See Video: http://bizrapport.blogspot.com/2007/09/sa-vs-uk-2007-world-cup-highlights.html
The advertisement was shown just before the start of the England vs. South Africa Rugby World Cup 2007. After South Africa thumped England 36-0, I wondered about this ad...the connections advertisements make in the mind...and the timing of an advertisement's broadcast.
For different viewers, what connections would their minds make when watching this advertisement?
If the advertisement was shown at half-time with score around 20-0 or towards the end, what connections would the mind make then (some players were injured with blood running down their faces)?
The first connection my mind made when I saw this advertisement was "Gorillas in the Mist" - the film that depicts the true-life story of Dian Fossey who fought to protect Gorillas from poaching and extinction in Rwanda: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorillas_in_the_Mist:_The_Story_of_Dian_Fossey
True, there is the "choclate-sex connection" because of Phil Collins's song "Coming in the air tonight..." and enthusiasm with humor, but after the game when the mind still connects - what other connections may be made?
"Cadbury's Drum Up African Spirit"
The English continent isn't the natural "home" to Gorillas, it's the forests of Africa, although through colonization they inhabited English territory. Were Cadbury's supporting S. Africa?
Advertisements carry conscious and sub-conscious messages. Depending on demographics and the likely connections minds may make where those ads are broadcast, combined with the timing of events at the time of broadcast, the impact on the product or service can be quite far-reaching.
If simply downloaded from YouTube or watched on my blog and not in the context of the World Cup, it may send a different message too.
Gorilla DNA is 97-98% identical to that of a human - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorillas
Why do we as humans respond differently to a Gorilla playing a set of drums in this ad than a human?
These are interesting dynamics to consider.
Showing posts with label Brain Connections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brain Connections. Show all posts
Friday, September 14, 2007
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Brainy Brands, Emotions, and Eve's Apple - Brain Patterns - Useful in Social Media Search?
Yesterday, I went to Brighton. While travelling back on Southwestern Rail, a pretty young lady with long fair hair sat opposite me in the coach.
My eyes fixated on her adam's (or should we call it eve's?) apple - it was wobbling up and down. I thought: "This young lady's about to cry." Then I thought: "Don't make assumptions, look at her eyes...look for other signs." The eyes were slightly watery. But that didn't necessarily mean emotional tears.
Suddenly all I saw was a giant ONION. Dad's Army? Dixondale Farms? David Coleman? An onion on a billboard that said: "We know our onions..." The billboard was attached to some scaffolding as I passed on a bus between Tower Hill and Victoria earlier that day.
The brain's ability to associate tears with onions and attach memory is amazing. This is another area to explore. People's brains must create different patterns when connecting emotions, perceptions and memory. Those patterns may be used in social media search. Marketers have all kinds of avenues to experiment with especially with the development of biometrics and tools like fMRI.
Too far off? Look at Case 7 and 11 - http://ethics.iit.edu/eb/Nationalcases20071.pdf.
But ethics (simply a custom or habit - your thinking and doing) do have to be considered when marketing products and appealing to emotions because of social and moral responsibility to others. So I'd ask you to think about the contribution of someone like Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) - Genevan Philosopher of the Enlightenment and his socialist theory (social media?):
1. Society's negative influence on men centers on its transformation of a positive self-love (what he terms "Amour de soi") into pride or "Amour propre". The self-love is our instinctive human desire to self-preserve combined with our human power of reason.
Pride, on the other hand, is artificial and forces man to compare himself to others. The articiality and comparison creates fear, allowing men to take pleasure in the pain or weakness of others. Rousseau was not the first to make this distinction. The French moralist, Luc de Clapier, marques de Vauvenargues is thought to be the first.
Rousseau viewed society as artificial and held that the development of society, especially the growth of social interdependence, has been inimical to the well-being of human beings. Marketers have to consider the well-being of human beings when developing and deploying metrics, search strategies, and campaigns.
2. Rousseau published "Discourse in the Arts and Sciences" where he "argued that the arts and sciences had not been beneficial to humankind because they were not human needs, but rather a result of pride and vanity" (wikipedia).
He saw both as disciplines that created opportunities for idleness and luxury with the progress of knowledge that contributed to the corruption of man, and the overpowering of goverments that crushed individual liberty.
His conclusion: Material progress undermined the possibility of sincere friendship because it replaced genuineness with jealousy, fear, and suspicion.
