Last week several brands made the news because of their recent advertising efforts. Two found themselves backpedaling away from controversy while one embraced past mistakes to claim a fresh start. But this wasn’t just about creative choices – those are always subjective – it was about having (or not having) an understanding of culture, not just your core customer.

Hyundai had to pull a spot in which a man tries to commit suicide by inhaling the exhaust fumes from his car, only to be thwarted because his Hyundai has 100% water emission instead of deadly carbon monoxide. In a perfect vacuum, one could see the cleverness of the idea, but ads don’t exist in a vacuum and the tide started rolling against Hyundai when a blogger wrote an open-letter to the car manufacturer and their ad agency explaining her feelings about the ad. Her father had successfully taken his own life in that way. Just a few days later, a study from the CDC was released showing that the suicide rates among middle-aged Americans has risen sharply. The New York Times in fact called out that data shows “[M]ore people now die of suicide than in car accidents.” Adding another macabre element to an ad that shows a man trying to take his own life with the aid of his vehicle. I’m not providing a link to the ad in question because it has been taken down.

Mountain Dew also had to deal with a controversial ad last week. A spot directed by Tyler the Creator, the front man of rap collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All. Now, Odd Future is not everyone’s cup of tea, and Tyler’s twitter account is not for the faint of heart (very NSFW). They are however quite popular with Mtn. Dew’s target consumer so getting Tyler and Co. to put together a spot makes sense. Again, I’m not linking to the spot because it has been taken down, but it involves a police lineup featuring four African-American males (all played by members of Odd Future) and a talking goat. So, yes, it’s absurdism, but it’s also an all African-American police lineup, which probably isn’t going to go over to well with some people. The ad also features an bruised and battered white female, who is being asked to identify the perpetrator of her injuries. It’s in fact the goat, who verbally threatens her to the point where she refuses to make an identification. Again, yes, absurd, but a setup in which a white woman has been badly beaten but is too scared to speak up and she looks at a group of African-Americans (and yes, the goat) is a bad idea. Really bad.

Both cases seem to me to be ones in which the brand was a little too insulated from culture. They seemed to lack a certain awareness of bigger issues that are shaping the public discourse, and when you put something out in public, it’s no longer “just for our fans,” it’s quickly available for everyone to see.

JC Penney, the newest client of Y&R New York, had a different problem. After trying several new business ideas they realized that their customers were not buying into the “new JC Penney.” Their response was a video I can show you. Nearly 1 million views in less than a week plus a lot of earned media and massive amounts of chatter in social media channels. Was all of it positive? No, but this spot wasn’t meant to be a solution, just a start. It was a brand saying, “Hey we tried something, it didn’t work, and we value your opinion as our customers.”

I didn’t graduate from Wharton business school, but I’d wager you could probably make an argument for the changes JC Penney tried to implement over the last 16 months or so. But that ultimately wasn’t the point. JC Penney shoppers have a certain mindset and set of behaviors and whether or not those are rational or irrational is besides the point. Nobody wants to be told, “no, you’re wrong for thinking the way you do.”  So rather than just quietly make the switch, JCP stood up and owned their ‘mistakes’ and addressed their critics and fans in an honest and straightforward manner. When you put out a video that does that, you’re far more likely to get the benefit of the doubt.

It’s not always possible to see every possible interpretation of an ad when you are making it, but putting it through a lens that goes beyond the creative and approaches it from a cultural perspective can have a lot of value.

“It’s stupidity. It’s worse than stupidity: it’s a marketing hype campaign.”

Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software movement, in an interview with the Guardian on cloud computing.

Indeed. Digibabble quite often takes the form of the stupid, the inane or the absurd. Most of us can usually spot this sort of nonsense from afar. But there are other strains of digibabble that are more insidious, harder to detect and for all their subtlety can have far greater impact.

In his new book, To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism, Evgeny Morozov is on the hunt for those who spin the language of technology for, if not nefarious purposes, perhaps their personal agendas, and they certainly do so without a fuller understanding (or perhaps simply a disregard?) for the ethical implications of their actions.

