I don’t typically connect this blog (my personal blog) with my blogging at work (which is Strategic Planning Director, Trends + Culture @ The Kaplan Thaler Group), but I’ve received a number of messages from readers asking for more insights into CES 2012 and trends. So, here’s a blog post on KTG’s website detailing 4 trends (click here or on the graphic below). More on CES to come in the next few days…
intro to CES trends: technology enabling social flares
I’ve just returned from the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, where all the latest consumer technologies are showcased from around the world. I’ll be writing (and speaking) about technology trends and cause-effect consumer behavior in the coming weeks. However, I want to preface everything with a thought. A concept. An outlook. Possibly a trend on its way to becoming an accepted way of life in America: what I’m calling “Social Flares.“
what is a “social flare”?
I’m defining “Social Flares” as social activity, such as movements or social changes, that quickly coalesce, gain momentum, make impact, and then dissipate as fast as they began. Like flash fires that combust once intense energy is exhausted. In some cases the flares are big and cataclysmic. There’s a saying in some cultures that “if you fall in love fast and hard, you fall out of love fast and hard.” Same principle. For example, look how quickly Occupy Wall Street galvanized and then fell apart (OWS no longer occupies a block or the news).
Similarly, fashion and Internet memes catch on quickly, gain huge momentum, replicate, then come to a screeching halt, and fall out of favor and become irrelevant; of course, some make an impact and are absorbed by culture. For example, OWS has certainly changed the discourse of the upcoming election. We live in a culture of extremes. We are a culture defined by intense passion. As a culture – society – we latch onto things quickly (flare up) and then drop them quickly (flare down). Sometimes “Social Flare Ups” make a lasting impact, like a solar flare.
tech and social media drive “social flares”
Technology is at the heart of Social Flares. Social media is the backbone of this behavior because it allows us to research and share information, promote ideas and action, quickly find people who share our views, and basically exhaust a topic. We’ve gone from a handful of “broadcasters” to countless “peercasters” as anyone and everyone is Citizen Reporter. Think of the Arab Spring, how it came into being and how we barely hear anything about it anymore. The intensity in which we throw ourselves or attention into a topic burns out quickly, and our attention moves onto something else. We use technology (our phones, TVs and computers) as tools of voice, vote and vim. Without our devices and our networks “social flares” would be more like “social gurgles”… weaker, slower, less focused. We owe the intensity and magnitude of social flares to technology. Thus, this year “CES” was really the conference dedicated to “Connecting Everyone Suddenly. “
humans are simply sun-sensitive sacks of brine
Do you believe that animals can sense the weather? Does your mood change at different times of the month or year? SADness, which is the abbreviation for “Seasonal Affective Disorder” (i.e., winter blues) reached an all time high in 2011 with 10 million Americans diagnosed (nearly 10% of all people living in New Hampshire are apparently afflicted with SADness). FACT: our bodies are made up of +80% of water, which makes us humans mere sacks of brine. Ecosystems fueled by electrical impulses. Thus, we (like animals) are highly sensitive to the pull of the celestial bodies. Our chemistry responds to light, temperature, gravitational pull and electromagnetic fields. The later – electromagnetic waves (i.e., radiation) – in our world is largely impacted by solar flares. Gamma rays wash over our bodies and travel through our bodies 365/24/7, depending on the sun. In the book Solar Rain, by Mitch Battros, an entire chapter is dedicated to the behavioral impact of solar flare activity, attributed to ADHD, depression, anxiety and social misconduct.
In a newly published 132-page report from NASA titled Severe Space Weather: Social and Economic Impacts, “experts detail what might happen to our modern, high-tech society in the event of a super solar flare followed by an extreme geomagnetic storm. They found that almost nothing is immune from space weather—not even the water in your bathroom.” According to the report, our technology-dependent world is threatened because our power grids are vulnerable to solar flares.
