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Alexa, what’s a blog post?

Alexa? How far is Mars? Who was Jean-Paul Satre? How do you make pasta? What’s 23x64? What’s my middle name? My location? My credit card number? My first-grade teacher’s name? My first computer brand? What I posted on Facebook on October 21st, 2011? My brother’s daughter’s friend’s uncle’s dog’s name? My deep, dark secrets? Things about me I don’t even know about myself? 

Thanks, Alexa.

Possibly the most scary feature of the Amazon Echo? The Echo Look, with a built-in camera, waiting to take photos and videos of you and your space, every day. 

Voice recognition systems and voice-activated technology, in general, are obviously a privacy issue. Amazon is eating your data up, and everyone who uses their products is contributing to the data pool that will shape the next echo product.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/amazon-privacy-shopping/

As they’re collecting your data, they’re also thinking about ways to advertise to you more creatively. 

Alexa, can you order me some toothpaste? 

Sure, I’ll order you some Colgate? 

Sounds great, Alexa. 

Wait, what?

Advertising on the Echo will be way more sneaky than it is online and OOH. Most people probably won’t even notice they’re ads, especially if they don’t care which toothpaste, paper towel, hand soap or olive oil brand they use.

In 2009, the big banks won’t fail because they’re not supposed to. In 2018, the tech industry won’t fail because it’s not supposed to. Look at the recession, and look at Cambridge Analytica. When we don’t pay attention and follow the rules, shit can hit the fan.

Are we doomed? Maybe not quite. As privacy gets more and more buzz, and as more and more people are concerned with the tech industry’s advertising and data gathering methods, the general public could be the reason the big companies like Amazon, Facebook and Google start to re-think the way they handle privacy issues. We’re not quite there yet, and it might take a few more huge scandals and breaches, but I have faith in mankind and I believe we’ll make a significant change in the interactive world of advertising and technology soon enough.

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Blog 4, Question 1

With agencies collecting so much data and the ability to do so continuing to grow - What information becomes public and private and who calls the shots? We live in a data generated world, but what might the drawbacks be?

It’s no secret that the Cambridge Analytica scandal was bound to happen someway, somehow. 

This is an important moment in digital history. The Facebook/Cambridge Analytica trial is the first real time that any kind of government had to actually step in and moderate a social ‘platform’ due to privacy leaks.

Privacy leaks are nothing new in our world, it happens every day. But what about the privacy leaks of almost two billion people? 

The data ‘leak’ was a drawback of having so much readily available data at our fingertips. The ‘drawback’ of the leak is that now much more people are aware of how to -actually- make their data private, and are therefore opting out of services, apps, social platforms, and many other things online that involve logging-in.

This trend of getting out of the social media world and retaining privacy isn’t dying anytime soon. As less and less data can be collected, they’ll have to find another way of harvesting information from the general public. I don’t believe the answer lies in hidden terms and conditions. 

I don’t know who calls the shots; I believe it will have to be a team effort, just like most things on the internet. The internet is such a vague, loosey-goosey concept that it’s hard to wrap your head around, and censorship is not the answer.

We currently live in a data-driven, data generated world; but does that mean we always will? Will this trend of cultivating information in order to target the people of the internet subside, or will we be constantly looking for more and more information, diving deeper and deeper until everyone knows everything about everyone? Will we hit a plateau in the amount of data collected, where everything after psychographics doesn’t matter? Or is data something we will always need because it’s always changing? Will Big Brother ever take his eye off us?

I think the real answer is that no one knows for sure.

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Blog 2, Question 1

Virality isn’t always a good thing, but hey– at least they’re talking about you, right? Well, maybe.

I think Jonah Berger was right in his STEPPS model; virality is fleeting, and if you’re going to attempt to bring some order to the idea, his STEPPS make sense and line up with many viral videos and posts we see every day.

However, virality also has a random aspect. We can hardly make sense of how things go viral because of all the variables associated with the internet of things. You just can’t– as all advertisers know– force something to go viral. There’s so much happenstance surrounding virality that there’s never any way to know for sure whether something will go truly viral. Sometimes, brands buy likes, shares, and comments. This definitely doesn’t count. If you have to buy your way into “virality”, you’re doing something very wrong.

What we can do is try your best to make something go viral on its own by putting into action Jonah Berger’s STEPPS. This, however, can only heighten the possibility of your content going viral. There are no guarantees in the viral world. 

Some content is definitely more contagious than others, and a lot of this seems to follow in line with the STEPPS. Things on popular social platforms like YouTube and Facebook definitely go viral way more than content that isn’t on these platforms (Robin once told us about the first truly “viral” thing he ever saw, which was a hard copy of a VHS that would go from hand to hand throughout his school). There are videos out there with billions of views, photos that have millions of shares, and Tweets with thousands of likes. So why doesn’t everything fo viral?

https://vine.co/

Although Vine is now dead (RIP), the content still isn’t– even after all these years (Well, two years). Vines recorded in 2013 are going viral in 2018. This proves that there’s something more to virality– maybe it doesn’t come and go as fast as we think it does.

