A SHINE COMMUNICATIONS FUTURE #2 2011 When we founded Shine Communications in 1998, we had a clear vision about the kind of organisation we wanted to be; one that helps our people and clients to shine. We wanted to achieve this by being fresh, smart and connected. Since then we’ve worked hard to bring these values to life in everything we do. The freshness lies in our original and creative approach, and in our constant monitoring of new thinking and ideas across a broad range of disciplines. Our smartness lies in an intelligent, non-prejudiced approach to the world. Our connectedness means not only that we keep ourselves plugged into the cultures around us, but also that we maintain an awareness of how shifting ideas, values and social currents are continually forming and reforming;
links that lead to a constant and exciting sense of change. The result, we believe, is the very best ideas and campaigns for our clients. Over these last 13 years, there has been a massive change, not only in the way we communicate with each other, but also in the way that brands must now communicate with consumers. These changes have only reinforced our belief in the importance of our values. Shine Futures are a way to bring our fresh, smart and connected values to life by working with our people, and a number of influential contributors, to assemble a snapshot of micro-trends that together add up to a revolution in the way that brands and people need to communicate.
Our first Future, Embrace The Chaos, in 2009, celebrated the impact that the digital revolution was having on us all. A chaotic, ever-changing world of micro-trends means that no-one has control, and so all we can do is open our minds, participate, and enjoy the ride. For those of us in marketing communications, the challenge is to ride the top of the wave in a way that engages consumers for the benefit of our clients. Our second Future, Swarming In The Statusphere, celebrates the network. We live in a ‘post digital revolution’ world, where social media is coming together with other forms of technology and communication to build a cross-channel network of hyper-communications. Here we celebrate this network, and all the changes that it is creating, impacting
and amplifying. We investigate fifty trends, which are by all means not a definitive list; indeed the whole point is that it isn’t – but we do hope it will be interesting, challenging, fun to read, argue with, and think about. We’ve added our thoughts for translating these trends into brand campaigns, and we give you some space to add your own thoughts too.
Together we can ride the top of the wave. If you want to ride with us then give us a ring on 020 7100 7100. We’re here to help you swarm it.
Rachel Bell rachel.bell@shinecom.com www.shinecom.com
In 2009, Shine published our first Future - Embrace The Chaos, a book about various trends that we believed would have a bearing on the immediate future of culture in general, and in particular public relations and marketing. Its title described what we considered the only sensible response to a world in which boundaries between different areas of culture were collapsing, and new communication technologies were putting the rate of change into hyper-drive. Relax, enjoy and go with it. Turn on, tune in and, er, keep up. Most people would surely agree that right now, at the beginning of 2011, the world feels rather different. Let’s be honest; at times it can feel bleak, and occasionally it can seem scary in the extreme. The economic problems facing us make the future seem more challenging.
The very foundations of some traditional models for business and the fundamentals of how we live our lives feel unstable. There is a need for new ideas - but also a nervousness about choosing the wrong ones. But in contrast to this, there are also strong grounds for optimism and excitement. The acknowledged need for new thinking is opening up minds; a year ago would anyone have predicted that in 2010 a Slovenian philosopher would be selling out 500-seat central London concert venues with his talks (see #7 The New Pop Philosophy)? As we reconsider our lives, society and culture, we are looking at new ways to join the dots in the chaos, to create something new from it all. With the boundaries down, great prizes await those who can discover and exploit new paths for us all.
This process both drives and is driven by the cultural phenomenon that is coming to define our age – ‘the network’. As this book shows, this change isn’t just about Facebook or LinkedIn or Twitter on their own; it encompasses new kinds of political activism, local community building, new art forms, brands learning from customers, and people talking to each other about their real lives rather than relying on mass-market entertainment. From debates about multi-nationals and welfare systems to the study of personal-recommendation algorithms in Silicon Valley and privacy settings on social networking sites; the ways in which people relate and link up with each other has become one of the most hotly debated topics around the world.
Of course, people who work with brands and media are more aware than most of developments in the way networks function, and of the new ideas that emerge from these new connections. If those philosophers are discussing brands online (and you can bet your bottom line that they are) then you need to know about it. That’s why this year’s Shine book is dedicated to these new and often unexpected links and relationships. It’s not a comprehensive list (any attempt at that would be out of date before it was started) but one put together to get us talking. Having embraced the chaos, it’s now time to find new ways of working with it – and if we can pick up a bit of philosophical insight and celebrity gossip along the way – then so much the better.
