Facebook targeting the dead

So here I am writing a thesis on targeting, I log on to Facebook and get this content targeted message on my homepage “Your Friend X: You haven’t talked on Facebook lately” showing me a picture of an old school friend that I very occasionally speak to… bearing in mind we haven’t spoken much in 20 years.

By lately it means within the last 72 hours – forget the fact I may have actually called them, emailed them or any other form of communication. Forget the fact that i may only speak to them every few days or weeks/months. Facebook going yet again where they are most unwelcome. What kind of muppets do they employ over there? Don’t they do any consumer research? Clearly not, as I am not the only one upset by this.

So this latest fubar – and yes I do mean it in the urban dictionary definition is just an outrage to personal privacy.

What has it got to do with them anyway?

One poor guy is fuming and rightly so, after the person in question it recommended to was deceased!

As the author says “Now, I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t want to be reminded that I haven’t “talked” lately to a family friend that is dead.”

Facebook must change its policy, and fast.

Want automatic updates? Subscribe to my RSS feed or Get E-mail Updates.

One sneeze and you’re chipped?

As I work through my research on Addressable Advertising via RFID, an interesting twist has come to light that could argue ‘why’ allow yourself to be chipped at all, and that is in the fact you may be forced into a situation where you feel you have no choice – that is a scenario in which a pandemic occurs.

It must have been 1991 when a friend of mine who had been looking through some military testings on a scanner-readable tag. It was surrounding a unique bio-code that was created by an injection that altered skin-cell reactions at on deeper tissue, effectively darkening some cells, to create a totally unique pattern to each individual that would be invisible with the naked eye but able to be read by a scanner. At the time I had no idea what such concept would be useful for. His reply startled me, ‘to identify those who have been administered an antidote in times of a pandemic – and potentially linked to commerce.’ His argument was that food allocation could be limited to those who had been administered a vaccine to help prevent further spread of disease.

We are now living in a time when the first pandemic since 1968 Hong-Kong flu is upon us, and suddenly his foresight may well becoming true.

The Florida-based company VeriChip Corporation, already boasts the world’s first and only federally approved human-implantable radio microchip. It is a small glass vial about the size of a grain of rice and is inserted under-the-skin and contains a number computer-linked to a person’s medical records, enabling doctors via a reader to access the information even if the patient is unconscious or unidentified. It is the only such implant approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Last week, Scott R. Silverman, chairman of VeriChip, launched a new variant of his company at ID World International Congress in Milan, Italy, to detect ‘bio-threats’ as VeriChip looks beyond patient identification to diagnostic and sensor applications. It is working with Minnesota company Receptors LLC, to develop virus-detection technology that can automatically detect in a host’s bloodstream the presence of H1N1 swine flu, the H5N1 bird flu virus, or other pandemic agents or viruses deemed a bio-threat to assist in emergency preparedness.

According to VeriChip’s press release, the company’s concept is to transform existing “in vivo” – meaning implanted inside a living organism – glucose-sensing technology into a ‘virus triage detection system for the H1N1 virus,’ i.e. a microchip that can alert others of the virus’ presence.

“As we continue to build on our partnership with Receptors, which started with the development of a glucose-sensing RFID implantable microchip, we are moving beyond patient identification to sensors that can detect and identify illnesses and viruses such as influenza,” said Scott R. Silverman, chairman of VeriChip, in a statement. “This is an exciting next step for the future of our healthcare division.”

According to Reuters, Shares of VeriChip Corp CHIP.O tripled after the company said it had been granted an exclusive license to two patents. It’s worth noting that tracking human’s via RFID has already several patents, such as those held by IBM.

“The triage system will provide multiple levels of identification – the first will identify the agent as virus or non-virus, the second level will classify the virus and alert the user to the presence of pandemic threat viruses and the third level will identify the precise pathogen, VeriChip said in a white paper ‘An Integrated Sensor System for the Detection of Bio-Threats from Pandemics to Emerging Diseases to Bio-Terrorism,’ published May 7, 2009.”

The company had already seen an interest surge on it’s VeriTrace technology following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, where it was used by the Federal Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team. In this scenario the microchips are implanted in human remains, effectively ‘duct-taped to bones’, in order to maintain detailed records of fatalities.

