I am a radical optimist. Advertising has never been more fun. Media has never been so exciting. Mass marketing is dead. Ideas are the currency of the future. Creativity rules. Permission to misbehave!!

sisomo is Sight, Sound and Motion on screen. A visual revolution.

• sisomo is on-demand, on-the-go ideas on screen – created by an Oscar-winning director or a kid after school.
• sisomo brings technology, marketing and creativity together.
• sisomo plays across the Family of Screens.
• sisomo inspires new formats, stories, characters and ways for consumers to communicate, participate and to explore.
• sisomo inspires memories through stories and music. And sisomo memories are compelling and engaging.

7% of Americans write blogs, 22% of them read blogs and 5% use RSS feeds. What do they have in common? All screen and no sisomo. Add sisomo.

• Video streams are growing exponentially. The number of streams viewed rose 50% in 2005. Expect an increase of 32% to more than 23 billion this year. That’s now a stream – it’s a mighty torrent.
• The average sisomo viewer online watches 100 minutes per month, up from 85 minutes six months ago.
• YouTube says people watch more than 100 million videos a day on its site.

The very human results?

• 77% of Americans can name at least two of Snow White’s dwarves. While only 24% can name two U.S. Supreme Court justices… maybe Grumpy and Dopey are the answer to both.
• 60% know Bart is Homer’s son on the Simpsons. Only 21 % know anything about the Greek poet Homer.
• 60% can name Krypton as the home planet of Superman. Only 37% know Mercury is the closest planet to the sun.

sisomo pumps Snow White, Bart Simpson and Krypton straight into the right side of the brain. An engaging story well told is priceless.

We are all paid-up members of the Attraction industries. Dedicated to making emotional connections:

• Fast, not slow; Innovate or die! Fail fast, Learn fast, Fix fast.
• Connectors, not directors.
• Inclusive.
• Inspirers, not managers.
• Full of noise, passion and fun.

TRANSFORMING MEDIA IN THE SISOMO WORLD

Here are seven ideas for our ever-changing world.

1: Start with the answer and work back

And the answer is always people, not technology. What thrills them, attracts them, inspires them.

• People are emotional. Neurologist Donald Calne sums up the power of emotion: “Reason leads to conclusions. Emotion leads to action.”
• People love to share. That’s why Chris Anderson’s Long Tail tells only half the story. It’s great to find your perfect song or movie. But it is even better to share it – and if a lot of other people love it, better still.
• People are taking control. Here’s a question: if people are over advertising, why do so many want to make their own? Because they get to be in charge.
• Current TV.com taps this desire for brands like Sony, iTunes and Toyota’s Yaris. The best spots air on the Network.
• People care. They want to make the world a better place for everyone. They want to be part of something bigger than themselves. Prove to them that you truly understand them and the things that they care about.

2: Step up to Lovemarks

sisomo will animate the future but consumers will shape it. Not advertisers, not manufacturers, not media. Consumers.

And they want something beyond benefits, attributes, performance and functionality. Beyond brands. They want Lovemarks.

From products to trademarks, from trademarks to brands. From brands to Lovemarks. Lovemarks are the future beyond brands.

• Lovemarks are built on Love and Respect.
• Lovemarks inspire Loyalty Beyond Reason.
• Lovemarks are owned by the people who love them, not by companies. lovemarks.com has more than 10,000 stories by people from over 100 countries. From flags and shoes to breakfast cereals and beer.
• Lovemarks aren’t just Irreplaceable. They are irresistible.
• Lovemarks can be everything that people care deeply about. Inspirational Consumers decide what’s a Lovemark.

3: Inspire Respect with Love

The Love/Respect Axis shows how to get the mix right.

 

The Love / Respect Axis

Low Respect. Low Love. Media trapped in the commodity marketplace. The traditional 30 second spot hovers here when it stands alone. Some online advertising is dumped here by click fraud.

Opinion. EBay’s online media auction exchange will turn its media partners into a commodity driven by cost and efficiency.

High Love. Low Respect. Hero today, zero tomorrow. Fads and infatuations full of fast energy and fun. The Paris Hilton Channel on YouTube has got to be here with Snakes on a plane.

High Respect. Low Love. Media that have trusted relationships with consumers – but still keep interrupting them. Search advertising has got be here too. Search may have earned $6.1 billion for Google last year but, as Rishad Tobaccowala said, “Human beings can never be captured in an algorithm, and Google only understands algorithms.” High Respect, Low Love.

High Love. High Respect. Lovemarks. Irresistible appeal across multiple platforms, customized, differentiated, emotional connections with consumers.

4: The land of and /and

The digital revolution is transforming marketing, entertainment and technology everywhere. The boundaries between media and advertising, content and products, creator and producer, audience and critic are dissolving. Everything is media.