Morozov, the author of The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, a New York Times Notable Book of 2011 and winner of Harvard’s Kennedy School’s 2012 Goldsmith Book Prize is not everyone’s cup of tea, as this parody Twitter account attests. He is ruthless in pursuing those who skirt the moral edges via semantics and Tim O’Reilly, Founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media is his target in The Meme Hustler, this fascinating long read in The Baffler. O’Reilly responds to Morozov via Google+, itself a worthy read as O’Reilly and his supporters hash out the various Morozov attacks.

The Morozov Offensive continues via this Buzzfeed piece which lays out his double-barrelled take-down of “internet-centrism” and “solutionism,” the type of thinking Morozov attributes to “TED talks, certain Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, and much of the tech press that covers them.”

But for all his philosophical muscle-flexing and seemingly air-tight arguments, Morozov himself is not beyond reproach. Farhad Manjoo, Slate’s technology columnist and the author of True Enough: Learning To Live in a Post-Fact Society rises to the challenge and engages Morozov in a lively, four-part give and take that brings some balance to the conversation.

The truth, as so often is the case, no doubt lies somewhere in-between. But on some level the truth is secondary, the real value is in the quality of the arguments made on both sides. They lift the debate above the all too common digibabble – and subsequent digibabble masquerading as commentary on the digibabble – and transform it into a deep conversation around the politics of language and the battle to own the semiotics of technological discourse.

Yes, words matter, and no, words don’t matter. Ultimately we live and die by the strength of our ideas, regardless of what we call them. Think what you will of Morozov, he brings up a valid point when he warns that we can’t allow the corruption of words to act as a mitigating factor in which ideas survive and flourish.

* This post first appeared here.

For the video entertainment fans out there, two pieces I wrote that were published this week:

From Host to Hashtag, a look at the 2013 Oscars

First, on PSFK I wrote about the Oscars. I touch on Seth MacFarlane’s effort as host, what some brands did, social media in general, and being a real-time content creator.

Netflix is betting big on binge-viewing.

For FastCoCreate, I took a deep dive look at Netflix and their original content play with House of Cards.

I love my job. I love it because I get to think about what incidents like last night’s might mean. Maybe this one is meaningless, but my hunch is that my friend Grant McCracken would see something interesting in it. Here’s what happened:

My 14-year old son was excitedly showing off a new t-shirt he just acquired:

That’s the shirt, but that’s not my son. My 14-year old doesn’t have tats.

So, kind of an odd shirt, right? Some dude with a full beard and glasses, and the semi-cryptic, pseudo-aspirational ‘achieve.’  The image is a representation of Jack Pattillo, Editor of Achievement Hunter at Rooster Teeth Productions. Yes, I recognize that ‘Editor of Achievement Hunter at Rooster Teeth Productions’ means absolutely nothing to you. Rooster Teeth are one of those companies that didn’t, couldn’t, exist in the previous century.  Their YouTube channel boasts over 3 million subscribers and over 1 billion views!

Rooster Teeth are one of those 21st century companies that is shaping our culture in stealth mode – at least as far as the mainstream understanding of culture goes. But here’s the thing that I really found amazing in talking with my son. As I did a Google search for Jack Patillo his LinkedIn page came up so I clicked on it. As I was looking at it my son noticed the “People Also Viewed” group on the right hand side of Jack’s page. My son pointed to every single person on the list, all Rooster Teeth employee’s, and said, “I know who that is.”

Producers, web designers, VPs, show creators, you name it, my son could have told me all about them. What sort of advantages does this give Rooster Teeth? In building a relationship with their fans, in recruiting talent, in building a larger audience? I’m not sure but when I was my son’s age the only employee at a company that I would have known was Tinker Hatfield, the shoe designer from Nike. Yeah, I was that much of a Nike nut then.

From a marketing perspective I see the vast, yawning cultural chasm between the current C-Suiters and the kids that are my son’s age. Next time you are talking to a brand manager ask them about companies/people like Rooster Teeth, Valve, Tobuscus, Minecraft or Freddie W. My guess is you’ll get blank stares. In the next couple of years you’re going to see an explosion of brands and media companies (there’s a difference?) that will catch those in charge by complete surprise. It’s going to be fun to watch if you’re on the right side of things, but very messy if you’re not.

