The satire of modern world populated by corporations
Who is the average consumer? Does he / she exist? How do we define it? Or does average consumers exist, isn't just a mathematical construct that was aimed at making easier for us to explain world?
People are different, we are the individuals with different stories that shape us, stories that are driven by our mind, our bodies and social environment we are living in. Every human is the patchwork of different stories that make him/her a person, not an average consumer. The average consumer is a type of urban myth to me.
Woman, 34 years old, urban, modern, income above average, lives in apartment, career oriented, heavy user of internet, buys organic food, interested in technology, owns mobile phone, heavy consumer of culture, blah blah...Yes, it could be me...but the above description brings more questions.
Can a human being amount to this?
Average consumer is just a construct that derives from the single story and is intended to make easier for us to work out things like strategy, advertising, etc. But the concept of average consumer doesn't really 'disenchant' the world, it makes it single storied and mass produced.
...listen to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie inspiring talk about the single story as the source of misunderstanding and stereotypes that keep us away from seeing the whole picture
Yes, I am aware it is difficult to work with the concept of individual when we talk communication, it is difficult to capture the complexity of people's lives but we can try with replacing or at least enhancing demographics with needs, motivations and more focus on the social aspects of human's lives.
Thanks for inspiration: Eskimon
Denmark has the proud 6th place on the ranking over countries and its Facebook active users with 2.1 mil. Facebookers. The growth within the last 3 months isn't quite impressive when compared to other countries, but you must take into consideration that it is already 40% of Danish population is on Facebook which is pretty impressive.
You can find more information on the demographic trends on Facebook.
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via O'Reilly Radar
I have rather ambivalent attitude towards charity events that involve eating. There are quite a few of them in Denmark . You sign in to eat food and than you pay for it. The money you spend are donated to charity.
Yes, I can definitely see the point that it is about helping those who are in need. But on the other hand I find it deeply disgusting to think about bunch of people filling themselves with gourmet food and flushing it with expensive wine, looking around with the self enjoyment. "I am so good. I've just ate 300 gram steak with good conscience. I don't have to feel bad that people die of hunger, while I am eating more than I need. I've paid myself out of it."
It gives the new meaning to I consume therefore I am.
I have a hard time accepting it. For me it is just an excuse to have a good meal and use it as recognition factor. It is contradictory. If you want to help, just help. Not eat!
What happened to the simple need of helping the less fortunate without getting something in return? Did we bury the altruism virtue away? Don't we feel the moral obligation of helping others any longer? Aren't we able to do a simple act of helping even though if it means we need to sacrifice our own interest?
August Comte wrote long time ago in Catechism of Positivism "Man must serve Humanity, whose we are entirely." Living simply for others can seem like unachievable virtue, but in fact is about asking yourself a question: how can I make those people life a bit better and reaching the helping hand out.
We have so much to give....
Photo by Carf
Greenpeace have created Onslaught video in replay to Dove's one, which says that Unilever, that is behind Dove beauty products, are buying palm oil from suppliers who destroy Indonesia’s rainforests.
The issue isn't just Dove, this the whole beauty industry and women, yeah like me and you who buy the beauty products chasing the vain beauty...
One brand bummers are advantage of other brand. Apple can feel it on their own skin. I must admit, I'm pretty surprised following the development of iPhone bummers. I was sure that Apple nailed it and had the passion and respect for consumers but the latest actions they've taken prove something different:
- kind of monopoly practice - making an exclusive deal with one mobile operator AT&T.
- price drop of the iPhone by $200 - it is great news but not after you got the ambassadors of your brand to stay in line for a few days and pay full price of $600 (I can almost hear Steve Jobs saying: "You Geek Suckers!" )
- war with hackers - unlocked iPhones become useless after software update ("He, he, suckers again")
- the new update removed also all 3rd party applications and ringtones ("You play only with toys I give you")
What about being open, what about collaboration and nourishing the most powerful of relationships a brand can get - it is ambassadors? It seems like a silly mistakes and makes me wonder whether Apple has some bigger plan. But I hardly believe it.
Some brands like Nokia are just turning Apple's bad publicity into their advantage. They've already placed posters all over New York. Clever.
