Reality vs. rhetoric.
Don’t you just love the review season with all the “he said, she said, they did… they di’ant!!” Happily this year (like last year) has been less about swagger and more about solid work.
Reviews for both commercial and creative showing that even though there’s been some hard times out there, creative and innovative thinking is still strong and it’s still insistent on being challenging not subservient.
The creative industries like most have found it tough going but they’ve been part of the breakthroughs made to create significant changes in society, cultural and commercial thinking in both 2010 & 2011. I guess there’s nothing like a never-ending recession to make an industry get it’s head out of it’s backside, hammer home unsettling realities and incite a bashing of over egged ego’s. In the past three years since the beginning of the downturn we have without doubt seen a lot of dormant brains cells kicked awake, which has in turn generated much smarter thinking. Though it’s the learnings we take forward from the past three years on to the next three which are going to be key in 2012.
So, what is smarter thinking? Well, in a world lobbing a multitude of messages through a galaxy of media channels, grappling for our attention and our reach; most are preaching off a conveyer belt of ‘easy to use, best ever, % said…’ intgratiated products, services and gadgets, perhaps the time is right to be a little more emotive and less statistical in our personal and professional choices.
When we say emotive I’m not referring to the ad-mans warm, fuzzy glow feeling although that still counts, but emotive in mindset. The type that talks to deliver lifestyle change, creates ideals, processes and adaptations. Emotive actions and thoughts that make people live, work and think differently to improve their circumstance and others around them.
We believe that Smarter Thinking will once again be about the reigniting the flame of the long term relationship not the short term romances. One where quality (in all things) is an absolute and will always precede excessive quantity. Where a throw-away culture may well step back and once again begin to value things for their longevity, for the purposeful values in life that they bring, not just for their aesthetic lifestyle trends and quick fix mentality.
Honestly, we believe that communicating this in terms of value both financially and emotionally, will be hugely relevant in the next five years. Don’t discount the fact that people in general aren’t fools and won’t suffer being treated as one. What they are is pressured, the simplest forms of these pressures being either financial or time based constraints. This is why the long term relationships of old have all but fallen by the wayside battered and seemingly abused, ‘I can’t afford and I don’t have the time for this’ being the led perpetrators!
Where industries or brands can move forward over the next three years is to actually show some empathy, generosity, humility, flexibility, maturity, humor and dare we say it, character and humanity; companies with these traits will be best placed to take on a long term future to meet what will soon be a changing mindset. It’s a tough thing to do in an unstable economy but its already been set in motion and those that don’t listen will find themselves faltering.
This emotive challenge this isn’t about clever marketing terms, latest on trend visuals and beautiful ad campaigns, this goes deeper to were they have an honesty about their flaws and a reality as to who and what they are. Why? Because we can all ‘find stuff out’, there’s no hiding behind noise and pictures, every brand, product or service has a history and a voice that its spoken with or been commented on. When we dig to communicate with it or take the time to engage with it, there really is nothing worse than being unmoved and disappointed.
And what of the crazy world of digital culture we live in, one where everything is based around time and accessing ‘sometimes questionable’ knowledge, be that mobile technologies, social networking, blogging, surfing and trending. Well in 2012/13 the Point, Click, Know culture will be massive and to many that’s going to be unsettling.
With personal privacy issues and data being at the forefront of today’s digital culture, nervous twitches can only be heightened by the fact that the largest data network Facebook is preparing to float next year. Out of the hands of their hippy overlord who pledges that all he wants is for the world to talk. Into the hands of the dark overlords who see the commercial power and money that 100 billion dollars of personal data can buy you.
Online corporate sources will without doubt come under serious scrutiny, not least in how they manage their data but in turn how they then allow you and I to use it. Don’t forget those transient little love buttons of ’Like’ & ‘Share’ which we all prize and covet will at some point soon be turned to ‘dislike’, ‘close down’ & ‘turn off’.
Fun times ahead. I think 2012 will be a good year… what about you?
MDG (MD – L&K Team)
