it anyway. And ads?

"I feel manipulated and angry," says Lee, a 33-year-old musician. "Having these things forced down my throat all the time - especially with network television, it's loud, it's brash."

"Now that I have TiVo, I realize how much of TV is actually commercials," says Nick, a 25-year-old marine biologist. "I can watch two shows in almost the time it took me to watch one. Then if I see a commercial I like, I'll go back to it."

"I don't think they hate ads," concludes the session's moderator, Jane Buckingham, who heads CAA's Youth Intelligence unit. "They hate bad ads. If it's a cool ad, they're going to watch it."

Take the Quiznos Spongmonkeys. Created by Joel Veitch, a London-based Web and TV producer who specializes in hilariously asinine Flash animations, the Spongmonkeys are almost certainly the first cartoon rodents to be enlisted in a fast-food campaign. The spots - which show one of the razor-toothed, demented-looking furballs strumming a guitar while the other screeches a paean to Quiznos ("We love the subs! 'Cuz they are good to us.") - became an instant sensation when they debuted in February. Viewers either loved them or thought they were the most revolting thing they'd seen since, well, since the last batch from Quiznos, one of which showed a guy in a business suit sucking a wolf's teat.

The lessons for Madison Avenue are clear. If you want to capture this demographic's attention, be prepared to entertain and don't be afraid to polarize the audience. "The days of putting some stupid message up and forcing everyone to see it - that's so over," says Alex Bogusky, executive creative director of Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Miami. Crispin Porter is the agency behind Burger King's ballyhooed "Subservient Chicken" campaign, which showed a man in a chicken suit performing embarrassing tasks at the behest of Abercrombie & Fitch types; a companion Web site lets you type in your own commands and watch the chicken respond. "With this generation," says Bogusky, "it's, I know you're marketing something to me, and you know I know, so if you want me to try a new chicken sandwich, that's cool - just give me some crazy chicken to boss around."

Strictly speaking, of course, this isn't a generation at all. The 18-to-34 demo actually straddles the tail end of Generation X and the leading edge of what demographers are calling the Millennials. "The younger group is a lot more positive," says Bogusky. "They're not so angst-ridden, not quite as ironic and cynical. They wanna have fun." There's also more of them - some 70 million, compared with 76 million baby boomers and the 41 million in Gen X. Millennials tend to be less suspicious than their predecessors, but they're still too smart for most marketers. "The hardest job is surprising them," Bogusky adds. "Usually they know what you're going to do before you do it."

Both groups share a hunger for "authenticity." If the ad message doesn't jibe with the brand's image, forget it. And say good-bye to the hard sell as well. The Subservient Chicken campaign was trashed in Ad Age for failing to push the product, but that was the point. "There's a huge lure to obscurity," explains David Art Wales of the New York consulting firm Ministry of Culture. "That's one of the keys - giving people something to discover, which is the antithesis of the way most advertising works."

When it comes to media, men 18 to 34 like things fresh, unpredictable, and uncensored. They're more than twice as likely as other adults to have TiVo or some other DVR. Reality TV is a guilty pleasure, but sitcoms, formulaic and tired, aren't even tempting. When they do watch TV, guys usually prefer cable channels - Comedy Central, ESPN, HBO, MTV. On the Web, they tend to cluster at porn, gaming, and sports sites. And just because they're online doesn't mean they aren't watching TV and listening to their iPods, too. One of the guys in the focus group even had a mirror on top of his computer screen so he could watch TV without turning around.

"This younger generation has a filter mechanism," observes Jim Lentz, group VP of marketing at Toyota Motor Sales USA. Lentz has his own focus group at home: two sons, ages 17 and 21. "They can be doing their homework, listening to music, watching TV, on the PC, and on the phone, all at the same time. It drives my wife crazy. You assume they're just screwing around - but they're not." This ability to focus is governed by a complex neural network called the reticular activating system, which filters sensory input to keep the brain from being overwhelmed. When you grow up in an always-on world this system may adjust to cope. "They have a total ability to block out anything they don't want to get through," Lentz marvels. "From an advertising standpoint, that's what makes this animal so scary."

