Aspiration vs the pursuit of Perfection

Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson wants to ban what's still colloquially called 'airbrushing' in children's advertising. If only it was as romantic as that any more, and not just a bunch of guys playing around on Quark and rework reality in about four minutes.
The main reason is, obviously, the generation of unrealistic body images in young girls. Naturally, plenty of parts of the ad industry (beauty anyone?) would rather keep up these shenanigans. What this difference of opinion comes from is two different notions of what happens in the mind when you see something like this:


(That's Twiggy. She's 59!)

1: Wow, she's pretty. Maybe if I buy these products I can look pretty too?
2: Oh god, I'll never be as beautiful as that. I hate myself.

The question of how much a shot of aspirational marketing causes one vs. the other is a classic, thorny one. Because while we want to sell more of x, we'd like to think that we're not actually damaging people in the process. Indeed, at its best advertising both sells product and as a side effect, makes you smile, makes you see the world in a different light, or makes a certain part of the world swim into sharp focus just for a second.

Smart brands/advertisers realised that making the target feel bad while selling to them is generally a bad idea, some time ago. And that saying "here's a sense of inadequacy, now buy our thing," is not the best proposition. How to have your cake and eat it? Invert the debate, as Dove did. Of course, starting anything with "Campaign For-" is always a bonus.

Or, you can subvert the debate. The thing is, it is advertising's job and modus operandi to present a somewhat altered notion of reality. Meerkats don't talk. Lynx won't get you laid. Dentists don't develop toothbrushes with the aid of Star Trek-esque holodeck programs. So why not do something utterly ludicrous with your photoshop wizardry? Make your models look like animals, like aliens, like each other? No.17 (I think it was) did a makeup competition via MySpace a few years back. Why not do a photoshopping competition, to get teens wise to the practice? When Adobe were asked to comment on the airbrushing story, they hit back nicely:

"we encourage the advertising community to apply good judgement and use these tools responsibly, and we are glad that the increasingly broad availability of digital imaging tools makes it possible for even children to understand that the photos they see in magazines may easily have been manipulated."

And it's true. As long as there's been media or a creative process of any sort (just look at the way Michaelangelo's David is done in accordance with the classical Golden Mean), there has been idealisation. And that it has become more public, more unabashed, can only be a good thing - as long as we treat the process with the incredulity it deserves.

Digital Digest, 3rd August.

I do a thing for my agency. Be nice to keep a record of it here :)

w/c 03/08/02009

Well, hello there. One big headline really dominated new media news this week, so forgive me if it looks like there’s a shortage of ‘proper’ news. Wouldn’t you rather just have a list of fun, inventive stuff for a week anyway? So without further nonsense, in order of importance...

The main one: Microsoft and yahoo! strike a deal, at last
Their takeover bid fell through 18 months ago, but it couldn’t keep MS down. Now it’s launched into a full partnership with yahoo! which will merge Microsoft’s Bing search engine (which is gaining ground; it’s now at 9% market share) with yahoo’s ad systems and sales force. The deal involved no money being paid to yahoo whatsoever, and they predict the move won’t become profitable for two years. So this is aimed squarely at taking google down a peg. Market analysts were underwhelmed though, as they were hoping for a little more cash involved. Ad industry worldwide, long fearful of how google might abuse its near-monopoly, has welcomed the news. A decent search competitor wouldn’t hurt, after all.

Apple snubs google. Is an embargo healthy for competition?
A few developers have found their iPhone applications rejected by apple. The reason – they offer things too close to what the iPhone does, but for free. What these recent apps have in common is the use of Google Voice, a skype-like technology that allows for international calls using the internet. The speculation is that apple have been pressured to do so by the US carrier, AT&T, so that customers don’t have a free alternative to burning those minutes. Compare that to 3, whose most recent (currently running) campaign highlights their status as the first operator to offer skype on the phone. Which approach will work? 3, let’s hope.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s friend list
The pundit we’ve all be waiting for: Archbishop Vincent Nichols, (head of the Catholic church round these parts, fact fans!) has weighed in on the social media debate – and he’s not sure he likes it.

“We’re losing social skills, the human interaction skills, how to read a person’s mood, to read their body language, how to be patient until the moment is right to make or press a point. Too much exclusive use of electronic information dehumanises what is a very, very important part of community life and living together.”

Worse, he sees it as a possible catalyst for suicide:

“Among young people often a key factor in them committing suicide is the trauma of transient relationships. They throw themselves into a friendship or network of friendships, then it collapses and they’re desolate.”

And we know that this is true. Who can forget those grisly “Bebo suicide pact” stories? Or the ‘horror’ expressed by Watchdog, MPs et al about the sudden discovery of the thousands of pro-ana (anorexia) websites out there? Social media’s great danger lies in the creation of uneven relationships between vulnerable people. And the breakdown of such relationships can lead to the breakdown of people. BUT, the transient, low-demand nature of these ‘thin networks’ (as someone on Thought For The Day called them) is their great boon. They may damage a percentage of young people, but far more see social networking as way to enter communities where they can, at last, reclaim some level of anonymity which doesn’t exist at school, at home, in their hometown. And more importantly, they get to play with their identity and experience a semblance of freedom.

This is quite interesting. Something for show and tell, fingers crossed.

An awesome thing/A terrible lesson in privacy
It’s the ever popular Shark Week on Discovery. To promote it, they’ve done a special flash site telling the stories of some famous shark attacks and disasters. With a twist. Go to the click, and click “My story”, the 4th button, to the right.