This video was posted about 4 months ago, way after Vine’s demise. It has over 1.6 million views.

Spoiler alert– it’s just a funny compilation of vines from 2013-2016. There’s no originality here, and yet 1.6 million people watched it in the last 4 months. 

This one has over 6 million and was posted just under 2 months ago.

Does this prove that virality doesn’t matter? The same concept is proven when things ‘make their rounds’ on the internet more than once. For example, the “It’s gonna be May” Justin Timberlake meme goes viral every year at the end of April. 

The dancing reindeer gif goes viral every Christmas, and the pictures of creepy Easter bunnies get shared somewhere on my Facebook feed every Easter. This, along with more, non-time related examples, proves that virality doesn’t matter. Does new viral content matter when you can just watch the same YouTube videos every year when they ‘go viral’ next?

Whether it matters or not, Vine provided the perfect platform for virality (P-Public). 

It was the perfect place to tell stories (S-Stories), 

the perfect place to show the world how cool and interesting your life was (S- Social Currency), 

the perfect place to get the latest news on what’s trending and cool this week (P- Practical Value) (Will you teach me how to duggie, Drake?),

and to use the six-second space to squeeze in references to said trends, and even music, celebs, pop culture, and memes (T-Triggers). 

But the main use of this inherently viral platform was to post comedy (E-Emotion).

Mostly, the videos were relatable, which I find is another factor in virality. Relatable content seems to spread like wildfire.

Vine is a great example of the STEPPS model at work, and even provides a little more insight on what makes something viral; perhaps the model should be called STEPPSRFE; Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value, Stories, Relatable, Fast, and Easy To Understand. Less catchy, yes. But way more accurate. Things that are relatable, fast and easy to understand seem to go viral way more often than complicated, long and non-relatable content.

This is all that had helped Vine become so famous, so fast.

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Blog 1, Question 2

We’re constantly bombarded with more and more ads each and every day. 95% of these are ads that follow the same format, that use the same techniques for manipulation, that are trying so incredibly hard at something that should be so incredibly easy. Personally, I’ve always thought that online advertising is usually the worst kind of advertising– because it’s so easy to get wrong.

The challenge, when it comes to online advertising, is not how to make your banner ad stand out next to other banner ads, it’s to stop making banner ads. Display is dead, and if you disagree, I hope we can at least agree that it’s dying.

My personal argument for this is that display ads– static boxes, gifs that slow your loading time, promises of “special offers”– nothing about them intrigues me in the slightest. The creative is usually bad (not the designer’s fault, there’s not much you can do in a 5x5 box), the copy tells me nothing (”special offer if you click now”), and it almost always decreases my opinion of the brand.

We need to think outside the big boxes. 

Creativity in online advertising doesn’t mean a different background colour, it doesn’t mean making the logo bigger, it doesn’t mean using gifs.

It means engaging your audience.

But, actually engaging them.

Let’s leave big boxes and banners in the past.

New, outside-the-box, relatable, and differentiating creative is at the core of engagement– The proof is in the pudding. When online display ads were new, how much engagement did they get? A lot more than now. They’ve surpassed the threshold of annoying and redundant, and therefore have nothing more to offer. 

Truly creative work will engage an audience because of its creativity. Truly creative work will stand out among the smog. Truly creative work does not need to be intrusive, interruptive, or involve a dang banner ad.

Spotify does a great job at promoting its artists, and itself. 

http://marketingmag.ca/media/spotify-creates-a-soundtrack-for-canada-144741/ 

Talk about adding value to your customers– Spotify isn’t making big boxes that say “first month free if you click here NOW!” They’re making playlists designed for the 504 King Streetcar. They’re proving they care about their customers through their actions. 

Spotify seems to be always looking for more ways to add value to their customers. Their mobile and desktop UX quality is flawless once you’re in, and their ads promoting the app always relate directly to their audience. 

Not to mention their cheeky and culturally relevant copywriting, the ads directly promote engagement. You can go on Spotify and literally find this playlist, if you wanted.  It’s important to note, as well, that these ads aren’t digital. For a digital platform, that seems kind of backwards, right?

Well, maybe. But it definitely helps strengthen the brand. It takes Spotify out of your pocket and into the real world, which is important to a lot of people who think they are spending too much time online. 

The ads take facts directly derived from the people who use the service (data driven) and show them to others, creating a community-like feeling that you can’t help but want to be a part of. These ads not only drive interaction with people who don’t have Spotify, but also shift focus to playlists for people who use Spotify for music they already know, because on Spotify, playlists are the main way to discover new music and keep listening.

Creative? Check. Outside the box? Check. Not a banner ad? Check. 

Janelle Langdon