Adbusters Media Foundation, pioneer challengers of the contemporary media environment Anonymous member of staff at west London solicitors who directed us to the concept of ‘digital ghosts’ Anonymous member of staff in an independent London coffee shop who pointed out ‘Wi-Fi squatters’ Stephen Armstrong, journalist and cultural commentator Jack Beckett & Dinos Sassalos, graphic design Christina Bunce, writer and academic Richard Brett, Shine Communications
Sue Cartwright, Cambridge Strategy Centre Gareth Coombs, Cambridge Strategy Centre Laura Craig, researcher and journalist Aime Dorsett, Shine Communications eBay UK team Ekow Eshun, artistic director, ICA Henrietta Gordon, management consultant Jodie Harsh, DJ Rachel Holmes, writer
Meghan Horvath, film-maker Richard Johnson, head of men’s buying, Harvey Nichols
Zac Schwarz, Shine Communications Andrea Sharp, make-up artist
Mintel market research
Martin Stanhope, NFU
Sean Moore, Cambridge Strategy Centre
Johnny Vegas, actor, for his insights into ‘media mirages’
J. W. Myers, property consultant
John Walters, actor
Paris, freelance hair stylist, London
Lauren Winter-Beckett, Shine Communications
Ben Pollard, DJ Mark Ratcliff, Murmur Research Suzy Richards and Claire Southeard, TNR Christophe Sanchez-Vahle, Premier Models
Slavoj Zizek, philosopher
ARTS AND CELEBRITY: ART, TECHNOLOGY AND PEOPLE COME TOGETHER IN A PHYSICAL, VIRTUAL, CREATIVE AND CHAOTIC FUSION OF NEWNESS. 1 Cultural Slag 2 People-Art 3 B&B People 4 Participative Art 5 The Show Show 6 Destroy It Yourself 7 The New Pop Philosophy 8 Books On TV 9 Militainment
12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28
NETWORKING: ONLINE, OFFLINE, REAL, VIRTUAL. IT’S ALL BLURRING IN THE YEAR OF THE NETWORK. 10 Dummy Chummies 11 Tweetcarts 12 The Free Rider Problem 13 Un-conferences 14 Tweetups
32 34 36 38 40
SOCIETY: NEW MOVEMENTS AND NEW VALUES. WATCH THE NETWORK CHANGE THE WAY WE VIEW EACH OTHER. 15 The Statusphere 16 Microhoods 17 Drag Teen 18 i-Kids 19 Wi-Fi Squatters 20 Liquid Modernity 21 The New Activism 22 Dumb-unities
44 46 48 50 52 54 56 58
MEDIA - HYPE, TRUTH AND LIES. THE LATEST FUSIONS, DISRUPTIONS, CURRENTS AND EDDIES IN THE MEDIA WORLD. 23 Sham-ageddons 24 Churnalism 25 Social Searching 26 Media Mirage 27 Anomaly Magnetism 28 Transmedia
62 64 66 68 70 72
WORK – THE FUSION OF PERSONAL AND CAREER PERSONAS THROUGH THE NETWORK AND THE LATEST WAYS OF DEALING WITH THOSE STICKY HR ISSUES; AH THE PRESSURES OF WORK IN 2011. 29 Update Anxiety 30 “Edupunk” 31 Hierarchy Misalignment Syndrome 32 The Buddy Bonus 33 The NAR (No Asshole Rule) 34 Zero Degrees
76 78 80 82 84 86
BRANDS & MARKETING – THE NETWORK MEANS MORE TRANSPARENCY AND SCRUTINY. MAKE SURE YOUR PRECIOUS BRANDS CAN STAND UP TO THE RELENTLESS INSPECTION. 35 Window-Branding 36 Boulevard Brands 37 Open Fallibility 38 Product Promotion Convergence 39 Digital Fog
90 92 94 96 98
BUSINESS – THE BOUNDARY BREAKING POWER OF THE NETWORK IS CHANGING THE WAY WE THINK ABOUT BUSINESS. 40 Frugal Innovation 41 Shouldwedo-Couldwedo 42 De-bunkering 43 Collaborative Consumption 44 Swarming
102 104 106 108 110
HEALTH – KEEP UP. CAN’T YOU RECALL ALL THE INFORMATION PRESENTED TO YOU TODAY? 45 Continuous Partial Attention 46 The IQ Economy 47 Cupuacu 48 Infomiasma 49 Digital Ghosts 50 Recombobulation
114 116 118 120 122 124
ART, TECHNOLOGY AND PEOPLE COME TOGETHER IN A PHYSICAL, VIRTUAL, CREATIVE AND CHAOTIC FUSION OF NEWNESS.
01
Cultural Slag That murky collection of artistic works and mass media footage that is so very, very poor that it can become amusing and interesting when it is re-discovered and re-presented. This sort of thing was once the sad obsession of individuals, but in the age of the network those individuals are able to share their passions and celebrate these lost horrors. In its early, mildest form, this process has given us the Guilty Pleasures club nights and music compilations; but the appreciation of ‘cultural slag’ is going beyond that now. In the US, the website Everything Is Terrible! recently created a surprise viral hit with their Infomercial Hell compilation, and film maker Michael Paul Stephenson won a slew of awards for Best Worst Movie, a documentary about Troll 2, which he considers to be the worst film of all time. November 2010 saw the release of Ben Steinbauer’s similarish (and brilliant) documentary Winnebago Man, essentially a cult video of out-takes from a promotional film for a winnebago. So bad it’s good? You’d better believe it.
What it means for us: A shared attitude to something can shift its meaning. The common ironic enjoyment of ‘bad’ artefacts or campaigns can turn them into something compelling – worth remembering when a campaign develops a poor reputation perhaps. Time often helps to null the pain, so this could be the time to resurrect some of the less successful areas of the archives, or to create something so bad, people just love it…
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People-Art Incorporating people into works of art, or actually making them the focus of the piece, is one of the most important trends in contemporary art – and one that should be noted. Artists tend to have the ability to anticipate new concerns and develop ways of thinking ahead of mainstream society: that they are now engaging with social relations in this way indicates how important this subject will be. Spencer Tunick and Jeremy Deller are the best known examples, but more serious is the work of artists like I Weh Weh, the Chinese man whose previous efforts have included an installation of 100 Chinese people standing in a room, with the audience invited to look at them through a partition.
What it means for us: These pieces are in some ways about the artist saying the real subject of their work is people – and then getting out of the way to let people see other people. There may be a lesson here; who are a brand’s ‘people’? Which ‘people’ represent your brand’s personality? Can a brand be represented as imaginary or real people in an installation?
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B&B People A rather disparaging term for celebrities who seem happy to be famous for only their body and their boyfriend. Initially applied to young women, now applicable to more or less anyone whose selfimage seems excessively based on the superficial.
What it means for us: The days of ‘shallow’ endorsements are over. If you pay for endorsements from people solely on the grounds of their fame, you could be paying for what amounts to negative publicity. As a new twist (see #1 Cultural Slag), make it so bad, it’s good, by hiring someone with a vague connection to someone very famous.