The problem with existing RFID chips is that they often ‘lack-the-brains’ as seen with micro-computers, as they only transmit fixed data back to a reader device. Sensors are one aspect of addressing this, the other is advancements in CRFID’s or ‘computational’ RFID tags that are under development in MIT.

We are already seeing other variants of this technology in terms of printed electronic boards, as seen Xerox’s Silver Ink which will herald in an era of wearable electronics. Or in the case of a concept my friend and I discussed some years ago, invisible ink as shown in Somark’s chipless RFID ink tattoo, already used in animal tracking and identification.

As terrifying as pandemics are, I also took the liberty of investigating quite where HIN1 is at this current stage of global penetration. I feel the media has unduly over-hyped this current H1N1 situation as my own illness passed with relatively mild affects and so any discussion of chipping people – by choice or force – needs to be seen in light of facts of the illness.

Here is what I have found;

• All mammals and birds are susceptible to Influenza – it’s an airborne virus.
• Each year new strains are discovered. Cross-species jumps pose most risk.
• Hundreds of thousands of people die each year from the seasonal ‘flu’
  • According to World Health Organisation (WHO) ‘Annual influenza epidemics are estimated to affect 5–15% of the global population. Although most cases are mild, these epidemics still cause severe illness in 3–5 million people and 250,000–500,000 deaths worldwide.’
• WHO said H1N1 swine flu was pandemic after only 30,000 cases had been reported globally. (June 11, 2009)
• However 41,400 (avg) die per year in the US alone every year from the normal flu – and this is consistent since 1979.
• Current H1N1 WHO status is based on spread NOT severity – it was precautionary as young people had been affected around the world.
• A pandemic means level raised to millions of deaths, not the normal 100,000’s
• H1N1 has been repsonsible for only 6,768 deaths globally to date – not millions or even hundreds of thousands, not even ten… 6,768!
  • That’s much worse than average CTR!
• H1N1 (avian/pig) are only a fraction of mutations that make up Influneza virus.
• You stand more chance of catching and being fatally ill from normal flu then swine flu.
• It would seem normal flu is at least 100x more prolific and fatal then swine flu H1N1 – shown in the global data.
• People who take vaccine are having stronger flu symptoms and worse side-effects then those who don’t.
  • Most swine flu symptoms are mild and last only a few days without treatment – WHO does not recommend TamiFlu for normal healthy people with mild symptoms.
• It is normal flu we need to be more wary of and industry reactions should be 100x that of swine flu reactions – not the other way around – it’s out of balance.

Don’t take my word for it – or the media’s – do your own research. After all, its as easy as clicking on on some of those links above…

… so can we all stop panicking now and have a nice week please?!

Final trivia question: In thinking through vaccines, why would something with such bad press from 1960’s be useful on a new strain only announced at start of 2009? Hmmm… How long does it take to get medical tests done? (Clue: no. of years)

More on RFID; NothingToHide.Us

Want automatic updates? Subscribe to my RSS feed or Get E-mail Updates.

RFID-Equipped iPhone

Just been alerted to an article that discusses “Apple testing RFID-equipped iPhone, expert claims”, pointing to a number of patents that Apple has filed to do with RFID. Einar Rosenberg, who runs the Near Field Communications (NFC) Group on Linkedin.com, claims as follows:

“A highly reliable source has informed me that Apple has built some prototypes of the next generation iPhone with an RFID reader built in and they have seen it in action. So its not full NFC but its a start for real service discovery and I’m told that the reaction was very positive that we can expect this in the next gen iPhone.”

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a technology that enables connections between mobile phones and physical things, and is often referred to as Ubiquitous computing. It certainly heralds the start of true web 3.0 – the semantic web.

This is not so new a concept for iPhone users, as already their is a popular application ‘RedLaser’ already allows users to scan barcodes from their iPhone and allows you to search for online prices using Google product search.

An iPhone that reads RFID tags would indeed be an incredible hot commodity and could make an adoption of mobile payments a realistic possibility in the west. This would follow in the foot steps of Japan where a large majority of mobile phones (73%) are already RFID-enabled, according to Christopher Billich, SVP, Research & Strategy at Infinita Inc based in Tokyo whom I met with this week as he presented his future insights into mobile at IAB Warsaw.