3. Another work of Rosseau's is the "Discourse on Inequality" where he argues a number of points:
a) primitive humans were possessed of a basic drive to care for themselves and a natural disposition for compassion and pity
b) humans were forced to associate together more closely by the pressure of population growth, they underwent a psychological transformation and came to value the good opinion of others as an essential component of their own well-being
c) their new self-awareness was associated with a golden age of human flourishing - the development of agriculture, metallurgy, private property... (social contract created by the rich & poweful)
d) humans became increasingly dependent on one another which led to inequality and a state of conflict (the flaw of the social contract)
Conclusion: "...the desire to have value [brand?] in the eyes of others, which originated in the golden age, comes to undermine personal integrity and authenticity in a society marked by interdependence, hierarchy, and inequality" (Wikipedia).
Challenge for Brand Marketers: How do you create a desirable brand that does not undermine personal integrity and authenticity in a society marked by interdependence, hierarchy, and inequality?
In his "Social Contract", Rosseau advocates that individuals free themselves by abondoning their claim on natural right because submission to the authority of the general will of the people protects individuals from the subordinate will of others, and also ensures that they obey themselves because they are, collectively, the authors of the law.
According to the Wikipedia, he invented modern autobiography (isn't blogging a form of autobiography?) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau
Lists of Ethicists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethicists
My eyes fixated on her adam's (or should we call it eve's?) apple - it was wobbling up and down. I thought: "This young lady's about to cry." Then I thought: "Don't make assumptions, look at her eyes...look for other signs." The eyes were slightly watery. But that didn't necessarily mean emotional tears.
Suddenly all I saw was a giant ONION. Dad's Army? Dixondale Farms? David Coleman? An onion on a billboard that said: "We know our onions..." The billboard was attached to some scaffolding as I passed on a bus between Tower Hill and Victoria earlier that day.
The brain's ability to associate tears with onions and attach memory is amazing. This is another area to explore. People's brains must create different patterns when connecting emotions, perceptions and memory. Those patterns may be used in social media search. Marketers have all kinds of avenues to experiment with especially with the development of biometrics and tools like fMRI.
Too far off? Look at Case 7 and 11 - http://ethics.iit.edu/eb/Nationalcases20071.pdf.
But ethics (simply a custom or habit - your thinking and doing) do have to be considered when marketing products and appealing to emotions because of social and moral responsibility to others. So I'd ask you to think about the contribution of someone like Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) - Genevan Philosopher of the Enlightenment and his socialist theory (social media?):
1. Society's negative influence on men centers on its transformation of a positive self-love (what he terms "Amour de soi") into pride or "Amour propre". The self-love is our instinctive human desire to self-preserve combined with our human power of reason.
Pride, on the other hand, is artificial and forces man to compare himself to others. The articiality and comparison creates fear, allowing men to take pleasure in the pain or weakness of others. Rousseau was not the first to make this distinction. The French moralist, Luc de Clapier, marques de Vauvenargues is thought to be the first.
Rousseau viewed society as artificial and held that the development of society, especially the growth of social interdependence, has been inimical to the well-being of human beings. Marketers have to consider the well-being of human beings when developing and deploying metrics, search strategies, and campaigns.
2. Rousseau published "Discourse in the Arts and Sciences" where he "argued that the arts and sciences had not been beneficial to humankind because they were not human needs, but rather a result of pride and vanity" (wikipedia).
He saw both as disciplines that created opportunities for idleness and luxury with the progress of knowledge that contributed to the corruption of man, and the overpowering of goverments that crushed individual liberty.
His conclusion: Material progress undermined the possibility of sincere friendship because it replaced genuineness with jealousy, fear, and suspicion.
3. Another work of Rosseau's is the "Discourse on Inequality" where he argues a number of points:
a) primitive humans were possessed of a basic drive to care for themselves and a natural disposition for compassion and pity
b) humans were forced to associate together more closely by the pressure of population growth, they underwent a psychological transformation and came to value the good opinion of others as an essential component of their own well-being
c) their new self-awareness was associated with a golden age of human flourishing - the development of agriculture, metallurgy, private property... (social contract created by the rich & poweful)
d) humans became increasingly dependent on one another which led to inequality and a state of conflict (the flaw of the social contract)
Conclusion: "...the desire to have value [brand?] in the eyes of others, which originated in the golden age, comes to undermine personal integrity and authenticity in a society marked by interdependence, hierarchy, and inequality" (Wikipedia).
Challenge for Brand Marketers: How do you create a desirable brand that does not undermine personal integrity and authenticity in a society marked by interdependence, hierarchy, and inequality?