Here’s our list (in no particular order) of the UK’s top 10 B&B People: 1. Pete Burns 2. Danielle Lloyd 3. Alex Reid 4. Blake Fielder-Civil 5. Abbey Clancy 6. Chantelle Houghton 7. Chelsy Davy 8. Alex Curran 9. Jack Tweed 10. Michelle Heaton
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Participative Art Insofar as there is a next big thing in visual art in 2011, this is it: a shift from treating the work as spectacle (as say, Jeff Koons, Damien Hurst and Tracey Emin do), towards the idea of art as an immersive experience (as practised by Jeremy Deller, for example, or Rirkrit Tiravanija, the Thai artist who cooks food in galleries and invites people to share it). The ‘social sculpture’ works hosted in the Tate Modern Turbine Hall in recent years anticipated this, which is one reason the curators have been so acclaimed. The trend signifies a rejection of the whole idea of exhibition and display and a distaste for the deliberately controversial, headline-grabbing aesthetics of the 1990s and 2000s.
What it means for us: Participative art signals a move in culture, away from the showiness of the consumerist Noughties, to an approach where sharing is part of ‘the point’. And of course, on a more immediate level, it means you should think carefully about what sort of art events you are involved with.
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The Show Show The space outside events (particularly fashion shows) that has become increasingly desirable for various reasons. At fashion shows, paps outside have grown in number, whilst those shooting runway are present in half the numbers of 10 years ago. This space can now generate its own celebrities: Emmannuel Alt, Leigh Lezark, Julia Restoin-Roitfeld, and Alexa Chung all rose to fame here.
What it means for us: Expanding media coverage means that peripheral spaces can be made into something more interesting than the ‘central ones’. Make sure you’re maximising the outside event space to generate as much impact as possible.
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DIY: Destroy It Yourself A handful of designers are encouraging people who own their products to break them, smash them up and crack them. The idea is that you’ll give the product a personal touch and by breaking something, it is given another use. Our favourite objets include the ‘Do Hit Chair’ by Dutch designer Marijn van der Poll (a perfect stainless steel box that you bash your own seat in to), and the ‘Less Lamp’ by UK-based designer Jordi Canudas, which doesn’t give off any light until you break its egg-shaped design in two.
What it means for us: Interaction with customers can take many forms – and the more these collaborations allow people to amend and interact with the actual product, the more exciting they become.
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The New Pop Philosophy Perhaps it’s because we’re facing unprecedented social and economic challenges, or perhaps it’s the new generation of philosophers who explain their ideas with pop culture references. Whatever the reason, sales of modern philosophy books are catapulting ever upwards, and contemporary philosophers now have a higher profile than they have since the 1960s. Slovenian Slavoj Zizek, who can now sell out 500-seat venues, is the bestknown, and has been named “the most dangerous philosopher in the West”, by New Republic. But look out for other Europeans such as Alain Badiou – and the new, experimental school of ‘X-Phi’, whose practitioners ground their ideas in observations of actual human behaviour.
What it means for us: More than you might think. Zizek’s approach, which sees him discuss Michael Palin’s travel programmes and Kung Fu Panda in the same breath as post-colonial politics and Hegel, opens up many new, useful perspectives on society and consumerism. Brands that have inspired this new generation include Diet Coke (“the commodification of nothing” according to Zizek).
This is increasingly emerging as the central human right of advanced capitalist society: the right not to be ‘harassed’, that is, to be kept at a safe distance from others. – Slavoj Zizek
I despise the kind of book which tells you how to live, how to make yourself happy! Philosophers have no good news for you at this level! I believe the first duty of philosophy is making you understand what deep s*** you are in! – Slavoj Zizek
08
Books On TV While there is much talk of books being available in e-formats, the increasing migration of books to TV has been somewhat overlooked. TV channels see home-grown, original scripted drama as a potential growth area in a market saturated by reality and celeb-based programming, but the recession has made them a) poor and b) fearful of risk. This means ideas created solely for TV are scary – better, it is thought, to adapt existing work whose popularity has already been proven. Thus a great deal of new TV dramas will be adaptations of existing books (after David Peace and Terry Pratchett’s work, look out for Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, Nigel Slater’s Toast, MR James’ Whistle And I’ll Come To You) You or new takes on established themes by familiar authors (Julian Fellowes’ Downton Abbey). Literary agents now even report that books are being written as elaborate pitches for TV series.
What it means for us: Simon Cowell’s shows still dominate, but TV bosses see the reality and celebdriven era as having peaked. Rather than competing for association with such vehicles, anyone looking for credible links might be better keeping an eye on new drama.
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Militainment The increasing use of actual US military technology in entertainment products, and vice versa. The popular video game America’s Army was first developed by the US military to help with recruitment and training; you could play online only after visiting the army’s recruitment site and giving your personal details (nine million did; within a year, 20% of new officers said they had played it). Now new games are used for training (one, Virtual Iraq, has been made to help Iraq veterans with stress disorders), and some soldiers hack into commercially-available titles to make them relevant to specific kinds of engagement (a group of marines, for example, created Marine Doom from Doom II). This all raises concerns about the effect on soldiers’ perception of violence, but as a movement this is probably unstoppable. Ideas and specific kinds of technology are constantly being borrowed and adapted to create innovations; even the hot Foursquare social networking site started out with basic technology adapted from gaming.
What it means for us: Communicate in the language of games, and this doesn’t have to mean a game which features your brand. The very latest hologram technology, virtual reality, and 3-D reality presentations are already opening up massive new creative routes for brand communication.
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ONLINE, OFFLINE, REAL, VIRTUAL. IT’S ALL BLURRING IN THE YEAR OF THE NETWORK.
10
Dummy Chummies Those ‘friends’ who befriend brands on Facebook, and post messages on their pages – and who turn out to be either a) friends of people at the brand’s marketing and PR agencies or b) fictional people created by employees of said agency. Some shadowy PR operators now build Facebook pages for clients, and then flood them with comments from dummy chummies to make the page appear successful. If status updates attract a flood of comments all appearing within 10 minutes of each other, be suspicious.
