Ged Carroll

Category: media | 媒體 | 미디어 | メディア

It makes sense to start this category with warning. Marshall McLuhan was most famous for his insight – The medium is the message: it isn’t just the content of a media which matters, but the medium itself which most meaningfully changes the ways humans operate.

But McLuhan wasn’t an advocate of it, he saw dangers beneath the surface as this quote from his participation in the 1976 Canadian Forum shows.

“The violence that all electric media inflict in their users is that they are instantly invaded and deprived of their physical bodies and are merged in a network of extensions of their own nervous systems. As if this were not sufficient violence or invasion of individual rights, the elimination of the physical bodies of the electric media users also deprives them of the means of relating the program experience of their private, individual selves, even as instant involvement suppresses private identity. The loss of individual and personal meaning via the electronic media ensures a corresponding and reciprocal violence from those so deprived of their identities; for violence, whether spiritual or physical, is a quest for identity and the meaningful. The less identity, the more violence.”

McLuhan was concerned with the mass media, in particular the effect of television on society. Yet the content is atemporal. I am sure the warning would have fitted in with rock and roll singles during the 1950s or social media platforms today.

I am concerned not only changes in platforms and consumer behaviour but the interaction of those platforms with societal structures.

  • Personal online brand

    Ketchum’s David Gallagher wanted to know whether he should have his own website as part of managing his personal online brand? He initially felt that publishing on Facebook and LinkedIn was enough. There was also discussion around platforms like Medium. None of which give you real control over your content. Wadds like me felt that owning your own platform was important.

    Why have a website as part of your personal online brand?

    • LinkedIn and Facebook don’t have the same agenda as you. Your content becomes a hostage to their business whims
    • It is hard for users to discover your content, Facebook and Google make it so
    • Even on Medium you no longer really own your content. It can’t be easily exported like content on the Blogger platform
    • Even in the world of Facebook, Google is still a reputation engine

    So show do you manage the process?

    You need to find a system that works for you. Here is what mine looks like for social syndication.

    1801 - personal publishing

    IFTTT – if then, then that. A service that allows you to trigger actions based on pre-created inputs. It allows rules to be built up based around different inputs:

    • A new post via RSS
    • A favorited tweet
    • A photograph tagged with a particular label or hashtag

    It supports numerous services including Flickr photography and pinboard.in

    Buffer – buffer is a social publishing tool. I have pre-scheduled slots. It is also compatible with publishing posts sent via IFTTT.

    Pinboard.in – pinboard is a way of storing your bookmarks with notes and tags online rather than on your computer. Your bookmarks then become accessible wherever you are. It is handy to be able to search things that you have found previously. Google seems to have moved away from organising all the world’s information to mainly focus on ‘now’ content. Pinboard helps you get around this.

  • Financial services post-Brexit + more news

    Interesting analysis on where the financial services industry is going to move their units post-Brexit to continue working in the EU.

    One of the key issues of concern for the financial services sector has been the lack progress in passporting. This is where the EU says UK regulations and processes are equivalent to theirs and consequently allow market access. More related content here.

    As Voice Continues Its Rise, Marketers Are Turning to Sonic Branding – Adweek – again. Has had peaks in usage from jingles to the Intel ‘dong’, Nokia’s ringtone and the Cillit Bang ‘BANG!’

    2018 Fashion: We Drop “Plus Size” And Evolve Past The Retail Apocalypse | Fast Company – from plus size separate sections to ‘size inclusive’

    Kroger And Rivals In Talks To Buy Wholesale Startup Boxed For Up To $500 Million | Forbes – I am surprised that a CPG player like P&G haven’t thrown their hat in the ring

    China Smartphone Market 2017: Top 10 Best-selling Models – Counterpoint Research – interesting read, basically Apple is the premium smartphone seller. Huawei’s Honor brand makes the top ten along with Xiaomi. It also explains why Huawei wants to get its main brand into the US as that is the main way it can increase the razor thin profit margins of its smartphone business. The real winner is BBK-related brands OPPO and vivo

    ongoing by Tim Bray · Google Memory Loss  – the whole Web is crush­ing­ly ex­pen­sive, and get­ting more so ev­ery day. Things like 10+-year-old mu­sic re­views that are nev­er up­dat­ed, no longer ac­cept com­ments, are light­ly if at all linked-to out­side their own site, and rarely if ev­er visited… well, let’s face it, Google’s not go­ing to be sell­ing many ads next to search re­sults that turn them up. So from a busi­ness point of view, it’s hard to make a case for Google in­dex­ing ev­ery­thing, no mat­ter how old and how ob­scure – the problem for Google would only be if you started to see search promiscuity

    Facebook’s Adam Mosseri on Why You’ll See Less Video, More From Friends | WIRED – less video in the newsfeed as a consequence of the changes

    Vice May Risk Losing Cool Cachet With Brands Over Sexism Concerns | Ad Age – not terribly surprising. Disappointing given the quality and diversity of their content

    Unilever picks AnalogFolk as digital agency of record for its food brands | CampaignLive – this is UK market stuff only, so would be working alongside global agencies. Plus side great win, downside Leatherhead is a long way from Shoreditch

    GDPR for public relations: driving up standardss — Stephen Waddington – good read, BUT I have been reading articles about improving the standard of PR beyond shotgunning generic pitches for decades literally

    Knock and the door shall be opened unto you | FT Alphaville – in China, the data linked to technology companies is already central to the notion of credit provision. It also plays into the country’s planned social credit system. This has come alongside the rapid development of online payments, especially on WePay, part of WeChat. It would be no exaggeration to say that this is perhaps the most important technological development of the present moment, although, in part because of the impenetrability of the Chinese internet, it currently resonates less than it should

  • Reuse, reedit, remix and recycle

    Reuse, reedit, remix and recycle a minimum viable campaign

    I have been working on a couple of briefs over time that have suddenly seen budgets cut quite dramatically. It’s often a struggle to pare the list of requirements back to a minimum viable campaign.

