speculations

Dispatch from an advertising future #132

https://www.ft.com/content/d9e18a02-3c86-48eb-80a4-47cdaa71941a He was a flâneur. He wandered the city. He’d done it in The Before allowing himself to be carried along with the crowd. No aims just strolling, seeing. Psychogeographic purists had rejected the glasses claiming the feeds destroyed the chance encounter and random meanderings of thought and sight. He… Read the rest

Dispatch from an advertising future #131

https://www.warc.com/newsandopinion/news/cannes-lions-offers-best-practices-for-lo-fi-content/44267 You’ll have seen Chris’ message after the client saw the work. I am sure you were as shocked as I was. To have such a stinging attack from a long-standing partner hurt us all. And it should. Chris was right. Message, story, idea: all great, but execution? The technical… Read the rest

Dispatch from an advertising future #130

https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/21/21526567/facebook-neighborhoods-feature-mini-social-network-sharing-test The Episode wasn’t all bad. With her tracker warning her of the borders of her 3S (“Social Safe Space”), she had her privacy and security. She knew where she could go and what she could do, as did everyone else each within their invisible fence. The Government had subcontracted… Read the rest

Dispatch from an advertising future #129

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/10/21/1011038/aocs-among-us-livestream-hints-at-twitchs-political-power/ You have been the face of our brand since before I joined the company. It feels like generations of our customers have come to know and love our brand through coming to know you. Whether it was the original TV ads or those early web experiments right through to… Read the rest

Dispatch from an advertising future #128

https://www.digitaltrends.com/features/envisics-ar-windshield-technology/ Traffic was back to a new normal. Crawling, then frantic overtaking, undertaking, catch-up. He felt the stop start seep into his mood. As he tensed, the seat changed its support, the news channel chose different stories and it began. Barely perceptible, the circles gently pulsed, mirroring the new stories’… Read the rest

Dispatch from an advertising future #126

https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/15/21518182/google-new-hum-to-search-feature-identify-song-machine-learning It was liminal. On the edge of consciousness, the tip of his tongue. It must have been something he saw or heard yesterday and now it was like a nagging loose tooth he couldn’t help worrying. He couldn’t do anything about it until his break, he told himself, his… Read the rest

Dispatch from an advertising future #125

https://www.warc.com/newsandopinion/news/share-of-search-can-predict-market-share/44232 They’d decided early on to get her one. The more she’d be able to say she knew or at least demonstrate she could find, the better. At the start of New Schooling, they’d been expensive but then the Company offered them for free. Her ‘learning facilitator’ was impressed with… Read the rest

Dispatch from an advertising future #124

https://www.adweek.com/agencies/havas-launches-customer-experience-network/ The “people formerly known as customers” have always been at the heart of our work for clients. In The Before, we prided ourselves on not just knowing them through data, but really understanding them. Things have changed. People have changed. Home Space Blur; Circuitbreak Compression; Stop-Start socialising;  Lockdown Syndrome… Read the rest

Dispatch from an advertising future #123

https://www.ft.com/content/b50d22ec-db98-4891-86da-af34f06d1cb1 I need to update our About Us page. New pictures. I feel we need to appear younger, but somehow more serious. We’re trying to position ourselves as a business service. We’re not the scrappy disruptor any more. We’re not a big team – although I might consider adding a… Read the rest