What it means for us: Be wary when it comes to big claims about social media triumph; long-term success takes time and dedication. Remember too that comment volume isn’t everything; often the most-read updates and posts are not commented on at all. So, erm, let it grow organically through great content that people actually want to engage with. Patience, virtue, and all that.
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Tweetcarts Food vendors in vans who tweet to let people know they’re in the neighbourhood. Makes Twitter hugely helpful, because it can give you all the advantages of a fixed location without the costs. See also: #14 Tweetups What it means for us: A clear opportunity to transform a decent Twitter follower-base into something concrete; a sort of mini, on-demand flashmob. Make your brand a brand-on-wheels.
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The Free Rider Problem The potential for communities to use the internet in order to come together and raise funds is a hot topic among social and business entrepreneurs, but with it comes problems. Most pressingly, the ‘free rider problem’, whereby an individual does not contribute to, say, the building of a communitybuilt facility, but nevertheless uses it. There is a raft of ideas about managing these trust issues, but the hottest is assurance contracts, under which people in a group promise to contribute to a project as long as a specified number of other people also contribute.
What it means for us: As assurance contracts require a central organising body with some financial clout and authority, there is a clear opportunity here for brands looking to innovate in the CSR field.
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Un-conferences Conferences for new-media workers that eschew big-name speakers, sponsors and other tedious aspects of conventional corporate drone-fests in favour of smaller, more informal groups and less predictable speakers. Also referred to as dotmocracy and barcamps; these threaten to make conferences actually useful. See also: #30 “Edupunk”
What it means for us: As business practices are re-evaluated, there is great value in taking a stale medium, and doing something radical to re-invigorate it. Brands hosting ‘un-conferences’ could attract significant kudos, for a modest outlay .
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Tweetups Real-world meetings between people who use Twitter; quintessentially, between people who ‘met’ using Twitter and would not have encountered each other in the real-world otherwise.
What it means for us: The distinction between ‘virtual’ and ‘real’ is in many instances blurring. Within a few years, some people will view the two worlds as no different. A Tweetup is a telephone conversation is a face-to-face meeting.
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NEW MOVEMENTS AND NEW VALUES. WATCH THE NETWORK CHANGE THE WAY WE VIEW EACH OTHER.
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The Statusphere A word coined to describe the range of differing aspirations, desires and motivations now held by people in the West. As we become more and more interested in self-actualisation as well as material reward, so ideas about status become more complex, and job, income and monetary value of material possessions are only part of a mix. ‘New status’ can be about acquired skills, eco-credentials, philanthropy, connectivity or taste; vintage and eco-friendly fashion, for example, may well have more status than the current ‘It-bag’; a small electric car can in some respects have comparable status to a Porsche; and time spent travelling may accrue more respect than a promotion.
What it means for us: As status increasingly relies on intangibles such as personal taste, experience and character, so there is an increasing need for brand managers to understand what their brands signify beyond the materialistic.
Here’s our list of the hottest new status symbols: 1. Nissan Leaf/Chevrolet Volt (Vauxhall Ampera in the UK); (hybrids are so last year). 2. Trekking in Bhutan or tiger spotting in the Himalayas. 3. Hijau jewellery (Angela Lindvall’s sustainable line which benefits ForestEthics). 4. Your social network number - how many friends do you have? 5. Your Empire Avenue status (values your online contribution as the measure for your worth). 6. Terra Plana vegan pumps/People Tree clothing (and their collaboration with Emma Watson). 7. Your solar panel spend; how much did you spend, and how much did the Government help you? 8. SNUB (Say No to Unwanted Bags) branded cloth bags. 9. Cycling to work, cycling holidays, and oh cycling to your friends for dinner (not a restaurant). 10. Smart E-Scooter, Mini Scooter E and Renault’s Twizy Z.E. two seat scooter meets micro-car. Car brands downsize.
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Microhoods Small urban areas – sometimes just a few streets leading off a specific stretch of road – with a strongly defined character that sets them apart from the neighbourhoods around them. Typically these are locales undergoing ‘hipsterfication’, and are lightly branded by savvy property developers. Originating in San Francisco as a tongue-incheek reference to the stretch of Folsom Street between 7th and 8th Streets (‘Folsoma’), the phrase can prompt feeling of cynicism (ask residents of London’s ‘South Peckham’, or New York’s ‘East Williamsburg’) but it does have validity. Urban change, and particularly fashionable gentrification does take place in pockets.
What it means for us: A need to be more careful when targeting campaigns in urban locales. Stage an event in the wrong bit of Brooklyn (you should be avoiding Williamsburg altogether and looking at Bushwick), and you might as well play it in Peoria.
Here’s our list of the UK’s top 10 hottest microhoods: 1. Alphabet Street (A.K.A. Middlesex Street) and The East Fringe (the City’s new take on historic E1, located between Aldgate, Bishopsgate and Commercial Street). 2. Bellenden Road (and surrounding streets); the Peckham Conservation Area goes gastro. 3. North Laine (Brighton); consumerism and eco-credentials come together. 4. Chamberlayne Road (Kensal Rise); Vogue named it Europe’s hippest street. 5. North Cross Road (East Dulwich); beauty boutiques, traditional sweet shops and hip dining. 6. Village Green, Alcester Road & St Mary’s Row (Moseley, Birmingham); a village feel in a city centre. 7. Creekside and surrounding streets, Deptford, London. The new creative hub for artists and musicians. 8. The Northern Quarter, Manchester; edgy antithesis to Manchester’s dressed up centre. 9. Old Ford Road and Victoria Park, East London; floral heaven, new dining and quirky shopping. 10. Broadway Market, London Fields, London; graffiti, fashion and international food blend together.
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Drag Teen Also known as ‘downagers’; quite simply, people ostentatiously behaving, speaking and dressing in ways that are associated with those far younger than themselves. Calling someone a ‘drag teen’ does not indicate ageism – it simply means that the person in question seems to be trying too hard to appear youthful. Watching Gossip Girl in your 40s is okay, but OMG memorising ‘Speak of the Week’ is, like, taking it a little far.