2012-13: dare to flare
Solar flares occur around sunspots; they are parts of the sun which erupt in a huge energy release of electrons, ions, and atoms. The clouds of radiation typically reach the earth 1 or 2 days after the event on the surface of the sun. The sun’s solar flare activity, interestingly, varies day-to-day, but tends to follow in an 11-year cycle (called the “solar cycle”). We are currently on the up-curve, nearing the peak, of an 11-year cycle with activity peaking in 2013. In fact, scientists are warning that governments should prepare for technological disruption in 2013 due to increased electromagnetic activity.
There was a solar storm in 1859, the biggest recorded, which knocked out the telegraph system all over Europe and America. Newspapers reported that telegraph pylons threw sparks and some telegraph systems appeared to continue to send/receive messages despite having been disconnected from their power supplies. This brings meaning to the expression, “ghost in the machine.” So, think about the implications of increased solar activity in our device-driven worlds today?
solar flares = social flares?
It is interesting to compare human behavior with solar activity. I posit that “Solar Flares” cause-effect “Social Flares.” Look at the graph above: it is interesting that the two biggest human hits to life on earth in the past decade (9/11 and the US Financial Crisis),took place during extreme periods of sun flares (maximum and minimal activity).
It does seem that “Social Flaring” could be on the rise, just like Solar Flares. Perhaps this is due to fervor created by the upcoming Presidential election? What is the correlation and/or causation between Solar Flares and Social Flares? Wouldn’t that be an interesting predictor of human behavior? Will global social unrest continue to escalate as Solar Flares plateau, or will we see periods harmony after 2013?
social flares are the new social norm
My bet is that “Social Flaring” is here to stay, irrespective of the sun, because our behavior has been permanently changed by technology. Technology exacerbates our innate lizard-brain human behaviors: to gossip, influence others, wield power through knowledge, affect positive change, control the world, etc. As long as we can communicate real-time with the world, we will get caught up in “flares.” I think the new social norm will be “Social Flare Ups,” with lots of “activism” and “vocalism.” It will be hard to decipher which Solar Flares represent the majority because even small factions with big voices (and expert command of social media) will burn through the clutter and be noticed.
social flares for social change
The opportunity is to harness the ease in which “Social Flares” can be conjured as a tool for good. To fight the good fight. To make significant changes to improve humanity.
This is the year that we – average 99% Americans – comfortably talk “trillions.” We’re in the era of “tera.”
Remember when “million” was “mega” cool? When millionaires were really, really rich? When millions of bottle caps were uncountable? Unimaginable even? That was our society up until about the 1970s. Then, In the 1980-90s we started to hear about “billions.” China’s population reached 1 Billion. McDonalds sold 1 billion hamburgers. The earth was confirmed to be 4 billion years old. Our computers started processing in billions of bytes, i.e., GigaBytes (GB). Forbes started publishing a “Billionaire’s List” and Bill Gates was reported by Forbes to be a “billionnaire” at age 31 (wow!).
With the the Internet Bubble in the 1990s-early 2000s, we became too familiar with huge numbers in the form of Megabytes (MB) and Gigabytes (GB). America became flush with Dot.com millionaires, and “million” lost its awe. Heck, there are 1 billion App downloads each week now. There are 1,210 billionaires in the world as of March, 2011.
We are at a point in our culture where “trillion” is the the new “million.” A trillion = million x million. Computer processing speeds have leaped to Terabytes (TB) to deal with this “Big Data” era. Obama proposes cutting $1.5 trillion in tax increases. The news proclaims “there are trillions of earths in our universe.” We now read in print “t” where “m” or “b” once sufficed (e.g, outstanding US public debt as of today is $15.2t).
Note: a technology and information/data guru friend and blogger, Michael Elling, pointed out to me that in the tech world “trillion” is old news. Big Data and and The Network (e.g., CISCO) is “well beyond ‘trill’ and even ‘penta.’ The current vernacular in tech culture is ‘exabyte.’” Acknowledged. But, I maintain that average joe citizens like me are not there yet.
