And Google does it well.
What are you doing with the cognitive surplus?
There's never been more interesting, worthwhile uses of free time than there are now.
If you haven't already, read Seth Godin's post But it's better than TV. He explains that he doesn't watch TV because there are so many other things he'd rather do at that moment (blog, read, start a community, tutor, etc.), all of which require more brainpower than passive viewing.
Seth's post was inspired by Clay Shirky, who noticed that smart people are using technology to put their spare time to work (video highly recommended).
Shirky calls that spare mental capacity the cognitive surplus. For more than half a century, it was largely wasted on television. But today there are infinite ways to make better use of our cognitive surplus.
A college professor once taught me that the idea of leisure as a time for shutting your mind off is a modern invention. During the Renaissance, those with means devoted their spare hours to academic study and the arts.
Now we're seeing a rebirth of that mindset. We're just coming to realize the power technology gives us to be participants and creators, and the potential output is astounding. Seth calls it "one of the underappreciated world-changing stories of our time."
What's the marketer's role?
While marketers can no longer count on passive audiences to consume their message, they can benefit from being a catalyst for the cognitive surplus.
Both Stuart Foster and Faris Yakob have made this point: Rather than having creative ideas that are content (i.e. advertising), marketers now must have creative ideas that inspire content.
As more people make use of their cognitive surplus (the numbers are growing), marketers have an opportunity to inspire us to apply it toward creativity, utility, entertainment and social good.
In return, great content and goodwill will build around their brand, and they'll probably make some money along the way.
The Jets are back 25 years later
I will not be attending this one but I'm curious what the level of interest will be in reunion show by these 80's pop wonders from Minneapolis.
Will they still have moves like these?
3D Target Field Billboards Above First Ave
Should today's communications practitioner be a specialist or a generalist?
A wise man once said that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
But today, communications practitioners have access to such a bewildering array of tools, they never have to reach for a hammer unless it's the best thing for the job.
So the question is, with all these tools at your disposal, do you diversify your skill set, or keep hammering away? Are you a pr, ad or web professional, or some kind of multidisciplinary guru? (I'm mostly directing this towards solo practitioners, startups, small agencies.) Arguments for both approaches:
Arguments for Specialization
1. My positioning is tight: I own a niche that fills a very specific need for clients or future employers.
2. My expertise is deep: I know my subject matter as good as anyone and I can authoritatively blog, present or give an interview on it.
3. My community is my toolset: What I don't know I can collaborate on or outsource to my network.
Arguments for Generalization
1. My door is always open: I can take on (and get paid for) almost any job that a client or employer throws my way.
2. My theory is we're in an age of "good enough": We've entered an era of conversational marketing that's filled with free, easy-to-use online tools and user generated content that makes much of the "professional grade" content that specialists provide less necessary. Besides, social media is turning all of us into internet marketers.
3. My search engine is my toolset. What I don't know I can ask google or my network about, then do it (mostly) myself.
Coming from an integrated agency background and now in the digital/social/pr realm, I fall under the generalist category. Where do you land?
This is what a true fan looks like
Soccer is religion in Argentina. Even the heartiest American football fan seems fairweather after you've experienced a Boca Juniors game in Buenos Aires. British Airways does a nice job capturing the feeling with unlikely spokesperson Pascual Tatangelo.
Should you apologize for working in advertising?
Ad Age reports on Philippa White, who was tired of apologizing for her career.
"It bugged me," Ms. White says. "My whole family is in the medical profession, or environmental engineers or social workers. I felt like I'd sold myself to the devil, and it became apparent that a lot of my peers felt the same way. But our skills are extremely powerful, and we can use them to raise awareness of important issues."
She founded The International Exchange to put the skills of ad professionals to work for causes in developing countries. So far, projects have included raising awareness of HIV/AIDS, children's rights and encouraging recycling.
If we found more positive ways to use the persuasive power of advertising/marketing, there'd be no need to apologize.
"In a year, your family produces the equivalent of an elephant in garbage."
Rolling Stone Interviews Matthew Weiner
Some nice insights about Mad Men and an era that fascinates me. Season 3 premieres Sunday, August 16.
Gotta Serve Somebody - Bob Dylan's Commercial Chronicles
Update:
In 1963 the Rolling Stones did a Rice Krispies ad.
From Slate: Is Selling Out a Thing of the Past?
Almost 45 years have passed since Bob Dylan penned the lyrics in which he all but damned advertising:Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.
-From one of Dylan's darkest and greatest songs, It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding).
But in recent years our greatest living songwriter-poet has lent his music and his mug to sell goods, services and himself. This has disappointed fans, but I'm not interested in assailing Dylan for selling out. In fact I'll disclose now that he is hands down my favorite artist. What I am interested in is tracking Dylan's relationship with advertising and commercialism, from his groundbreaking work in the 1960s to the sometimes ill-fitting yet expanding use of his catalog and image in modern-day marketing.
