Scariest scenarios in marketing

So what if tomorrow the tried and true marketing techniques no longer applied…what if today’s harbingers of consumer marketing disaster materialized tomorrow in Zarathustrian proportions (shit hits the fan)?

A lot of these what-if scenarios are actually here, in practice among us, being tested on us, becoming marginally more effective as we go about our mundane lives.

AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

So as the PSA bunnies tell me, I need to keep myself aware of what’s going on so that I can Stay Alert, Stay Safe.

Here are the ten scariest scenarios in marketing:

10. Workplace advertising

Imagine, your Outlook calendar reminder pops up and announces the status update with your boss in 15 minutes. It also announces that “this meeting is sponsored by Fanta. Don’t you want a Fanta Fanta…” It’s a very real possibility that marketing will break through one of the final bastions of consumer invisibility, the office. Marketing in the office will not be subtle like before and you’ll be forced to confront brand logos, taglines, and jingles in company emails, in the lunchroom, and at corporate events.

Freakiness factor: 7
Likelihood to happen: 1
Total: 8

9. Continuing to pay more for green products

Imagine, sustainable consumer practices never really grip a majority of household buyers and prices for items like green toilet paper, organic cereal, and biodegradable dishwashing detergent remain much higher than for conventional, less eco-friendly products. The danger of this is that without a price incentive to buy green, consumers will never make environmentally sustainable buying decisions.

Freakiness factor: 6
Likelihood to happen: 3
Total: 9

8. A brand purchases your street and city block

‘My address? It’s 60 Starbucks Street East, Suite 500.’

If Dubai is selling naming rights to its Metro stations, what’s preventing cash-strapped cities like Toronto from letting companies name streets and subdivisions in new urban developments?

Freakiness factor: 9
Likelihood to happen: 3
Total: 12

7. Guerrilla marketers become brand terrorists

The year: 2020. The place: Toronto’s gritty downtown core.

Guerrilla marketers, cast aside as communications channel rejects have become an Orc-like subspecies, ascending from the sewers to intimidate and scare unsuspecting consumers with messages designed to associate fear with a certain brand. Companies employ these nefarious techniques as smear-campaigns against their competitors and to maintain their competitive advantage by attacking another brand through psychological warfare.

Freakiness factor: 9
Likelihood to happen: 4
Total: 13

6. Google sells or loses your data – for real!

Imagine all those Google searches you do for disgusting key terms. Imagine all those emails you wrote. Imagine all those addresses you looked up. All gone, or worse, sold to some third party. Google apparently does a very good job of maintaining data security and their mantra ‘don’t be evil’ is something quite tangible in the organization. But just think how much trust we’ve put into Google with our personal details over the years…

Freakiness factor: 10
Likelihood to happen: 4
Total: 14

5. Tiered payment model for online content

Rogers and Bell Sympatico have decimated the other players in the broadband internet access market and it’s a literal oligopoly. They now implement a tiered payment model in which consumers must pay more to engage in perceived ‘high-value’ online activities such as streaming, music downloading, or....gasp, blogging! Content can be payment-based too as the ISPs are able to actually see what sites you visit.

Freakiness factor: 6
Likelihood to happen: 9
Total: 15

4. The death of the newspaper and television

The last page is turned, the last word is read. The last commercial is watched, the last remote control button is pressed.

Televisions are finally turned off and newspaper presses no longer roll. This seems like an inevitable possibility considering the immense growth and democracy of online content creation and distribution. But what about editorial, journalistic, and professional standards? Is the demise of printed and televised media the death knell for these things too?

Freakiness factor: 7
Likelihood to happen: 9
Total: 16

3. Ads on your iPod

So music players are getting considerably less expensive because of smaller and faster processors and greater memory capacity. But suddenly you find that the reason you only paid $50 for your new 200GB iPod is because before you can watch the Sopranos episode you transferred over, you are forced to watch a sponsored ad from HBO. Before you listen to Hilary Duff's 'Wake up', you are forced to listen to a 10 second promo for downloadable ringtunes from Rogers Wireless.

Freakiness factor: 10
Likelihood to happen: 7
Total: 17

2. Selling commercial time in your voicemail

The mobile phone companies have finally figured out how to give you free and unlimited phone service. All you do is buy the phone you want and you’re set. Unfortunately, it means that your phone becomes a vibrating advertising tool from Hell. You’re subjected to radio commercials while you wait for someone to answer the line and you’re stuck listening to ad spots while calling your voicemail.