But given that “trillion” is bandied around like “million,” do you comprehend just how big a TRILLION is? When we talk “Big Data” in Terabytes, we’re talking really, really, really big. When we talk about a $1 trillion bailout, we’re talking a whole lot of money. Unfathomably large sums of money: see the graphic illustrations on the left which show what $1m, $1b and $1t looks like relatively. A trillion is a trillion-times larger.
Twenty-twelve is “t” time: a time where we talk trillions at the dinner table. You don’t need to be “trilliant” to get BIG, big numbers and “Big Data.” But, it’s good to be “trill”….an adjective used in hip-hop culture to describe someone who is considered to be well respected, coming from a combination of the words “true” and “real.”
So, here’s a toast to keepin’ it “trill” in 2012. It looks like it will be a “trilling” year! This is a nod to my blog last year about “squealing” culture manifesting in oscillating points of view, shifting polarities, fluttering marketing dynamics, extreme bursts of activity (e.g. Occupy Wall Street’s fast rise and fall).
Each year I analyze the holiday window decorations along Fifth Avenue NYC (namely, the extravagant windows of Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman department stores) because they tend to illustrate the cultural zeitgeist. The windows are essentially mirrors on society, reflecting what’s going on in culture, and what’s in the hearts and minds of consumers as we end the year.
Maybe I’m reading too much into the window decorations, but I find their themes to be a sign of the times, and this year is no different. In fact, I think the windows have perfectly summed up some major trends in America right now. (See my window analysis last year.) The windows – like windows into the soul of America – symbolize the collective hopes and drivers of the nation as we start a new year.
I don’t know if this is the intention of the teams of window designers, who spend the entire year constructing the windows with mind boggling details at astronomical costs. But, from the benign store press releases launching the seasons’ windows, it doesn’t seem to be a conscious medium for social commentary. The retailers say it’s purely a branding exercise in extravagance, escapism and entertainment. You decide…
There’s another fascinating aspect of the windows worth keeping tabs on; every year the ante is upped in the competition for window gazers with the use of emerging technologies and story-building to bring the stories to life. Retailers understand that in this technologically wired age, static 2D window decorations don’t cut it anymore. They need to be interactive, moving, 3D, connected and extend into social media. Foot traffic needs to curry Internet traffic, and vice versa (which is true for all retailers today). Thus, the creative teams behind the windows are not merely window dressers, but rather multi-media story-builders. The windows are merely one portal into their stories.
saks fifth ave: the land of the bubble makers
For the second year Saks Fifth Avenue has glommed onto the visual themes of snowflakes and bubbles – symbols of joy and hope. This year, Saks commissioned the writing and illustration of a bespoke children’s book, titled “Who Makes the Snow.” The storyline, set in Saks Fifth Avenue’s flagship store, centers on two hidden, magical worlds that collide: the under-world that makes bubbles, and the upper-world that makes snow. The book is sold exclusively at Saks.
The windows reflect parts of the storyline, but focuses on The Bubble Makers. The Bubble Makers use Victorian styled mechanical contraptions to manufacture copious amounts of bubbles. The look is a throw-back to 1980s “steampunk” fashion. The bubble making machinery (pipes, gears, whirly gigs, etc.) look like a collaboration between Willy Wonka, Dr. Zeuss and Makerbot.
The light show: every 13 minutes a huge dramatic “sonne et lumier” show is projected onto the façade of the store. The show features an animation of machines and gears producing snowflakes and bubbles, which dance, mingle and merge. The gears of a clock tick down the time much like a time bomb. Time – the ominous passing of time – is the main take-away. Separately, several promotional 
videos were produced (by Pentagram and Iris) and posted on the Internet to promote the storyline and create buzz; good examples of how a myth or brand story can be built across media channels. Thanks to technology, window gazers can also enjoy the 3D show at home; They only need to scan QR codes on the windows which takes them to a YouTube video of the show.
Do you see the irony of celebrating Bubble Makers? We live in a Bubble Economy. Much of the woes of our society are attributed to this Bubble Economy. We’ve just come through a Recession caused by the bursting of the Real Estate Bubble. The Debt Bubble. The current Stock Market Bubble, where stock values are over-valued/inflated, is fuelled by Dot.com IPOs, such as the overpriced $12.8b Groupon IPO. The new Dot.com Bubble is driven by “the cloud” and “social commerce” hype. Are we due for another Dot.com bubble burst in 2012?
