Hello #digiwork

Gareth KayDirector of Digital Strategy

Goodby, Silverstein & Partners@garethk

What I learnt on the interweb about yesterday

Lots of smart people talked

Knowledge was shared

Presenters were funny

It’s better than SXSWi

I gained 100lbs overnight

Don’t be late

I’m royally f***ed

1992

All very similar

A problem to be solved by advertising

‘Consumers’ to ‘target’

A message to say at them

Reasons to believe

Tone of voice

Maybe, if lucky, what space you’re filling

New technology

New technology,different culture

“This stuff is as mainstream as it can be. Google, the iPhone - these move the culture more than The Beatles did in the ’60’s. It’s shaping the human race.”

- Andy Hertzfeld

“Nobody comes out of a movie saying, “that was a really good movie. I really enjoyed it. It was really clear.”

- Russell Davies

$310 million

$220 million

$77 million

Technology has driven dramatic, and continuous, cultural changeMore participatory

More social and communal (arguably amplifying who human beings are)

More fragmented

More transparent

More playful

‘Always on’

Location increasingly important

So, obviously, the brief remains the same...

“I’m just surprised that no-one’s thought of a better idea yet”

Stephen King on Planning

This isn’t about the digital brief.

It’s about a better brief for the post-digital world.

It’s not simply about the brief.

It’s about asking having a better map of the world to ask better questions.

What we do, not what we say, matters.

We’ve only ever noticed peacocks.

Changing our behavior changes how we think.

We need to be like bowerbirds.

We now live in age of ideas that do.

Stop communicating products and start making communication products.

Useful entertaining or memorable,not interruptive, experiences.

Create, don’t fill, media space.

Not just what we dobut what people do to what we do.

We tend to design finite, complete products.

We’re not very good at designing for gaps.

From a downloading culture to an uploading culture.

Customers don’t own brands but they do want to participate.

- Charles Vallance

Slippy > sticky.

Generous ideas are bigger than big ideas.

Have a social mission, not just a commercial proposition.

Understand what people are interested in and work back from there.

Be media positive

Radiohead went out to where people are and built experiences there with partnerships like:

- iTunes for remixes- aniBoom for an animation contest- Google for 3-D video

“Media is less and less often about crafting a single message to be consumed by individuals, and more and often a way of creating an environment for convening and supporting groups.”

Small is the new big.

“The bigger a brand gets, the smaller it should act, because no one likes big.”

“Any idea is dangerous if it’s a person’s only idea”A culture full of depth and complexity

The rule of 5% requires lots of matches to start a fire

Why not when the economics have changed and the cost of failure is near zero?

Roulette isn’t responsible

“The mistake of science is to pretend everything is a clock when the world is a cloud.”

-Jonah Lehrer, referencing the work of Karl Popper

Coherency, not consistency

Provide an uplifting experience

that enriches people’s lives

language, eg ‘skinny’

specials eg frappucino

habits formation

range and options

ordering system

starbucks company

barista culture

‘my sister’ book

africa 05

social responsibility

used grounds for gardeners

fair trade coffee

cause publicity in store

sofas and ambience

hearmusic Xm

burn your own cd

music cd

in store performance

and art

book reading

starbucks salon

akelah and the bee

Source: John Grant, ‘The Brand Innovation Manifesto’

It’s about understanding distributed identity

Organize the

world’s information

and make it

universally

accessible and

useful.

Google

Search

Google

411 Google

Docs

Google

labs

Google

Shopping

Google

Scholar

Google

Books

Google

Maps

Google

sketch

Google.Org

Fossil fuel

Challenge

Youtube

Chrome

Browser

Blogspot

High frequency. Low value. Semi-predictable rewards.

So what does all this mean for the brief?

Pre-digital

Interruption

Image manipulation

Saying things at people

Intangible value

Perception

Post-digital

Participation

Value creation

Doing things for people

Tangible value

Behavior

From saying things at people to doing things with and for people

From why and whatto what and how.

Better questions

What’s the real problem?

Who is this among?

How might we best approach solving this?

Why might they talk about this idea?

How do they get involved?

What keeps the conversation going?

There are no great briefs, only great ads.

There are no great briefs, but there are a lot of bad ones.

A good brief is probably about as good as a brief gets.

The piece of paper is less important than the journey.

Communication R&D

Thank you.

http://www.garethkay.com@garethk