This is my compilation in nine clips , approximately 45 minutes of video, distilled from 6+ hours, documenting my experience of the marketing of interactive marketing to marketers. It happened at the Exploratorium in McBean Theater in 1993 and it includes predictions for the future (now).
It bears reviewing the planting of the seed that has wrought so very much harmful change so very quickly onto so many.
Andrew Hultkrans reads "Remote Control: The Interactivity Myth." to a room full of marketing professionals in San Francisco, 1993. (Article originally published in Mondo 2000 #11, p. 22) Via Mondo 2000, Andrew was apparently there both as a member of the media and as a representative of the coveted hipster youth/counter culture market in the heyday of the dot.con delusion for a lengthy panel discussion with representatives of CBS, Time/Warner, 3DO, Apple, Yankelovich, US West and Prodigy who collectively told the assembled A-list corporate marketing executives that a new thing, "Interactivity", would change their profession for ever; even what it might look like.
In a room full of marketing professionals in San Francisco, 1993, a representative from Apple Computers tells the assembled A-list corporate marketing managers that a new thing, "Psychographic Profile", would change their profession for ever. Has it ever! "We don't reflect the people we're going to be affecting with our marketing." This was 15 years ago and it bears reviewing the planting of the seed that has wrought so very much change so very quickly. I will be posting more video from the event with additional explanations and observations. I invite you to contribute to the dissemination.
--- Apple Rep "How many people here use VCRs? Was that not easy? OK. How about fax machines? Pretty good. Voice mail? Are we digital or what?
"OK. How many people in here feel that they're computer literate? Pretty - this is a-hey. OK. Is there a computer on your desk? Is it a Mac? 's OK. OK. How many peoples' VCR is going 12:00 - ? OK. I can't do it. I think it's the documentation. I really can't no OK.
"How many people have watched the home shopping club for more than ten minutes? Come on. How many people have ever bought anything from the home shopping club? K. 'ts OK. This is you're ? only ten million people are watching don't worry. How many people buy regularly through catalogs? OK. Do you use electronic mail in your office?
"You are not representative of America. This is ? we're going t"o get a real skewed result here I think uh. How many people have their corporate directory electronically available to them? K. Hw many people use CD's as way of distributing information in their office? Very few. How many people have a CD-ROM drive on their computer? xxxxx OK. How many people have a subscription and use on-line services? OK. So- we- xxx- that's interesting 'cause I think we're gonna get a feel for where the technology uh you know, is, uh again I'm not sure that we represent the group of people that we're going to be affecting with the marketing.
"I think we're far more computer literate than the population that we're going to try to bring our marketing programs to. / ah the consumer electronics- the hand held electronics have more and more power in fact I probably think that the Newtonª that we came out with give people as much power um as I use to have on my desk when I was programming, you know, in an IBMª environment. So what we're looking at is here's technology available today- there's nothing futuristic about it- that we could implement to start looking at how we can customize delivery of advertising and marketing to the individual and I definitely think what we're looking at is a shift in the continuum and and we're gonna I think we're gonna get into this as we go on from looking at just the demographics to starting to look at the psychographics- to looking at how individual people purchase and responding to the need of the individual people - the individual person."
This is not a rhetorical question, though it may be a bit of a buzz-kill. With a few edits for clarification, watch the answer play out in nearly real time and hear the well paid minions of our marketing masters cackle in glee as they bask in their immanent power over us. No kidding, the marketing of interactive marketing to marketers.
Mondo 2000 Writer "I - I take more issue with this sort of - the corporate image world - like The DisneyWorld of Liz Claiborne with lots of like - uh symbols, icons - you know - schmoozing, company hymns, etc. Lots of image stuff and not alot of......"