Bubbles are also metaphors for jobs. Bubbles are ephemeral, changeable and highly responsive to slight changes in the breezes… just like employment today. The Recession, combined with new technologies, has forced America to fundamentally change the way it puts people to work. Our culture is becoming more transient as people commute longer distances for work. Americans today work multiple jobs and/or part-time jobs, sharing jobs with both humans and machines.
Further, manufacturing bubbles – which are essentially air – is how many Americans feel about their careers these days. On blogs Americans express frustration that they don’t contribute to society in a meaningful and tangible way, and they don’t see the fruits of their labors. America was built on manufacturing, but today most of the country’s production is out-sourced overseas. Today, Americans make and sell ideas, stock options and information. Not tangible “things.”
ABC News and Diane Sawyer declared Christmas 2011 as the “Great Made in America Christmas” asking shoppers to buy American. This promotion was designed to kick-start local job creation and celebrate American industriousness. While polls earlier this year showed that Americans cared little about “made in America” labels, a surge in nationalism and soci-economic concern seems to have reversed this trend. There are now hundreds of blogs, websites and FaceBook pages devoted to “Made in USA.”
bergdorf goodman: carnival of animals
Last year Bergdorf’s holiday windows were a tribute to the travel and adventure. This year the store claims it’s windows is a celebration of exotic fantastical places where mythical kingdoms of animals dwell. Indeed, each window is a unique animal habitat, which draws in and transports the viewer. We all want to travel to these places where the animals commune with humans and play together in harmony. Isn’t that an idyllic vision of “peace on earth”?
However, the windows have individual themes worthy of discussion. There are four window themes which could be construed as marching orders for Americans in 2012: make, learn, explore and socialize. Those are my pithy summaries of the windows; the actual titles are “Artists and Models” (make), “Teacher’s Pets” (learn), “Testing the Waters” (explore), and “Breaking the Ice” (socialize).
MAKE – In the “Artists and Models” window, made entirely out of wood and leather, a menagerie of animals sit for the artist-cum-mannequin and help her to construct animals. In her animal infested atelier she produces tangible, useful items. In fact, utilitarian tools: horses. (Note: the Equine theme is prominent in fashion and décor trends right now.) This resonates with Americans who are finding ways to make stuff, driving the trend in “garage manufacturing.” Websites like Ponoco.com match designers with cottage manufacturers, and other sites, like Etsy.com facilitate sales. Consumers are learning how to make stuff in the media (think: Make Magazine, How It’s Made, HGTV). Kit-machinery, like Makerbot, and rental machinery from Lowes and Home Depot, offer the tools. Today, self-worth and social currency is summed up as “you are what you make.”
LEARN – The window titled “Teacher’s Pet”, depicts a library of zoological textboks, and thus is made entirely of paper. The paper bestiary is being enlightened by a Jean Brodie-esque mannequin. This classroom is a celebration of learning. Timely, as education is on everyone’s minds and lips these days. Education reform will be a major talking point in the 2012 elections. In New York City, the education system is in crisis: corrupt and bankrupt. Education in America has been underfunded and under-tended for some time, with catastrophic social consequences. The Occupy Wall Street was a protest largely waged by new college graduates who have found themselves ill prepared for the American economy and blaming the “Education Bubble” (more bubbles!), which is the belief that college fees are inflated. The antidote to this is online education, which is one of the most important trends in America. Also, there is movement away from traditional education (i.e., college BA degrees and MBAs) towards skill-focussed education, which equip people with vocational skills so they can make and fix things. Whatever your political beliefs, the one thing we all agree on is that the future of America rests in an educated population. Learning is a priority. According to Yankelovich, 64% of Americans are prioritizing “stretching self to try new things.”
