“But Mum EVERYONE at School is wearing Red Shoes….”

Many years ago, in an effort to convince our mother to buy a pair of red shoes, my sister used that most persuasive of arguments: “EVERYONE else at school has them!”…

So, not wanting to permanently scar her little girl, and have her end up in expensive therapy in years to come, my mother did the easy thing – bought her a pair of red shoes. Unfortunately for my sister, Mum used to pick us up from school so very quickly found out that everyone did not in fact have red shoes – only two or three little girls did! So my sister got in big trouble but still had the red shoes!

Last week, I sat in a conference at GroupM China that had some very interesting and provocative speakers. But also a few cases of “red shoes” too. One of the speakers, a famous and often published author on the topic of digital behavior and social change, was giving us his view on the changing world of business driven by the power of the Internet.

Now I am no Luddite. And I am one of the most fervent believers in and observers of the massive change in consumer media consumption, attitudes and behavior driven by technology of all kinds. However, I was a little alarmed that I was hearing my sister argue passionately about the need for those red shoes again “because everyone else has them”, when a very quick check of the female population in the class would suggest otherwise.

User-created content was discussed in the context of a shifting ‘trend’ in the movie business. And one or two examples were given of this phenomenon to validate the theory. Examples of “choose your own ending” participation and micro funding of movies by many was shown to illustrate how the ‘old world’ has shifted to a new socially driven collective approach.  A quick look to Hollywood, Bollywood and Nollywood: the three largest film production hubs in the world would suggest that the old model produced about 2,500 films last year. The old model is still working over 1,000 times more frequently than the new. When does an interesting anomaly become a trend?

Another speaker talked of the role of games in our lives and the importance of video games in making the world a ‘better place’. Being an active player of various console games I listened with interest as to how my ability in shooting zombies or kicking goals made me better. I remain unconvinced, despite the research and studies quoted, because just like the red shoes story, I felt that the researcher had asked all the girls with red shoes to stand next to her – and actively tried to hide all the non-red shoe wearers away from sight.

That is not to say that thinking about how we can add a ‘game layer’ to a campaign is not a valid objective. Or that encouraging those people who actively want to participate in the creation of an ad or movie or whatever is again not a valid strategy – for those who want to participate. But let’s not forget the others. Let’s not create only for the leading edge consumer with time, money and technology, yet exclude the millions (if not billions) of consumers who may still access their information, entertainment and content in very traditional, slow and potentially ‘old fashioned’ ways.

And let’s not abandon the rigor and discipline of properly designed research of an entire universe of a target group, rather than the self-fulfilling bias of an expedient and poorly thought through approach e.g. “85% of people who responded to our online survey are very heavy users of the internet”… Oh, what a surprise! (Must get myself an iPad – I hear everyone at Maxus has one now….)

Neil.Stewart@maxusglobal.com