A Society Of Picky Eaters

Inspiration for this post (a.k.a. the longest post ever) came from a book that a good friend recently gave me. The book is called The On-Demand Brand by Rick Mathieson, and it deals with the implications of today’s consumers tuning out marketing initiatives that don’t appeal to their increasingly connected, digital lifestyles. Naturally, I couldn’t get past page 1 without reading deeper into the words and being inspired to blog (I actually didn’t even get to page 1 – I’m still in the Roman numerals).

Today’s consumers are inclined to tune out what they don’t care about because new, emerging media gives them the means to do it. This is anything from recording shows on TiVo to choosing who to follow on Twitter. Like most things, if we didn’t have this media we wouldn’t know the difference.

I’m going to discuss why this new customizable media revolution is potentially dangerous to us as a society.

Then I’m probably to go off on a complete tangent and not even try to fight it.

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Overall— we don’t have time. We’re impatient. We want things five minutes ago. We long for any product, service, or technology that offers convenience.

But dig deeper into the true meaning of convenience.

Convenience encompasses anything that eliminates time wasted– i.e., time that we would rather be doing something else. Therefore, when we are dealing with services, messages, and products of no importance to us— we are wasting time.

So, by virtue of our desire for convenience, the most attractive feature to any product today is customization. Anything customizable is an added convenience to us, because we are choosing factors that only add value to our own lives.  Personal choice is something that’s been around for— well, forever. However, it has never been so pronounced and emphasized as it is today; customizable media is infiltrating our lives.  As a result, today’s brands are expected to provide personalized experiences while only a few short years ago, personalization was just an added bonus.

Uhm.. so what’s the problem?

One could argue that brands and new technology are causing us to become picky eaters– people that know what they like, so they stick with it and screw trying anything else. But then they miss out on food that could potentially become their favorite.

Media is becoming more customizable and relevant to our wants and needs, and we become even more inclined to ignore other things because it's the easy way out. We expect relevancy- it's convenient. But along with the picky eater metaphor, How do we know if something is interesting or of potential value to us if we’re tuning it out? 

Are we slowing our own growth as a society?

A personal anecdote: when I was in 11^th grade, I had an absolutely ridiculous American History teacher (Ray Edelman – a genius on another level). He used to fail us on every single assignment we turned in (on purpose), but our saving grace would be the “extra credit TV shows” that we could watch in order to pass. The program was usually The American Experience on PBS, with topics that ranged from The Battle of Bushy Run to The Kent State Massacre of 1970. These freaking 3-hour specials were usually on during ridiculous hours of the night (12am-3am) and we would be forced to tape them or suffer through them.  Then, we had to take comprehensive, insightful notes on the show, and turn it in. It was dreadful as a 16 year old when I didn’t give two shits about history– but I had to do it to pass the class.  

After doing the first couple shows, I became obsessed with it. It was suddenly interesting to me, and I found myself watching the programs when they weren’t assigned. Then I started watching The History Channel, just for kicks. The adrenaline rush from discovering a new interest carried over to finding more eclectic hobbies that I never considered.

I completely and utterly digress.  

What happened here was that my history teacher forced us to try something new. We didn’t have a choice. If we did, we probably would have asked him to assign episodes of a show we already knew we liked— maybe Saturday Night Live or Friends. But if we did have a choice, we wouldn’t have learned about the Battle of Bushy Run or discovered other interests.

I’m relating this back to today’s technology and brands increasingly attempting to cater to what we say we like, because we don’t have time to deal with our non-interests.

The brunt of my argument: Would our society be better-rounded if there was no customization?

Emerging technology and media is providing the illusion that there is no time in today’s world to give “irrelevant” experiences a chance. It is forcing us to think we should only pay attention to what matters to us. So we do. And it’s a vicious cycle.

Are we inhibiting our own intellectual development?

Thoughts?

Haven't Posted In A While... But My Apartment Is A Dump.

I found a really interesting quote that I think can apply to many things and people I know.

"Someday, someone will write a book explaining why so many pioneering enterprises, including the Walt Disney Company, Hewlett-Packard, and Apple, were born in garages... we can speculate on why great things are often accomplished in dull or tacky surroundings. Perhaps a bland or unattractive environment spurs creativity, functioning as an aesthetic blank slate that frees the mind to dream about what might be. Maybe a great view and chic decor are distractions and thus counterproductive when important work is being done. But the truth is that most people in great groups spend very little time thinking about their surroundings. They have wonderful tunnel vision."

--Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward Biederman

This quote is pretty old. However, it sounds strangly applicable to a couple revolutionary online platforms that were recently developed out of dumpy college dorm rooms...