He explained that in Japan NFC usage is becoming commonplace and already 18% are using mCommerce via RFID. It is well-documented of the experimentation McDonald’s using Kazasu Kuupon (”no contact coupon”) program, using electronic payment and coupon system based on RFID for people to buy discounted burgers, etc. whist affording McDonalds a huge inventory of data of consumption habits and real-time locations tracked to an individual.

Apparently 61% of 16-24yr olds in Japan already use Internet on mobile for 1 hour a day, yet 30% use it for more than 3 hours continuously. Most phones already have permanent connection to digital terrestrial broadcast television direct to the handset, as well as continuous Internet connectivity as data bundles are included within price plans.

mCommerce is only one of the uses of NFC, in Japan even certain motorcycles are started remotely via RFID, showing just one of the potential uses of an RFID-enabled iPhone. ePassports and driving licenses or security entry systems are all within possibility.

Touch is a research project that investigates and develops applications and services that enable people to interact with everyday objects and situations through their mobile devices. They have the following video, amongst others posted on their article ‘iPhone RFID: object-based media’.

More on RFID; NothingToHide.Us

Want automatic updates? Subscribe to my RSS feed or Get E-mail Updates.

Spending Time With New York Street Advertising Takeover

I wrote an article before entitled Banksy and Brody: brand designers for a digital age as I was enamoured with Banksy’s opening line ‘one man’s advertising is another man’s graffiti’.

Always amuses me that people complain that online advertising is terrible. When you take a walk around the streets you sure do see a whole load of ugly signage. I equally would rather clean up the neighbourhood then most websites. The worst offenders are estate agents IMHO.

Just been shown this video, which I think is an interesting twist on the concept of a consumer in control.

My advice. Create more interesting and artistic ads, fly-boy!

P.S. Curious why the company in question equally isn’t arrested?

Want automatic updates? Subscribe to my RSS feed or Get E-mail Updates.

The Human Micro-chipping Agenda

Verichip and their subsidiary Verimed have started a TV campaign in the US promoting their vision for the micro-chipping of all humans called HealthLink. Whether you are incapable of making decisions, or worried in case of being incapacitated in an accident… it all sounds benign enough. In case you are not sure what they are promoting, its linking your health records to you over the internet via a radio-signal from a chip implanted inside your body.

In response to this not-so-hidden agenda – bearing in mind the biggest technology coo ever is being thrashed out over the tracking and tagging of 1.2Bn people in India right now – here is a powerful insight into the flip-side of Verimed. Part 1 of 5 of One Mainframe To Rule Them All is shown here below.

More on RFID; NothingToHide.Us

Want automatic updates? Subscribe to my RSS feed or Get E-mail Updates.

Future Trends of Digital Marketing

I was recently interviewed on the trends in digital marketing by Martin Meyer-Gossner, co-founder of silicon.de, at DMEXCO. Gossner’s full blog can be read at The Strategy Web.

Am going to be exploring some of the themes in a thesis am writing on location based advertising.

More on RFID; NothingToHide.Us

Want automatic updates? Subscribe to my RSS feed or Get E-mail Updates.

Yes, They’re Making Lists. Are you Interested?

This is the official video from Australian band COG and a song called “Are you Interested?”

What I find most ‘interesting’ is the fact that music has always been a way of expression to the masses to rouse a new generation to the poignant aspects of modern culture.

When questioning technological progress, we must remember that ‘what can warm us, can also burn us.’

As we stand on the final frontier of human tracking – tracking that is being linked to biological information to root out the ill’s from society – it is just and right to question what safeguards are being put in place to guarantee our future away from tyranny.

An interesting ‘unofficial’ mix taken from Zeitgeist, Loose change, V for Vendetta, 1984 and the Chum-scrubber drives the point home further. Before you dismiss this as some kind of futuristic pessimism, I challenge to look only as far back as your grand-parents past…

More on RFID; NothingToHide.Us

Want automatic updates? Subscribe to my RSS feed or Get E-mail Updates.

