The worlds of media, advertising, marketing, branding, sonics, and technology are all interlocking more and more these days, and Scott G sees so many of these connections that he has to deal with them in little snippets, like shards of glass after a traffic accident.
OOMM #1 — NEXT GENERATION ACCEPTS FUTURE-TECH
“Some people were talking about what’s next for laptops and I said they won’t have to worry about it because soon, the computer will be stored inside your head.” The speaker was serious and quite matter-of-fact. No fear at all.
I asked what that concept meant to him. “You’ll carry the Internet around with you.”
Games, music and movies, too? “Sure.”
When I asked about advertising and marketing communications, the reply was immediate and just a bit chilling: “Your ads will zap straight into your brain.”
The speaker was 14 years old.
OOMM #2 — REALITY, MEET FANTASY
The announcement from News Corp.’s MySpace social networking site would make Pirandello proud.
What?
Okay, we all know Pirandello, it’s just that, well, refresh my memory again… (Luigi Pirandello, 1867-1936, prolific author, often on the subject of identity, as in his plays, “Right You Are If You Think You Are” and “Six Characters in Search of an Author”).
Yes! Of course, THAT Pirandello.
Anyway, MySpace intends to add pages for people who don’t exist. These new pages will be all about characters from programs on their parent company’s MyNetworkTV.
So if you (or your kids, or those crazy people in the Creative Department) are cruising around MySpace.com looking for hotties, you suddenly might discover a fictionalized, pretend, made-up, phony, non-existent person’s page. But with photos of actual people, often in various stages of undress.
Just like now, come to think of it.
You’re right: never mind.
OOMM #3 — BOTTLING IT
During a phone call with a friend of mine from across the country, we happily chatted on into the wee hours, touching on movies, ads, and people.
Near the end of the conversation, we got into one of those “can you top this” trade-offs about the greed and silliness of too many of the people in the world today. And just before wrapping up our little talk, she made a statement that really put things in perspective.
“Thank heaven,” she said, “for brown water.”
Brown water?
“Bourbon, baby, bourbon.”