But the term at the end of this quote caught my eye. "Tunnel vision." I take a look around my room and realize I still have suitcases sitting on the floor not unpacked yet from January. There are three half-full coffee cups apparently serving as decorations for my dresser. What the hell are these receipts from, why is my cell phone from 2001 still sitting on my desk, and I'm going to gouge my eyes out when I have to sift through all of these unnecessary papers on the floor next week.

My apartment is pretty unaesthetically pleasing, and I've always been jealous of those who can make their living space look like the model bedrooms in Ikea.

But this quote gave me hope for my scatterbrained way of existing. And I can say the same for many other people I know that function this way. Some people express their creativity by making their surroundings a work of art; others are satisfied with indecipherable post-it note scribblings serving as wallpaper.

There's really no point to this entry. Irony.

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Pagers, Beepers.

With all of these new technologies emerging (of course not without consumer reviews spackling the internet) I can’t help but wonder what people were saying 15 years ago about the technology coming out then—cell phones, internet, the proliferation of online advertising, etc. I used PSU’s library database to search for old news articles, and I’ve decided to share some of my findings…

(Sidenote: I sometimes have anxiety attacks about how much tuition I’m paying and I get overwhelming urges to collect everything I can from this institution.)


Here are some quotes I pulled.


Advertising Age, 12/23/96:


“I see a lot of crap and poorly thought-out stuff about to emerge,'' said a top exec at one company involved in the Web device market. “We do like the idea of combining the TV and the Internet in some way, but this early iteration probably won't get Joe Consumer to log in.”


“Real-time chat generates up to 70% of total revenue for commercial online services. Regardless, companies like Electric Minds, HotWired Network WebGenesis and iChat are plugging along with big plans to turn chat into a major ad medium.”


“Silent sponsorships, staggered ad rotations and user-only chats are ways that sites are attempting to keep advertising as unobtrusive as possible. But we think the jury is still out on chat as the next great ad medium.”


Advertising Age, 6/24/96:


"Advertisers are just beginning to think about this concept of building Web sites to meet marketing objectives," said keynote speaker Bill Harvey, president of Next Century Media.


PC Magazine, 2/15/99


Their Palo Alto-based company is just five months old but is already receiving mail from would-be investors. "Our goal is to bring a really great search tool to as many people as possible," said [Sergey] Brin. "It's a great environment to be on the cutting edge."


--In reference to Google.


And people… THIS is my favorite one:


Chicago Tribune, 12/16/94:


These days, some shoppers with busy schedules and limited patience are going high-tech, arming themselves with cellular phones, beepers, even two-way radios to ease the pain of holiday crunch time.


"It has gotten to the point where it's almost amusing to see so many people in the mall using their cell phones," observed Paula Guiliano, marketing director at Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg.


"We look like nerds talking on these things in the store, but they really work great," Gilbert said.


And a customer's ringing cellular phone can create a touch of chaos, sending store salesmen and other customers scurrying for their own mobile phones, said Johnston at Sharper Image. Not to mention the fact that a ringing mobile phone might sound uncannily similar to a store security alarm.


"It can be quite a scene when someone's phone goes off in the store," Johnston said.


Quite a scene.


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Haiti, McLuhan, Impulse, and Mobile Devices.

The recent tragedy in Haiti has opened my eyes to the incredible, selfless efforts of Americans scrambling to “chip in” and help. Millions of dollars have been donated to relief efforts— but what’s fascinating to me is the function of technology and social media in this situation. According to a recent article on CNN.com,   

“the most impressive part of social media's impact on Haiti has to be the charity text message campaign that has already raised more than $10 million for Haiti victim relief. Social media spread the word. Technology made it possible.”


The ease of donating via this medium (mobile phones) made it a click away to aid the efforts in Haiti. The texting campaign provides opportunity for everyone to feel as though they’ve done something to help.


So, my thoughts on the campaign: texting is second-nature to us. It’s effortless and familiar. And $10 million is an amazing contribution. These results never would have existed if the message was to “mail a monetary donation” instead of sending a text message. Even if the message suggested for people to “go online and donate,” this still takes more effort than texting.


I’m not saying people wouldn’t have donated, but I can’t help but to think deeper into this. I’m talking about the immediate gratification of tapping a button on a screen, with that screen attached to you 24/7. Convenience. Ease.


I’m going to revert to something I learned in my first COMM class at Penn State. Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase, “the medium is the message.” Certainly this is true, that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message—- creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived. However, is it possible that the context of the medium (as WELL as the message) is even more powerful?


Let me unpack this a little more.


