OPEN

Love, love, love the TED talks (although I’ll not be hunting down the Bono sermon in a hurry) and this one is worth a look for sure.

I picked up on the speech by Seth Godin from Tom Hopkins’s blog who sums it up very nicely:

His argument is that in a world with not very much media, getting attention was a matter of marketing dollars. In a world with far too much media, it’s about getting and keeping attention by being interesting. We’re all, he says, in the fashion industry now. Brands must try to come up with new and exciting ways to talk to those customers who are most interested in them. And when this is done well, the effect is dramatic, as those consumers spread the word of their finding. He explores the word remarkable for all it’s meaning (not just interesting but talkable), and asserts that for product giants like P&G, safe products, average products are now risky.

Average is risky: perfect. And true…

The video’s a nice precis of Godin’s thinking if you’re not so familiar (and if you’re not you should be) and a nice 17 min recap of some core principles if you do…

I see reports of mega-budget TV advertising around airily nuanced brand themes (not the product just the brand) these days and they look to me increasingly like a sign of desperation. It’s harder to get through to people by buying attention, so: LET’S BUY MORE OF IT!

There’s nothing new, nothing useful, nothing interesting… just a hollow creative riding a great big cloud of money.