No medium replaces another. Consumers want and/and, not either /or.

• YouTube is considering whether to publish a magazine. (August 06)
• HarperCollins Canada is launching books with sisomo trailers online (July 06)

Some brands get it too – Nike and iPod; Levis and Ipod; U2 and Ipod.

Your job is:

• Inspire all media with sisomo.
• Connect all sisomo media – seamlessly…. Light heartedly.

5: Keep up

Advertisers are changing fast. What they want from media is changing. Winning media get what advertisers want:

• Media that love consumers. Advertisers are past selling by yelling. They want to be welcomed as valuable, useful friends. That’s why you have to elevate consumer insight into foresight. You have the facts of consumers’ lives. Now tap into their dreams.
• Media that attract consumers to interact and participate. Consumers may feel starved for time, but someone is behind all those blogs, YouTube spoofs, MySpace profiles. When people are excited and involved, they make time.
• Media that experiment and take risks. New communications platforms mean new opportunities – not retrofitting the old. It’s not how a TV spot can be played on the web or a phone. It’s what matters to a consumer in that time and that place.

“We’re developing very different communication programs that are much more varied That’s why I think sometimes the media world has troubled figuring out our direction because it’s getting much more diversified.” – Jim Stengel, Head of Marketing, P&G

• Media that welcome consumers as a new medium. Word of mouth has always been the most effective form of advertising. It’s timeless. One friend talking with another friend – because you’d rather believe your friends than Brad Pitt!

FACT: Product reviews and ratings are the most used form of consumer generated content – and have one of the most direct impacts on purchasing. – Forrester 2006

• Media that comes out to play. Interactive, engaging experiences time after time. Our recent Yaris campaign included the first real-time multi-player game within a banner ad.
• Media that will stand up and be counted. Advertisers want compensation that matches results. We work this way with P&G. Toyota has just signed a deal with NBC. NBC must demonstrate viewers were paying attention at the time Toyota’s spots were showing, and give more advertising time if they weren’t!
• Media that are powerful connectors. Advertisers have to orchestrate a network of suppliers, media and technologies. Your job? Unleash the imagination and energy of all your partners. Take ideas across technologies and media. Dump silos and egos. Be connected, creative and seamless.

The 2006 Lexus IS launch shows how it’s done.

6: Join in the transformation of TV

For decades TV has been the master of sisomo. It is still the No. 1 global medium and the best selling tool ever. 2.5 billion households in the world have one.

TV is inclusive. Everyone knows how to use it. People love to watch. Any creative, ambitious person wants to attract as big an audience as they can. Long Tail or no Long Tail.

But TV is changing. It is morphing beyond the screen in the living room to screens everywhere. What people want to watch is becoming more engaging, more interactive, more irresistible.

Check out McKinsey’s latest report. A business pitch masquerading as a report on the effectiveness of TV advertising.

McKinsey’s see a future where TV advertising in 2010 will be one-third as effective as it was in 1990. The elephant in the middle of that argument? The assumption that TV is the same today as it was in 1990 – and how it will continue through 2010.

Jack Myers takes that elephant for a ride. The new TV industry will come to fruition in a decade when the full impact of digital, high definition, DVR, mobile, Wi-Fi and other new technologies will be felt. New distribution platforms will drive new business models as TV becomes part of the family of screens.

And advertisers will love it. Inspiring the most successful technology will be fantastic content with:

• More emotion, pace and interactivity.
• More live programming.
• More demand for local programming.
• Many more irresistible programme franchises. The packaging of 24 and American Idol are just the beginning.
• Breakthrough sensory technology.

7: Get up to speed

No one has a bullet-proof model for sisomo. There are very few ways to pre-test sisomo projects. sisomo is moving so fast it’s over before research makes a call.

Think YouTube. Founded in February 2005 and now part of the global culture, the global flow of information, desires and dreams. Their biggest contribution? They took the ME out of Media. Just as MySpace put it in.

The big questions are not founded in metrics but inspired by courage.

• Are you offended by parodies, mockery and spoofs?
• Do the lawyers patrol your trademarks?
• Is content control crucial to your business?

Saatchi & Saatchi’s answer is no, no and no. That’s why both Lovemarks and sisomo are open source.

We have to leap together. To have faith in each other. To be confident that our creative judgment will create connections and build desire.

Everyone is struggling with sisomo screen-by-screen. Don’t get lost in the detail. What’s needed are creative thinkers, problem solvers, and innovators. People who can connect ideas and emotions, technologies and deep consumer understanding.

Let’s reinvent ourselves as sisomo people.

Let’s execute brilliantly.

Let’s create innovative, compelling sisomo stories that people want to watch again and again.

And let’s do it now. Before it’s too late.