Apple Rep "I never said company hymns. (HA HA HA HA)"
Mondo 2000 Writer "That's just an ex- it's sort of a nightmarish extrapolation from what I meant to .... you're not too far fetched though. "
Apple Rep "Actually - wait a second. When you think about it, excuse me but I'm not the generation that walks around with somebodys'' label on my breast - you know, as a..... "
Mondo 2000 Writer "Nor I. You can't pin that on me. "
Apple Rep "My kids - ah more your age are the ones who insist upon having somebody on their rear end - somebody up here, you know - I... (HA HA HA)"
Mondo 2000 Writer "That's a chicken/egg question, though. Who - who told us to want that? (INSANE LAUGHTER) The people in the audience. (MORE INSANE LAUGHTER)"
U.S. West Rep "Advertising works. (HA HA HA HA) "
Mondo 2000 Writer "Advertising does work sometimes. (ha)"
Yankelovich Rep "ah - when you talk about choice, there's a number of issues there because - ah, Karl Marx had a term "fetishism of the commodities", and those of you who remember back to your political science in college days may recall that the concept behind "fetishism of the commodities" is that, at some point in time under a capitalist society - you probably think this is a strange thing for someone from Yankelovich to be saying - (Hee Hee Hee) -
"ah the choices are going to become very superficial and very meaningless never the less under some - some sense of ideological indoctrination consumers are going to be led to believe that these are very meaningful choices and we're going to spend a lot of time preoccupying and selecting among the choices.
"Building off a point that David made about the lack of talent and the lack of creativity, I would submit to you that if you take a look at the range and variation of most products and the range and variation of most media, 95% of those differences are within one and a half to two standard deviations. There is not the true type of choice out there and differences and -we and I don't think we don't have a right to assign the virtue to choice -ah based on the state of marketing and based on the state of media.
"Perhaps interactive media will create the true opportunity for those choices to arise - and maybe this is more of a philosophical point than a marketing point but as I keep on hearing people talk about choice you have to step back and say well, what types of choices are we really talking about? Does the state of the free world hinge on these choices and what are the real practical consequences of negotiating these choices in the context of consumers lives and in the context of consumer satisfaction."
Yankelovich Rep " In an age with 14 types of baking soda toothpaste and 156 lines of automobiles with 30 option packages on many of them, uh when there may not be some really specific product differences an a - an - an - and we - and we risk running into ah - ah a sense of commoditization - ah, you need that emotionail - emotionality, you need that irrationality and that will probably remain unless marketers are forced to develop different types of products with meaningful differences so -
" uh I think that's a very important point about the continued role for emotion - ah, and ah advertising claims that, in many cases, revolve primarily around creating a good feeling for a product or service and whether it's tapping into status or elitism or novelty or some sense of self - those things will not go away. They're endemic to the human condition uh and people will never become so rational as to exclude those types of criteria from their purchase considerations."
CBS Rep "I mean it may sound funny but it's really sad and that is that most of the people that are very large amounts of volume on home shopping is from socially dysfunctional people-ah- the fact is (HA HA HA) that that -that home-home shopping has an incredible heavy user orientation and the heavy users -ah- these heavy users are not just buying these- I mean, in the first place they- it's an on, to a certain extent it's uncontrollable, they get themselves into big financial problems, they over extend themselves doing this
"and it's nah- and it is -ah- not, I mean they do it, they uh they feel they have relationships with Joan Rivers, that they're (HA HA HA) like her, I mean (HA HA HA HA) There's a lot of strange stuff going there in the home shopping network (HA HA HA HA HA HA) When- if you look at what people watch on television you get the two forms of satisfaction that you get from watching television. The first one is the actual enjoyment of watching it and -you- it's either an emotional experience or - nn- you get information from it.
"The second thing is, of course, is when you-when you use that experience - ah- if you watch a particular compelling thing, the next day you go into work or you go - and you're now socializing with other people and you talk about this program and you share the experience with others and that adds significantly to the value of the experience. The experience would not have as much value if you did not do that. Then you also tell other people about the experience and you say "you know, this show was fantastic. You've got to watch this show." They watch the show and they come back and they say "You were right. That was great." You feel good because you've now put- some - them onto to something that's positive.
"That whole shared experience flies in the face that we all want individually tailored custom creative product in our home that is not shared by others. We cannot lose that without losing a very important aspect of the medium so the total fractionalization of the viewing experience will reduce that level.
"Now-one of the- nuh -Robert mentioned -duh- we actually - about the marriage-actually we-there is a very significant- in some research that we've done, very significant -ah- use of television is what we call- what people actually-and they actually admit this, by the way, pretense of communication. (HA HA) They - one woman describes it this way "my husband and I have been married for twenty years. We ceased to have anything in common other than television ten years ago and therefore I love my books and I read my books and he loves his things. The only thing that we can talk about is television and television programming.