Thinking through Location-based Advertising

So I am in the middle of doing this Master’s degree on Creative Media Practice and about to explore the future of media technology. It’s time to start my final thesis and am looking ahead. I want to look into the future of digital advertising where we will see the commercialisation of content across a fragmented range of viewing devices through location-based advertising.

So I am going to outline my thinking and throw it out here. Feel free to comment, critique, disagree – even call me a nutter – but join me in thinking this through and get that brain matter ticking over lest we all become like sheep to the slaughter.

This for me is why I signed up for this whole degree course, the rest was painful (but interesting) to get through… History is interesting, but I want to see stuff that’s next. I love technology. I stand up on stage and preach about technology. But deep within me I have a deep-rooted fear that is beyond a niggling.

You’ve seen Minority Report – where the billboards talk to people – and gets it wrong as it scans the wrong iris…? Science-fiction right? Wrong.

Advertising won’t be linked to Iris scans, it will be linked to little microchips sewn in your clothes hidden in your credit cards or mobile phones even under your skin. And its not future stuff…

Mini USA rolls out RFID-activated billboards

Yahoo Japan plans to scan passersby and put up personalized content on billboards

But I have an issue.

I can see whats next, and think its opening up a huge can of worms and actually going to be human downfall – and even though i am sounding over-dramatic – I actually believe this to be very true. Not in science fiction kind of way, but in a factual, evidential point of view.

So here is my juxtaposition.

10% of all commercial turnover globally is spend on advertising. whether thats paying for the company car and cell-phone bill of salesman to a billboard, TV or online ad.

Explore the benefits and changes of Mass Media effectiveness v personal recommendation v targeted advertising.

So internet-enabled TV ads will eventually mean real-time targeted ads in TV. Knowing that a French person is sitting in UK hotel room and he has a HSBC bank account, so I swap English UK barclays ad with French HSBC ad in middle of UK TV show? Does this appeal commercially? Will technology enable it to be so? Yes – I’m already running test with a company right now.

But how do i know you are in the room? Or even walking past that billboard?

By 2012, 5.9 Bn cell-phones contracts globally. GPS enabled. Locate you anywhere.
I can even track your children right now.

But we can move beyond mobile phones. Back in 2003 I first heard about commercially tracking individuals when Proctor & Gamble did display tagging tracking physical movement of items on shelves in stores and Walmart started to enforce all logistics suppliers to implement RFID. Radio barcodes that broadcast a persons and product position – uniquely – and is same technology inside every DART Tag system on roads, or Oystercards in London underground, inside cats microchips that cause cat-flaps to open only for them, etc, etc – and same thing thats is keyless fobs in cars and how billboards talked to BMW Mini owners…

My first blog post in 2006 as web came 15 and showed development for next 15 years time. This has been the exploration in my blog ‘NothingToHide.Us‘ since then.

Now we have:

Google Maps & street view

Mobile v iPhone GPS/Compass

Augmented Reality / AI

RFID & human inventory

Barcodes vs Bocodes

M2M (machine to man) – ubiquitous computing – internet of ‘things’ is about tagging every single device with a unique reference number. Its about tagging every single human with a unique reference number.

On one hand you put product in fridge in Korea and it tells you sell-by dates or in /out of stock. Put in on kitchen surface near other items and it recommends recipes for you – put product in bin… and next TV ad says ‘buy more’ and adds to your online account… ok this is pushing Korean technology little further then where its at right now, but I can show evidence of this happening. Even washing machines knowing what product in them and adjust temperature automatically. This is M2M and its a reality in places like Korea and Japan – even Germany and UK – and not fiction.

If i can save even a measly 0.5% of “global turn-over” for Coca-Cola by ‘knowing’ who is buying Pepsi or Coke and if they put one in a bin and serve them appropriate ad at right time are they interested? You betchya! Because they know between 50-99% of all ads they send out mass-media are wasted… All that junk mail ending up in the bin – and ‘targeting’ people will save a lot of companies a lot of money. Kerching!

I am talking 10% of global turnover for every brand is at stake to drive efficency. Its a huge commercial incentive. Get me to that board room.