What it means for us: Cues from the youth market (and particularly linguistic ones) undergo an increasingly fast ‘trickle-up’ process, with older adults perceiving there to be kudos in adopting them.
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i-Kids Those cool looking under-14s who work with parents, friends or patrons, and/or accompany them to high profile events. From fashion blogger Tavi being taken around fashion shows by editors, to Lourdes Ciccone hanging out with mum to Thomas Turgoose taking the leads in Shane Meadows’ biographical dramas. The ideal i-Kid is just gawky and twitchy enough to suggest an element of enfant-savant which inspires older acquaintances. Aaron Johnson had a similar effect on viewers in Kick-Ass.
What it means for us: Adults can now feel so saturated by information and opinion that they begin to lose faith in their own judgment; in these conditions, the innocence of the child voice is the only trustworthy voice left. A similar principle worked for Innocent drinks and their copyists, who used a child-like voice to undercut the untrusted voice of advertising.
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Wi-Fi Squatters Those freeloaders who take their laptops to coffeehouses offering free Wi-Fi and then stay at the same table for hours, nursing the mug of lukewarm latte they bought when they first came in. Their anti-social presence and drain on revenue has driven some Californian coffee shops such as the Literati CafĂŠ in Brentwood to turn Wi-Fi off; Bryant Simon, author of Everything but the Coffee: Learning About America From Starbucks believes that non-Wi-Fi coffee houses will be the next new niche, because they are more social.
What it means for us: The prediction that the increased sociability of non-Wi-Fi venues suggests that in the future, disconnecting will become as important (if not more important) than being connected and available.
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Liquid Modernity Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman’s phrase describing the lifestyle of many modern individuals who organise their lives in “an unending series of short-term projects and episodes that don’t add up to any kind of sequence to which concepts like ‘career’ and ‘progress’ could be meaningfully applied”. Bauman argues that this contemporary willingness to “change tactics at short notice, to abandon commitments and loyalties without regret and to pursue opportunities according to their current availability” distinguishes us from previous generations and will have major implications for the way we organise our societies.
What it means for us: Using ‘life stage’ as a way of segmenting consumers is already over. Using attitude as a tool might now be redundant. Today it’s all about the ‘life occasion’, and how it reflects attitudes to brands at that (brief) moment.
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New Activism Not new in itself, of course, but what is interesting is the recent rebirth of explicitly political art, which addresses current affairs. See the work, for example, of Danish group Superflex, or the Russian Chto Delat, who among other things host marathon 48hour talk and discussion sessions. This isn’t necessarily ‘left wing art’ – it is more to do with looking at where society is headed now that it can no longer rely on left wing narratives. It’s about working stuff out by talking. See also: #37 Open Fallibility
What it means for us: The thing to note here is the popularity of these events when staged. With a society rocked by terrorism, wars, and the financial crisis, we are all aware that we need new solutions for new problems. There is therefore a genuine interest in ‘talking things out’, that has not been seen since the 1980s.
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Dumb-unities Those groups of people who in theory are bonded by a common interest, but in practice either never meet, or, if they do, find they have little in common with each other. Dumb-unities can be found whenever large groups of Foursquare users find themselves in the same location but, despite all the excitement and hype around the technology, have no real desire to talk to one another. How do you break through from being just a part of a network to become a meaningful physical community?
What it means for us: For every Tweetup and flashmob there is a group of supposedly like-minded people who can’t make their matey relationships work in reality. Brands seeking to make their communities ‘live’ with experiential events need to tread carefully, and invite a few known entities.
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HYPE, TRUTH AND LIES. THE LATEST FUSION, DISRUPTIONS, CURRENTS AND EDDIES IN THE MEDIA WORLD.
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Sham-ageddons Those apocalyptic front-page stories increasingly beloved by some newspaper and magazine editors convinced that we are on the verge of cataclysmic change - remember swine flu? Readers in the US and UK have been told the web is dead, the telephone call is dead, the social network is over – and of course that house prices are collapsing and high interest rates are about to bankrupt us all. Such stories can engender a sense of nervousness and despondency, but it isn’t going away. As has been documented for many years, the greater availability of news means that news media must present information in ways that entertain as well inform.
What it means for us: The aforementioned despondency could well mean opportunities for brands; much appreciation awaits those who can now convincingly present a more positive and optimistic tone and point of view.
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Churnalism That particular brand of mainly web-based text-content that has been derived from one source – usually Wikipedia and then rewritten, recycled and represented over and over again – regardless of whether it is actually, you know, true.
What it means for us: The need for care in presenting media with reliable information, and researching those ideas thoroughly with multiple sources; and perhaps in future, as a result, a greater role for communications professionals in policing existing content.
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Social Searching A buzz term in Silicon Valley. Essentially it signifies a new school of net search tools that find you more personally-suitable content on the basis of detailed information you provide about your tastes and beliefs. Katrina Fake, the creator of Flickr, one of the most important social networking sites, is currently attracting a lot of media interest with her new social search site Hunch.
What it means for us: Not only the opportunity for even greater understanding of actual customers and fans, but also the chance to micro-group target audiences, with dedicated micro-content, directly tailored to niches within niches.
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Media Mirage The impression created, by excessive media coverage, that an event or a person has a greater presence in people’s minds and/ or a greater significance than they seem to have for you and your peers. Thus, for example, an MP may receive a great deal of coverage for their memoirs, and yet suffer disappointing sales; a minor celebrity’s drug-related indiscretions may be the subject of morally outraged front pages, and yet the public’s reaction is one of shrugging indifference. “No-one’s that bothered about [insert name]”, you can say in such situations; “it’s a ‘media mirage’!”
What it means for us: The mass media does not have a monopoly on understanding public interests and emotions. Sometimes it’s worth trusting your own judgement.