Via B.L. Ochman
FirebrandTV has introduced today the multimedia platform with "commercials as content". The best ads will be chosen by a panel of Gen Y. You can not only watch the cool commercials but also within a click you get an access to promotions and you can buy the products. FirebrandTV will also have CJ (commercials jockeys - someone like VJ) "to contextualize commercials as art and guide viewers through the spots, contests and promotions.". It launches 22nd October on three platforms: TV (ION Television Network), web and mobile (through iTunes and MSN)
Investors behind the project are: Microsoft, NBC Universal and GE’s Peacock Equity Fund, ION Television, as well as Adweek, Brandweek and Mediaweek, among others, joined Firebrand at its announcement during Advertising Week at the Paley Center for Media.
This is a great idea of distributing advertising using "pull" methods and combining it with merchandise option. It will be interesting to watch as it sets the new standard for traditional TV advertising. The fact is that people don't hate commercials, people hate being forced to watch the bad and boring commercials. I am looking forward to hear people's reaction to it and see how is it working in real life. I think the sales aspect is very interesting, transferring ad liking into sales.
Crayon is handling the social media aspect of Firebrand - check out what they have already done: YouTube, Myspace, Facebook, Flickr and Delicious Links.
Tags: firebrandtv, advertising, content, sales
They are bright, shiny. They attract us. We can't keep our eyes of them. Their glow is like magnet, it pulls us in their orbit and we crave. We just desperately want them. Bright Shiny Objects. B.O.B's own us, we are slaves of having. We are chasing B.O.B's, new colors, new shapes, new materials, 20 GB more...the newer, the shiner, the higher demand. B.O.B's aren't anything new, they have slightly changed the trajectory of attraction. In the modern times they've attracted with material value and material status one could achieve by owning them. It was all about having. Today, in liquid reality, they are armed with meanings, soft values. B.O.B's became even more powerful, because together with them we buy our personality. We tell who we are. We call it being.We are almost shiny as our B.O.B's. Bling bling can be heard on the streets, in offices, in shops, bling is ominous. And bling is voracious...You get it, you show it off, then you get tired of it and want something new.
Inspired by Jessica Hagy
Tags: bright shiny object, having vs. being, B.O.B
I've learned during my study a lot about statistics in combination with philosophy. My favorite professor who taught in methodology of sociological research always told us - numbers are what you say they are. It is true. Numbers are very flexible, they seem to be objective as they are perceived as hard facts. Numbers describe the reality which we can control. Numbers remove the randomness. What I've also learned was the inevitable need for observing the individual's experiences and ideas. Researchers should study reality as a social actors (subjectively - understanding people's motivations), not as an independent observers (objectively - understanding people as numbers). The truth is that you can never connect with a number. You hear lots of people in media and advertising business claiming that people comes first to add afterwards: we can reach 75% of target group. And so what? 75% can translate in many things depending on what we want to say. But it doesn't say anything constructive, it doesn't help us to lose any communication challenge or neither takes any closer to people (target group as some call them).
I have seen a couple of examples of the numbers tyranny in the pursue of explaining reality. For me it looked more like manipulation and completely lack of understanding of what's going on. This week, there were released to surveys about the use of digital and traditional media in Denmark. First of them, conducted by Explora, focused on the 15-24 years old and the conclusion was: This is a myth that you can't reach young people via TV advertising. Explora found out that young people spend 84 minutes on watching TV and only 11 minutes online. Here comes the best - they measured only 136 Danish websites!! How on earth can you draw any conclusions on youth Internet usage based on 136 websites? Numbers show only the part of reality.
Another research covered the new media usage compared to the traditional media amongst "the early adapters" and was conducted by Danish national TV station TV2 and ACNielsen. The conclusion was: the young people with high interest in technology has still high consumption of traditional media. Research responsible at TV2 believes that the increasing usage of the new media and internet don't decrease the time spent with traditional media, there is no cannibalization. So far so good. The early adapters spend in all 9 hours and 32 minutes daily consuming media (150 min. with TV, 233 min. in front of computer, 35 minutes with other media like game consoles and mp3). I read the article once, twice and I couldn't find anything interesting except some numbers. I didn't learn anything new about media usage.