Add to this ’security’ measures of tracking people, lest 9-11 doesn’t happen again, and;

From UK’s CCTV cameras in peoples homes to a planned Unique Identification (UID) number for 1.17 Billion Indian citizens…

And as Chenoy of Nehru University sums it up;

“I don’t want to be paranoid,” he said. “But with many government schemes, a very good intention ultimately doesn’t always get implemented in the right spirit.”

So we currently see this biggest technology coo ever is being fought out in India right now where they want to electronic DNA every Indian person – 1/6th of planet – and IBM, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft are all bidding for multi-billion pound contract – the biggest technology contract in the world. Ever. Every person uniquely tagged.

Remember IBM started ‘computing’ in the first place by ‘counting people’ back in 1890 census. Did same in WW11 in Germany. Pitching for India, just won contract for the UK and now 2010 census in the US. (Did I mention Germany..?) Uh oh.

Nah, we never did really buy the whole “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” Thomas Watson, Chairman, IBM, 1949.

Anyway, what will this mean?

I link advertising to their cellphones or ID cards, I know who they are… where they are… suddenly personal ads… anywhere in the world on any device. Billboards, TV sets – in homes or back of Taxi’s.

Next stop microchip people like cats. Everyone. Everywhere. World is safer place. Cheaper for everyone as we save huge advertising resource. Doors open as you walk up to them. Your house or car or office door will open just like gates on underground. Wave your hand and pay for stuff like coffee in Starbuck’s and no cash or credit card means no-one can rob you. *cough*

(Thats right because technology makes world safer place and because people don’t hold up post-offices for a few grand with shot-guns means that people don’t clone credit cards and scam billions globally do they?)

Really. Microchipping people? Heck I can e-mark you with RFID with a simple invisible injection and you wouldn’t even know.

How long – 5 years – 10 years – 20 years out? RFID chips in humans got green light by FDA back in 2004.

I am joking, right? Urmmm… One billion people to get biometrics and RFID tracking by 2015

So I have a business case – government backing – cool idea for implementation – safer world from security point of view – a global rush to adopt – an advancement of advertising technology – and your Orwellian nightmare where someone know everything about you and you are locked on a grid.

Wasn’t something written 2,000 years ago about not buying or selling without a mark of the beast? Some kind of global system constructed where sinister plan meets commercial opportunity targeted to human food supply? Go check Revelation 13.

Conspiracy theory meets intelligent digital advertising?

Track people, make them wear a ‘yellow star or pink triangle’… future or past? Didn’t Hitler try this before trains sent people to death camps – where the state dictates behaviors they see are acceptable? Tried smoking in bar recently? Add tax to smokers cigarettes as they are problem for health authority? Link doctors notes to purchase to medical insurance… hmm possible vision of Microsoft and Google with HealthVault, etc? Cloud computing for your medical records that you wouldn’t need to submit to your insurance company… its all linked to your food purchases, etc. Loyalty cards and reward mechanisms hit the 21st century where price of food changes based on health records – fat people paying more for chocolate, but discount as regular shopper at Tesco’s… and the billboards and TV’s giving you ads about local health clubs or fat reduction pills… Welcome to a digital world of ubiquitous computing.

So I want to explore this – from both sides – positive and negative.

Some of which i appreciate may seem a long way off or even far-fetched. Some of which i can prove is closer then you think and already implemented and most people don’t even realise. Either way, you have to accept its ‘freaky’. Science-fiction versus historical facts. A lot to think through.

But bottom line, it’s just about joining all the dots – and that is what the Internet was invented for – to join dots across the globe.

And I really do hope I am wrong in my more ‘scary’ predictions, but I fear the hundreds of web links and 8″ high newspaper clippings I have at home – plus history of human dictator’s drive for world domination – may prove me right, timescales aside.

Maybe I should write a book? I’ll try to narrow it to 10,000 words… and focus in on the aspect as it relates to location-based advertising.

Want automatic updates? Subscribe to my RSS feed or Get E-mail Updates.