Ogilvy’s Rory Sutherland makes a great point about contextual communication, leading me to think that McLuhan really should have said, “The context is the message.” How he puts it is this:


“B.J. Fogg, at the University of Stanford, makes the point that actually the mobile phone is ‘persuasive technologies.’ He believes the mobile phone, by being location-specific, contextual, timely and immediate, is simply the greatest persuasive technology device ever invented. Now, if we have all these tools at our disposal, we simply have to ask the question, and Thaler and Sunstein have, of how we can use these more intelligently.”


I’d say the Haiti texting campaign is using this tool pretty intelligently; however, Sutherland also makes another great point about human impulse:


“Now, marketing has done a very good job of creating opportunities for impulse buying. Yet we've never created the opportunity for impulse saving. If you did this, more people would save more. It's simply a question of changing the interface by which people make decisions. And the very nature of the decisions changes.”


The interface fundamentally determines the behavior. One institution that takes advantage of this psychology is PNC Online Banking for Gen-Y (the “Virtual Wallet”). There is an animated piggy bank on the personal banking Virtual Wallet homepage. Every time you “punch the pig,” you can indicate how much money you’d like to transfer to your savings account, and it completes the task in a half-second. It’s so satisfying to punch that pig. Impulse saving does exist.


BOTTOM LINE: Combining these thoughts together, wouldn’t it be marvelous if there was an “impulse savings” button on our mobile devices? It would most likely take the form of an app. I haven’t looked far enough into it to see if this already exists.


I pitched this idea-trail to my roommate and she even expanded on it, saying, “That would also be a great habit-kicking app. For people that tend to waste money on things. For instance, kicking a smoking habit, excessive Starbucks buying, or even impulse shopping in stores—you could just press the button every time you were about to buy something you REALLY probably don’t need. Then you could see how much money you’d save if you weren’t buying that one thing all the time.” (credit: Victoria Wolff.)


This is too genius to not already exist—I may be behind on the times. Someone take this idea and make the app.


Now that you’ve read my lengthy rant, why don’t you do this:


• SMS text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts


• SMS text “YELE” to 501501 to Donate $5 to Yele Haiti’s Earthquake Relief efforts


• SMS text "GIVE10" to 20222 to donate $10 to Direct Relief


Wasn’t that satisfying?

 
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Optimism: Opt In

I'm an optimist by nature; perhaps that's why I still feel positively about working in advertising after I graduate.

True, it's a scary world out there. However, what I'm learning is that your perception of how bad the job market is depends on your general approach in life. In other words, the entrepreneurial personality will always rise above even the worst of economies. Creative? Create your own job. Invent something. Work hard to find a job, and kick it's ass-- innovate. Take some (educated) risks.

It's easy to take advantage of adopting this mindset while we're in college. People expect us to mess up anyway-- I mean, seriously. We're young. Rather than it looking like we're stupid, taking (educated) risks will just look like we're curious. Enthusiastic. Trying to learn. Any higher-level position will tell you, as young emerging talent, that it's better than having no opinion at all.

Like challenges? Can't get enough of being busy? Bursting with energy? Go into advertising.

I've found an optimistic paragraph in a AAAA "State of the Advertising Industry" article, and I'm going to repost it here. It made my heart swell with joy.

What is your advice to students considering a career in advertising in such a challenging environment?

Advertising can be a tough business to break into-- regardless of the economic environment. However, I can honestly say that there's really no better time to get into the business than today, especially for students who are creative, passionate and technically inclined.

It's a business that thrives on new ideas and fresh talent, and there will always be openings at the entry level for those who are willing to learn the ropes, work hard and prove themselves.

For students and recent grads, I'd say: Forget about "Mad Men" and think of advertising as an open invitation to everyone -- regardless of background. There's a place for virtually everyone in advertising -- from anthropologists to mathematicians to creatives to zoologists. Plus, bone up on your PowerPoint and PhotoShop skills. You'll need it.
 
-- David Prince, SVP, Talent Development, 4A's
 
 
Also, for all you brave souls who love advertising, more things for your reference:
 
I left a question/comment on Steve Schildwacher's Blog (Senior Vice President, DraftFCB) asking him what kinds of talent large ad agencies expect out of entry level, recent college grads. He kindly posted an answer for me.
 
 
"To answer your question, I see two "specialties" that are and will be in demand. The first is anything Digital. We can train almost anybody to succeed in general advertising or in retail and promotions. We can train people in digital, too, but the learning curve is much steeper because that discipline is so technical. Moreover, agencies need digital experience right now -- there is little or no time to train. So if you have or can develop any skills or experience, you'd be quite marketable to a large agency.