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Anomaly Magnetism The peculiar phenomenon that leads us to form strong attachments to public figures purely on the grounds that they are unusual – ideally, so unusual that they threaten to undermine the conventions they should be playing by. Quality is less important than excitement in these cases; one can feel drawn to a magnetic anomaly even while being faintly appalled – see for example Jedward or, in his early election period, Nick Clegg. See also: #1 Cultural Slag
What it means for us: Genuine personality and a willingness to challenge the traditional conventions of a career or role, can reap big rewards – which is why having a different, fresh approach to a well-trodden path can outstrip big budget campaigns. Is your brand different enough?
MEDIA
I 7 1I
28
Transmedia Essentially ‘transmedia’ is integrated entertainment content that can be delivered across multiple digital channels such as, say, a TV show, mobile phone ringtone and video, and podcast. Not new, but today’s transmedia differs from old ‘cross-platform media’ in that the content is more form-specific, with different forms being used to tell stories that spin-off from the main ‘hubcontent’. (In the UK, Skins has done this best; but also check out Hollyoaks Freshers, Hollyoaks’ online spin-off). In addition, the brand extension tends to be more imaginative and wider ranging. The German Show Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten, for example, features a fictional designer whose collection is commercially available in the real world; more subtly, Glee reinvented the concept of the TV show-music tie in, with songs chosen to tie in with character narratives.
What it means for us: As entertainers behave more like brands, there is potential for brands to behave like entertainers, which is why some are now launching on-line TV shows of their own – see Jergens’ Skin & Bare It, and M&S’ Myleene’s Makeovers. More collections of clips than series at present, it is true, but this sort of thing will be taken up and explored by more and more brands in the next year.
MEDIA
I 73I
THE FUSION OF PERSONAL AND CAREER PERSONAS THROUGH THE NETWORK AND THE LATEST WAYS OF DEALING WITH THOSE STICKY HR ISSUES; AH THE PRESSURES OF WORK IN 2011.
29
Update Anxiety Related to ‘Social-NetworkFear’, i.e. the pressure to present interesting, engaged thoughts and feelings to the world, particularly on behalf of commercial clients. In the 1980s, Arlie Hochschild wrote a seminal book called The Managed Heart: The Commercialization of Feeling, in which she argued that the new service economy demanded that employees use not just their labour, but also their personality in the service of the organisation. Social networking vastly intensifies this, since it requires you to be engaging not only when serving the public, but even when you are posting status updates in the office or at home. And even if you are not employed to do so, the pressure to appear interesting, busy and popular can be taxing.
What it means for us: We should accept that social networking for clients is work, and some may have more aptitude for it than others. If you treat it as an optional afterthought, chances are that’s how it will seem.
WORK
I 7 7I
30
“Edupunk” With the advent of ‘Free Schools’ and the growing expense and questionable worth of university education, the future of education will be the subject of much debate in the next few years. Look out for ideas coming from the innovative area of what the US journalist Patrick Arden called “Edupunk” – a movement which favours peer-to-peer instruction and cheap study based on the net or other technology.
What it means for us: On a basic level, cheaper and possibly more effective training. More long-term, there may be CSR opportunities for appropriate brands to get involved with delivery. The Audi Architecture Diploma anyone?
WORK
I 79 I
31
Hierarchy Misalignment Syndrome The jarring sensation experienced when turning up to a meeting to discover your contact is a good ten years your junior. It tends to mean that their organisation is taking neither you nor the project seriously – or, even more annoying, that your opposite number is a child prodigy.
What it means for us: If you are just giving this job to the interns, remember that you could demotivate the people who they work with.
WORK
I 8 1I
32
The Buddy Bonus With corporate bonuses a highly controversial issue, increasing corporate transparency about executive pay, and growing inequality between board and shopfloor wages, some interesting business thinkers such as Hayagreeva Rao are looking at new ways to structure remuneration – and at what actually motivates people in the 21st century. Daniel H. Pink’s book Drive is a must-read in this respect. Peer-to-peer bonuses, for which the individual is nominated by their colleagues, are already being trialled in some US offices.
What it means for us: The specifics are unclear as yet, but this is part of a general shift towards recognising the importance of relationships in getting work done – a crucial principle for the next few years.
WORK
I 8 3I
D o  it ! NOWWW!!!
33
The NAR (No Asshole Rule) A kind of negative version of the Buddy Bonus. The last 20 years of touchy feely management have been okay, but the gritty sticking point is the bully who doesn’t respond to nice treatment. The next 20 years are going to be about dealing with the problems. The Stanford professor Robert I. Sutton argues that modern managers need to work with staff who are affected to tackle the problem head on. It goes with increasing recognition of the need to combat bullying and using creative human resources techniques at work. See also: #32 Buddy Bonus
What it means for us: Beyond the workplace implications, this is another instance of serious thought being applied to peer-to-peer relationships in various contexts.
WORK
I 8 5I
34
Zero Degrees That intelligent, non-universityeducated sector of the population reputedly hailed by a US dotcom millionaire as the next wave of important business talent. We say ‘reputedly’ because no-one agrees on the details, and it seems likely that it is to some extent an urban myth; conjured up by Western youth with a growing sense that in today’s fast-changing world, three years in college can end up as three years wasted. The talking up of the value of ‘life experience’ will surely continue to grow as education costs soar. The rise of actual ‘Life Experience Degrees’ further muddies the line between traditional degrees and the ‘degree of life’.
What it means for us: A more thoughtful and open-minded approach to recruitment, and perhaps an acknowledgement that the ‘untutored mind’ can be more creative than its academically trained counterpart. Mix up your staff with the highly educated, and those with life experience. You might just construct a creative power house.
WORK
I 87I
THE NETWORK MEANS MORE TRANSPARENCY AND SCRUTINY. MAKE SURE YOUR PRECIOUS BRANDS CAN STAND UP TO THE RELENTLESS INSPECTION.