Online Display: The demise of Click, the rise of Dwell

For those who have been following me of late on Twitter, you will know I have been wrestling for some time on the measuring of online advertising – especially heightened in relevance due to recession and demands for greater accountability. Steeped within a false notion of “display advertising is dying”, argued by the misinformed who are quoting declining click-thru rates, and materialized through falling CPMs of display media – which will undoubtedly kill off some ad networks over the coming months. We have shown that any intelligence around online advertising over the last ten years plus has been reduced by some to ‘kiss-me-quick’ instant ideologies propagated by code-junkies and barrow-boy buyers.

Clicks originally seemed to afford us an innate intelligence into the future of media, but that was yesterday – and that was all we had. To limit advertising to such simple gratification is to grossly miss the systematic behaviour that results in perception changes and heightening desire afforded by greater stimulation of senses – the nature of true engagement.

Youth take note, you are out of touch with reality seen within a bigger holistic media picture formed through the fires over time, yet we welcome your continued challenge of the status quo. Grandparents your esteemed intellect and knowledge is admirable, yet under question as your reasoning for resistance and reluctance to ask why is being superseded by a tsunami of consumer change that will leave many swept away.

Yet the desire of all of us on both sides of the media fence is to hone our craft and perfect our art form; something we once termed ‘commercial art’ as it was not merely aesthetics alone, but with a duty to inform and educate – and as such had a price-tag of value. It is this pursuit which we try to measure in some kind of simple an tangible way – and offer touch points of an indication of intent – in a manner that is transparent, scalable and portable across all media.

Between the no-mans-land of GRPs and laborious but insightful web funneling there may well be an indication of exposure that seeks to satisfy just that. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you “Dwell” – a measurement for modern media.

“Online Display: The demise of Click, the rise of Dwell“ is a study into measuring the intrinsic value of online display media and investigation to the nature of advertising and consumer engagement in general. The document is based around a calculated argument for shifting away from historic response-based metrics into a more natural measurement of consumer stimulation.

Online Display: The demise of Click, the rise of Dwell 12.8MB .zip file

• Word PDF – The paper submitted to Bournemouth University exploring the current practice of advertising measurement
• Word PDF – Pre-Analysis document used for courting the press to the highlights of the findings to be subsequently published.
• PowerPoint PDF – The presentation shown at a variety of seminars globally, used to illustrate measuring online display

Download, digest and dispute. I welcome the debate.
And I hope you too will come to Dwell in the land of opportunity.

Dean Donaldson August, 2009.

Want automatic updates? Subscribe to my RSS feed or Get E-mail Updates.

Warning: Cannes can make your head hurt

Cannes is still in full swing for some, but I have bailed out. Perhaps it’s an age thing, but I simply can’t keep the pace with the plethora of Young Lions who have descended upon Cannes this year. Parties aside, is our industry getting younger, or am I just getting older? Maybe both? And that’s to say nothing of my memory – I have decided Twitter is my new online notebook. So reading back over my notes, let me summarize my own key take-away’s from Cannes 2009 for you:  

The 10,000 foot view of Cannes shows there is a complete blur across the entire media landscape. Digital has well and truly begun to permeate everything. It throws questions on the various categories when Cumminsnitro from Brisbane’s ‘Tourism Queensland’ campaign – The Best Job in the World – takes the Grand Prix sweep stake for Direct, PR & Cyber awards. Where does one discipline end and another begin? Go Viral’s Chairman, Jimmy Maymann may well have made the case early on when he suggested the ‘median age for TV users are actually now 13 years higher than the general population.’ Nigel Morris, CEO, Aegis could not have put it more succinctly when he revealed research shows that ‘67% of searches online are result of exposure to offline media – 30+% of which result in actual sales.’ The online/offline debate seems to be drawing to a close – the media landscape is truly becoming one.

This is a feeling echoed around various seminars from Jonathan Mildenhall, Vice President Global Marketing Strategy and Creative Communications, Coca-Cola who feels that from here on in, ‘we need to see a lot of consolidation across traditional and digital agencies – all focused around consumer journeys’. Stefan Olander, Global Director of Brand Connections, Nike agrees; ‘It’s time to throw the silos off a cliff and seek to embrace a more holistic partnership throughout media. We must embrace consumer content’.