In his "Social Contract", Rosseau advocates that individuals free themselves by abondoning their claim on natural right because submission to the authority of the general will of the people protects individuals from the subordinate will of others, and also ensures that they obey themselves because they are, collectively, the authors of the law.
According to the Wikipedia, he invented modern autobiography (isn't blogging a form of autobiography?) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau
Lists of Ethicists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethicists
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Yodel Anecdotal vs Google Blog
When venturing into Yahoo! Corporate Information territory, you'll discover "Yodel Anecdotal" -- http://yodel.yahoo.com/ -- Yahoo!'s coporate blog in bright orange and purple.
Larry Tessler, VP User Experience & Design, posted "Design out of the box" christening the Yodel Anecdotal blog on August 11, 2006. Posts are frequent, almost daily, with Yodelers ranging from Blog Editor -- Nicki Dugan, CIO -- Lars Rabbe, CFO -- Sue Deckler, Jeremy Johnson -- Platform Engineering, to Chief Yahoo! -- David Filo and Intern -- Doreen Bloch.
The mix of personal voices enhances the purpose of this blog:
Yodel = to sing with frequent changes from the ordinary voice
Anecdotal = a short account of a particular incident or event of an interesting or amusing nature
Source: http://www.dictionary.com/
This blog, like the official Google Blog -- http://googleblog.blogspot.com/ -- stands out from other blogs like those in my blogroll that only have one or two authors. Having different company employees voice their experiences helps users learn about the company and its people.
The other benefit is fresh content published more frequently. One drawback may be coordinating & authorizing blog-writing efforts for publication.
When comparing "Yodel Anecdotal" to the "Google Blog", I found myself drawn to the Yodel blog because of the energizing colors. In contrast, Google's blog appears clinical and less inviting. Another reason the Google Blog isn't as appealing is because there's no "Comments" option besides the occasional "Your Feedback". All Yahoo! posts have a "Comments" option that extends an invitation to readers to add content -- appropriate in our user-generated content world.
Yahoo! Lists 24 official blogs and 2 unofficial blogs on Yodel Anecdotal. In contrast, other than Google’s “Inside Google Desktop”, no other Google blogs are shown under “More Google Blogs” -- the space is blank.
What’s the purpose of the Google Blog?
"Googler insights into product and technology news and our culture."
Yahoo! and Google use two different approaches in communicating the purpose of their blog. Yahoo! uses a creative blog title while Google uses their company name followed by this one-liner spelling out their Blog’s purpose.
In their own right, both Yodel Anecdotal and Google Blog are effective in communicating messages, but which blog appeals more to this century’s users and why?
Larry Tessler, VP User Experience & Design, posted "Design out of the box" christening the Yodel Anecdotal blog on August 11, 2006. Posts are frequent, almost daily, with Yodelers ranging from Blog Editor -- Nicki Dugan, CIO -- Lars Rabbe, CFO -- Sue Deckler, Jeremy Johnson -- Platform Engineering, to Chief Yahoo! -- David Filo and Intern -- Doreen Bloch.
The mix of personal voices enhances the purpose of this blog:
Yodel = to sing with frequent changes from the ordinary voice
Anecdotal = a short account of a particular incident or event of an interesting or amusing nature
Source: http://www.dictionary.com/
This blog, like the official Google Blog -- http://googleblog.blogspot.com/ -- stands out from other blogs like those in my blogroll that only have one or two authors. Having different company employees voice their experiences helps users learn about the company and its people.
The other benefit is fresh content published more frequently. One drawback may be coordinating & authorizing blog-writing efforts for publication.
When comparing "Yodel Anecdotal" to the "Google Blog", I found myself drawn to the Yodel blog because of the energizing colors. In contrast, Google's blog appears clinical and less inviting. Another reason the Google Blog isn't as appealing is because there's no "Comments" option besides the occasional "Your Feedback". All Yahoo! posts have a "Comments" option that extends an invitation to readers to add content -- appropriate in our user-generated content world.
Yahoo! Lists 24 official blogs and 2 unofficial blogs on Yodel Anecdotal. In contrast, other than Google’s “Inside Google Desktop”, no other Google blogs are shown under “More Google Blogs” -- the space is blank.
What’s the purpose of the Google Blog?
"Googler insights into product and technology news and our culture."
Yahoo! and Google use two different approaches in communicating the purpose of their blog. Yahoo! uses a creative blog title while Google uses their company name followed by this one-liner spelling out their Blog’s purpose.
In their own right, both Yodel Anecdotal and Google Blog are effective in communicating messages, but which blog appeals more to this century’s users and why?
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