EXPLORE – A window made entirely of hand-cut Italian mosaic tile (and purported to be the most labor intensive and expensive single window in Bergdorf’s 112 year history), is aptly named “Testing the Waters.” Here a “mer-mannequin” explores a rich underwater world. She appears to be holding the sea animals at bay as THEY explore her. We are an “exploration nation” driven by our inherent heterogeneity and entrepreneurialism. We satisfy our desire to explore cultures on the Internet, watching travel TV shows and sampling exotic tastes. According to Yankelovich, 62% of Americans say “satisfying a hunger for new experiences” is a priority. The number one reason Americans travel today is not leisure, but rather to “learn something new.” And our mobile phones, equipped with Geo-Location, maps and Augmented Reality apps, enable us to explore and search like never before; cell phones are modern day gyroscopes.
SOCIALIZE – The “Testing the Waters” window is a peek into an arctic cocktail party of guests of woolly and furry fauna family. The hostess, who is the center of the conversation, appears to be tending to her guests. Isn’t this an obvious metaphor for our culture’s fixation with social networking? Everything in our lives today has some aspect of being online to be “social” and/or focused on “conversations.” According to Yankelovich, 84% of Americans go on line everyday! Social is where “hi tech” converges with “hi touch.” However, this real-time face-to-face party also mirrors another trend in society worth noting: rejecting FaceBook in favor of FaceTime. Increasingly Americans are opting out of virtual networks and digital dialogues, replacing them with human-to-human networks and meet-ups. Websites like Meetup.com are popping up to facilitate meetings and human interaction. Many of these meet-ups are focused on group crafts and production (think: knitting, cooking, pottery, quilting, scrapbooking, etc.). Socializing and social networking is moving away from networking and towards working.
2012 = MAKEXII
In conclusion, the window dressing themes this holiday season point to an important trend in America: renewed interest in manufacturing, industry and production. 2012 will be a year focussed on “making and producing,” not merely thinking, dreaming, conceiving. Americans will seek out skills that will enable them to produce stuff and fix stuff. Skills will range from low-tech plumbing, carpentry, cooking, etc. to hi-tech writing/programming software that drive technologies, such as home CNC and CAD tooling machines, embroidery and textile printing machines, etc. The focus will be on craftsmanship and processes. We will learn HOW to make things from a growing body of “how to” blogs, YouTube videos, books, magazines, TV shows and meeet-ups. Americans will satisfy their desire to make things with their own hands and ingenuity by moonlighting and starting up garage manufacturing ventures. Micro venture capital will erupt on funding websites like Kickstarter.com. The market will be flooded with Apps that help Americans to be more productive and make. So, let’s make the most of 2012!
To put it bluntly, Millennials are shallow. Or, at least that’s what conventional wisdom, as put forth in Nicholas Carr’s New York Times bestseller, “The Shallows” would have you believe. Many argue that technology and mass media are to blame for this trend, particularly pervasive among Millennialls. But is it true? Certainly, the rise of high-tech gadgets and constant connectivity have shaped us into an increasingly distracted culture with more options that ever, but does that mean it’s made the 30-and-under crowd less in touch with what matters?
Not necessarily!
Technology is also responsible for enabling Americans to immerse, search, discover, analyze, track and plan like never before. In fact, those supposedly shallow, tech-savvy Millennials, are actually demonstrating an extraordinary depth both on- and offline. They’re going deeper into issues, deeper into themselves, and searching for meaning through deeper life experiences.
According to Pew Research Center (2011), Millennials cherish the same values in brands and businesses as they do in people: truthfulness, genuineness, social awareness, respect and humility. (Not exactly what you’d call “superficial.”)
In addition, these consumers are:
Sources: MRI July 2011, Pew Research Center 2011; Yankelovich 2011
We’re also seeing cultural trends in the Millennial segment that illustrate depth, not shallowness, such as:
What ought to be exciting to marketers is that there are +50 million Millennials between 18-30 years old with spending power. They are playing against type, paying attention to the nuances of a brand story and reading the long-form text in fine print. They are keenly interested in the minutia of a brand’s provenance, footprint, ethics and sustainability. They are seeking more visceral, immersive brand experiences and opting for deeper, more meaningful brand engagements.
