Nightshift

David Pugh-Jones

Thanks for the intro Marc and with ‘perception’ being the operative word let’s start by covering this off from a consumer versus advertising standpoint.

Firstly a brief intro into what I do for Microsoft, as the Creative Strategist my role is to evangelise creativity and innovation online across the portfolio of products we have including the likes of the MSN portal right through to presenting the future of digital advertising. And the cherry on the top is to communicate and understand the current media landscape, the creative agencies ecosystems and our clients advertising demands, ensuring we are truly competitive with our concepts, ideas, solutions and offerings. Now breathe. A bit of a mouthful I know but we like a challenge here!

Now back to this perception thing - If you work in advertising, and it doesn’t really matter what medium you’re in - could be digital, TV, mobile, outdoor you name it, you usually get sucked into your own ‘advertising platform bubble’ (I know you know what I’m talking about) wearing these rose tinted glasses and looking out from within believing every man and his dog gets this advertising thang completely in your medium..Well unfortunately the majority really don’t and here’s the biggest problem. Until we realise that consumers out there still don’t fully understand the ethos and objective of content or surroundings and ads working in harmony together then there will always be a consumer backlash to ads being force fed down ‘Joe Publics’ throats.

Any suggestions welcome? In the meantime I’ll give mine. Changing people’s perception of advertising is simple surely! Make it engaging, exciting, enticing, experimental, educational, humorous, different, personable, relevant and without a doubt original. I would say innovative too but after Fernanda Romano’s (Creative Director @ JWT London) recent quip in Cannes ‘Innovation is an overused word in our industry’ I’ll leave that one out this time! Unless of course you’re willing to create an ad that can actually do this and there have been a mere handful that I can remember in the last decade of my time in digital that have combined all.

Picking up on one of these important factors is making it relevant. For me it has got to be challenging for top spot. I’d love to see brands and products market to me that completely fit in with my lifestyle and would be more than happy to share personal information to ensure these companies could find and market to me even more effectively. I’m not on my own here and surely this is the future of advertising? Many would disagree that sharing personal information is, well too personal and already done in a small way today but think about it for a minute…brands and products you actually want to see send you information and content that you’re really interested in. Hello am I missing something here, is this not just obvious?!

So if we are as perceptive as we think about consumers needs then maybe we should consider asking those close to our hearts once in a while what they think! Recently discussing all things new in online with my Father in law he mentioned there weren’t many brands that successfully targeted his age group? Don’t mention Saga Holidays please! And come to think of it he’s actually right. He loves his SAAB, his BOSE speakers, his Apple Mac and his IPod - all iconic brands and very much targeted to a much younger audience. Do these brands specifically market in any medium to reach this switched on tech savvy target older generation? I read recently ‘Silver Surfers’ as I like to call them, are the fasting growing audience online and yes they already have a plethora of brands that they’ve grown up with and love but in actual fact they are crying out for cool and relevant products that really do innovate and excite them that make them feel warm and fuzzy inside.

I’ll stop ranting for now and in my next post share some v cool stuff we’re up to here including the use of Silverlight. I also hardly mentioned the recent Cannes Advertising Festival so stay tuned for a much shorter but informative entry next time…

David Pugh-Jones