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.

  • Nice & other things

    Nice

    Nice murder-by-truck incident – My social media feed filled up with poor ad placements against news about the Nice murder-by-truck incident. Sesame Street’s handling of the event on the social media accounts was a paragon of how these things should be done on Twitter and YouTube

    Hat tip to our Ana

    Culture

    INDUSTRIAL JP / Record Label of Factory – really interesting Japanese record label that takes the principles of music concrete and turns them in to great house and techno tracks. The videos that accompany the tracks are hypnotic.

    My soundtrack for the past week has been The Avalanches new album Wallflower and this epic Paul Daley (Leftfield) mix from five years ago with an Ibizan vibe that belies cruddy summer weather we’ve been having

    This is what happens when you let Rus Khasanov loose with glitter and ink. The music is by Dmitry Evgrafov

    Web of no web

    Virtual reality lets Chinese customers shop Macy’s New York store on the world’s biggest shopping day – really interesting e-commerce offering. It is an illustration of how much China-international e-commerce is so important.

  • Lord Puttnam + more news

    How much TV money goes to footballers? Lord Puttnam attacks hike in sports rights costs | Radio Times – what a depressing thought. More on media related topics here but not necessarily more Lord Puttnam.

    ‘Conflicted’ media auditors come under fire from Sorrell | Campaign – wider issue of trust between media buying and clients (reg wall)

    The next front in the patent wars? Chinese telecom giant Huawei sues T-Mobile for patent infringment – how to make friends and influence people

    This photo from a Huawei camera phone ad was actually shot with a $4,500 Canon camera | Shanghaist – Huawei gets called out, Nokia had been caught doing this in the past as well.

    Twitter estimates that it has 10 million users in China | TechCrunch – how many of these are ’50 cent’ propagandist accounts?

    Vice Media buys Dasha Zhukova’s Garage art magazine – FT.com – paywall

    Applying ML to InfoSec — Startup.ML Conf – ML (machine learning)

    New Cars Are Too Expensive For The Typical Family, Says Study | Slashdot – more data on the decline of the US middle class

    Top Korean carrier launches cut-rate internet of things network | HKEJ Insight – interesting move by SK Telecom

    Martha Lane Fox: Brexit is all about MEEEEeeee! • The Register – It’s almost as if the Establishment is so loath to address the real issues raised by people on “those horrible council estates” it’s created a virtualisation container for the working class instead

    Ask.fm changes hands once again – BBC News – too hot to handle? Reminds me of the debacle about trying to take FriendFinder public a decade ago

    Snapchat’s Teen Fans Wince as App Catches On With Their Folks – WSJ – the Snapchat is fucked moment, parents are venturing on there, partly to stalk their kids, partly for Sky Sports coverage

    All news stories must be verified, China’s internet censor decrees as it tightens grip on online media | South China Morning Post – yes I know its China, but on one level does this sound very sensible in what is likely to be a vacuum of journalistic ethics

  • Brexit & more news

    BREXIT – Letter to MPs from a Remain voter: a plea for realism, tolerance and honesty – this gives a great background read on how the UK chose to go Brexit. It’s also a blueprint of how project fear is likely to turn into project understating the full calamity

    Osborne abandons 2020 budget surplus target – BBC News – he wasn’t likely to meet it anyway but this emphasises how bad it is

    Juncker on EU critics: Nobody says what they want – POLITICO – no one in Brussels could have stopped the Brexit train

    How Britain stays in the EU – POLITICO – err no it probably won’t. The most interesting thing for me was leavers saying, I won’t benefit but I want others to suffer too

    The New Furby Definitely Will Not Kill You In Your Sleep | Refinery 29 – it was only a matter of time for an app enabled Furby

    We broadcast from TV to Facebook Live for 24 hours. Here’s what we learned. — Medium – In addition to not getting a push notification, we believe that Continuous Live Videos are not distributed in the News Feed in a similar way to their non-Continuous counterparts. When we started our first stream on Thursday, we wondered how Facebook’s News Feed algorithm would deal with a 24-hour video. The answer, it seems, was simple: it doesn’t – some great insights via the Aljazeera labs team

    News Feed FYI: Helping Make Sure You Don’t Miss Stories from Friends | Facebook Newsroom – pages downgraded again in audience feeds

    Huawei MateBook review: this tablet wants to be a PC, but misses the basics | The Verge – triumph of design over usefulness, poor battery life.

    Group M sues Ebiquity over ‘misuse’ of confidential documents | Campaign – interesting case, if I was a client of WPP I would be asking why

    Line Files to Go Public | CCS Insight – really nice history of LINE messenger

    Pro-‘Brexit’ City of Sunderland Glad to Poke Establishment in the Eye – The New York Times – “We’re segregated from the south, and the north is a barren wasteland,” he said, wearing a heavy black leather jacket with metal studs despite the summer heat. “It’s us against them.” “The E.U. is a mystery to us,” he added. “We’ve never heard about it up here.”

    Mobile app shops: Diversify or die | VentureBeat – because downloads are declining

  • Brexit part 1

    Why I am writing a post called Brexit part 1? Generally I find politics a bit too grubby and dirty for this blog and have only touched it when I absolutely, positively didn’t have a choice. So expect Brexit Part 1 and Brexit Part 2.

