16th March 2018
From The New York Times. ‘At one point during the 2016 presidential election campaign, I watched a bunch of videos of Donald Trump rallies on YouTube…Soon I noticed something peculiar. YouTube started to recommend and “autoplay” videos for me that featured white supremacist rants, Holocaust denials and other disturbing content. It seems as if you are never “hard core” enough for YouTube’s recommendation algorithm. It promotes, recommends and disseminates videos in a manner that appears to constantly up the stakes. Given its billion or so users, YouTube may be one of the most powerful radicalizing instruments of the 21st century.’
We’ve looked at this area before, but this is a nice piece and so worth revisiting – ‘When you change the world and no-one notices.’ ‘Big breakthroughs typically follow a seven-step path: First, no one’s heard of you ; Then they’ve heard of you but think you’re nuts; Then they understand your product, but think it has no opportunity; Then they view your product as a toy; Then they see it as an amazing toy ; Then they start using it; and Then they couldn’t imagine life without it. This process can take decades. It rarely takes less than several years.‘
From @Faris and WARC. ‘Despite increased awareness of behavioural economics in the industry, little advertising is shaped by using it. Could the future lie in Attention Economics instead?’ ‘A Harvard professor….recently published a paper incorporating behaviours into standard economic models. His thesis is that all these biases stem from ‘limited human attention’. Temporal discounting, overconfidence, fundamental attribution errors and many other irrational behaviours can be mathematically represented as functions of limited attention..’
From Politico.com. ‘Our freedoms made these companies rich. It’s time they lived up to their responsibilities and cracked down on foreign interference in our democracy. What Facebook, Google and Twitter Owe America.’
Interesting perspective. ‘A New Approach to Premium’ – ‘As the things to which we ascribe value begin to change, the notion of premium, of quality, of the sought-after is radically changing,…How should brands and designers react?’ Subject areas include – Androgyny In Design, Blended Spaces, New Adaptability, and Beautiful Pragmatism.
Missed out on SxSW Interactive? This Evernote link provides summariesfrom a number of the top talks.This from Evernote – ‘We’ve teamed up with SXSW to give you instant access to the best knowledge and insights from this year’s Workplace, Intelligent Future, and Brands & Marketing tracks.’
From Adweek. ‘Why brands must form an identity to retain customers in the voice economy. Conversation and compassion are expected of marketers today.’
From The Guardian. ‘The cover of NME was still coveted by bands right to the end – but for readers themselves, it was a different story. Ex-staffers, publishers and musicians tell the inside story of how a once-mighty media brand lost its cool’. Douglas McCabe, CEO of media research company Enders Analysis – ‘free isn’t a means to an end, particularly when translating a niche product for the mass market. In the end, its very soul seemed to have been lost somewhere’.
I’ve just seen two fabulous films premiered at SxSW. Highly recommend both as soon as they are available. The documentary, “The World Before Your Feet” tracks a man’s quest to get to know his city better; and “The Bill Murray Stories: Life Lessons Learned from a Mythical Man.” , taps into the joy of post-modern America’s spirit animal.
From Creative Review. ‘The BBC has returned to Lou Reed’s classic song Perfect Day to promote its broadcasting, this time using the track to emphasise the diversity of content shown on BBC Three.’