Lurching Towards Progress

It's easy to see how the Internet has had a coarsening effect on modern culture. Just looking at the comments section, or a walk through social media, could convince you that we've never been less thoughtful as a species. But for every trollish moment and churlish experience, other points towards enlightenment come to the fore. I thought I'd share a few with you here, just to encourage.

1) The end of gratuitous laddie embellishment.

I used to work in marketing for music instrument retail, and there was no more embarrassing part of the business than the periodic photo shoots and "booth babe" use. While it was defensible on a pure mercantile and demographic level, it also seemed incredibly limiting, since the only way the field was going to grow would be to, well, become more welcoming to the very people who were likely turned off by the practice.

This is more or less what's happened, since the Web makes the use of models pointless... just like in "Playboy." This week saw the news that two of the larger surviving guitar magazines had done away with the practice. With those sort of models available to all whenever they want them, adding them to guitar shots has become passe, and amen to that. Oh, and as a further aside? Walk into an MI store now, and you'll find a much more welcoming environment towards women, and a great deal of different sized gear for different sized people.

2) An inexorable force towards, well, freedom.

While the Web has done no end of ill for professional journalism due to the considerable issues involved in monetizing content, it's also a clear factor in the uprising against repressive regimes across the world. From the Arab Spring to the Panama Papers, from Wikileaks to (perhaps) small campaign donors mitigating the impact of dark money PACs in the U.S., the Web has been the key leveling factor in systems that were previously thought infallible.

3) Activism can be done 24/7/365, and from nearly anywhere.

Fifty years ago, if you had an issue with something that was happening elsewhere in the world, your ability to do anything about it required extraordinary commitment, as well as personal flexibility in one's professional life. Now, social media makes action, even if it doesn't seem terribly sincere or effective, something you can do at any moment you've got a connection. It's not a coincidence that an expansion of personal rights, social boycotts, and buy-one give-one businesses have all exploded in the past decade.

4) Data has never been better, and it's always getting better.

This falls right into the wheelhouse of marketing and advertising, but for me, one of the great parts about working in adtech is that the data is always getting more exact and more telling. From greater verification to more esoteric calculations and ways of thinking about the numbers, there's clear inspiration from analytic-driven fields like sports and financial markets... and, honestly, more creativity than you might imagine. That kind of thing is only going to keep growing with the IoT and mobile-first use, of course.

5) Building your personal brand, and crowd-sourcing, has never been easier.

Mostly because staying in touch with friends and colleagues is something we all just do now, because it's really no trouble at all. And as a personal aside, some readers might remember a column where my niece did a personal piece of marketing to crowdsource her expenses in fighting off thyroid cancer. This week saw the return of a clear prognosis, and the transition to far more appropriate points of concern for an 18-year-old, such as college and the prom. Progress indeed.

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

The IoDad

The IoDad Believes In Belt Holsters

How will the Internet of Things achieve true market penetration? By allowing consumers the ability to make their lives better, easier and more convenient... or by amplifying their original selves to levels that they were previously unable to attain.

Which is why, honestly, it's going to be Dad-driven.

I'll cut to the chase, because there's venture capital to woo. (Or maybe a YouTube viral comedy video to make. That's a pretty common intersection, actually.)

If you gave me the ability to:

1) Have every light turn off when someone leaves the room

2) Sound an ear-splitting alarm when dishes are left in the sink, especially when there's room in the dish washer

3) Turn off air conditioners and space heaters when there are no humans in the room

4) Record and play digital video clips when people (well, OK, children) fail to put items away, especially laundry, because laundry

5) All while calculating the expense involved and/or saved as a running tally, either to be deducted from an allowance or college savings account, with that tally...

6) Pushed to any available screen, via a Dad-only smartphone app that's on an old school belt clip, because nothing says IoDad more than holstering stuff on your belt

7) With the ability to auto-play speeches about the electric, heating, air conditioning or environmental reason why such things are important, and

8) Back it all up with a countdown clock as to when various family members will head off to college / military...

Well, um, just take all of my money already and give me this thing.

Then, take all of my family's money to take it away...

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Five Points From A Road Trip Vacation

Not if the kids aren't looking

A few points to share with you all from my recent vacation, as it loosely pertains to the stated life goal of marketing and advertising. We promise that more coherent and full-form work will result as we get back in the swing of things, assuming, of course, that you found the previous work to be coherent, and in full form.

1) Shockingly, South of the Border still exists, and will punish you with relentless outdoor advertising... that children will totally miss.

The tourist trap that beckons I-95 commuters, with the questionable taste in Mexican-American humor and the omnipresent road signs? Still doing land office business, at least in terms of outdoor buys. Perhaps the costs of outdoor ads in the Carolinas makes it a slam dunk, but judging from the impact in my own car with my own kids -- locked into phones, iPods, and in the case of my budding eldest child, a ukelele -- it's not a winning investment in the future. Only the parent drivers noticed, and we're not exactly the target market to pull over for that destination.

2) The Internet of Things is such a slam dunk for theme parks.

This year, we revisited Universal Orlando, because the youngest is very much into the Potter... and truth be told, the whole family is pretty much down with those books and movies. You can now buy your budding witch or wizard a wand that is IoT connected, which means it will activate various actions in the themed areas, which is pretty cool, even in beta. Soon enough, of course, the tech will allow a much more definitive experience than just the same thing that other kids are doing, and the day when you can use it to skip a ride line or six, well then... maybe you won't wince so much at the cost for a stick of your kid's own. (Oh, and the memories, of course. Those essential memories.)

3) Seven days, one hour.

My little family are not culture snobs; we enjoy all kinds of mass market stuff, really. But in the week we were all sharing the same hotel room, the television was on for all of one hour -- the crossover episode of "Supergirl" with a guest appearance from the star of the CW's "The Flash" -- and then went right back off. Mostly this is because I wasn't watching sports, and knew that on demand would have everything I missed back home waiting for me, but still. If you are looking for evidence that the next generation isn't much into tech that isn't personal, here it was, in microcosm. And it's not exactly a new development.

4) Mapping tech makes all of this so much easier.

GPS saved us hours with alternatives to main highways in both directions, and also made getting around town, sometimes in torrential thunderstorms, much less stressful. I remember vacations without mapping apps, and I'm so glad that we never have to have one of those again.

5) Old school fun still works.

As good as the IoT and craft of Universal is -- and honestly, we had a fine time, though not, of course, a fine value -- there's something to be said for more traditional approaches. Two of the other three days for us were spent at Fun Spot, a park where you can enter and park for free and ride attractions that don't take very long at all, and Wet and Wild, the first waterpark in America. (It's closing at the end of the year for a Universal rebrand.) No screens, promotional tie-ins, must-have souvenirs or cachet to saying we went there... but the good times were as valid or better, and the overall day, probably superior. And so was the board game we played in the hotel room as a family, the time we spent in the car -- necessary to afford the other stuff -- and the overall bonding. It's good to get away, and it's better to be back. Onward!

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.