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June 26, 2006

Surviving in a New Environment

This years work theme for NSLS is “The Future of Libraries.” Our goal will be to introduce or members to new trends in leadership, customer service, and technology by providing our members with onlilne and face-to-face formats for discussion, highlighting best practices and professional development classes. The concepts of content, body of work, and authorship and which formats they are delivered in seems to be one of the challenges that are facing libraries but also other industries.

My ex who works for a newspaper constantly talks about the future of that industry. In a recent article that appeared in The Huffington Post,the concerns of the advertising industry are discussed. They are worried about how to keep “hip” and relevant in a world where people have increasingly more power over the content they receive. In other words, how do you make people want to see your ads when there are so many other video clips, podcasts and other forms of media vying for the consumers attention. I think libraries are in a similar boat.

Librarians must decide how to nurture the traditional goals and services of the public library while embracing and engaging in new methods of delivery of content. Reaching out to where our public is and keeping it relevant to them is a neccessity. I think the edges of the definition of “content” will continue to blur between different formats, methods of delivery and authorship. We know we have Wikipedia but, we also have sites like YouTube.com as competition/partners/sources in content production.

YouTube.com is especially interesting in its blend of commercial and amatuer works. I think it makes both categories a little sexier to the viewer. It makes the amatuers seem a little more professional and the commercial seem a little edgier with an underground/indie vibe. I suggest that libraries take advantage of these venues to do a little guerilla marketing. Wouldn’t it be cool if ALA or ILA could produce some “subversive clips” to promote the profession and our institutions? …Just a thought.

The Huffington Post

http://tinyurl.com/gdx6e

Ad Festival: The Rise of the Creatives

More from the Cannes Advertising Festival:

Advertising people love to boil a concept down to its essence, the memorable catch phrase that captures the heart and soul of a product.
Think “Got Milk”.

The prevailing theme of this year’s festival is: “Got a Future?”

Everyone here is talking about how the ad world needs to recreate advertising in a way that will embrace new technologies and engage the new breed of consumers who are more and more likely to be found getting their content on the web, on their cellphones, watching video games, or listening to their iPods.

It’s the subject of panels (like the one today featuring Viacom CEO Tom Freston on how traditional media companies are responding to the ever-fragmenting audience) and of private conversations throughout Cannes.

A point everyone seems to agree on is the need for advertisers to make their output more compelling. “In the old days, you could run crap, and it was inescapable,” said David Lubars, chief creative officer of BBDO, North America. Today’s consumers have unprecedented choices, “so you have to convince them why it’s worth their precious time to engage with your brand…”

One of the ways the big agencies are responding to the challenge is by elevating and empowering the creative people in their companies so they’re not smothered by the money people.

For instance, Bob Jeffrey, CEO of JWT has made Craig Davis, JWT’s Chief Creative Officer, his partner in running the agency. It’s the first time the ad giant has put its worldwide head of creative on equal footing with the top business guy.

At a cocktail party hosted by WPP (parent company of JWT, Ogilvy & Mather, Young & Rubicam, and many others), the company’s chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell, said that he’d only invited the creative heads of his ad agencies. “They’re the ones who are gong to figure out how we can compete in the new world of multiple platforms.
If you want to know what I worry about, it’s that: can we reinvent ourselves?”

While he spoke, Sir Martin was flanked by Neil “The Godfather”
French, the former worldwide creative director of WPP who resigned after making disparaging comments about female ad execs, and Robyn Putter, French’s replacement.

Despite the controversy — which centered around French’s (he says
joking) comment that women ad execs with families were “crap” because they can’t commit to their jobs 100% — the flamboyant ad elder statesman was clearly not persona non gratis among the WPP crowd. One of the WPP faithful was explaining to Michael Patrick King and me that French’s comments had been taken out of context by a blogger who’d been in the audience when he made them.

“Oh, those pesky bloggers!” I said.

“Let’s rename the Internet ‘Busted’,” King fired back, “since everyone will be busted on something they’ve said or done sooner or later.”

Discussing his role as worldwide creative director of WPP, Robyn Putter told me that the best ad campaigns “go beyond embracing a big idea and embrace a big ideal.” As examples, he pointed to Dove’s award-winning ads featuring real women comfortable in their own skin, and the far-more controversial campaigns for BP, which highlight the company’s openness to alternative energy sources. Putter was very aware of the charges from some environmental groups that the ads were an attempt to “greenwash” the oil company. “For the campaign to ultimately work,” he said, “the company will have to live up to the campaign’s ideals.”

The more people I talked to, the more clear it became that we really were witnessing the Rise of the Creatives. At one point I found myself surrounded by Putter, the worldwide creative head of WPP, Craig Davis, worldwide creative head of JWT, the creative head of JWT, London, and a few other creative heads from around the world.

As Michael Patrick King put it: “It’s like a beehive of creative heads!”

posted by Anna at 3:28 pm |

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