I wonder why none of the research didn't cover multitasking issue that makes it possible for many to extend media time into 9 hours. None of research come up with the slightest attempt to understand HOW people use the media. Would it be to uncomfortable for the traditional media?
It is so ignorant and one sided picture of reality presented by those two research. I don't believe TV is dead. It is not, the way we use it changed and those numbers don't tell anything about it.
It almost cliche to say it over and over again: People are first, data are second. Still, it is hard to live up to this sentence, as we are attached to the old media world order. As long as we don't change the terminology and become more curious to see what lies behind the numbers, we will stand still in one place. The world will pass by.
(Read more on statistics here)
Tags: research, numbers, sociology, media consumption
Consumer Research Center of The Conference Board has done the global survey about luxury consumers.
For majority 'luxury is having enough time to do whatever you want and being able to afford it.' Time is followed by experiences, comfort, beauty and quality.
The survey results indicates that there is the shift in people's meaning on what luxury is. More people seem to think about luxury not in terms of materials things, but more in terms of experiences and state of mind. It is the natural result of changing world and distribution of means in the Western societies. Parallel with uber-luxury, fabulous lives ala Beckham or Paris Hilton, luxury became more mass than ever - more people can afford the luxury bags, clothes and cars. There are also more mass brands that are clever to add luxury touch to their products via clever marketing moves. The definition of luxury isn't the same as it used to be, it doesn't have the same role of being the dividing line between classes. Luxury products consumption used to be the way to achieve prestige and higher social status.
Today, more people discover the meaningless of consumption, its negative consequences for our society and planet and the decreasing value of luxury products - they guarantee no longer the desired position on the society ladder. Therefore we chose to move from being conspicuous consumers into conscious consumers. Conscious consumer who consumer less in the name of luxury. It doesn't mean we will spend less, we will buy less products, but those will be of very high quality and of course high price. It will be still material things we will use to find our identity and mark our position, but those things will be disguised in emotions, statements and opinions.
Tags: luxury, consumption, trends
This evening I went to do some shopping at local supermarket. While I was reaching for Innocent smoothie, my attention was caught by two lovely kids, girl and boy (around 3 - 5 years old) and their mum. (I couldn't help to follow them). The little girl was dragging a basket, it was packed with healthy and ecological food. It was mum's choice and children has different meaning on what they would like to eat. It was fascinating to observe the children's behavior and their brands awareness. They knew exactly what products they wanted, they screened shelves in search for the brands. Both boy and girl were placing diverse products in the basket and the mother with smile on her lips, kept on removing them and explaining to kids it's not for them. The girl was standing with Danonino yogurt, looked at her mother with big eyes and tried to convince her mum that this tastes very good and they have to buy it, while the boy tried to smuggle Cheerios in the basket. They didn't give up easily and all the way to checkout they tried to smuggle something in the basket.
The kids' brand awareness is very big, interesting enough all the products those kids wanted are advertised - primarily on TV. The advertising has a huge effect on kids as they aren't able to filter information they receive. We need to be careful when communicating to children as influence we can have on them can be tremendous and not everyone of them has such are unbreakable parent, who don't melt when seeing the little angel with big blue and honest eyes having a serious brand pitch.
***UPDATE***
and here is the link to the post about the power of branding amongst children.
Tags: advertising, children, brands
People aren't irrational only when buying on eBay. We are pretty far away from being rational even when thinking about prices.
A recent paper in the Journal of Consumer Research indicates that we tend to act as the lower digits were farther apart than higher ones.
"Students who saw ads showing a $233 skate marked down to $222 thought
they were getting a larger discount than did students who saw a $199
skate marked down to $188, even though the opposite was true. The first
group of students also rated themselves about 20 percent more likely to
buy the skates than did the others."
We aren't as clever as we tend to believe. Irrationality is very important when observing and analyzing human behavior. It also makes advertising kind of difficult as it is hard to predict, control and influence irrational behavior.
Via NYTimes
UPDATE #2
Second life is back in media. This time the attention they get is focused on negative aspects.
Time classified Second Life as on of the 5 worst websites.