Freakiness factor: 9
Likelihood to happen: 9
Total: 18

1. Cell phones that passively track your whereabouts and proximity to RFIDs

This one is actually well on its way to full scale market rollout in some places in Europe and certainly in Japan. Your cellphone becomes a transponder and broadcasts a signal to the network letting service providers and marketers know where you are and what billboards you’re close to. As you walk by a digital panel on the street, proximity sensors activate and display an ad that is deemed to be relevant to you. You’re watched and marketed to wherever you go.

Freakiness factor: 10
Likelihood to happen: 9
Total: 19

So these are a few of my favourite fears. Some of them I actually think consumers might warm to (e.g.cellphone RFID), if marketers can figure out how to implement them unintrusively. Otherwise, be on your toes!

The five greatest horror movies

Enough about marketing. Let’s have some fun! Today at work we were watching the trailer for the new movie ‘The Strangers’. In short, I had to clean myself up in the bathroom after watching only a few short minutes of the clip.

I love horror movies. Tonight I wanted to blog about some of the best classic and contemporary horror flicks out there.

Horror movies have always been popular. But today they take on a new significance with a younger generation raised in a highly borderless and uncertain world. See, the classic mysticism that surrounded the horror genre (The Blob, Nightmare on Elm Street, Rosemary’s Baby) isn’t as resonant with youth as graphic depictions of violence or extreme nail-biting moments of suspense. But sometimes the in your face, visceral, gore-filled scenes are overused because it’s so difficult to sicken a young audience that has been desensitized to the brutal and sick sides of human nature. I've decided to look at the best horror movies from an artistic perspective.

Fourth Runner Up: SCREAM (1995). That’s right, Scream. It’s not as lame as everyone tells me it is, but it was the vehicle to launch the careers of a few vapid, big-chested teen stars. What makes Scream unique is that it reinvigorated the stale slasher horror movie subgenre. After countless ‘quels of Jason, Freddie, and Halloween, the slasher genre became campy. Wes Craven acknowledged the inherent campiness of the slasher subgenre and sculpted a movie that could still laugh at itself and frighten audiences out of their seats. Admit it…that white ghost mask was pretty scary! I was too frightened to include a link to the actual movie, so please watch this clip of the ghostfaced killer speaking Italian in a chipmunk voice.

Third Runner Up: THE EVIL DEAD (1981). What a hoot this movie is. Evil Dead is so twisted and obscenely scary that it’s hard to draw comparisons to other movies or place it within a subgenre of its own. Isolated cabin in the woods, car that won’t start, arboreal rape, Teutonic Satanism. It’s like making horror movie PB&J sandwiches, it’s that easy! Love the axe scene, reminds me of how I get along with my friends. Watch the original Evil Dead trailer here.

Second Runner Up: ALIEN (1979). Ooosh! This one’s good. Make sure it’s the original Alien or at least the John Cameron sequel, Aliens. Sci-fi horror hasn’t come close to reaching the peak that Ridley Scott set with Alien. It unfolds and reveals itself so slowly the pace is almost languid. Sigourney Weaver’s character did set a new benchmark for kickass female heroes, but I find that it is her character’s quiet frailty and fear that make the movie so engaging. Check out Alien Loves Predator, a pretty funny comic if you can’t stomach the actual movie.

Runner Up: THE EXORCIST (1973). Classic cringeworthy moments. Who could forget a 12 year old girl screaming such memorable lines as “your mother [knits socks] in hell!”? I love The Exorcist for many reasons: the score, the cast, the unrushed dialogue and pace. However, what really stands out in this movie above others from its era are the scenes which lull you into a false sense of security before rushing back at you with the force of a truck. Terrific movie. My mom always tells me that when it was released back in 1973 audiences were really quite upset. Although the original Exorcist is great, I think the Chris Crocker version is better. Watch it, the power of Christ compels you!

Winner: THE DESCENT (2005). Hands down, The Descent is the best modern horror movie. All horror movies should be this good. The movie flows and deepens as the characters descend further and further into the cave system. Unlike other genre fodder which debases the main characters or leaves them so intentionally shallow so that we’re less upset when their guts spill out, director Neil Marshall spends time exploring the dynamics between The Descent’s heroines - yes, all female cast – before letting the shock play out. In fact, it’s nearly a full 70 minutes into the film before the horror actually sets in. Up to this point, the suspense builds through intensely claustrophobic cinematography and jarring cutaways of shadows and strange noises. Watch it in the dark with the door closed. Did I mention that it has the perfect philosophical ending allowing you to draw your own conclusions?

Sleep tight.