#TheInternet: Makes you who you wana be?
Posted by Dan | Filed under Blog, Ideas, Thinking
I have spoken about the ‘Social Reality Show‘ in previous posts; the human obsession with the famous and the new tools celebrities use to gain media attention, but also the desire some people have to be an Internet star. It’s all possible with YouTube and Twitter. What Katie Wore and Shit my dad says are great examples of this.
Thinking about celebrity Twitter profiles, Facebook pages and MySpace profiles; what is the motivation for someone to pretend to be a celebrity and post as if they were them?
Is the motivation that some people behind the screen of their computer want this attention, they want the attention that major celebrities get? I think this in some ways ties back into what I wrote before about the ‘Social Reality Show’. Twitter introduced a ‘Verified’ element to their accounts. A seal of verification appears at the top of celebrities profiles when they have been validated to help stop this. That is the hard stop tactic, but I think we need to understand why people imitate in order to stop it (or if it can be).
When you were a child I am sure many of you pretended to be someone famous, either when scoring whilst playing football or some sort of role playing activity where you were Indiana Jones or the Karate Kid? Does the fact people create fake Twitter profiles mean that they want to ‘play’ at being Michael Owen for a bit longer, living their unfulfilled football dream, or as a supermodel to feel happy for a few moments?
Are we just talking about a different form of escapism here?
On a side note, does this also tie into ‘Nowism’? People want the feeling, the benefits, the attention, and they want it now? Social media by its nature has given us the opportunity to do this.
So maybe social media has widened the number of tools we have to escape?
Tags: escapism, facebook, Social Media, Twitter
Wanky + Marketing = Wanketing
Posted by Anna | Filed under Blog, Ideas, Thinking
We Are Shift F7 were sat putting the digital marketing world to rights over a tall cappuccino the other day, discussing our bitter disdain for people who talk in marketing speak and acronyms. The many people who don’t actually know what they are talking about, yet manage to blag their way though by using big words (or shortened ones) and confusing their clients into thinking that they know best. The “I-have-just-swallowed-a-Marketing-A-Level-text-book-and-now-I-know-everything” type of person.
The discussion became heated.
I couldn’t get my words out quick enough.
I was trying to say “wanky marketing” and it came out as “wanketing”.
We laughed. Then we decided that it’s not such a stupid concept.
Too often we find ourselves surrounded by wanketers (as we shall now refer to them). We are pretty certain you know the exact person we mean unless, of course, you are one of those people in which case we’d rather you weren’t here thank you very much.
We Are Shift F7 are pioneering to stop the wanketing. Why should clients have to put up with marketing agency folk talking bullshit to them? Why should ANYONE have to put up with wanketers talking nonsense? There’s no point in talking about something for 15 minutes and boring or confusing your listener when it could be explained in two short sentences.
We Are Shift F7 promise only to speak in simple, clear and meaningful terms. And if we don’t, you have full permission to give us a slap…
Tags: communication, marketing, wanketing
A way of making our millions?
Posted by Anna | Filed under Blog, Ideas, Thinking
At Shift F7, we like our digital to look pretty. But we also like it when people come up with really useful ways of using digital technology. Like the Nearest Tube augmented reality iPhone application – two bits of digital innovation combined in a handy way. Very nice indeed.
Last weekend, I was on my way to look at a flat and an idea appeared in my mind. How useful would it be if estate agent signs contained QR codes that, when snapped by a passer by on their mobile, gave them the property details instantly? Very useful, I think.
With the increasing adoption of smart phones, and mobile technology like QR codes becoming more and more prevalent, someone should really patent this idea. But we thought of it first.
UPDATE: OK, so someone in NZ is already doing it. Still a nice idea though.
Tags: digital innovation, digital technology, iphone application, mobile, Nearest Tube, qr codes
We are a digital creative & social media agency.