Of course, some media are more immersive than others. As young males drift away from the tube, advertisers are trying to focus on entertainment that grabs their attention and holds it. Tops on that list is videogames. A decade ago, games were considered so geeky that Electronic Arts had to pay real-world companies to reproduce their logos in its sports titles. Now, with Nielsen reporting that young men are spending more time than ever with their TV sets tuned to the game console, big brands like Honda and McDonald's are paying EA to get in on the action.

"We're eating the networks' lunch!" crows Jeff Brown, EA's vice president of corporate communications, mentally computing the bite EA might someday take out of the television ad market. "Now, this doesn't happen for 6, 12, 18 months - but when television executives take full measure of how their advertising dollars are moving to videogames, you should prepare yourself for a lot of news stories about how bad videogames are for kids. In fact, I would recommend that Morley Safer get started right now on how videogames are warping the minds of young people. Perhaps" - he grins wickedly at the thought - "they should run it right after all the gore on CSI."
Even as advertisers experiment with virtual entertainment, they're trying the opposite tack: delivering messages in the real world, with no electronic intermediary at all. At showings of The Matrix Revolutions last fall, Nissan stuck actors in movie theaters and, when an Altima spot came on, had them stand up and deliver lines from it, like car junkies at a poetry slam. To promote a new line of phonecams, Sony Ericsson hired actors to pose as tourists and ask people to photograph them with the phones. The catch-all term for such campaigns is "experiential," because the point is to create an experience memorable enough to break through the filter mechanism and generate buzz - something far more likely to register with media-saturated guys than advertising.

Intellectual cover for this sort of thing is provided by books like Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point and Seth Godin's Unleashing the Ideavirus: Get the right people talking about something and sooner or later it'll take off. The concept is vintage '90s; what's new is the notion that anybody would put a budget behind it. "When people used to say, 'We'd like to do guerrilla marketing,' that translated to, 'We don't have any money,'" quips Andrew Gledhill, president of the LA-based ad agency Ground Zero. "When they said, 'We'd like to do something viral,' that meant, 'We really, really don't have any money.'" No more: Ground Zero recently won a $10 million viral-marketing account from Toyota.

Partly because the Net is one place where you can find a lot of young males, Internet advertising has staged an equally remarkable comeback. IGN/Gamespy, a gaming site that claims a bigger concentration of men 18 to 34 than any other Web destination, is even thinking of mimicking television by holding its own "upfront" - the spring ritual at which the networks sell airtime for the coming fall season. At the same time, the Internet's ability to pinpoint a narrow slice of the population is calling into question the whole idea of broad demographic categories. Instead, marketers are realizing they can slice and dice the demo and go for the "bull's-eye target" - like newly married men in their twenties who've just bought their first home.

By the time today's young man hits middle age, predicts Starcom's Rishad Tobaccowala, the distinction between television, videogames, and the Internet will have all but melted away. All content will be more or less interactive, all screens will be IP-enabled, and everything we view on them - ads, entertainment, in the home, on the go - will be served up individually, according to who we are and what we're doing. Of course, we won't spend all our time in front of screens - just most of it. "There will be physical events that can never be digitized, like Nascar races or people meeting in bars," he says, and this will put a premium on experiential advertising and experiences in general. "But increasingly we will be able to make our alternate worlds more and more real."

For now, though, digital entertainment is still at its inception, and advertisers have to learn a whole new game. Men 18 to 34 are the gift that will show them the way.


From Wired Magazine, with my thanks to Ken Hollings

History of Video Games

My Virtual Reality - by Michael Highland

Evolution of Video Games

Every News is an Ad Copy

News are given us for "free".

Wouldn't you question if a foreigner approaches you and offers anything for free? Would you take it? Would you trust on it? Perhaps not as you know them... But what if it's a brand. Something you know by a meaning. This is how news works indeed. They are free, by publishers you know - and trust (at least enough to read).

However, we all know that nothing is free. It should have an invome model right? Well, true. These are ads you see in, top, bottom or in the middle of news.