    One thing that tends not to happen too often is seeing the reuse, reedit, remix and recycle of assets effectively.

    Reuse, reedit, remix and recycle for international campaigns

    I saw the principles of reuse, reedit, remix and recycle being used more often in international campaigns. Some brands like Mars have looked to do reuse, by spending a lot of time aligning their brands across markets. In the UK and Ireland, consumers of a certain age will remember the migration of Marathon bars to become Snickers and Opal Fruits to become Starburst a decade later.  The principles of reuse, reedit, remix and recycle was incorporated into thinking at Unilever making TV ae lssets more easily localised in different countries including adapting end slides and one shot for culturally appropriate product uses.

    Mexico

    Germany

    But perhaps the best example I can recall was one that used to show repeatedly on cable TV when I was in the final year of my degree. I would have the TV on in the background, whilst I slowly but steadily cranked out my final year series of assignments and essays.

    BreathAsure seemed to have given their London advertising agency very little to work with, but this cheeky voiceover turned the ad around and was an insiders nod to how awful the original American creative was. I am guessing that this probably would not have passed muster if it needed sign off by an American global marketing supremo.

    In case you’re wondering what ever happened to BreathAsure, it seems that soon after this ad campaign originally ran Warner-Lambert took them to court in the US regarding their product claims. More marketing related content here.

  • GoPro quits drones & other news

    GoPro quits drone business

    GoPro quits the drone business – The Verge – because of the grip that DJI has on the drone market. GoPro had expanded into drones in the face of declining growth in the action camera market. You can start to see drone footage being cut into extreme sports videos providing a variation of views that weren’t possible previously.

    Business

    Pony Ma, the global strategist with deep pockets | FT – interesting profile of Pony Ma, CEO of Tencent

    Consumer behaviour

    Japanese convenience stores showing “hardening of society” with touch-screen age verification? – Japan is a high trust society lying would be a really big deal. More related content here.

    Design

    Tucker Sno-Cats Are the Latest Toys of the Superrich – Bloomberg – interesting design approach focusing on floating over the snow

    TCCC Unity on the App Store – Coca-Cola did an iPhone app to explain the ethos behind its bespoke fonts (presumably beyond not having to pay licence fees and hubris)…

    Media

    Create & Share Your Own Marvel Comics | Coming Soon – Sign Up Now!  – Horrible caveats to usage but could be interesting for notices around the office – memes etc

    Click-to-WhatsApp messaging buttons are now rolling out in Facebook ads | TechCrunch – makes total sense in markets like Hong Kong where so much brand and business communications happens on WhatsApp

    Technology

    Imaginary Soundscape – Qosmo, inc. – machine learning guesstimated soundscapes

    Wireless

    AT&T Backs Off Deal to Sell Smartphones From China’s Huawei – WSJ – if true it represents a spectacular loss of face for Huawei. There would be likely internal repercussions in Shenzhen as it dents the company’s reputation as a brand on the rise, its aspiration to be seen as a globally recognised premium brand and the oft talked about objective of cracking the US handset market beyond burner phones

    Web of no web

    A Concise History of the Smartwatch – Bloomberg – quite a nice bit of analysis

    Your Car May Soon Start Serving You Ads | Slashdot – it begs a question about the economics of car software

    First Amazon Alexa-Enabled Digital Glasses to Debut at CES – Bloomberg – don’t sound particularly promising

  • Darude & other things

    Darude  – Sandstorm

    Vice are running a series on classic EDM (heart sinks) but the first is Darude – Sandstorm. Lets not even get into the music taxonomy Vice are using…

    Darude – Sandstorm is interesting because the catchy hook is straight out of the Stock Aitken and Waterman playbook, complete with a key change. It sounds timeless, it could have been from any time from the early 1980s onwards – since it fits in with records like Rofo’s Theme. It is also surprisingly simple which is why it became endlessly memeable.

    The back story of how Darude – Sandstorm took off is fascinating.

    VR in jail

    Re-entry into society is astonishingly difficult for criminals that have completed their prison sentence. Its not only that businesses are reluctant to employ convicted criminals, but that life has changed. Imagine going into jail before the internet and coming out today. You might know about the changes, but knowing isn’t the same as experiencing them.

    Secondly, interacting outside is different to jail. You don’t have opportunities to prepare for the transition. And that’s where the Colorado correctional facilities use of VR comes in. Convicts can experience scenarios and learn from the experience.

    Scott Galloway on 2017

    Scott Galloway summing up 2017 at hyper speed.

    [Bonus posting] Predictions for 2018 | The Daily | L2 – Scott Galloway and the team have some ballsy predictions

    How Rega makes turntables

    The team at The Vinyl Factory put together videos on how Rega make turntables…

    How McIntosh Labs make amplifiers

    How McIntosh Labs make amplifiers. McIntosh Labs have been producing amazing hi-fi for over seven decades, with a design language that hasn’t changed that much over the years. It is really impressive that McIntosh Labs have been competitors like Bob Carver come and go. It’s also impressive that McIntosh Labs still make their products in the US.

    Have a great start to 2018.