Do it now, I’ll wait.

...

How cool was that? Cool, but also really disturbing – because all of that info was given freely by you – or by others, and you have allowed it to remain on Facebook. Social ‘experts’ have been predicting a backlash against total freedom of personal information for a while now, and we may start to see the crest of the wave with products like SocialSafe, which creates an editable backup of all your facebook data for you to censor at leisure.

“What the fuck is social media? One year on”
A very nice, if irreverent, introduction to the importance of social media to the world – all courtesy of an agency called Brand Infiltration. What’s nice about this presentation is that there’s a fair minimum of editorialising (compared to some ‘evangelists’ anyway). Instead, it’s pretty numbers led. And funny, for a powerpoint.

Unclasses: after 15 years, the internet might teach us something
We’ve seen the democratisation of objective knowledge (Wikipedia), teaching (Wikihow), but there haven’t been so many attempts to bring the whole teaching-learning process online, in a subject-neutral way. Hopefully this will finally happen with Unclasses, a space for posting, joining and (soon) taking classes in the virtual space. Anyone can teach, anyone can learn, you just have to sign up and create/join a class. This has been done before – sort of – in Second Life, with limited success. What this will all hinge on is the power and ease-of-use of the supporting systems and materials. And, above all, the quality of the teachers.

I’ll let you know when I think of something to teach.

Mud, drugs come to spotify
There’s a thing called The Invisible Festival happening this weekend. All you need to do is download spotify, and then over the weekend some top international artists (their words, not mine), will be releasing playlists of the songs that truly inspired them, for 24 hours. You listen to them in your own time, and have a nice party to good music. Then, ideally, donate to Cancer Research UK, the IF’s chosen charity. The use of shared playlists has been catching on as a vehicle of social cohesion, but I don’t think I’ve seen a ‘celebrity playlist’ in this way before. It does open up the concept of curated playlists though.

Jackie Chan rides a Segway in Cyberworld for Kaspersky AntiVirus
I never thought I would type that sentence, but we finish off this week’s DD with possibly the best commercial ever. Remember how excited we used to be by attempts to bring computer worlds to life a la Tron, Reboot etc? The internet has found more presence in the physical world of late (smartphones and so on), and I believe this is triggering a renaissance of ‘the physical net’. Hopefully this ad paves the way that the upcoming Tron Legacy will walk.

That's that. Thought it'd be nice to have online... Any more fodder for the linkfest, leave below :)

Amazing Agency Attributes 1: Knowing what you're doing

Bond laughed. He said, 'You're a fine friend, Felix. When I think of all the trouble I've been to to set you a good example all these years.' He went off to his room, swallowed two heavy slugs of bourbon, had a cold shower and lay on his bed and looked at the ceiling until it was 8:30 and time for dinner. The meal was less stuffy than luncheon.
-The Man With The Golden Gun

Good old James Bond always seemed to have everything going for him. In the films he is many different things to different men and women but his overriding and defining characteristic is that he knows what he is doing. It's expressed all the more starkly by throwing him into many different situations, sometimes within the space of an hour. And he just copes. Or appears to. But on film, there's no internal monologue - save for some clumsy blubbering in the later ones, which itself clashes with the idea of a man in full stoic control of the raging insecurities within. But I digress.

I've just finished the first Ian Fleming novel I've ever read. It's amazingly gripping (for reasons which I need to spend a lot more time working out) and instantly redefines that nature of the Bond-state. His defining characteristic is that while is some sort of ubermensch to the world, he is clearly all too human. His brainwashing at the start of Golden Gun proves it. His genuine fear at being killed is expressed with elegance, and it makes his ability to coast through difficult situations far more gripping. I now have the fear that I won't be able to see film-Bond as more than an automaton after this.


Insecurity is a funny thing, isn't it? It represents the feeling that maybe, just maybe you're out of your depth? A bad thing? Well, no. If you're out of your depth, you learn to acclimatise. Toddlers won't learn to swim unless they're forced to - by putting them in a place of insecurity. The Apollo space program, which we've just celebrated the 40th anniversary of, was brought about by East-West antagonism and yes, insecurity.

It happens in agencies too. Gareth Goodall, head of planning at Fallon, said: "all of us in planning are a bit scared of being 'found out', aren't we? Trust me, it doesn't go away as you grow up. Or it shouldn't. Because it's the feeling that drives you to research and think, just to make sure you really have the most informed viewpoint in the room". How nice is that?
In How to do better creative work, Steve Harrison advocates: "when hiring, avoid those who've reached a level at which they feel comfortable. The very best people are usually insecure and fear being 'found out'. This fear is the engine self-improvement.
"And I mean the very best people. I once asked David Ogilvy when he finally felt secure about himself and his reputation. 'About five years ago' he replied. He was 85." Ace.

We are taught to overcome insecurities - and that's fine - but it depends on how one does so. You can overcome your insecurities in a holistic, concrete way - by being sure of your abilities and shoring them up with some fucking hard work. Or you can cover them up with empty bravado and showboating, like Scaramanga in Golden Gun. The choice is yours.

But Scaramanga gets shot in the face five times.

Just saying.

The intention

-above all else, the writing
-no promotion, ever
-find the best in everything
-as often as possible, at least every other day
-everything is relevant
-this is supposed to be fun
-above all else, the writing

Let's see.