They’re not shallow skimmers; they’re deep divers. And it’s up to marketers to deliver. So, they would be remiss if they skew too far in the direction of sound-bite-banner-ad-FaceBook-banter-short-term-ad-hoc-style-over-substance-superficial marketing approaches. Today, there’s a real opportunity for authentic brands with heritage, complexity and a great story to go deep with Millennials for deeper returns.
Click on the link above for a PDF of a Trend Report, titled "Deeper" that explains how to market deeper to Millennials. It showcases emerging technology and design from SXSW 2011 and the NYU ITP Sprint Show 2011.
While men are enjoying the “retro sexual revival,” there is an obvious dearth of female role models in advertising today. In fact, the whole premise Chevy Camaro’s SuperBowl ad this year was men imagining their ideal kick-ass dream woman driving a Camaro. Their fantasy woman is beautiful, strong, daring, adventurous, sporty… and an elementary school teacher? Whatever.
Progressive Insurance’s “Flo” and T-Mobile’s “Pink Girl” are hardly renaissance women that women aspire to. Sure, “smart celebrities” like Ellen Page and Jamie Lee Curtis are used to endorse products, but they’re real people celebrities, not characters. The closest thing to a worldly, sophisticated, multi-talented character is Priceline’s “Naomi Pryce,” but even she borders on an exaggerated spy character. Memo to ad industry: spies are not the only archetypes of strong women.
What happened to the emancipated, beautiful, smart, worldly, skilled “Charlie Girl” (from Charlie perfume) striding into parties and climbing aboard yachts? The “Charlie Girl” (1979) was before her time and actually “The Most Interesting Woman in the World.” She exuded confidence and seemed like a real person. I wonder how many young ladies besides me she inspired over the years?
TV characters work the same way ad characters do: “Charlie’s Angels” inspired young girls for three generations to strive to be independent, formidable, worldly and multi-talented (languages, martial arts, weapons, McGyvvering skills, etc.). Charlie’s Angels will return to the small screen this Autumn on ABC. Right now on TV there is no Angelina Jolie-esque characters to look up to, other than “Alias” (character: Sydney Bristow) re-runs.
I’m hoping the return of Charlie’s Angels this will make advertisers think harder about the type of female characters and personalities they select to represent brands that speak to empowered women today.
There’s a trend in advertising that’s reflecting the zeitgeist: retro sexual revivalism. Notice the return of bold male characters who personify ideal male attributes and attitudes. These “retro sexuals” are intriguing, fascinating, magnetic, adventurous, skilled, charming, seductive, smooth, powerful, super-masculine men in total control, even in unrealistic fantastical situations.
They’re modern day “Hathaway” and “Marlboro” men, updated with hyperbole and humor often depicted in command of ambiguous surreal situations (e.g., exotic parties, climbing mountains, in disasters, fighting spies, performing in carnivals, taming wild animals). Notice the similarities of the following male characters in advertising today:
A lot has been written on the obsolescence of men in American society. So an obvious explanation for the ad trend of showing “retro-sexual” men imbued with traditional machismo is that it is an antidote to the emasculation taking place in American brought on by unemployment, skills transference and shifts in family income earners? However, research shows that men today – especially Millennial men – are quite comfortable with the gender blurringSource: The Futures Company/Yankelovich, June 2011
Instead, I think these new “retro sexual” advertising role models exemplify our cultural return to substance. Americans, tired of lauding people who have little or no talent, are returning to traditional “hero worship.” That is, worshiping heroes of substance. The pendulum swung far in the direction of “everyone will have their15 minutes of fame,” and now is swinging back to focusing on multi-talented people with extraordinary skills. (This trend is probably also behind the popularity of superheroes, from Tron to Captain America).
