HEAD BLOG

I’ve a lot of time for Open Source. I’ve a lot of time for standards and protocols. Yet when it comes to advertising, the attacks on Flash have me worried.

The reason isn’t that I want to see Adobe continue to dominate the market, I don’t.

I don’t even care whether Flash gets adopted by every smart phone around.

I care because the debate over Flash vs HTML5 focusses on technology, not ideas.

Taking a look at how an iAd is created I have to say that I’m worried. Worried that these will take more manpower to produce, which makes them more expensive, or that they will be more limited because of their complexity.

And let’s just look at that word: complexity.

I use it in the sense of how easily certain functions in web advertising can be achieved. Flash is guilty of this also of course. The change from Action Script 2 to Action Script 3 has had the effect of making certain functions more complex. I look at some web ads and ask myself where the need for Action Script 3 is.

In the same way I ask where the need for style sheets is.

It all just increases complexity.

And that’s when we begin to focus on the wrong details.

Invariably the ideas get pushed back as the gap between coder and creative widens.

Maybe that’s the cost of freedom and certainly in the world of enabling information to a wide audience and retaining control of our data that all seems good and worthwhile. But in the world of advertising it’s not the same. I’d rather see a static ad with a well designed message than let the technology lead. Flash, for all its flaws, has two things in its favour: the reach to a wide audience through browser technology and the way anybody can use it.

As time passes and tools become available then maybe this will change but at the moment it seems that most of the people attacking Flash ads are doing so because they don’t like advertising. They feel that Flash enables it to be invasive and irritating (which it does). But that’s not an argument for changing technology, that’s an argument for changing ideas.

And that is where the debate ought to be.

Recently I read a quote about Postman Pat.

That’s right. Postman Pat.

Get to 40 and that’s how life pans out.

The quote referred to the updated version of the show, specifically how the more frenetic visuals and the inclusion of a helicopter were more suitable for “today’s generation of children”.

Then I read this from a review of Sonic The Hedgehog 4 “keep this from being a simple reconstruction of early 90s gaming”.

And something connected. Something about the assumption that each new generation needs bigger, faster or “better” forms of entertainment to keep them amused.

It seems to me there is some kind of disconnect going on here.

On the one hand we hear this sort of thing and see products moving at a completely different pace than they did when, say, I were a boy.

Then on the other hand we hear parents and grandparents saying how their kids were happiest playing with cardboard boxes.

You’ve probably heard that before.

I’ve also spent a bit of time discussing J K Rowling’s Harry Potter books. The conversation was spun around a similar theme – namely how the writer had to balance the needs of new readers with those of the initial fans. How, in other words, do you write a series over ten years and maintain your readership AND pitch it to a young audience who won’t be sticking around and growing up with you over ten years but able to access the final book as quickly as they want.

That’s an interesting target market.

I respect Rowling’s ability to do that.

We see similar process going on within video games where reviews are harsh for games on the grounds that they are “middle of the road”. Whilst there is no denying that some games (and books, and films, and music) are substandard, it does beg the question of where we draw the line.

Is it possible, for example, to create a product that is solid and enjoyable without it offering a challenge to more experienced consumers? Or do our children really have expectations above the level we once did as children?

In another review (of Megamind) the reviewer observed it would have been a much better film if the writers had included more humour for adults so that they are kept entertained as well as their kids. As though it wasn’t enough just to make a fun film for kids anymore without having the “adult” nods in there.

It’s a crazy, confusing state of affairs in which the “market” seems to have created rules separate to the needs of the actual audience. The perception seems to be that because older, more opinionated people feel that Postman Pat should be faster paced and include multiple murders* then that is the truth.

The same goes for every other form of media and none of it, as far as I can see, is backed up by any real research. At best it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy like getting someone addicted to crack and then saying they need crack to make their lives complete.

Sometimes you have to accept that it’s not your audience that is changing, it’s you. So, before deciding that your audience demands something bigger or faster, take time to ask the people who matter – them.

*This does not happen in any version of Postman Pat that I’ve seen.

The game layer can be dropped over anything we do in order to help customers engage with products, processes or people.

When Head First set up shop, it was on the strength of believing the approaches of each market specialty, from videogames to DIY, could and should engage in whole lot more mixing.

From the perspective of videogames it seemed advertising often took a back seat to illustration, as though the two disciplines were interchangeable, as though merely by saying that a picture was worth a thousand words actually made it so.

The sophisticated techniques, the considered messages, these were often missing from marketing strategies for the fast growing sector of videogames and Head First wanted to change that.

At the same time, however, we knew that videogames had a lot to give. Energy and engagement were just two things that the world of videogames had to offer every other brand. Sure, the big boys knew how to form a message but videogames… well, they could deliver it in ways that just clicked with audiences of all ages.

