What we can learn from the mating habits of birds

At the beginning of March, the AAAA were kind enough to invite me to give one of the 5 minute Transformers presentations at their annual conference.  It was a distillation of much of what I've been banging on about for far too long and used a blog post I wrote back in 2007 as the main point - it's all about what we can learn from the mating habits of birds.

Anyway, here's the video.  Thanks to the AAAA for the invitation.  Part of me says it's time for a new schtick; the better part of me says it's time to put some of this into action.

Comments

[goodmachine]

Interesting.

Here's a similar argument with a different inflection

http://bit.ly/cVolzo

[Tyler]

Gareth,
I really enjoyed your talk and thought that your perspective on the difference between 'ad ideas' and 'ideas that can be advertised' quite compelling.

There seems to be an internal conflict at agencies between the 'old way' of approaching a problem and the 'new way' (of looking beyond the campaign and into more fundamental challenges). I think that many clients face similar challenges - it's easy to brief an agency with the assumption that they just need better advertising vs. better products.

But it's even easier for an agency to not challenge the product and just accept what they've been given.

Few agencies have the courage (or the revenue) to turn down brands that they don't believe actually help people. The problem is, many are creating the work that most people simply ignore (and some even hate).

Breaking this cycle is the challenge. And agencies that learn new ways of thinking, monetizing and creating solutions (vs. campaigns) will succeed.

[kala]

PERFECT analogy.

[Bud Caddell]

Grant,

Great talk, thanks for it.

I'd love to dig into some of the sources you've cited - mind sharing them?

I've been thinking a good deal about behavioral change, specifically looking at the theory of planned behavior - you can see a lot of advertising theory plugging in there, but the idea of efficacy, that a person believes that a behavior can be changed (or something can be overcome), seems like it can be tackled through digital interactions. Nike+ proves to people they can change their behavior by showing them that they're in fact doing it.

Anywho, thanks again, really love the talk.

[Bud Caddell]

My brain is fried today, sorry for writing Grant. Why did I write Grant .. I know your name ... Why do I smell toast?

[Rob @ Cynic]

I wrote a comment on the wrong post that basically said this post was [just about] worth the wait given you've been very bad at writing posts lately ... but I have another thing to say and that's that it's horrifying you have had to say all this given it's what the industry should always have been doing and - worse - what many of them have been 'claiming' to do for their clients for years.

No wonder the level of respect we have is lower than a snakes belly ... and it's all our own fault.

Great post, great speech ... just tragic it even had to be said.

[Gareth]

Rob
You would have enjoyed the silence after I spoke. Muted applause. Two people came to talk to me, neither at agencies. Guess I was preaching to the converted....

[Rob @ Cynic]

Let's talk soon and do something with APSOTW ... something that is not able to be evaluated in a month, but is a longer-term big project that DOES, rather than says. Sound good?

[Gareth]

Done

[Adam Ronich]

Gareth,

Just got done watching your talk at Boulder today. Wanted to bounce something off of you. We often talk about the end of the big idea and talk about brands being defined by their behaviors and not what they say.

I've been playing around with an interesting analogy from the movie iRobot. If you remember the program had three basic laws:
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law
A robot must protect it's won existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law

And with those three laws in place it allowed for the dynamic activity of everyday living, while maintaining a sense of order.

I wonder sometimes if this is where we might go. As we start to switch to more nimble, stackable creative ideas. Defining behavior might allow us to be active, adaptive and still have check off with our clients.

Just thoughts,
Adam

[jon]

Interesting, but I'm not convinced either bird model works...the problem for me comes down to the idea of attraction.

The idea of using advertising to attract people to a brand instead of using it to help brands manifest their affinity for and like-mindedness with an audience's personality, sense of humor or sense of worth feels to me too self-important.

In the digital age, the most compelling ideas don't come from companies or agencies, they come from Web users themselves. As such, the advertising world would do well to focus not on the beauty of the things it creates, but rather on how it can help brands more seamlessly integrate into existing internet culture.

Maybe the creature we should be examining is the hermit crab. What kind of shells of ideas and conversations can an agency help a brand find and inhabit? And how can an agency help a brand change its shape to fit a certain shell? How well can a brand wear its new shell, and can it make that shell its own? What can it learn from living in a new shell? Can it make some improvements to the shell while it's in there? And once it discards that shell, what's left behind? Just an empty shell? Or food for the rest of the community? Raw material for another to build on?

These are the kinds of questions that excite me...I wish they excited the rest of the industry, as well!

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