Posted by Joel Hladecek on Aug 21, 2008 in Interactive | 0 comments
EVERY INTERACTIVE CONSTRUCT MUST PROVIDE REIMBURSEMENT OF VALUE EQUAL TO, OR IN EXCESS OF, THE USER’S SELF-APPRAISED INVESTMENT OF TIME, ATTENTION AND EFFORT OF ACTION.
All the rules of economics apply to this system- though nothing physical is exchanged. In this economic exchange the User must perceive being the inordinate beneficiary, where time, attention and action are His currency. Whereas, promise and (not “or”) payoff of value are the currency of the Interactive content creator.
Ultimately value – and not the communication of value – is the light that attracts the moths in this system.
Some of you are thinking this is obvious. And yet, all too often, more often than not, advertisers do not demonstrate such an understanding. How often are we asked to “register” before gaining access to content of undisclosed value? How often does a click on a banner ad result in redirection to more marketing messaging? How often does “Click Here” reside, where rather, something wonderful that creates a sense of curiosity should?
This axiom operates both at the macro and the micro. On the one hand it is the foundation of an ongoing relationship with the user, and on the other it drives every unique rollover and click.
Every click or interaction represents a User’s investment- a prepayment that is based on a perceived promise, and must be rewarded with a payoff.
Not a tagline, a payoff. Failure to pay off every such prepayment is akin to thievery. No wonder users are so skeptical of most online advertising.
BRANDING THE PROMISE
Have you ever wondered why, on the one hand, visitors to Disneyland will go to such great personal cost to get to the theme park, and wait in line for up to 3 hours or more to experience a 4 minute ride? And further, why these same humans won’t give your proposition so much as a click?
Disney has done an excellent job branding their promise. They have consistently (not occasionally, or once) paid off the “users’” prepayment with inordinate value. Consistently, the pay off at the end of the line was “worth it”. Thus the willingness to prepay again.
What is the pay off at the end of your click? And at a higher level, what is the payoff at the end of all your clicks? Do you pay off with inordinate value? Do you even think in those terms? If you do pay off, have you done it consistently for years, and plan on continuing for many more?
There is an opportunity for every brand out there that is willing to make a commitment to paying off every marketing based click- for years to come. Should a brand take such a stance, it will be rewarded with a huge and consistent user response. Users will come to trust the brand. They’ll know that when that brand says “click here” it’s worth it. More specifically, they will come to trust the marketing. They will seek the marketing out. They will go to great effort to find that button to click.
One of the admitted issues here, is that advertising tends not to work that way. Campaigns are changed quarterly, or more frequently, few in the advertising industry contemplate multi-year initiatives.
And yet. That’s what is required. In order to brand the promise of your brand. Got it?
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Posted by Joel Hladecek on Jul 28, 2008 in Interactive | 0 comments
I have been developing Interactive work for over 15 years, and sadly, my son may never see any of it. That’s because we are living in what future generations will undoubtedly call: The Digital Dark Ages.
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Posted by Joel Hladecek on Jul 28, 2008 in Interactive | 0 comments
THE USER IS YOUR KING. YOU ARE THE SUBJECT.
The User is your King. You are the subject. Like it or not the User is in control. The User is the ultimate master. The User is King. Those of us who create interactive experiences must accept our lowly positions in the Grand Interactive Order, serving, amusing, and satisfying; ready and able to wield every ton of technical prowess and creative ingenuity we can muster to completely conform to each user’s unique interest, desire, whim and disposition. To delight the user when she grows bored. To shuttle the user to the very thing she needs or wants instantly- with nary a second spent indulging interests of our own. Don’t bow to this Axiom, and you will fail…
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Posted by Joel Hladecek on Jul 28, 2008 in Interactive | 0 comments
Some time ago, I found myself thinking about all our amazing technical advances – especially those that beg moral questions- and I began a journey that changed the way I approach technology, and changed how I think of humanity… and headphones.
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Posted by Joel Hladecek on Jul 26, 2008 in Interactive | 0 comments
The last thing the web needs – no, the last thing the world needs is another Blog. I admit that.
Or at least that’s what I thought 10 years ago. But a decade later we’re still struggling to advance this medium past the point of base comfort.
I had a brilliant roommate in art school who was an exchange student from Hong Kong. English was his second language, and he came into the country with very little ability to communicate. His accent was thick and his vocabulary limited. Years into his time in the US, his accent still just as thick and his vocabulary still limited, he admitted to me that at some point shortly after arriving he’d lost the drive to work on his language skills because he was getting by. He was functional. At least that’s what I think he said.
And I guess that’s where I think we, as members of the interactive industry, are resting at the moment. Glowing in our vague Web 2.0 awareness, we are functional. We’re getting by. We lived through a time of extreme and chaotic experimentation, then the bubble burst, and a lot of us got scared, and now we’re resting on the resulting knowledge base. We’re content in our current understanding of Interactive Language. It’s even reassuring after all that unknown expansiveness of the mid 90s.
Well, I’m not at all happy about that. From where I sit, innovation, real creative innovation, the kind of innovation that expands the language and changes everything, has cooled to a quiet drip. We’ve fallen into a process of dull incrementalism. And yet-
We have a long way to go before the children born today will cut us the slack we’ll want 10 years from now.
Before they look at what we’re doing with a nostalgic understanding, as opposed to the snort and rolling eyes I think we deserve at the moment.
In this nascent age of MultiTouch interaction, what have you done, what has your company done to expand our language?
I hope, as time passes, and I manage to extricate the concepts and principles I’ve been sitting on and researching during my years in this industry, I can participate, in some way, in expanding your appreciation for Interactive Language.
It’s what this blog is meant to do.
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