Shapes of things before my eyes?

 

The picture above is from Page 48 of the Capgemini Research Institute report “From Complexity to Clarity: How CMOs can reclaim marketing to build competitive edge.”

This is a glimpse into the not-too distant future, an illustration of what Web 4.0 aka symbiotic web or intelligent web might mean for the retail experience (if we have to call it that.) In case you’re wondering, the definition of Web 4.0 in the reference section of the report is:

an emerging concept that envisions seamless collaboration between humans and AI agents, as well as between AI agents and AI agents. The interactions become real time, context aware, connects the digital and physical worlds, becomes context-aware and ubiquitous. (sic)

Now, far be it from me to be all unseamless and frictional and suggest this definition is just a touch complex and repetitive to boot, but there we go.

I’ve got a number of questions.

How can an “interaction” become aware of context or anything else? Are these AI agents sentient beings?

Where is the brand in all this? I’m a runner, too and have been known to jog in my jaunty way into a sports shop. At the moment, I’m off Nike for what some would argue are childish reasons. But let me have my fun. I’m quite keen on Asics as they’ve been good shoes in the past. But I’m also open to Adidas as - rightly or wrongly - I feel that they’re local and I kind of feel emotionally attached to them. Especially as I had an Adidas sports bag to carry my school books which I now think was the epitome of cool.

Does this only work when you have let every single scrap of your data be harvested - health, sport, purchases? Does it only work when the human customer is assessed like a performance machine?

And what happens when the customer is having a crap day and the AI agent’s voice sounds just like his ex-wife’s and he’s in a subversive mood?

I’ll put together a more grown-up discussion of where I think these “Future of Marketing” reports are missing a trick at a later stage. 

But for now, I'm looking forward to this:

 A jolly piece of brand content from days of yore

Plastic Fantastic

As a manufacturer or retailer intent on doing Good as well as making a profit, you could do worse than using the UN's 17 sustainable development goals (aka 'Goals to transform our world') as a framework for action.

Announced recently at the World Economic Forum at Davos is an initiative from P&G that hopefully will have some impact on goals:

3. Good health and well-being
12. Responsible consumption and production
14. Life below water

... and maybe a few more besides.

Head & Shoulders in the '1st recyclable shampoo bottle made with beach plastic' will be available at Carrefour in France this summer. The bottle is made with up to 25% recycled beach plastic, (PCR = post-consumer recycled ) and P&G have developed this with recycling experts TerraCycle and SUEZ.  Numerous technical problems had to be overcome such as UV exposure and degrading of plastic.

Now, yes, it's 'up to 25%' and, yes, it's only going to be available in a limited run in France, and, yes, P&G haven't got the cleanest slate in other areas of responsible production (record on animal testing),  but I do think this is a great step in the direction 'part of the solution instead of part of the problem.' Hats off to P&G (which I can happily do if I use Head & Shoulders.)

Using beach plastic has also inspired adidas, who are co-operating with the organisation Parley for the Oceans to produce trainers using the recycled waste from the seas and beaches.

And, while P&G are claiming their 'first', there's a small but great brand who have been doing this for a while - Method.

If I was working at Method, I'd have a slight sly smile on my face about all P&G's ta-raaing about their Head & Shoulders bottle. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

The cuddly colossus

Who remembers the corporate advertising of twenty plus years ago? In the 1980s, corporate advertising on TV became de rigeur on the back of the many share offers arising from privatisation and deregulation. The classics of the genre were masterpieces in pomposity, with swirling clouds, rolling countryside backgrounds, classical soundtracks and sonorous voiceovers intoning "There is a company that..."

Working on the British Airways account at the time, our challenge was always to portray scale and humanity in one - our holy grail was "the cuddly colossus."

Times have changed, media have changed, film techniques have changed and people's relationships with corporate brands are very different. And this is reflected in the sort of brand films being made which could technically be termed corporate. Away with the pomposity, in with the human story - preferably that of the founder. The swirling clouds and rolling countryside scenes have been replaced with cute animation techniques.

Two examples come to mind - "The Lego Story" by Lani Pixels, a 17 minute film that has well over 2m views on YouTube, and the Adidas Adi Dassler animated film from a few years ago.

Maybe you can argue that the cuddly, naive animation approach is more fitting to a child or youth orientated brand, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some of the former colossi scaling down to Wallace & Gromit size.

This Hun for Hire

The world of advertising is probably more littered than any other profession with creative, clever and downright absurd ideas to bypass the normal recruitment process and land yourself a job.

One of my contemporaries at Saatchis, Paul Arnold, famously pulled off a similar stunt to the chap on the left with a sandwich board: "I'm P...P...P...Paul and I want a job in advertising."

And I remember literally begging a young man not to sever the end of his purple tie in a graduate interview. He thought he'd invented branded performance art for Silk Cut. I thought otherwise...

So I'm intrigued to see what one young Art Director is trying to get herself noticed - "Hire a German." On Kristin's website you can see her buying and building an IKEA desk with alarming efficiency. Kristin comes with a plastic budgie, a signed photo and rather fetching white socks and Adiletten.

It's probably not all to everyone's taste but I certainly admire her cheekiness!

A brand too far?

How many brands can you mix together to justify an extreme price premium? Here's my best entrant from 2010 so far - the adidas Originals Star Wars Collection of T-Shirts, Track Tops and trainers, which includes a "Darth Vader Superstar track top with cape and light saber holdall", should anyone be interested.

I've just about got my head around Lego Star Wars as a brand in its own right but just look at the launch commercial for this new hybrid.

We've got adidas Originals in there and Star Wars plus three other brands of the humanoid variety - Beckham, Snoop Dogg and Daft Punk. Isn't it a bit over the top?

The endline is "Celebrate Originality". I'm not sure if this is an ironic touch. Or maybe it's a reference to creativity as putting things together that haven't been put together before.