"So there is a healthy aspect of this and there's an unhealthy aspect of this (HAHAHAHAHAHA) -ah-but there is that dynamic I think is - is - is very important so whether it's the master of your own domain episode of Seinfield - Seinfeld or the - or the ah - first sha- the first David Letterman show or Maya Angelou's speak - poetry at the inauguration those it- that- I mean, that's what television is all about and that is not- those are the still going to be the things that you're going to be watching. You may be watching them in a more convenient way when you want to watch them and that's great but essentially you're going to be watching the same thing."
CBS Rep "A lot of people, in talking about all of this sort of look historically at the transition from network uh from broadcast television to cable television and they say "Well, we've gone from broadcast television to cable television. Cable television got a 65% penetration rate making billions of dollars - this is the next generation and - ah it's better and therefore we should be able to make that transition." What they fail to take into account is that the cay - the cable television was - was in effect a subsidized ah development .
" It was subsidized by the fact that it was enhancing the already existing broadcast television and it had the history of being subsidized by tie-in selling. I mean, in effect, ah - you can't buy cable television on an ala carte basis. You can't buy just CNN - you can't buy ESPN. The history of cable television has been a monopoly , within your - as a consumer - I'm speaking as a consumer now - you have - you were dealing with a monopoly supplier in a subsidized business, an environment- uh - it is clear from all the people on this panel and all the people that are in this business- it is very unlikely that you are going to be dealing with a monopoly supplier. And there are going to be different alternatives available. - uh - that is, I think, good news from the consumers' point of view.
"On the other hand, there - it it doesn't have the natural built-in subsidy - ah it's that cable television did - uh because you're already getting a lot of television. I don't think you're going to buy this to get more television. You're gonna get it - buy it to play video games on an interactive basis. You're gonna buy it for the home shopping type of things and all the new things it can bring. The winners are going to win big but I think there's going to be some significant losers in that regard as well because this is not gonna be as protected a development process as did the cable television industry had."
Moderator "Any guesses?"
CBS Rep "As - as to who's gonna win and who's gonna lose?"
Moderator "Yes. "
CBS Rep "I mean I - I - eh - I can't bet against the telephone company (chuckles from the audience), I mean - I uh I feel that they have uh a tremendous advantage in - in this regard. But I actually xxxx the real answer is you're going to see all kinds of alliances - gradually people are going to be bringing it together and the weaker will give in to the stronger and uh it'll get down to a few major players.
"One thing that is going to change pretty dramatically as a result of this is audience measurement. Ah - what you're going to have is you're going to have now millions of people who are on interactive television. For those millions of people, we're going to know what they're watching all the time. That's part of the interactive setup.
"So the whole nature of television audience measurement is going to change because we're going to have this data bank of millions of people who are going - who's' viewing we're going to know about.."
Audience Member "What I'm asking is, what are we thinking about - freedom of the press - freedom of speech and access to these new high speed communication systems through these proprietary channels?"
Time/Warner Rep "Ther - there is no entity in the nation that has ever taken a more strong position on freedom of the press than Time/Warner - just as a - eh as a - com.... "
Mondo 2000 Writer "I think there'll probably be some kind of ah booming public access business - or maybe sort of low dollar to begin with - but uh I think, you know, right now - somebody said last night at the dinner that, right now, with the computing power that we have, and the software - any individual who has the savvy can be an ad agency.
"You don't need this huge group of people anymore. sayet - by the same token, soon enough, you know, you can be your own TV station - at least for a half an hour program or something like that - out of your living room - and so if people - you may - you may laugh but - not very many people may be watching me when I'm jumping around in my underwear - my half an hour of late night TV but somebody might be and I'll be getting a hell of a kick out of it. and it'll probably be worth my while. (HA HA HA HA HA)"
Yankelovich Rep "The newspaper industry talks about a young people problem but it's really not a young people problem. It's a societal problem that happens to have manifested itself among todays' current generation of young people. 74% of all households with children 6 to 17 have video games. That's phenomenally high. Just a few points less than VCRs. -ah so I agree that as - as the young generation comes of age they will matter of fact ah with perhaps much less reflection ah assume these skills and these orientations and modes of involvement and as the older consumers, so to speak, pass out of the population, they will be replaced by younger people to whom this is not even an issue."