Videogames, we said (and still say) aren’t something you grow out of.

We understand the power of the industry and believe in it so strongly that we thought it was time to show just how engaging it can be.

Enter Super Twario and a whole new look at how Twitter can be accessed.

For a while now there have been claims to have created the first ever Twitter game but these claims are built around spamming rather than engaging and users often Tweet in anger as they feel cheated into allowing the service to broadcast messages on their behalf.

With Super Twario we didn’t want to engage with Twitter at all, we wanted our users to. By providing the platform (literally) for them to roam through their Feed in an exciting and, dare the word be uttered, an innovative way. Add to this a score system and you have engagement in a very real sense.

What Super Twario does is show how different products (such as Twitter) can be approached in very different ways.

Most of all though, we wanted people to see that Head First has some pretty great ideas.

They’re all singing from the same song sheet but when it comes to 3D I’m not sure I’m hearing them.

Everybody seems able to recall images of strange black and white folk in even stranger red and blue glasses. It’s a part of all our sci-fi childhoods along with transporter technology and blue skinned aliens.

Some things just won’t die.

Those 3D glasses have made such an impact upon every fan boy’s psyche that when it comes to getting a job and having a say in product design, the memory steers the adult, making the dream of 3D a constant in the lives of successive generations.

Whereas, in previous decades, 3D was used as a show stopping gimmick now it is becoming a game changer and every company in this dimension is determined to make it happen.

From super expensive TV sets to handheld gaming systems, the time of 3D might finally have come.

Where there’s a will there’s a way too much and we’ve seen every form of entertainment trial 3D as much ad they possibly can. Studios are scrambling to convert films to the format (stopping just short of the Police Academy series) and video games are all set and ready for it also. It would come as no surprise if we see a 3D Switchover being publicly funded a few years from now.

But beyond the pre-pubescent fascination with the technology (no doubt born from a desire to see naked ladies with depth) where is the real value? Is being able to see Elsie Tanner (she’s still in Coronation Street right?) push a pint of mild out of the screen really worth the awkwardness of wearing a pair of glasses that dull the image and thereby actually reduce the user experience?

And that’s what it’s all supposed to be about, right? The user experience. Not the continual need to create new products, however vacuous, in order to persuade us to ditch things like those old fashioned flat screen HDTV sets we bought for the World Cup. If we can persuaded of the need for something then the rest is just a PIN number away.

So will it change the way we tell stories? Probably not but then neither did the coming of colour.

I have a two year old son who sometimes pauses in his play and makes a show of stroking his chin or tapping one finger against his head before turning to me to say, “I’ve an idea.”

He’ll then gesture largely, with a follow-me motion of his arm. “Come with me Dadda” he’ll urge before leading me into the kitchen and pointing to the biscuit tin.

As ideas go, getting a biscuit isn’t a bad one. Not MY biscuits obviously but one of the drier, slightly out of date ones… well that’s a fine idea for any son.

The trouble is, having the idea is only half the battle. To make it work it needs someone tall enough to reach the biscuit barrel.

Of course you know where I’m going with this. It could be a paean to working with the right people, employing the right talent to make ideas work.

Only it’s not.

It’s simpler than that.

Lately there have been a fair few ideas flying around Head First. Some of them have been for projects we’ve been hired to work on but many have been ideas that some people might term as “blue sky”. These are ideas we think would suit a particular company (or even ourselves) as a way to open up a new revenue stream, bolster a traditionally quiet period of business or boost a brand into a new consumer sphere. Generally speaking the ideas are unsolicited but, so far at least, very much welcomed.

As ideas go, they are turning out pretty well.

But the other half of the battle isn’t talent, it’s courage. A great idea is just an idea unless you have the courage to stand up and risk it not working in the first place.

I love reading things of which I know nothing about. What’s more, I love reading things I don’t and can’t possibly understand.

Take this for example. A single wiki page outlining Dirac’s Equation. Do you know what Dirac’s Equation is? I don’t. Even after reading that I’m none the wiser. Not really.

I could flick through the pages of New Scientist (why new?) and marvel at how little I know of the world. How little I actually understand.

And yet I love reading these articles. They fill me with the urge to know more, to understand more because in everything I don’t know, I see wonder and beauty and I hear a call from the wild. I want to follow the call and witness the wonder and explain what I see to others.

And I know I will have to find new words to explain these wonders to others. New words that were not there when I began my journey for if they were then I might not have needed to travel so far to see, to
understand the wonders.

What a journey that would be. Begun out of ignorance and ending in wonder.

Ignorance really is bliss.