However, to get ads in it, every publication face a huge challenge. Advertisers are definitely not short in media. There are plenty... So that in accordance with competition in the publishing industry, each ad becomes an ad copy it self - a "pick me" issue. So, the article first has to sell itself, and then make your eyes glides with the copy... right before to interrupt you with the banner in middle of it - in the era of engagement!

Isn't it interesting?

What Advertising Sells

Does advertising sells only gasoline, soap, detergent, cigarette, alcohol, etc? Or stocks, democracy, war, politics, war, etc. as well? Is it just mere advertising, or something more complex, cultural and beyond? Perhaps ad man is just a multiplier and not the originator? Worth thinking...

Quote - Calvin Coolidge on Mass Production & Advertising

"The pre-eminence of America in industry has come largely through mass
production. Mass production is only possible where there is demand. Mass demand
has been created almost entirely through the develoment of advertising."

Calvin Coolidge

Online Advertiser is the New Direct Mail Guy

Obviously you can't have missed how heavyweights of advertising such as David Ogilvy, or John Caples favor the old direct mail advertisers. Because they were the ones who had feedback on their sales through coupons... But this was in 60s. In a galaxy far far away and long long time ago...

Thank god, for few decades since than, not much people wondered about return on advertising. Until a recent crisis made the dust and flair disaappear and rocks of reality rise before the giant cruise ship named "economy"

What's more, today we have a tool and technology which enable us to have very precise metrics. Now that we have that great opportunity to advertise online, we have every piece of information available to us, not just sales. Perhaps we are the luckiest ad men of this century. We have the possbility to rely on facts and create some real sales finally.

We are the new direct mail guy of 60s. We are the digital ad men.

Where 60s have gone?

I wonder where 60s have gone. Why a break. So long... And now, why they seem to be back?

70s, 80s and 90s were perhaps the age of glamour of advertising after hard worked base of 60s. Ad men were not just competing, but also improving the image of the industry through awards shows and were basically self-realising themselves. But why? Perhaps, the world was turning without advertising - unlike 60s... So that ad men were able to involve other fancy activites rather than selling goods - which is their raison d'être.

Then the economy hit the wall badly recently, and saviors of 60s are called back to mission: real ad men, from the "dark side"... Not only copywriters of old days, but psychologists, antropologists, sociologist and so on... are all welcomed back to their empty seats and desks. Why? Because, now that we are in crisis, many facturers need in some real advertising. And badly, and more than ever.

Or perhaps it's just another trend, a cycle?

Marshall McLuhan - Global Village

Marshall McLuhan - Interview 1967

Marshall McLuhan - World Connectivity

Marshall McLuhan - Wake

Kinetica Art Fair 2010

Kinetica Art Fair 2010
Originally uploaded by Can Burak

Kinetica Art Fair, organized by Kinetica Museum and curated by Dianne Haris was held this weekend in London, at P3 (near Baker Street). I had few pics and my Kinetica 2010 phto set is available at my Flickr.

Questioning Democtracy in the Age of Digital Interaction

By its definition, parlimentary system represents the public, individuals living in a specific region and compared to its root in ancien Rome, the system we currently use is "representative democracy". In representative system, each member of the parliement represents us. Our thoughts, our ideasi and our decisions. However, now it seems that this system is out-dated. And soon it might become unfunctional...

Today we have digital interactivity, which enables us to have "direct democracy". Without anyome representing us, we can represent ourselves through our digital existence and interactivity. We can vote for our own decisions. We really don't need anybody else, to vote for us. Perhaps to make policies, but not voting.

So, would next representatives be the mates on Twitter?

Pathological Oversharing Panel

Rebloged from Ken Hollings, with my sincere thanks.

The Price of Now

The existence of now is definitely true and past and future are meanings we created. However the truth is that they are nothing but nows. So, that moments is not our only now, not was and not will be... So, we shouldn't be in a scarcity mindset and want everything right now, for our own sake!

Now is the psychological pressure put on us, of which we are mostly unaware. Buy now and save, buy now and we deliver tomorrow, buy now only 1 left in stock, etc. They all aimed to put us in anxiety, hurry and push us to act upon.