This piece originally appeared on The Advertising Week Social Club on January 7, 2013.

Recently I read Umair Haque’s e-book, Betterness, and was deeply affected by the themes and insights discussed within. It was heartening to read as his cri du coeur more eloquently and powerfully articulated sentiments I have been feeling recently.

The book is a call to arms and manifesto for a paradigm shift in the way business, and society as a whole, values and defines wealth. The underlying premise is that by focusing almost exclusively on a financially-driven definition of wealth, we have not only forsaken a more holistic approach to the matter, but have not done a particularly good job of even achieving the financial definition outside of those that are part of the now famous 1%.

I work in the advertising industry, so it’s quite easy for anyone reading this to ask if, before adding my rousing “here, here!” to Haque’s criticism, I have looked in a mirror lately. Indeed, we Madison Avenue-types are the very engine of the more, bigger, faster, cheaper, now society that Haque decries. I get that. But I say the following not to assuage my own feelings of guilt, but to put forth the notion with an attempt to foment conversation around the following:

How can we develop ideas that are measured not by the three dreaded letters: ROI, but rather by the inverse – IOR: INVESTMENT ON RETURN?

What do I mean by Investment on Return?

First, let’s define the term ‘return.’ I don’t mean product sales, gross or net profits or even social media-influenced terms such as ‘follows’ or ‘likes.’  Ultimately all those things are the results of actions taken by people. Notconsumers or target audiences or demographics, but people. The goodwill and patronage of people is the return on investment that brands seek to attract.

So, what sort of investment are brands making on this ‘return?’ On people? Let’s again get clear on what we are talking about, this time pausing to reflect on what we mean by ‘investment.’

Traditionally, brands have viewed returns purely in the financial sense, and so view investment similarly. “How much money are we spending and how much are we making in return?” is the traditional viewpoint of ROI. But if now we decide to view return as equaling people, we need to view investment as something more than money as well.

Investment could mean all sorts of outlay once you step back from the myopic prism of the purely financial. It could mean emotional investment, educational investment, informational investment, social investment, community investment, time investment, political investment, advocacy investment, environmental investment –and the list could be endless if you think about it.

You get the idea, though.

Do some of those things require a financial outlay?

Yes, but that is secondary to the deeper human investment these other forms carry.

You may point to the charitable and philanthropic work that many companies do –  and those certainly have meaning. But I think there is a difference between donating $1 from every sale to a worthwhile cause, or selling your product in the color that represents support for a specific disease research – both of which are good things – and thinking about how you are investing in the very people that make your company a success.

How many companies measure that as they do ROI?

So, what role does the agency play in this?

We don’t make the products people buy, but we do play a significant role in the way people perceive brands. And now we must ask ourselves, in the current era in which we live, how much longer will simply touting the more, bigger, faster, cheaper, now approach be tolerated by people? How much longer will they be satisfied with nothing more than that from the companies to which they are giving their money?

If you believe, as Haque does, and as I do, that that time is nearing an end, then you must ask yourself the following question: How am I helping to position my client to succeed in the future? Not in a ‘how can we fudge this,’ ‘how can we merely change the perception,’ ‘how can we fool folks for another couple of years,’ sort of way, but in a way that truly shapes the very business of our clients? In a way that doesn’t just hype the notion of whiter teeth, fresher laundry and shinier floors, but in a way that clearly states that the brand is based on the fundamental premise that making an investment on the return is a critical pillar of their business.

The truth is, brands that live by the Betterness ethic know that being committed to people and making a profit are not mutually exclusive. Companies as diverse as Stonyfield Farms, Interface Carpets and TOMS shoes have all found ways to make compelling products that consumers want to buy, while also making a positive impact on the lives of dairy farmers, managing a gentler carbon footprint and providing footwear to impoverished children, respectively.