35
Window-Branding A way of presenting your brand and business operation to the public that allows people to ‘see in’ and share the day-to-day experience of staff. Look at brands like American Apparel opening up its factories via the internet; or X Factor, deconstructing what you see on TV with tweets from backstage; or eBay with its ‘Inside Source’ online magazine, or Zappos, with its use of social networking and blogs from its workers. See also: #37 Open Fallibility
What it means for us: New roles in managing the integration of marketing, brand, product and staff, and possibly in managing the transparency to an extent – as it’s unlikely that any business will want all of its internal business exposed without control. But explore the opportunities around telling the more interesting stories that go on behind-the-scenes at your brand.
BRANDS & MARKETING
I 91I
36
Boulevard Brands Those brands or people who, while still enjoying some credibility, are felt to have relied a little too much – and for too long – on past hits. Current examples might include Lancia, Kodak, Gap and Nokia. This can be an unfortunate consequence of the Noughties trend for reworking prestigious archives.
What it means for us: A brand’s history and geographical provenance are all important, but with brands now more attuned to talking up their pedigrees, there is a need to take care when pushing solely ‘heritage’. Communicate modernity, and ensure that the NPD stream is packed with innovation.
BRANDS & MARKETING
I 93I
37
Open Fallibility The interesting emerging area of brands admitting they made mistakes and/or drawing the consumer into the reparation process; Domino Pizza’s YouTube video of its reaction to its terrible market research, for example. At one point a few months prior to the election, policy wonks in the Labour Party were considering a public apology.
What it means for us: Quite simply, a new, highrisk, high-reward road back for brands suffering image problems.
BRANDS & MARKETING
I 9 5I
38
Product-Promotion Convergence This is what happens when ads and PR campaigns become media stories in their own right. An increasingly media-literate audience, coupled with the rise of newsworthy blockbuster ads (Cadbury, Sony TV, Guinness and so on) and product more closely aligned to campaigns (Cadbury’s Spots Vs Stripes, Walkers’ Do Us A Flavour range, Range Rover’s Victoria Beckham designed Evoque), mean that the distinction between product and promotional work appears to be evaporating. Lady Gaga seems to comment ironically on this with ostentatious product placement in her videos – indeed, some of her fans argue that her whole persona is intended to satirise modern hype and marketing techniques.
What it means for us: There are terrific opportunities here in telling the story of the marketing; the danger comes when the new appetite for discussing promotion and marketing collides with a decision that jars. Everyone’s a marketing director today, and any perceived clash between the brand and the communications becomes the subject of significant negative discussion. Range Rover and Victoria Beckham being the best example. Can she really design cars now?
BRANDS & MARKETING
I 97I
39
Digital Fog The confusion over roles that can arise between agencies and clients when clients introduce new digital advertising/PR strategies. As the traditional advertising model breaks down, and consumer media fragments, brand managers often find themselves deploying several agencies to create content with badly-defined boundaries and responsibilities. It can be a modern world of pain.
What it means for us: These unfortunate situations can be resolved only by deploying agencies with specialisms, and real specialists with superlative talent and knowledge. Brands must also clearly define and co-ordinate their agency specialists.
BRANDS & MARKETING
I 9 9I
THE BOUNDARY BREAKING POWER OF THE NETWORK IS CHANGING THE WAY WE THINK ABOUT BUSINESS.
40
Frugal Innovation Also known as ‘reverse innovation’, this is a new kind of entrepreneurialism being seen in emerging markets. Frugal innovation values cost cutting and low pricing over clever marketing and branding, and it tends to identify a need in poorer customers, and then work backwards. Examples include Nokia’s phone with a flashlight, Tata’s £1000 car, and Quanta Computers XO-1 $100 laptop computer. The principle has some business leaders in the West feeling anxious, because it challenges the belief that the West will ride out globalisation by doing the innovation and branding stuff. See also: #15 Statusphere
What it means for us: The success of frugal innovations suggests that consumers are not motivated solely by increasingly expensive functionality and design. The rules of achievement and kudos could be rewritten as opinion formers conclude that the social good of a $100 laptop outweighs the next hi-tech advance.
BUSINESS
I 1 03I
It wasn’t the line-extensions that created a powerful brand like Dove; it was the original focus of the brand that did that job. – Laura Ries
41
Shouldwedo-Couldwedo For almost 15 years now, people running businesses and brands have tended to believe that the way forward lies in asking “what could we do�; however, economic constraints are now focusing minds, and managers looking for core strengths are more inclined to ask what they should be doing to ensure their brand’s fundamental values are fortified and exploited. Thus newspapers are targeting core readers more directly, rather than trying to blur their values to attract new ones; Ford has returned to selling mass market cars, ditching its luxury brands like Volvo and Aston Martin; in the UK, Morrisons supermarket stole a march on its rivals by concentrating on fresh food and expertise when they were branching into clothing and electronics. Meanwhile some brands lacking in specialisms, like Vivendi, AOL-Time Warner and Yahoo have suffered.
What it means for us: Companies who spent the last ten years talking about broadening the offer, cross-branding and so on are now talking again about expertise. Go back to that core, differentiated proposition.
42
De-bunkering As communications have become more global, with people able to see and discuss product lines on sale outside their own territories, there are more and more mismatches between companies’ internal boundaries and the ways that modern consumers want to look and buy. If a British consumer raises a question on a multinational’s website, for example, whose responsibility is it to answer? How do you ensure the same messages are going out everywhere? And wouldn’t it be a good idea to let people ‘import’ trainers from the US if that means more sales?
What it means for us: The need for better and more fluid communications between different brand representatives both nationally and internationally. Social networking technology within corporations could surely help this process along.
43
Collaborative Consumption Allowing the consumer an input to product design and branding. This has already been seen in products as diverse as cars, foodstuffs and computer software, but some analysts suggest that in the future, some brands will outsource most of their innovation to the public, and operate chiefly so as to become only a seal of approval and a distributor, in the way that Apple has done with the its App store.
