30th June 2018

“We and many other media companies will go from trying to find the silver bullet narrative of the future of advertising and being a services company now, to admitting that we will be a diverse business. We’re going to sell many different things. The ad business of the future will be dominated by the platforms…. branded content as a stand-alone line of business is going to go away.” NYT’s head of ads Sebastian Tomich: ‘The role of the publisher is to sell ideas.’ 

Mediacom reflects on selected trends and learnings that stood out at this years Cannes Lions – Gender, technology and transformation, Diversity, and Trust. Still in Cannes, an AI-fueled rendition of a never-delivered John F. Kennedy speech won the Grand Prix for ‘Creative Data’. The project, created by Irish agency Rothco for the Times of London, used artificial intelligence to stitch Kennedy’s voice into the speech he had been set to deliver on the day he was killed in Dallas.

Issues with trust and associated ‘reputational malfunctions’ have been in the press a good deal over the last few weeks and months. Here is my piece that picks up on this and looks at the related threats and opportunities affecting marketers – The End of Reputations? – Marketing In a World of Distrust and Misinformation.

Although I couldn’t make it, the Firestarters Event at Google HQ last week, looked like a cracker. ‘Learning From The Innovators’, – ‘featured people who have actually been at the coal face of innovation with clients, think about the implications of how innovation is changing, and what this could mean for the role of agencies.‘

‘Early in the morning of June 6, 1944, in the darkest days of WWII, 156,000 troops prepared to storm the beaches of Normandy. To improve the odds, Uncle Sam had equipped the men well. Among other things, each carried an M-1 Garand rifle, a first-aid pouch, a watch, and K-rations. And while casualties would be heavy that day, the Army also tucked a specific item into the men’s haversacks that would come in handy to those who made it off the beach: a Michelin travel guide to coastal France.’ Here is the story of how two brothers revolutionised the Automotive and Travel industries, two sectors that hitherto they had had no experience in.

SpinLaunch Inc., just received $40million to build a space catapult – ‘rather than using propellants like kerosene and liquid oxygen to ignite a fire under a rocket, SpinLaunch plans to get a rocket spinning in a circle at up to 5,000 miles per hour and then let it go…..’ ; and still in space…this is how many people we would need to send to Proxima Centauri (6,300 years away) to ensure that someone gets there.

Adweek’s Creative 100. A list worth dipping into, with representatives from Agencies, Celebrities, Directors, Editors, and Artists. 

From Oath: ‘Travel brands are increasingly transforming into “experience platforms” and with this shift, the concept of the consumer lifecycle is changing. ‘ From this category, this is how Princess Cruises keeps its focus on top-deck customer experience.

‘I was fortunate to have encountered a humpback whale with her calf on my first-day snorkeling near Japan’s Kumejima Island’ – here is Nat Geo’s Travel Photographer Of The Year Contest 2018.  Still with Nat Geo, this insightful piece from (friend of The Filter) Brand Learning is work a look – How National Geographic is creating a modern marketing machine.

This is rather fun. ‘Despite dating from millennia ago, Sisyphus and his eternal plight, Narcissus and his lethal vanity, and Midas and his deadly golden touch are still familiar stories today – these clever graphicvignettes communicate the timeless simplicity of the Greek myths.’ And here, a similarly engaging graphic approach ‘Hand of God’ celebrates eleven unforgettable moments of football history – reduced to their essentials. 

And finally – a 10 minute time-lapse of a 30-day nautical journey including the Red Sea — Gulf of Aden — Indian Ocean — Colombo — Malacca Strait — Singapore — South East China Sea — and Hong Kong. Best experienced with the music turned up and if you are looking for storms, check in at 4.09.