In fact, these male characters could all be from the same family; It’s fun to imagine if the “The Most Interesting Man in the World” had sons scattered around the globe from trysts with different women? From one wife his progeny would include “The Entrance” guy and “Mayhem”, and from another wife (perhaps a Congolese Princess) he’d be father to “Tony Sinclair” and “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” (TMYMCSL). It’s easy to imagine “Mayhem” and “The Entrance” have a Cain and Able relationship. As for the other set of brothers, one can imagine “Tony Sinclair” is the younger brother living in the shadow of his impressive brother, “TMYMCSL.” The Most Interesting Man in the World could easily have brothers, “The Negotiator” and “Bold Choices.” And, from his brief marriage to “The Charlie Girl” in the 70’s he fathered two daughters, “Naomi Pryce” and “The Etrade Girl.”
pinch me when it’s over
Marsha Brady: oh, my nose!!!!!!!
If Super Bowl ads reflect the zeitgeist, Americans (at the moment) enjoy watching people beat the crap out of other people, especially innocents, like babies, dogs, teenage girls, etc. The Super Bowl commercials this year were particularly violent with babies being thrown against plate glass windows, luring dogs to run into plate glass windows, Roseanne Barr being smashed in the face with a giant swinging log, a man being punched in the crotch, and a psycho-wife hitting her husband upside the head and then pelting a young runner in the face with a can of Pepsi. The topper was a montage ad that featured the iconic scene of Marsha Brady getting hit in the face with a football (which broke her nose).
Snickers ad: Roseanne Barr getting "logged"?
The visceral reaction to all these slap-stick (physical comedy, really?) violent ads was/is: startle, cringe, shudder, flinch. Everyone at the Super Bowl party I was at had the same reaction to the ads: “ouch!” We all jumped in our skins. That’s because neuroscience says we humans have a “mirror response” to images, where our brains “feel” what we watch. Our brains experience what our eyes watch, and thus “hurt” vicariously. It wakes us up, like being pinched.
Homeaway.com ad: lifelike test baby thrown against plate glass window.
Is it merely a Madison Avenue attention-getting technique, intended to cut through the clutter? To be remembered (to aid recall) by arousing our emotions? Are we as a society that numb? Or, is it reflecting America’s pent-up frustrations with the economy, politics, life in general? Or, are we supposed to sigh in relief and think “phew, thank goodness that wasn’t me” when we see someone else get pummeled (like the relief we feel watching from the outside the train wreck lives of Jersey Shore)?
The ad guys who grew up watching cartoons like this are now making Super Bowl ads.
I think these ads are the result of misguided ad guys who’ve come to believe that ads with “elements of surprise” are memorable. All the advertising research of late, including neuroscience books, are touting that we humans like surprises… and surprise endings. Surprises tickle in our lizard brains the part of the brain that’s aroused as we try to making sense of surprises, puzzles, novelty and incongruities. As with anything in life, there are smart ways to do this and there are stupid, base was to do this, such as a surprise ending where the character gets spattered. Remember Road Runner?
Pepsi Max ad: teenage runner knocked out with Pepsi can.
WATCH THIS AD: EXAMPLE of NON-VIOLENT SURPRISE ENDING
In last nights Super Bowl ad lineup the Volkswagen Passat ad, “The Force,” was an example of a clever (non-violent, and ironically non-forceful) surprise ending. According to TiVo it was the #4 most liked ad last night… following Snicker’s and Pepsi’s uber-violent ads (#1 and #3 respectively). I wonder if anyone at Tivo bothered to correlate the ad ranking to Red States and Blue States?
Doritos ad: bulldog smashing into glass door and flattening the jerk who egged the bulldog to charge the door.
Want to see something really cool?