The very fact that the Media person of the year is Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft Corporation, highlights this maturity in thinking that digital no longer represents mere rational technology, but it has reached the emotional connection sought by brands. As Olander revealed in thinking through the problem with modern brands trying to own the conversation, ‘there is now no way to own creativity then allow others to adapt it. We have to place tools in others hands and merely participate.’ It’s not just an admission that consumers are in control, but is a partnership of respect as opposed to dictatorship. Beyond the rar-rar it felt rather like a sixties woman’s movement for equal rights was being formed there in the famous Debussy theatre, but this time it was in favor of the consumer. Morris’ case study for Adidas Originals obtaining 1.4m fans on Facebook – with each person a potential sale of $200 per year per user – ‘that’s a tangible business case for Social Media, right there’ he said.

Turning to revenues and recession, Marcel Fenez, Managing Partner, Global Entertainment & Media Practice – PricewaterhouseCoopers opened with a very bleak overview ‘This recession is not cyclical – it’s structural. In 2013, ad spend will still trail 2007 levels. Advertising spending as we know it is not coming back.’ Backed up with the recession is driving many to seek a bargain online, Fenez said there is now ‘no place to hide from the digital transformation’.

So what does that mean for the advertising industry – has our illustrious budgets truly gone and a smaller Cannes the future new world order – shall we forever reminisce about the ‘golden era’ from here on forward? Steve Ballmer thinks so; “I don’t think we are in a recession. l think we’ve reset. Recession implies a recovery.”

According to research, Ferez suggests that people are prepared to accept ads, even targeted ads as trade off for privacy in exchange for great entertainment content’. Interestingly this seemed to be counter to what Steve Balmer said; who argued that creation of digital media is cheaper than other media. With special effects, and high statistical analysis costs am not convinced these truly offset the distribution of print for example as any agency would agree given struggles in day-to-day process. So should falling CPM costs and pressure on publishers be the order of the day?

Digital advertising offers a targeted message that reduces overall wastage afforded by traditional means of delivery. This means that better ROI will be achieved with less overall spends as there will be less redundancy. Volume and associated cost of distribution will indeed be less, but that in no way should devalue the media content in which it sits. Good quality content which advertising needs to sit against costs money. To take a short-term view of making a quick buck on reduced CPM will kill content creation and hamper the entertainment content of the future. Will brands really want to become content providers and all associated costs of doing so? There needs to be a balance.

Yes, brands are engaging more with their customers. But walking around the print and outdoor or TV showcases shows that advertising has always been about good content in its own right. It’s an incredibly powerful form of art, and truly beautiful to behold. It offers information and education, not just intrusion. Long may we protect this craft and seek to embrace this thinking in an ever increasingly digital world. Log on to http://work.canneslions.com/ and take a look for yourself.

See how the Grand Prix Outdoor winner, the Zimbabwean’s ‘Trillion Dollar Billboard’, seeks to usurp a fascist regime. Contrast that with the Jewish Council for Education and Research ‘the Great Schlep’ for motivating votes for Obama, a truly cross media campaign. See the use of mobile in ‘Let it Ring’ for Road Safety Awareness in Belgium and tell me that advertising is dead, in which ever form. Then check out ‘Banner Concerts’ from Boondoggle, or even one of my personal favorite’s ‘Atrápalo’ from DoubleYou for how to push the humble banner ad way out into the stratosphere. If you are still taking this all too seriously, Warner Bros’ ‘Why So Serious’ will certainly bring a smile to your face.

So whilst I digest all this and try and get my head around it all, my gut reaction is ‘no advertising is not dead, it just hasn’t become all it can be quite yet.’ Andy Berndt, Global Creative Director, Google nailed it when he admitted the ‘role of advertising as an interrupt model is a challenge for Google; who will search for something they don’t know about?’ Thanks Andy, I wholeheartedly agree, content and advertising flowing seamlessly around the consumer, causing them to stop and take note, discuss and then investigate more information.

Meanwhile the only searching I will be doing tonight is to ‘search’ the cupboards for an aspirin…

Reproduced as appeared on iMedia Connection

Want automatic updates? Subscribe to my RSS feed or Get E-mail Updates.