1965: First Cries of Sellout - Dylan Goes Electric
Dylan's artistic integrity was first called into question when he strode onstage, Stratocaster in hand and the electric Paul Butterfield Blues Band backing, at the Newport Folk Festival. He shocked the folkies as he let loose with Maggie's Farm:
While there's some controversy over whether fans at the concert were actually booing him, he was branded a sellout by some in the folk scene for allegedly turning his back on them in favor of pop. But Dylan didn't see it that way. In a 1971 interview he recalled his intuition that the Beatles' sound was the future of music:
We were driving through Colorado, we had the radio on, and eight of the Top 10 songs were Beatles songs...'I Wanna Hold Your Hand,' all those early ones. They were doing things nobody was doing. Their chords were outrageous, just outrageous, and their harmonies made it all valid...I knew they were pointing the direction of where music had to go.
So when he plugged in, Dylan became a part of that future. And knowing Dylan's personality, he probably did so without concerns of betraying his folk roots. And of course history would vindicate his decision. Dylan's first fully electric album Highway 61 Revisited not only reached #6 on Billboard and had a #2 single with Like a Rolling Stone, it is also considered one of the greatest albums in rock. In 2004 Rolling Stone named Like a Rolling Stone the #1 song of all time. The magazine also called Dylan's plugging in one of the 50 greatest moments in rock history.
1967: Dylan ~Invents the Movie Trailer & Music Video
Dylan's idea was a simple yet original. He would look into the camera, flipping cue cards with selected lyrics from his Subterranean Homesick Blues as the song plays. Throw in some wordplay. Allen Ginsberg can hang out in the background. It makes for compelling viewing. D.A. Pennebaker used it as both the opening scene and the trailer for his Dylan documentary Dont Look Back. It was one of the first modern movie trailers and also a forerunner to music videos of the MTV age (INXS and others have emulated the video's cue card flipping style).
**As far as I can tell there's almost a 30-year gap in Dylan's marketing credits until the mid 1990s. During this period he almost died and became a recluse, tried country, found God and sang backing vocals for Kurtis Blow. He also produced arguably his greatest album. More on his career during that period here and here.**
1994, 1996: Dylan Tests The Commercial Waters
Dylan showed hints of a commercial future in the mid-1990s when he licensed the right to The Times They Are A-Changin' to two unlikely companies. The accountancy firm Coopers & Lybrand used Richie Havens' cover of the song in 1994. Then in 1996, Bank of Montreal used Pete Seeger's version. These incidents didn't cause much outcry, probably because they didn't use Dylan's voice or image.
Dylan also performed two live shows and produced an album for MTV Unplugged in 1994, giving Dylan his best sales in years. After several commercially disappointing albums, you have to wonder if financial considerations were behind this coming-out party.
Dylan performs Dignity on MTV Unplugged:
1997: Dylan Thinks Different
Apple's legendary Think Different campaign borrowed famous faces including Einstein, Picasso, Gandhi, Amelia Earhart and yes, Bob Dylan, to position themselves as the computer of the creative class. The ads were tastefully executed. The key was that the ads "don't use [the chosen personalities'] work as much as show them working,'' said Allen Olivo, then marketing director at Apple.
2004-2005: Dylan Unmasked
Although not advertising per se, Dylan did gain significant publicity when he revealed some of his back pages in the mid-2000s. The push included his critically-acclaimed 2004 biography Chronicles, Volume 1 in which Dylan shares vivid recollections of his start in New York and his discomfort and rejection of being labeled the voice of his generation. In the same year he cooperated with an exhibit at Seattle's Experience Music Project covering his early years. Called Bob Dylan's American Journey, 1956-1966, it later became a travelling exhibit which I saw in Minneapolis at the Weisman Art Museum.
In 2005, Martin Scorsese directed the documentary No Direction Home, in which Dylan speaks at length about growing up in Minnesota, his inflluences, New York in the 1960s, his early music and his image.
He also sat down with Ed Bradley for a candid interview on 60 Minutes around this time. (Part 1)(Part 2)
2004: Dylan Peddles Panties
When asked in a 1965 interview what might tempt him to sell out, Dylan responded "ladies undergarments." But no one would've believed that in 2004 he really would be shilling for Victoria's Secret in an ad that, according the Entertainment Weekly, debuted during America Idol and probably had the show's young audience "wondering who was that geezer with the pencil thin mustache." This seems to be the first time that the modern-day Dylan appeared in an advertisement, and many saw it as strange pairing. But as Slate points out, it makes sense on Dylan's end:
The most likely motive for Dylan is exposure. It's a real struggle for older rockers to remind the world that they still exist. Their music's not played on the radio, and their videos (if they even make them) aren't in heavy rotation on VH1. Thus you see the Jaguar ads with Sting, or the MCI ads with James Taylor and Michael McDonald—all of them prominently featuring the artist's song. It's essentially a way to put a video on the major networks, where an older audience might see it. Yes, in exchange for publicizing their art they sacrifice some integrity, but this is basically an understandable tradeoff. And Dylan even gets, in the terms of his deal, a mix CD of his songs sold at Victoria's Secret stores.
