To some of us oldies that remember back to the Betamax v VHS war and the beginnings of DVD the recent sad news of the demise of old faithful Blockbuster came as a bit of a shock, I guess it was inevitable in this digital age.

It was mortally wounded in it’s last few years with tough competition from Netflix, Redbox, LOVEFiLM and the like, and the killer blow will have come from the phenomenal rise in web video, and people downloading from p2p networks.

The rise and rise of web video continues unabated. A few facts:
24 hours of web content uploaded to You Tube every minute
One third of all web traffic is video, by 2013 it is predicted to be 90%!

Alongside this rise of power come technical innovations that enable brands and agencies to be creative with video like never before. A great examples is the recent Tippex – NSFW A hunter shoots a bear! video that went viral.

The TED talk above is pretty inspirational, Chris Anderson says the rise of web video is driving a worldwide phenomenon he calls Crowd Accelerated Innovation — a self-fueling cycle of learning that could be as significant as the invention of print. Crikey!

“Data is the new oil” they say.

A nice talk by David McCandless on the benefits of visualising complex data, enabling unseen trends and connections.

A great talk by Rory Sutherland on TED about perceived value. A brilliant speaker, he discusses advertising and suggests that changing perceived value can be just as satisfying and effective as changing ‘real’ value. Look out for Diamond Shreddies, brilliant idea!!

Are we telling stories or are we just playing games?

So the biggest thing that I took away from Click London last year was how advertisers are having to address how they communicate to their consumers and the general public.

In the last decade the huge increase in popularity of the internet, smart phones, and gaming machines meaning there has been a complete revolution in how people communicate. In turn brands can no longer just shout messages at people they have to be much more engaging and reactive to audiences. In short brands have to be become useful to their consumers.

Lee Clow and Alex Bogusky (blog) discuss the merging worlds of gaming, computing, movies and social media and the way that advertising is being born again by becoming much more integrated and engaging.

Turning a ‘Monologue into a Dialogue’ – courtesy of Lee Clow.

Tomorrow I am off to Click London, hosted by Creative Review at LBi’s London Headquarters.

Tomorrow’s theme is – Advertising born again


Advertising is not dead, it’s just being born again by merging with the world of gaming, computing, movies, and social media – in short, advertising is getting closer to, and more integrated, with all the things that people are already using and appreciating in their daily lives. Nowhere is this more evident than in the digital advertising world. In order to become relevant in the everyday lives of regular people, brands need to enter the web that people actually use. With this in mind, we set out to explore how all the external influences will impact the creativity of digital advertising.

A full day’s activity and lectures given by some of the industries big hitters including James Hilton, Chief Creative Officer, AKQA, Johan Tesch, Creative Director, BBH, Nicolas Roope, Founder/Creative Director, Poke London, Matt Ross, Creative Director, Tribal DDB London.

Expect updates on how the day progressed and what were the main topics of conversation.

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity. Another great talk from the TED series of lectures.