The medium is the message

One of the great piece of feedback I got from my boss (and independantly from our COO) was that while I am close enough to technology and design I am not really in the advertizing and marketing business. Two weeks ago at the Forrester Consumer Forum I cornered the Organic traveling bard of the advertizing industry: Shane. Just Shane. I managed to pick over his almost photographic memory for books that would help ground me in the business. The first book I read on my quest to get closer to the advertizing business was “The medium is the massage” by Marshall McLuhan. O … M … G This book was written in 1967 and sounds like it was written this year. McLuhan’s vision for the future and linkage to the change from a mechanistic society to an information society is still directly relevant. As we move from an information society into a conceptual society, his message still resonates. Why have I not heard of this book before? Why did I not read this in university? Why has this been hidden from me, despite my design reading and exploration of the fields of visualization, visual thinking, creativity, and problem solving? Oh yeah, because none of those things are in advertizing. Some of my favorite quotes (several incredibly apropos of this particualr time and space):

Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be.

The core message from the book can be boiled down into the following:

The past went that-a-way. When faced with a totally new situation, we tend always to attach ourselves to the objects, to the flavor of the most recent past. We look at the present through a rear view mirror. We march backwards into the future.

And of course:

The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium / that is, of any extension of ourselves / result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.

Get this book. Read this book. Re-read this book imagining yourself (or like me your parents) in 1967. Think about it.

Filed under: advertizing , advertizing, design, future, marketing, mcluhan, medium, message, vision

Ever wonder what an interactive agency does?

Here’s is a post from our corporate blog, Threeminds, about a neat new experience: NikeiD. I work for an interactive agency and the world is changing. In the early days advertizing was driven by the BIG idea. That idea was often a single creative gem, a line of copy, a visual, a piece of motion, a joke, or metaphor (just watch AMC’s Madmen for some great history on Advertizing). So Madison Avenue and the associated big advertizing agencies revolve around this concept. But with the shifting demographics, with the change in the design literacy of the target population these companies need to evolve. Kids nowdays coming out of university are completly computer literate, they appreciate good design, they think holistically, and they are hardly ever duped by a simple joke or marketing message. To them the overall experience and its manifestation across channels might tip them towards a product, but good design is the killer function. Interactive agencies like ours focus on the experience not the idea. While the idea and concept is important, how it manifests itself into the experience is the key. The NikeiD idea is fantastic, match the shoes to the look. It’s simple, effective, personal, cross-channel, and will become table stakes for retail companies in the next year or two. This is why I love my job!

Filed under: happenings , advertizing, concept, design, interactive, marketing, nikeid

The Orange Underground

 So, I’m sure you all know I work at Organic by now, our company blog found this great link to the Orange Underground a unique marketing campaign for Cheetos. Check out the post and then visit The Orange Underground!

Filed under: marketing , advertizing, campaign, marketing, threeminds