The second "specialty" is one that most agencies don't know they need: Data. I've blogged a lot about Data and will continue to do so. In the past three years several large agencies have started to understand the possibilities here and a very small number have taken big steps to exploit those possibilities."
 
 
If there was ever a time to be optimistic about advertising, it's now. So much potential in the industry, so much room for innovation, I can barely sit still!

 
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Born to give.

On Christmas Eve this year, I witnessed something that I've seen occur many times, but never really thought about in-depth.

Babies. Two year olds that can't even talk yet. Running around, picking things up off of the table, and then holding them out to someone. As though they're saying, "Here. Take this. I have no idea what it is, but you can have it." People's cell phones, lipglosses, etc. It's the same routine. Pick it up, give it to someone. 

My 2 year old baby cousin took two cookies off of the table and shoved the first one in her mouth excitedly. My aunt Theresa leaned over her, saying, "Ooh! Whats that you got there?!" And, like clockwork, the baby-- with her neck straining at a 90 degree angle in order to look at my aunt-- fully extended her arm and gave my aunt the other cookie.

Now, the baby obviously didn't think she was getting a reward for giving. After all, the reward in itself was the cookie. And she gave her other one away.

Babies know how to share without someone ever teaching them. I'm talking about 1 year olds that can't think a logical thought. Many would agree that we, as humans, have some work to do in the "selfish" department; so where does this baby's inborn urge to GIVE come from?

Recent biological research has called it the "selflessness gene." This New York Times article published last month explains it thoroughly:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01human.html?_r=2

According to this article, when infants 18 months old see an unrelated adult who needs assistance, they will immediately help. Developmental psychologist Dr. Tomasello, who recently published a book called Why We Cooperate, quoted that, "Infants will help with information, as well as in practical ways. From the age of 12 months they will point at objects that an adult pretends to have lost. Chimpanzees, by contrast, never point at things for each other, and when they point for people, it seems to be as a command to go fetch something rather than to share information."

Kevin Roberts, worldwide CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi also discusses the matter of human selfish/selflessness in his blog. In contrast, Selfishness plays a part in our make-up too. Kevin quoted a previous researcher, saying "that's why we have moral dilemmas. Because we are both selfish and altruistic at the same time.”

The NY times article gives me hope. To fully harness our "selflessness gene" lies within our own hands. It's why we feel good about donating to charities. It's why we feel warm around the holidays, after we've given to others. And it's why we feel profound and new when we witness someone else helping a stranger. If only everyone could go back to their innate roots, perhaps the world would be a bit brighter.

credit: Sylvio Tuepke

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Things We All Think But Nobody Ever Says.

I give credit to my roommate Victoria Wolff for sending me this e-mail. I feel the need to post it because I am positive that everyone can identify with it. And if you say no, you're lying. To yourself and to me.

Things we all think but nobody ever says.

-I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.

-I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I'll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone's laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I'm still the only one who really, really gets it.

- How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?

-Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I'm from, this shouldn't be a problem....

-I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

-More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can't wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that's not only better, but also more directly involves me.

-Nothing sucks more than that exact moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

-I don't understand the purpose of the line, "I don't need to drink to have fun." Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they've invented the lighter?

-Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

-Is it just me, or are 80% of the people in the "people you may know" feature on Facebook people that I do know, but I deliberately choose not to be friends with?

-Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.

-There is a great need for sarcasm font.

-Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the F was going on when I first saw it.

-How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

-I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

-The only time I look forward to a red light is when I'm trying to finish a text.

- Was learning cursive really necessary?

- LOL has gone from meaning, "laugh out loud" to "I have nothing else to say.”

- I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

- Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.

- Whenever someone says "I'm not book smart, but I'm street smart", all I hear is "I'm not real smart, but I'm imaginary smart".

- I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a dick from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!

- Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using 'as in' examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and said "Yes that's G as in...(10 second lapse)..ummm...Goonies"


-What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other?


-MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

- Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

-I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

-Whenever I'm Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don't mind if I do!

-If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.


-You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything productive for the rest of the day.


-Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.


-I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my 20 page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

-I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There's so much pressure. 'I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren't watching this. It's only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?'

-I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dammit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?

- I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

-When I meet a new girl, I'm terrified of mentioning something she hasn't already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.

-Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for pedophiles...

- As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.

-Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

-I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

-Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn't know what do to with it.

-I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.


-The other night I ordered takeout, and when I looked in the bag, saw they had included four sets of plastic silverware. In other words, someone at the restaurant packed my order, took a second to think about it, and then estimated that there must be at least four people eating to require such a large amount of food. Too bad I was eating by myself. There's nothing like being made to feel like a fat bastard before I even eat dinner.






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