It's interesting to realise that there are times for everything rather than nows. For example, if you pay later and not now; you will definitely pay less. Because the marketing lifecycle of the product will shift to maturity and them to decline...

If I subscribed to gym a month before or a month later I wouldn't pay any subscipyion fee. If I bought my car 2 months later, I would have economized almost 25% or so... However, for each case I paid a price for now - which is interestingly already the past now.

But we insist on buying the "same" product right now, and not later. Because we are basically the consumer of today: Who wants everything and now. Well, this means that we don't buy the product indeed. But we buy the now.

And the price tag on it seem to reflect - rather than the price of the product, the price of "now"

Distinguishing the Mass

Our recent stimulating conversation with Ken Hollings led me to clarify and write about the distinction between the mass media and the mass audience.

Truth is that, there's been never a mass audience. Always individuals. But perhaps as marketers couldn't get close enough, they could only see the crowd from a distance...

However, there's been the mass media perhaps since the invention of print. Mass media was effective due to it's repetitive and therefore scale-economic mechanical nature. Even on the circuit, the same message was continously broadcasted to the "masses".

The interesting fact is that these masses never existed in reality. They were just mere definitions in minds of marketers and actually reflected the disability to see the individual. Perhaps it was not possible in the age of analogue, however on the age of digital it's the reality.

Digital welcomes every individual as part of the society. Both individual and society being key terms here. It doesn't talk to crowds, but whispers into ears. It's not about making noise like in analogue times. It's about picking up the one among millions.

It's a new way of segmenting: no segment! But individuals with fusion identities.



Note - You might check my previous article "Fusion Identities" previously posted in Digital Age magazine related to this topic.

Work - Earn - Spend

Designers Republic formulated it as "buy-consume-die" once... It used to be work earn spend in correct order once... Now that "spend" seem to come in the first place, who cares about the order of the rest? As long as you spend...

"Je dépense, donc je suis"

Virtual Escapes

"... So, even if we are sitting in a dark subterranean basement in front of a glowing screen, these games offer us a virtual means of expecting the same rush of pleasure we would feel if we were living these fantasies and dreams in our actual lives" says Martin Lindstrom while talking about "mirror neurons" in his book Buyology.

We live, but not there...

POV for Advertising

Now the consumer wants to be main character, the hero. He wants to leave the best seat which cinematagraphers fixed him into it for a while... And see the story through the eyes of the hero. Consumer don't want to witness. But wants to live the adventure through his own eyes...

POV (point of view) is a scientific approach appealing to neurons basically in order to fake the brain to create the illusion of living it. You know, most memories are not the ones we remember, but the ones we make-up on our own!

Games, Movies, Virals, Online, Porn... all are better from (1st person) POV. They alter our reality through carefully mastered dreams. We "live" them. For "real"!

Hard-sell is long gone online

Hard sell obviously don't work online. Why? Because there are so many. Because it's helpless. Because it's about them, not you...

What works is seduction! Pulled back, relaxed, teasing, entertaining... while setting social and psychological context up.

Today's consumer wants to be entertained, seduced, attracted... He/she wants to get a value back against the ad to which he/she exposed. It's a dance, a new rituel and marketers needs to understand it; whereas ad-mans have to master it...

The Digital Money

The physical quality of money seems to disappear. Those times when money was gold, measured and valued with its quantity... Now money is nothing but few digits on the screen - whenever you use an electronic payment method such as credit card or wire transfer...

The digital money is essentially credit card. And to confirm amy transaction, all we need to do us to sign with few digits. Either in store or online.

However, in store you even have a physical quality. Not with the money, but with the product. Through associating a psychological value to physicality of the product, one might have a general understanding of the value his/her purchase. However online, you have nothing but thumbnails. All same size, all same layout, all sane KBs... The only difference is the meaning and the price tag on it...

And everything is one click away from you now!

Money is nothing, but a decision now. And how to measure the worth of a decision is the critical question.

And the iPod Comparison