But what about Victoria's Secret? Slate opines:
Why would a brand that's about sexiness, youth, and glamour want any connection at all with a decrepit, sixtysomething folksinger? [...] Just because you can hire Bob Dylan as the figurehead for your lingerie line, doesn't mean you should. Perhaps no one was willing to say no to the big boss, or perhaps they fully expected Dylan to say no. Joke's on them.
2005: Dylan Makes a Deal with the Devil
In a move that probably had many a Dylan purist trying not to wretch, Dylan gave Starbucks the exclusive rights to sell Live at the Gaslight 1962. The Gaslight Cafe was a coffee shop and underground haven for New York City's folk scene in the 1960s, and it's where Dylan got his start. As Starbucks is the antithesis of that, it almost seemed as if Dylan was spitting in the face of hardcore fans who for years had been trading bootlegged versions of those same performances. HMV Stores in Canada protested by pulling all of Dylan's music from it's shelves.
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall from Live at the Gaslight 1962
2006: Modernized Dylan Does iTunes Ad
Dylan pairs up with Apple once again to promote both iTunes and his 32nd studio album, Modern Times.
2007:
Dylan's Escalade/XM Escapade
Dylan promotes the Cadillac Escalade, XM radio and his Theme Time Radio Hour through a multimedia campaign. The commercial could have been more interesting if he did something more than pass an 18-wheeler. In it he says "what's life without the occasional detour?" as gets out of his Escalade for some fresh air:
See also the two minute version which I believe is the only time when Dylan has publicly endorsed a product. "Cadillacs. They roam, they cruise. They make you feel like a million bucks."
Dylan Follows Elvis's Lead, Gets Remixed
Dylan allowed DJ Mark Ronson to remix his 1966 track Most Likely You'll Go You're Way (And I'll Go Mine) to introduce his music to younger audiences and promote his 2007 compilation Dylan: The Album. When Elvis Presley’s estate sanctioned a remix of his A Little Less Conversation in 2002 it became a global #1 hit and revitalized interest in the King. Dylan's record company was hoping for the same. (video)
2009:
Dylan Refreshed for Pepsi Generation
This ad debuted during the 2009 Super Bowl and is still in rotation. Actually this is the ad that inspired this lengthy blog post. I love the version of Forever Young they used in the first half of the ad, but I'm not fond passing the torch to Will.i.am, whose talents pale in comparison to Dylan's. I wonder if he was their first choice? I would've preferred someone like Mos Def or Nas.Pepsi Refresh the World Anthem
Dylan Blows Into British Commercial
In another unlikely pairing, Dylan allowed his 1963 folk anthem Blowin' in the Wind to be used in British commercials for the first time. The permission was given to the Co-Operative Group, which operates supermarkets and also has financial, travel, legal, and funeral services. The company is a proponent of responsible and green business practices.
Blowin' In the Wind - Co-operative Commercial
So...
Should we Dylan fans be enraged with the man's so-called sellouts? I for one am talking the "don't think twice, it's alright" approach to it all. Especially after reading his biography, you know this is a man who was never comfortable with the labels put on him. He revels in defying expectations and throwing obsessive fans off his scent. As Neil McCormick points out:
Should we Dylan fans be enraged with the man's so-called sellouts? I for one am talking the "don't think twice, it's alright" approach to it all. Especially after reading his biography, you know this is a man who was never comfortable with the labels put on him. He revels in defying expectations and throwing obsessive fans off his scent. As Neil McCormick points out:
His own answer to his critics is contained in a telling passage in his autobiography, 'Chronicles', when he talks of strategies for evading the oppressiveness of being considered a guru-like font of all wisdom, and spokesman for his generation. "I'd have to send out deviating signals, crank up the wrecking train - create some different impressions."
Dylan has never seemed too concerned with what others think, and I don't suspect he worried about it much as he offered a small part of his massive catalog for commercial use. Most of the ads are more or less tastefully done (nothing as crass as Microsoft's use of the Rolling Stone's Start Me Up for the launch of Windows 95).
If he was seeking a revival in recent years, Dylan certainly found it. With his book, radio show, films, ads and of course the music (with 100+ live shows per year), this has been a Dylan decade. His Together Through Life recently debuted at #1 in the US and UK, and has also been reviewed positively. That makes four straight commercial and critical successes. Yes, he's made some questionable decisions along the way. But knowing Bob, he won't look back.
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