Social Hallucinations

The Scrapbook 2.0 - Tumblr

The online communication and sharing has taken a new form - tumblelog. Tumblelog is used to share projects, creation or experience without providing a commentary. It is short, and includes video, pictures, links.It is just a neat and quick way of publishing and sharing your works. It makes me think about a scrapbook - it is scrapbook 2.0.

Tumblr is friendly, free, and terrifically easy tool for creating tumblelogs. I browsed a couple of them ad they are so cute and so inviting!

I think tumblr delivers what most of us need: easy tools for sharing and manageable, clear information. While blogs is more information, tumblelogs are more experience...

Tags: tumblelog, tumblr

Buying is Painful

I haven't noticed myself to experience any pain while I am shopping, but who knows what happens in my brain while I am browsing the shelves with shoes and bags. According to the latest research by George Loewenstein, high pricing causes higher activation levels in a brain areas associated with pain. But it is not just what's ever pricing we are talking about. There are a few interesting exceptions here. First of all, the pain we experience doesn't depend on the amount we are supposed to pay, but on the context of transaction. The perceived fairness or unfairness of the deal creates the painful reaction. The reaction doesn't occur when we buy the luxury goods, like cars.

Read more on Neuromarketing blog here and here

Everything You always Wanted to Know about Web 2.0 ...

All the answers were neatly included in this great video.

It's the work of Michael Wesch, an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at the Kansas State University and has been already vievew by over 1.500.000 people all around the world.

Web 2.0 is no longer linking information, it is linking people. Web 2.0 means people.

Technology Junkies

What have technology done to us? Or what we have done to us by getting dependent on technology. A middle aged man who is crying after his mobile phone. The new wireless, on the go media empower us, but this is very twisted empowerment. The video is the proof that we are living in "panopticum world", the world where we put the leash on ourselves with own hands believing that it is something that gives freedom and power. I think it is sad we can cry over being devoid from mobile phone. I think it is a very good idea to take holidays from all e-toys we surround ourselves with. I practice it each year and it is very good experience.

Tags: media, society, media dependence

Cool Car Ads

Good play with metaphors to show that Renault safety is tip top!. Find out what is sausage? :-)

This one I love! Fantastic job, looks so real and very cool.

Tags: advertising, cars

Einstein on Insights

:-))

"Theory cannot be fabricated out of results of observations - it can only be invented"
                          Albert Einstein

Inisghts are the only mean to understand the processes behind things we observe, but the ideas, strategies, concepts are born in our imagination.

The Art Of Quitting

I was just fitnessing my brain and soul to put communication strategy and plan for the campaign against skin cancer, boxing with the idea of how to make avoiding sun a cool thing.
I took a short inspirational break with googling and I ran across the Art of Quitting site.

It is a creative platform for smokers, it gives them the place to find and share the inspiration to quit smoking.  The site is about motiviting yourself and others via sending quitting statements.

Excellent idea, there is a huge viral potential in it. And such a help for people who would like to quit.

Just spread the word about the project!

I got my dose inspiration. Back to work!

Ad Avoiders

The latest research about DVR use from Nielsen shows the ad skipping amongst DVRs users can be urban myth. The data shows a lot of Americans with digital video recorders are not fast-forwarding and time-shifting as much as advertisers feared - they still watch an average of two-thirds of the ads. Interesting is the fact that DVRs owners often insist that they never watch commercials, as if skipping commercials is a badge of honor. (Read more here)

Regardless of hate or love for ads, the ad avoiding is the real behavior the questions is only how wide spread it is. There is still the way to go before it will become the sport of other than tech-savvy viewers. Ad skipping behavior will become more popular as technology behind becomes easier - "one click" solution can definitely change the rules of the game here.

Meanwhile there are more tools that allows viewers to block ads

Comskip is a free mpeg commercial detector.

Commercial Skip Addin - add on for you Media Center

Show Analyzer - the most advanced commercial detection program available to the public... plus a little extra

Tags: ad avoiders, ad skipping, DVR, commercial detector

iFight - Jobs and Gates in the Ring

Hilarious ...Good Morning!

 

Ad that Moved Me

Very good. Campaign for the breast cancer.

Tags: advertising, breast cancer

Vital Role of Citizen Journalism in USA

According the online survey conducted by  iFOCOS Zogby a majority of Americans (55%) said bloggers are important to the future of American journalism and 74% said citizen journalism will play a vital role. 72% said they were dissatisfied with the quality of American journalism today and 61% said they believed traditional journalism is out of touch with what Americans want from their news.