Interesting article from Wired about Madison Avenue wasting millions on a deserted Second Life.
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UPDATE
For the last couple of weeks you couldn't hear too much about Second Life in media. Apparently, SL hasn't live up to its hype. I was skeptical from the beginning about companies investing money and opening their virtual offices in SL to earn money. And today I read in Danish newspaper (Politiken) that companies begin to leave SL.
I guess there are too major problems with SL
1) The lack of users - the numbers Second Life gives as the number of SL users are the number of profiles. The truth is most people never come back again.
2) Companies have no idea how to act and interact in virtual reality of SL. For most companies SL is just another advertising window.
I guess there is also the third problem with users itself. Virtual reality is very new concept for us and we have no idea how to behave and how we can use the new space we have available. Plus there are still technological obstacles.
I do still believe Second Life is good and important but we need to explore the virtual reality more in order to understand its nature and become wiser on how to use it. The mix of traditional opt-down models, traditional advertising techniques and Second Life isn't the best in the world and can't bring any spectacular results (Danish Red Cross raised only 10.000 DKK from February 2007 ... I bet they still haven't earned home investments they made to create their HQ in SL)
Stop measuring and calculating, just try to understand in the first place. Understanding delivers better ROI.
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Second Life has become the media celebrity lately, everyone is talking about SL, so many companies throw $$$ to opening their virtual stores / offices there. SL become crowded, unfortunately not with people (3,6 million accounts opened but only 250.000 people revisited SL within 30 days since the last login and there are maximum 20.000 people at the same time) but with companies.
Nic Mitham has recently made a brand map of Second Life that gives the overview over the major companies existing in SL. I find it interesting the way companies are places on the outskirts of the SL and form the circle. Is it an attempt to try to separate itself from competitors?
(Click on the picture for bigger view)
While companies are rushing into virtual territory, the recent survey from Komjuniti revealed that 72% Second Life users (“avatars”) are disappointed with the activities of the companies in SL. Moreover "over a third of them were unaware of the branded presence and 42% said they thought it constituted nothing more than a short-term trend, lacking durable commitment from the companies. Just 7% consider that it has a positive influence on brand image and their future buying behavior."
The major problem for SL users is the insufficient customer care and opportunities for interaction with companies - the two most important factors and the basic reason for existence in place like SL.
It seems like companies feel the urge to be present in the SL but have no reason for being there, have no clue or plan how to act in SL. One should believe that the reason for company entering SL is to build a community around brands and interact with the consumers. Apparently it is not the way consumers feel.
I spent a lot of time in SL and I've always been skeptical abut the SL frenzy in business world. There is nothing wrong with SL itself, even though it seems to me as the ghost ship, the world with fantastic building but not too many people. SL is a wonderful world, the virtual scene that opens door to the new experiences and ways of communication. However many companies misunderstand that and see it mostly as the new area for the exposure of their ads and products. I guess we, both consumers and business need to understand first how the virtual worlds are relevant to us, what do they mean and give us, how we can use them before we fling into using them without having any goals or plans how to use it. I do believe in SL as the huge innovation and research space at the moment. This is the exciting place for gathering insights, observing and understanding humans interactions and testing products or ideas.
There is no need to get hasty and make the wrong decisions. It can affect companies negatively, as they don't live up to consumers expectations and needs. They way companies act in SL reminds me about the bad traditional marketing where ads are developed and broadcasted on TV without even spending a minute on understanding consumers, without even thinking about any kind of research.
It is better to take it slow and put resources into decent research. SL is great and important so better use it wisely.
You can read more about companies in SL here and here
Meanwhile get a ...third life :-)
Tags: Second Life, Advertising, Brands
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“The Science of advertising is so far advanced it is impossible to foresee further developments.”
- said Samuel Johnson 230 years ago.
I could say the same in 2007, in the era of the power consumers with free and unlimited flow of information.
We have moved from being the product delivered by TV to creators and producers.
But what's the future for the consumer who is everywhere, who is anybody, who knows everything. Will it be scary and "googlized"?
Or maybe there will be no advertising anywhere except...in our dreams....
Tags: future of advertising, consumer
