by Bill Sewell 06/05/09
“It’s about time for this conference” – Ed Ulbrich, Digital Domain
I totally agree, especially after attending Digital Hollywood and the Clios. In fact, the most interesting components of those conferences revolved around technology, which was the 100% focus of CaT. The 400+ attendance and energy level at the first Creativity and Technology conference proved that people are hungry to better understand the effects of when creativity and digital toolsets collide. Creativity and technology are hand-in-glove components of storytelling. In fact, people like David Fincher (director of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) truly understand that as long as there is a clear vision, passion and creative point of view, anything is possible. It also helps to have absurdly large budgets and seemingly endless timeframes.
Ed’s presentation on making Brad Pitt digital was awesome. Coincidentally, I went outside right afterward and was interested to learn about oddcast, which allows you to upload your own image and incorporate it into videos that have already been completed. It’s not nearly as sharp as Digital Domain’s work, but it shows how great ideas filter down into the community at different levels.
“We’ve moved from having a scarcity of channels and abundance of attention towards a scarcity of attention and abundance of channels” – Kevin Slaven, Area / Code
Kevin provided the most eloquent statement of the most common and resonant them from Digital Hollywood, the Clios and the CAT conference. Another recurring metaphor is that brands are arriving late to a party that has been going on for a long time (i.e. consumer conversations) and are entering awkwardly into said conversations.
How do you fight for attention when people are spending more time connecting to each other and less time watching traditional channels? Just admitting there is a problem is the first step – without someone’s attention, you have no audience for your story. The next step is figuring out how to change your narrative to fit into systems like Facebook and Twitter or to create your own system like Nike Plus .
“Technologies don’t change what we are capable of. They change how we sense of the world we are in”
Nike Plus and Fiat’s Ecodrive are great examples of how we “see” our world differently through personal metrics visualization. Area Code showed a really cool game called Sharkrunners, where real players command digital ships that track real sharks outfitted with pre-existing GPS devices.
“Ships in the game move in real-time, so players receive email and/or SMS alerts during the day when their boat is within range of an encounter. Players login, choose crewmembers and an approach technique, and then collect various data from the nearby sharks. “
“Brands need to become more open and honest, which will change the advertising process” – Benjamin Palmer, The Barbarian Group
70 to 80% of creative briefs now carry the same message – “it’s not a yogurt drink, it is the thing around which people connect” or “it’s not a dog food, it’s a thing around which people connect.” The idea of engaging with your audience is nothing new, it’s HOW you engage with your audience which is changing. Benjamin’s team began blogging about their research for GE, an insight process normally kept secret until the client presentation. The team simply connected up with the scientists and researchers making cool stuff and told their stories. The results were incredible – GE employees learned about great efforts within their own company and the public learned about the amazing creation process behind products and services we take for granted.
“Digital is not a channel anymore – it’s everywhere, so a digital agency needs to be more universal” – Conor Brady, Organic
Yes, yes, yes. What happens when your realm of expertise, i.e. digital, expands from the web to literally every form of communication in less than a decade? Do you expand your definition of digital services or stay where you are?
The best digital and traditional agencies are heading towards each other. Organic (digital) gave high marks to Goodby, Silverstien and Partners (full service), which went from no interactive division to a top digital division very quickly. At Crispin’s separate presentation, they called out R/GA as a model for inspiration (with R/GA founder Bob Greenberg sitting in the front row).
“Keep the keep the creative briefs fun and define the tension of the super-fan” – Winston from Crispin
Crispin uses COGs, cognitive psychologists, and social anthropologists as planners to develop their product insights. They find the creative tension inherent in the target audience that the creative teams uses to create culture jamming experiences.
These superfans are passionate users who spends way too much time with a product, sport or community. They write the in-depth reviews of digital cameras – complete with side by side comparisons with other cameras, know all the Apple pre-released product rumors and code names, or play World of Warcraft for 20+ hours a week. These are the people you want to communicate with and engage, as they will spread your message far and wide.
“I don’t know what the dialogue is going to be but I bet it will be cool.” – Benjamin again
Ed Ulbrich talked about having a clear vision to bring a story to life, which makes sense in a purely narrative environment. As advertising becomes more systems-based, the story may not be as clear. Several panelists agreed that you could start with a cool new technology and tuck storytelling in at the end. The deeper the level of engagement in the platform, the harder it is to predict what story will emerge.
“Technologists need to be in the Creative Group” – Winston Binch, Crispin, Porter & Bogusky
Social networks grew 100% last year in hours of time spent. TV grew by 4% (yes, grew… not shrank). TV is well on its way to being simply programming delivered over TCP/IP. We are seeing massive changes in our communication systems, all driven by technology. Doesn’t it make sense to have tech experts embedded in the creative process?
Crispin’s tech team doesn’t just know Flash, HTML and programming. They can build CMS systems that pull data from brand ERP and CRM systems and make cool interfaces come to life. The Domino’s Pizza Tracker system shows this well – apparently Domino’s employees hit a button for each stage of the cooking process which is tracked for efficiency purposes. Crispin realized that the information could be pulled in realtime and translated into a simple Pizza Tracker that shows you the progress of your order. It also allows Dominos corporate to monitor the accuracy of the franchises. Employees who try to game the system (punch the buttons too soon) will have to answer for the ratings that the consumers give their ultimate performance.
Mike Gieger at Goodby said that producers need to be tech savvy enough to know if something is doable. It’s assumed that the producer is now keeping up with tech advances which definitely adds more complexity to their jobs. The point is that you do not want to spend six months on a project to figure out that it can’t be done.
“Ad timelines are not like software timelines” – Forgot who said this, probably Crispin
Crispin has 45 interactive developers on staff just to respond quickly to the insane turnarounds that come with advertising. They do outsource trickier stuff, but at least they can react fast when they need to.
Daniel from Kyte reminded people not to rush to release an iPhone app before the competition does. Spend more production time to make an app both cool and useful for the long term. People will try many apps but rely on around 15 on average. Interesting note – nearly 80% of people in the audience were on iPhones.
“Use existing systems if you can. Don’t invent them if you don’t need to”
Systems like Facebook let people create connections and add meaning. Allowing advertisers to capture that potential energy and provide a backchannel for conversation to the brand. It’s much easier to create Whopper Sacrifice as a Facebook game than to create Facebook itself. As CPB pointed out, Whopper Sacrifice cost only $12,000 to do and generated $850,000 in free media coverage. I think Facebook was more expensive than that.
We feel fortunate to have been involved as a CAT sponsor, as a CAT board member and as CAT attendees. Look forward to next year!
Regards,
Bill