Seen of the Crime
The 130 seat McBean Theater at the Exploratorium inside the Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco. To the right out of frame is the Booth where I lived for eight years presenting all manner of things related to Science or the Arts, and their histories and contemporary innovations and developments for a dozen different in-house departments across all the various arts and sciences we served.
This is the introduction I wrote in 2000 when I was first able to put the videos online with some amount of context. Even I recognize the onset of a Cassandra Complex.
EYE SEEN OF THE CRIME: This presentation includes audio recordings of what may be a crime being planned, in short, a conspiracy caught in the act. Prosecutable or not, these recordings, short as they are, reveal the planning for how to use the internet for crimes against our republic and our liberty not to mention our sanity and viability. Not every voice is that of a suspected criminal. Not every crime is in the books. No identities are revealed nor are they relevant. The matter itself is of paramount importance because it is happening now and it may, as they say, be later than you think.
In 1993, EYE participated in an introduction to the future of new media marketing. It was produced by a moderately large marketing firm for their "A" list clients. It's intention was to prepare the client corporations for "eCommerce" and the new tools required to command it. You may have heard about eCom. Maybe not. Maybe not much. Maybe not enough. Who decide?
Major branded corporations and hip technology publications provided supposedly authoritative representatives to sit on a panel for a discussion of the dream, the cost and the true state of the art.
After a morning of "soon to be state of the art" technology demonstrations, the somewhat tech savvy collection of jr. marketers and R & D managers from all those corporate clients were told how the novelty technologies of 1994 (CDRom, PDA's, cell phones, email, digital cable, etc.) they enjoyed as trend setting first adopters were about to become the building blocks of a new technology driven information economy, now sometimes referred to in the press as "The New Capitalism" or "The 'Old' New World Order." Of course, they, as first adopters, were on the cutting edge of what promised to be untold wealth, again, and dare not miss a value added first adopter opportunity to someday cash in.
Whatever seeds were planted into the not infertile minds of those marketers at that opportunity have been coming to the surface ever since. Its' first mutant manifestation now fully engulfs the media and influences everything that depends on the media for existence.....of course, everything. It isn't YET as insidious as it will be once it matures into personalized media services and automated psychographic Assessment, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation (A.D.D.I.E.). Then, we will be lost; utterly. For those of us who knew it would be so, it will be excruciating. The audio & transcription quotes are excerpts from a video document EYE felt compelled to shoot once EYE realized what was being proposed, what it implied and what might be going to happen once the sharketiers figured it out.
WE NOW live in a world concocted from the many schemes hatched at that introduction. These excerpted recordings are from the documented sounds of the hatching. This presentation is the continuation of mEYE efforts to expose the mechanisms of our many mental enslavement's. EYE've endeavored to minimize the indulgence of an editorial slant. EYE save that for debate, generally but ever so often EYE go nuts. The message is best that speaks itself. Any additional ranting is to be dismissed as indicative of the poor upbringing and likely failure of the hapless messenger.
Straight from the horses' ass, or was it out of the mouths of babes in the woods? Either way, here it is. Edited for time and throughput constraints.
I promise you this; this stuff is making our lives different in ways you haven't dreamed of yet.
If this stuff isn't soon analyzed, understood and mastered, expect there to be diminishing interest by the mass of us ever doing so as every individual view of the state of our world contracts through target self-interest and our sense of commonality, and any recognition of the system itself as threat, is lost.
We will live in capitulation to a non-conscious prison of our own interactive design. The future will be customized to encourage every comfort we can be conditioned to desire. No matter how genocidal the method to provide it, as long as it provides relief from burden of the knowledge of the getting of it, we will rationalize the pursuit of it because we were clever enough to recognize the possibility of it.
'Tis a pity the perversion of this appetite has blinded us to the repercussions of our indulgence in it; but it is often the case with compulsive indulgence to deny any responsibility for ones actions by blaming an impulse beyond reason as though it were an instinct or reflex beyond will.
Know this: the richer the rich get, the poorer those not rich get. The more power the powerful get, the less power those not powerful get. The more useful information the informed get, the less useful information those not informed get. If you don't make an effort to resist the trend, you perpetuate it.
There is no such thing as passivity in a community. Your indifference is a burden to the rest of us as you misunderstand your impact in our common ecology. Didn't they teach you anything? Did you learn nothing?