A zooming 3D presentation… the subject is “iGASM” (blog below). iGASM covers the Top Ten Tech Trends from the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago. Thank you to my friend, Jurgen, who introduced me to the Prezi presentation software (www.prezi.com) knowing my keen interest in zooming. It’s a mostly visual/graphic presentation with voice-over. A fantastic new presentation tool. Check it out here:
https://prezi.com/secure/b8c83fe91e2ced993b2f121fd6c2dec73b2a5cdf/
We live in an era where we look at things in 3D (in 360-degrees)…. and even in 4D (which is 3D over time) Strides in technology have enabled this, such as 3D design and 3D mind mapping software, and trending tools like Google Zeitgeist. We’re now a generation accustomed to trending, zooming and searching. As a result of these new perspectives and ways of looking at data, new correlations ought to be found… resulting in new insights, and more complex problem solving. As we swim in data – overwhelming amounts of data – we will see more technologies that allow us to navigate, parse, curate, cull, connect and layer data (think: Augmented Reality apps). This gives new meaning to the expression “searching society.”
you can download the CES + AVN trend report here: iGASM CES AVN 2011 Trend Report
Anyone who knows me knows that I have a passion for emerging technologies. I often exclaim that “emerging technology is orgasmic” so I thought it would be provocative to explore this… well…literally. That said, while in Las Vegas, I attended two concurrent trade shows: The International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and The Adult Entertainment Expo (more commonly known as “AVN” or “The Porn” show). Bellwethers for their respective economies.
AVN was actually born from CES. “It came out of CES, about 12 years ago,” explained AVN rep Sean Devlin. “There used to be an adult video section of CES… then those exhibitors said, ‘hey, we can do our own show.’ So they decided to put on their own show and AVN was born.”
My objective was to explore the two industries and their cultures and see if I could find fresh cultural insights from this juxtaposition. I also felt it would help make this CES emerging technology report a little more titillating.
To my surprise, I found that the tech and sex worlds are quite synergistic. As I watched geeky guys, called Otaku, mixing with Dominatrixes, I was reminded of the sultry intellectual sex appeal of Star Trek’s Spock. Today, the same incongruous naughty-nice/sex-tech undertones drive the popular TV show “The Big Bang Theory.”
Indeed, the key trends in the tech world are evident in the adult entertainment world, and vice versa. Without a doubt tech culture and sex culture merge in pop culture.
Erotic science fiction – books, art and films – often provide a peek into the future of the tech-sex fusion. For example, today the Ex-Sex-ive Machine (below) in the film Barbarella (1968) and The Orgasmatron machine 
in the film Sleeper (1973) don’t look too far off.
And then there is “tech porn,” which like “food porn,” is defined by seductive images with the intent of invoking lust for a technology. Tech porn uses smooth pans across ultra-glossy exteriors, a sequence of parts moving in intricate and complex patterns, lingering close-ups of key components, or extremely detailed descriptions and diagrams how a device is put together. It’s common in TV commercials, print ads, animations, manga and sci-fi literature, where text goes into greater detail than necessary about the tech, such as describing at length the interlocking mechanisms of a watch, or highly detailed and elaborate technical diagrams. The result is called a nerdgasm.
driving tech: porn industry early adopters
Whenever there’s a new content delivery technology – papyrus, woodcuts, printing press, Polaroid cameras, Internet, etc. – it’s instantly adopted to deliver adult-entertainment. Eroticists have historically embraced the emerging technologies of their times to get their points across.
For example, the first public screening of a movie was held in 1895, and the first “adult” film was released less than two years later. Streaming video, chat rooms, online credit-card verification were all born from the desire to access erotic content and have virtual sex. Think about it, porn was one of the first profitable industries on the Internet, today generating more than $1 billion annually online. The adult entertainment industry pioneered pay-per-view video and popularized VCRs. Even video technology, like Flash, is a tech innovation with roots in sharing and selling adult content.
Today, the electronics and tech industries pursue, even design for, the adult entertainment industry… because porn companies have deep pockets and are largely immune to economic fluctuations (despite Larry Flint wryly asking for a bail-out last year). Historically, XXX-execs seek tech innovations because they know their clients have a healthy appetite for bigger, better, clearer, faster, etc.
As it turns out, one need only follow the trends of the adult entertainment industry to stay current on the latest tech trends. All of the key tech trends at CES 2011 were also being put to good (or rather, naughty) use at AVN 2011.
My names for the Top 10 Trends are:
Click below to read the whole juicy trend report (download PDF).
