Posted on June 23rd, 2009 by Paul
Day two of Cannes Lions continued the theme of dealing with new channels with a big focus on digital and Internet possiblilites.
One old channel using new technologies is the movies.
The future of Cinema with SAWA was an entertaining session that showed how movie theatres are going to bring together various technologies to enhance the audience’s experience.
These new experiences offer great opportunities for producers, studios and marketers and while naturally the audience were more interested in the marketing angles, it’s clear that everyone involved in movies will be focussed on how they can make these features work for them.
Jimmy Mayman from Go Viral showed some of the successes in viral marketing, including T-Mobile’s Dance and Sing clips.
I have to admit I was left cold by these examples. I’m not contrived flash mobbing events are even truly viral marketing as such.
Monday’s highlight was one of Twitter’s founders, Biz Stone, discussing the future of Twitter to a full auditorium.
The big news from the session was how Biz hopes to have a revenue based on advanced API functions for commercial users.
This is an innovative twist on the “freemium” business model. Where individual users are subsidised by the sale of aggregated data to businesses.
It will be interesting to see how Biz and his team deal with the inevitable privacy concerns that will be raised.
While the session was promoted as a tweet-up, it was limited by the lousy Wi-Fi access in the venue. In fact it’s surprising how little a role Twitter’s playing in the event given how it’s being used at Australian events like the Future Summit and CeBIT.
Wi-Fi problems illustrate just how event organisers are struggling with the demands of a modern market. It’s a theme we’re going to see continue.
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Posted on June 22nd, 2009 by Paul
Shortly after World War II, with the coming of the airlines and the US interstate highway system, American railway owners misunderstood they were in the transportation business, not the railway business.
As a consequence, they missed the opportunities to get into the new markets and most of them died.
This is true today as new technology and changed economic circumstances batter old, established industries.
Newspapers for example are not in the newspaper business, they are in the news business and fixating on paper as the medium to deliver that news leaves them struggling to adapt in a world where the main source of news is increasingly the Internet.
We see a similar thing with telephone companies wedded to their old copper networks or car manufacturers building fuel guzzling road yachts.
Recent comments by Rupert Murdoch about charging for content along with Associated Press’ attacks on Google show how the traditional channels are struggling.
This trend is bigger than news or media organisations, the developing communication channels using mediums like Facebook and Twitter are going to challenge many organisations and change the way business is done.
Business is far more open and transparent, good and bad reviews of your organisation travels further and faster than before.
Your employees, contractors and customers are communicating in channels outside your control.
That’s just in the communication field. The changed economic environment means even more challenges to established businesses.
So the question is what exactly is your business? Which of your customers’ needs does your business fulfil?
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Posted on June 22nd, 2009 by Paul
Day one of what’s going to be an extremely busy week at Cannes showed how digital technologies and the Internet are changing not just the advertising industry but all sectors of industry.
Schematic’s Dale Herigstad showed, among other things, where Microsoft’s Project Natal is pointing the direction of where computer controls are going.
Being able to remotely control equipment with body movements and facial expressions is going to be a massive change for entertainment, communications and many other sectors.
This theme was expanded upon by Andy Pimental of Razorfish who demonstrated his vision of where television is going.
In Andy’s future, the game controller and console are doomed. Movement recognition like Project Natal coupled with games being on the cloud means the game industry is going to be very different in a few years time.
An interesting aspect with Andy’s presentation is that most of the technology is already available to achieve his vision, as he put it “it’s the business constraints, not technology, that limits us”.
From a presenter’s point of view, the use of mock Tweets to illustrate points was a nice touch, too.
Kevin Eyres of LinkedIn probably had the most impact. While much of the presentation focused on how LinkedIn can be used as a marketing tool, Kevin’s comments at the beginning about every individual is now entreprenuer thanks to reduced job tenure and security really illustrated the challenges businesses and governments are going to face in the connected world.
There’s some interesting challenges for all businesses ahead, not just the advertising industry. There’s a lot more to come.
Filed under: Internet, economy, new media | No Comments »