    On June 23, 2016 the UK goes to the polls to vote on whether the country should stay in or leave the European Union.

    Over the next few days I will be writing two posts (this is the first one). The first of which is about how it has all been presented. The second post will be a guide for my non-UK based friends on what the hell it all means.

    Political marketing generally isn’t the most amazing work, though there have been iconic campaigns. Given the momentous decision ahead of voters you would think that there would be a creative advertising campaign.

    The US has led the way in iconic political campaigns. My favourites being the ‘Daisy’ ad used by Lyndon B. Johnson against Barry Goldwater.

    Ronald Reagan’s ‘It’s morning in America again’ which is curiously soothing yet exceptionally emotive

    Barack Obama’s simple messages of ‘Hope’, ‘Change You Can Believe In’ and ‘Yes We Can’ together with a focus on repetition and reach brought out the vote in his favour.

    The UK has come up with good campaigns too; the Saatchi brothers ‘Britain Isn’t Working’ that helped get Margaret Thatcher the first time around. Ironically the poster doesn’t contain real unemployed people, but 20 Conservative party members shot over and over again to create the ‘conga line’.
    Labour isn't working
    It is such an iconic poster that the Labour party still has to jump over the hurdle of proving it wrong 30 years after its publication.

    By comparison Vote In’s adverts lack… creativity and any sort of emotion to pull the audience in. It is like they are selling machine parts to procurement professionals, not a life-changing decision.

    Ryanair’s campaign discounted flights for expats to come back to the UK and vote to remain has more engaging creative. WTF.
    ryanair

    Vote Leave isn’t much better. Let’s start off with their domain strategy ‘voteleavetakecontrol.org’ – Google’s Adwords team must have been rubbing their hands with joy. For a campaign the ideal URL would have been voteleave.co.uk (which is a rick roll link) or brexit.com. According to redirect on brexit.com

    www.Brexit.com & www.Brexit.co.uk were offered to the various national Out campaign groups for no charge.
    After no contact was offered in response it is now up for sale.
    £3500

    School boy error. If you look at their content, they have managed to latch on to emotive themes, but the production values of the material look as it has been done by Dave in Doncaster who does wedding videos on the weekend.

    And as we have less than a week to go to the polls the quality of the marketing isn’t likely to get any better.
    Around London
    In fact, the best piece of advertising for either side that I have seen was in Whitechapel. It is simple, snappy, emotive and likely done by an art student given the lack of declaration of campaign affiliation (i.e. a call to action to visit strongerin.co.uk or a claim that it was done on behalf of ‘Stronger In’ or ‘The In Campaign Limited’).

    One last thought to ponder in this post

    WPP in particular has a reputation for hiring marketing talent from political campaigns, and these people are sold on to clients as fresh thinkers and doers for their brands. Positive examples of this would be Obama campaign veterans Thomas Gensemer and Amy Gershkoff, or my old colleague Pat Ford who worked on Ronald Reagan’s campaign.

    There will be marketers getting jobs with serious salaries on the back of this work and the designer of ‘Brits Don’t Quit’ will be working in an intern farm somewhere if they’re lucky. Life just isn’t fair.

    You can read Brexit part 2 here.

    More Information
    Campaign on Labour Isn’t Working.
    Ryanair’s EU referendum ad investigated by police | The Guardian – it might be illegal, but at least it has a pulse.
    Thomas Gensemer LinkedIn profile
    Amy Gershkoff LinkedIn profile
    Patrick Ford LinkedIn profile

  • TAG Heuer + more things

    TAG Heuer Pushing Brand in China, as Rivals Scale Back | Business of Fashion – it makes sense given the lower price point of TAG Heuer watches. TAG Heuer is in an interesting place. Due to the government clampdown on corruption, the market for ostentatious watches has been curtailed for the time being.

    You could dispute whether TAG Heuer is even in the luxury space. Its range competes with the likes of Tissot on the bottom end and touches on Omega at the top end. The positioning that gives it a (temporary) tactical advantage in the Chinese market, leaves it vulnerable to the Apple Watch, which seems to have devoured the mid-market aside from rugged models. More on luxury here.

    iPhone Future — Monday Note – great piece of analysis

    Death to the Mass — Whither news? — Medium – the article proposes that content no longer king, and neither is distribution. Obviously if true, it would have major implications for the media sector. Jeff talks about conversation being more important now, which is an interesting framing of the challenge. I’d look at the opportunity as filtering or curation, and possibly social. Though in these times trust has declined alongside distribution.

    This Company Might Make Apple and Google Irrelevant — NewCo Shift — Medium – dramatic title but interesting write up on Viv. Viv seems to be a ‘Wildfire’ type personal assistant proof of concept. The idea is that it would displace the intelligence of Siri or Google on the devices. Viv hopes to upend the current platform model. Just because it’s good technology doesn’t guarantee success. It is interesting to reflect again on how mobile carriers went from having the platform business in their hands to poorly compensated dumb pipes for the likes of Facebook, Google and Tencent. And why they are now starting to retreat from the nascent global empires that they built in a fit of hubris.