What it means for us: A rethink in terms of what we are actually promoting when we promote a ‘brand’, and the chance to showcase your collaborators as part of your campaign. There’s a story in democratic NPD.
BUSINESS
I 1 0 9I
44
Swarming An emerging military principle based on new thinking among US military strategists that ‘many and small’ beats ‘few and large’. John Arquilla, a professor of Defence Analysis, has pointed out that the US army became more effective in Iraq by learning to operate like the old Roman legions, which could operate as a whole or in small units. Small units work on a ‘hider-finder’ basis, while larger ones are ‘mass-on-mass’, which is seen as comparatively inefficient. Brands have begun to use similar principles, Pond’s recruited 10,000 user/ambassadors in Indonesia, and thus deploy ‘Pond Girls’ to show people how to apply the cream. In Africa, mobile phone operator Vodacom works with thousands of small-time local entrepreneurs to operate phone kiosks, and in Brazil, Nestlé has a sales channel for women selling yoghurt and biscuits from their homes. See also: #40 Frugal Innovation
What it means for us: An effective way to reach markets which may be resistant to ‘mass-on-mass’ brand activity and those in which margins do not justify large marketing costs. Flexible command structures and more scalable, semi-autonomous ‘units’ are becoming important sources of competitive advantage.
KEEP UP. CAN’T YOU RECALL ALL THE INFORMATION PRESENTED TO YOU TODAY?
45
Continuous Partial Attention Author Linda Stone coined this term to describe the mental state created by exposure to multiple information streams in today’s knowledge economy; essentially it means you are vaguely aware of loads of stuff without really understanding any of it. As Nicholas Carr mentions in his book The Shallows; What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains, serious medical research is being done in this area, with doctors noting, for example, that people’s breathing patterns are disrupted when checking their email. Future discoveries may have serious implications for the future of communications.
What it means for us: If confirmation were needed, the era of high-volume brand communication is over. It’s not just about cut-through – it’s about audiences actively disliking brands who clog up their headspace.
I love the iPad, but my ability to read any long-form narrative has more or less disappeared, as I am constantly tempted to check email, look up words or click through. – MIT’s Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of the ‘One Laptop per Child’ initiative.
HEALTH
I 1 1 5I
46
The IQ Economy The burgeoning market for various goods and services that claim to enhance IQ, creativity and energy. Tipped as the next trillion-dollar industry by Forbes magazine, this field has already seen big winners in stimulant drinks and electronic games designed to improve brain power. Probably an inevitable development in the age of the knowledge economy.
What it means for us: A new market, albeit one that will attract scepticism. It doesn’t take an IQ of 150 to know that this new market will attract more than its fair share of snake-oil merchants.
HEALTH
I 1 17I
47
Cupuacu The Amazon forest superfruit tipped as a new flavour sensation because several large food companies are said to be developing lines based on its taste. Possibly familiar to those who have visited South America, the cupuacu is approximately eight inches long, and contains within a brown husk a white flesh that tastes melon-like. The food processing industry has high hopes because it contains 10 essential vitamins; it could be the next Goji berry. Except nicer, we hope.
What it means for us: The interest in the natural and healthy does not preclude consumer enthusiasm for novelty; there is a sweet (cupuacu-flavoured) spot where the two intersect.
HEALTH
I 1 1 9I
48
Infomiasma The blurry, headachey feeing experienced in work meetings when it becomes clear that you have not read all the preparatory emails and attachments that you were supposed to have read. Inevitably results in nervous claims that you “skimmed” the emails but must have missed “that one”.
What it means for us: This is a depressing symptom of the general phenomenon we refer to as ‘information overload’; those individuals and organisations who can obviate it by reducing communications to a minimum can gain important advantages.
HEALTH
I 12 1I
49
Digital Ghosts In the age of social networking, when people die they leave behind ‘digital ghosts’ - online profiles with usernames and passwords that can be hacked by criminals. To prevent this, entrepreneurs have set up companies (including such interestingly-named organisations as Legacy Locker and Deathswitch) to close defunct accounts and execute digital wills.
What it means for us: To screen-workers, people can often seem just a detached collection of words and serial numbers – with the result that several brands are notorious among bereaved for their insensitive administration of posthumous bills. A caring attitude to this neglected area could gain great respect.
HEALTH
I 12 3I
50
Recombobulation The word has had a resurgence in recent years thanks to the heart-warming “Recombobulation Area” signs that have been spotted in various airports to designate post-security-check places to get yourself and your stuff together again.
What it means for us: It’s just Shine’s favourite word of 2011. Especially useful after a moment of infomiasma.
Shine Communications is a top 10 UK consumer PR agency, as named by PR Week in May 2010. The agency was founded in 1998, and is one of the country’s most awarded agencies, as well as one of its fastest growing. 2009 was a record breaking year for the agency, with significant growth achieved and a 98% client retention rate. This was gained by delivering on the company’s motto of letting people shine - an unwavering belief in empowering and motivating people. As a result annual staff retention was 82%, one of the highest in the industry, and The Sunday Times 2010 ‘Top 100 Best Small Companies To Work For’ named Shine in 6th place the highest ranking communications company listed. Shine was also voted first place for personal growth and second for having fun at work. The agency drives forward client campaigns through its philosophy of PR-led integration. First and foremost a PR agency, Shine passionately believes, especially in today’s fragmented media landscape, in the important role of PR in connecting consumers across multiple touchpoints. As a result the agency has continued to expand its offer through new appointments and new product offers:
/ Shine1 is the agency’s brand planning and strategic capability that helps brands develop positioning, creative platforms, and plan effective integrated communications campaigns. The hub also takes a lead in industry research and opinion, with dedicated research commissions that analyse consumer and industry opinions of PR and advertising. / Shine Live brings brands to life through events and experiential marketing. / Shine Digital integrates social media campaigns, as well as creating digital content that drives forward online engagement. / Shine Creative creates stunning brand image collateral and advertising campaigns for brands such as eBay, Forever 21, ghd and Martini.