This sort of approach should be a boon for agencies as well as powerful stories can be built on such foundations. The ad industry need only look to the 2012 Cannes Lion Grand Prix-winning effort from Chipotle to see how rich this territory can be.

As is regularly pointed out, ours is a world in which the individual increasingly has greater voice and the collective public have shown a willingness and ability to publicly punish those brands who do harm. So why couldn’t a brand start an initiative like Apps to Empower?

It would (and will) be the wise company that invested (and invests) in the idea of IOR.

I saw Skyfall this weekend and was a little disappointed. I won’t go into great detail, but it’s the usual criticisms – over the top stunts, pauses while the villain chomps the scenery (oh for Christ’s sake, James, just shoot him). Yes, that’s always been part of the James Bond franchise, but as the world has moved on, in some ways Bond hasn’t. Nevertheless, that’s not really the point of the movie worth talking about.

SPOILER ALERT - While I’m won’t be going into the main plot points of Skyfall, I do want to talk about elements of Bond’s backstory revealed in the movie. If you haven’t seen the movie, you might want to just bookmark this post and come back at a later time. - SPOILER ALERT

Right then, here we go.

The movie I saw this weekend featured:

• An anti-hero…
• Who is an orphan…
• That grew up in a mansion…
• That has a secret, underground cave…
• Under the watchful eyes of a kindly caretaker…
• Only to grow up to fight ridiculous, over the top villains…
• By operating just outside the law…
• Often using an alias or secret identity…
• While wearing a custom-made suit, and…
• Reporting to a boss who sends him on missions (and was in the Harry Potter films)…
• Has a colleague who makes cool gadgets and weapons for him…
• Gets entangled with beautiful, dangerous women…

So, yeah, I guess I saw a Batman movie this weekend.  No, I’m not the first to make this comparison. This Summer, when The Dark Knight Rises came out, The Economist said, in referring to the Batman character:

He was James Bond in a mask—a secret agent with a Q (Morgan Freeman’s Lucius Fox) to manufacture his gadgets, and an M (Gary Oldman’s Jim Gordon) to send him on missions. (Meanwhile, in “The Quantum Of Solace”, Daniel Craig’s James Bond had become a brooding, brutal outsider who didn’t have time for jokes or women. He seemed to be turning into Batman.) 

More recently, the website Cinema Blend connected the dots as well, with a piece entitled, How Skyfall Proves That James Bond is the British Batman. 

But I’m going to take it a step farther. Rather than discuss the similarities between the two characters, let’s talk about what would possibly be the most anticipated movie of all time: A James Bond – Batman cross-over.  I’ll pause for a moment while you let that idea sink in.

Yeah.

So, before we start talking about plots and so forth, let’s just clear up some logistics. Bond is MGM and Batman is Warner Bros. But, a precedent was set with the 2nd Star Wars trilogy which was a Lucasfilm / Fox joint. Also worth noting, and something comic book heads will know – Batman had certainly done non-DC team ups before. One notable example being the Batman – Grendel books. And bringing unrelated fictional characters together has precedent as well: Aliens v. Predator (good example, poor execution) and the Wold Newton Universe show the way.

Whatever, we’ll let the legal boys solve those issues. Let’s get down to business. What would a Batman – Bond movie look like? I think the possibilities are myriad. The criminal empire of Ra’s al Ghul be investigate by James Bond. You could certainly imagine Bruce Wayne and James Bond being at a high society gathering anywhere in the world. Surely Lucius Fox and Q run in the same Black Ops covert war circles. Bringing the two together would be easy.

How would two “lone wolf” operators work together? Tough to say, but one can envision the two would have admiration and respect for each other, even if in the beginning Bond viewed Batman as a potential threat or enemy. They would surely have much to talk about on a personal level, with similar childhood experiences. Get some talented writers and an A list director, and I think this could be fantastic.

But more importantly, I think both franchises need, not a reboot, but an injection of something really disruptive. Nolan ended his Batman trilogy in a place that is prime for a departure, not a revisiting. And the Daniel Craig Bond, which had a ton of promise (and delivered) with Casino Royale, seems to be simultaneously sliding backward and digging for deeper understanding of the Bond character.