I’ve been thinking about open source advertising for a while. Okay, all of one month,
which is a long time for me, given my attention span issues. A few weeks back at
Barasti, I trotted out my opinions to a fellow Tweep at the Dubai Twestival. Try
saying that fast.
I was informed nobody is anybody until they’re up on a social media platform. I
would personally have to agree with that after checking into Twitter and Facebook
over the last few months. Social media did really flex its muscles in 2008, playing
host to presidential campaigns , credit crunch dramas, entertainment
buzz, big causes and pet peeves. Simply google social media/Twitter/Facebook to
see the kind of mass hysteria it’s generating in advertising and marketing circles.
The abnormally talented folks at CP+B showed us why with Whopper Sacrifice.
However, what’s even more interesting to me is how social media is indicative of
a very different kind of advertising animal.
The call for a different online advertising paradigm I suppose was set in motion
long long ago, (in Web years!) when programmers who between writing life altering
code hit upon the most amazing idea of actually sharing it.
Infinite mashups and applications later, we got widgets and wikis, Facebook and
MySpace, Flickr and Twitter, Digg and Del.icio.us, Youtube and blogs (whatever’s
top of mind right now made the list). Most people in the world who had an opinion
and some others who shouldn’t really have one, got in the game. And just like that,
ta-dah! we entered the era of Web 2.0.
Before someone writes me a really nasty e-mail and sends me links that I will never
look up, yes there’s a Web 3.0 and 4 and if it interests you, go here.
So is open source advertising = Web 2.0 advertising? In my opinion no, open source
advertising includes Web 2.0 technologies but is a bigger construct. Knock back
an aspirin. I’m going to use some big words I referenced in the last hour and explain
my theory.
In the last couple of years online open source advertising has referred to user-generated
advertising, whether these are home-made virals for brands or advertising generated
within a specified construct.
A couple of years later we’re now looking at the quickest evolutionary leap ever.
Thanks to platform independent technologies, modular shareable content and customizable
applications, consumers can create sophisticated content or the next killer application,
share what they create and edit what they want to be involved with. In other words
they create and curate their own brand experiences.
Sprint’s crazy widget embodies
the idea in miniature. Kraft does this spectacularly with its ifood assistant.
What are the chances traditional web banners and microsites lasting a round in this
match?
And open source advertising is only going to get bigger, pushing beyond Facebook
pages and widgets, to a communication model where ideas are modular, scalable, collaborative
and seamless across platforms.
It’s going to require a different way of thinking, where we approach communication
ideas the same way programmers approach technology ideas. Creating and putting an
idea or message out there that’s organic by nature. The more open source or customizable
the idea, the more it’s going to go places.
And frankly, brands that don’t go down the open source road in the next few years
really don’t stand a chance. This is not a sign of my expert analytical abilities.
As you will have already noticed, I have none. This is a reality.
Do strategists and creatives in the region see it? What are the risks and rewards?
Above all how do you hit the ground running with a model which by its very definition
is chameleon like? These are some interesting questions we’ll see answered going
forward. I really have no idea what going forward means, I’ve noticed it’s one of
those phrases you use to end an article.
Preeps76
is a digital creative suffering from periodic attacks of intelligence. The above
was not penned during one of those bouts.
For rants and raves please click here.