Good news for citizen journalism, bad news for traditional journalism. It seems like American enjoys the diversity of opinions, openness and many-to.many communication blogging and other forms of news, information overview Internet offers.

Tags: citizen journalism, blogs

Fear of Mind Reading

   

The team of neuroscientists have developed a system that analyses brain activity to work out a person's intentions before they have acted on them. More advanced versions may be able to read complex thoughts and even pick them up before the person is conscious of them. It is possible with the computer that learns unique patterns of brain activity or signatures that correspond to different thought and then it scans the brain to look for these signatures and predicts what the person is thinking.

   

They will know you cheated on the test, they will know you want to write the hate post against Dell, they will know you are against the high taxes...

   

I am a huge fan of neuroscience but I guess such a findings rise the question about ethics. It is fascinating how we become better at mapping human brain but at some point we need to be clear about our freedom.

   

It makes me wonder where the curiosity, scientific knowledge ends  and manipulation, invasion into the most private spheres begins? This is the very thin red line we are playing with. I am far away from having Orwellian thoughts, and even though we are still far away from mind-reading, we need to discuss ethics in tact with pseudoscientific discoveries. What I fear most is the misuse of such a impressive technologies to the wrong purposes.

   

via Guardian

"Compared to the scroll, it takes longer to turn the pages of a book"

Hilarious! Monty Python like video. And I love Norwegian language, it puts me in a good mood :-)

Powered by Qumana

Planners as Chameleons

I have a habit of eavesdropping. On the bus, in the shop. I can't help it. It's fascinating to see the people "live", and this is the very important and inevitable tool in the job as communication planner. The consumers understanding is the most important part of the communication strategy. The deep insights are the basis for placing the product in consumers life, defining its role, as well as for the market segmentation, recognition of the threats, identification the potential source of income and of course this the key information we need as media planners for the selection of the most effective and relevant communication channels.

Consumers analysis and its quality depends not only on what techniques are used, but who makes the analysis and how the person  is prepared to put such a task across. Targeting can be limited to a couple of graphs, tables with affinity index and bone-dry description that is put into immortal power point slides. But it can also be more interesting and take the form of  the movie showing the interviews with people representing our target group, showing the part of their real everyday life, not just the numbers based on declarations.

When we are curious and reach into the real life to gather the necessary information we have access to the plenty of data and besides the correct interpretation of data, the most important is the creative thinking and the ability to connect all available elements, information and data into the consistent picture of consumer.

We can never forget to ask ourselves about our objectivity and our ability to understand the consumers. So often we are tempted to take the shortcuts and define the target group through the distorted glasses of our existence. We tend to transfer our feelings, our experiences over to the people we are analyze. We ignore often the fact that people working in the media or advertising agency are part of the minority: urban profile, no kids, income over average, very social and outgoing, spending most of his/her free time at work. We are pretty different from the people we are interested in as the target group. During the process of understanding whom our consumers are we must be aware of the Znaniecki's humanist principle (also called as "humanistic coefficient"), that means: "an observer of cultural life can understand the data observed only if taken with the” humanistic coefficient”, only if he does not limit his observation to his own direct experience of the data but reconstructs the experience and the data in the social context of the people involved"

When we approach the targeting process in the right way, we end up with the real person picture - the typical exponent for the target group. We know what's her name, how old she is, what clothes she wears, what she reads, how she will react when we offer her to try our product. We know she was trying to lose weight three times this year and she will not take for ski trip this winter because she is going to have a baby.
We, planners need to learn to be chameleons and change our skin while we are working with targeting otherwise we risk producing the wrong and subjective analyses that is based mostly on whom we and our significant others are -those analyses can't be reliable and can't lead to the successful communication strategies. Communication planners need to be curious and go outside to experience the real life of ordinary people with the huge dose of creativity and humanist principle.

Tags: consumers, planners, target group, Znaniecki

Ads I like

This was lazy weekend, very cold outside, so I was tempted by a comfy chair, blanket, cup of tea with lemon and Internet :-)

I have found a couple of advertising gems I like a lot and want to share with you.

Nike  Air Jordan XX 2 - great mix of the drama of the basketball match with Mozart. I love Mozart, there is so much passion in his music and that's what Nike wants to stand for.

Nike mash-up campaign website for AF25 shoe model where you have a chance to -up your own Nike AF25 video. A good example of interactivity and involving different media platforms.

What hands can do? See in VW Phaeton commercial