Monday, April 4: Anders Sjostedt - "F*CK DIGITAL"

UPDATE: Video from Anders' presentation is embedded at the end of this article.

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Join us for the third session of Conversations About The Future Of Advertising on Monday, April 4, 2011 when we welcome Hyper Island USA Managing Director Anders Sjostedt (@anderssjostedt).

Based on Hyper Island's very recent experience counseling marketing and ad agency executives, it's easy to understand why agencies express worries their digital efforts aren’t sufficient. In fact, whole floors of agency executives hope to retire—without really having to care about all that new technology stuff. The sentimentally inclined lament the loss of art and beauty in their work, often laying the blame on data, measurements and Facebook chats.

Meanwhile, CMOs are equally worried they’re not able to ask the right questions when being presented with Google search optimization strategies, that they don’t know how to trust the increasing flurry of agencies that advise them through more fragmented channels.

What most agency and marketing leaders have in common is that they really just want the whole digital thing to go away.

But there is still room for beauty and enchantment, argues Sjostedt. Everything doesn’t have to be squeezed into 140 characters. Digital is not the message.

What digital does is change the way societies, humans, and consumers interact. We have to build our organizations accordingly. Creativity doesn’t have to suffer, but be sure, both you and your organization will have to get ready for a serious digital, uhm, f*ck.

Based in Sweden, Hyper Island is a global leader in training within the digital/interactive field. As the Managing Director of Hyper Island USA, Anders Sjostedt is in charge of building and expanding the organization throughout the US and heading the company’s Global Business Development. Previously, Anders was Director at Swedish Creative Industries and CEO of Sweden's largest business incubator, Minc.

This event is free. No RSVP required. Just show up!

Like our previous 17 speakers, Anders will appear at the Fine Line Music Cafe, 318 First Avenue North in Minneapolis.

Doors open at 5:15 p.m. Ander's presentation starts at 6:00 p.m.

Many thanks to MIMA and MCAD for their generous sponsorship!

What do you think about Fast Company's "The future of advertising?"

The most recent issue of Fast Company magazine is on the street. We were excited to see Danielle Sack's piece titled, "The Future of Advertising." Good fodder here for those of you beginning to think about the 2011 edition of CATFOA.

A couple of comments stick out for us. How about you?

"'The irony is that while there have never been more ways to reach consumers, it's never been harder to connect with consumers,' explains (Brad) Jakeman, chief creative officer at Activision. The death of mass marketing means the end of lazy marketing. At agencies, the new norm is doing exponentially complex work. Think of the 200 Old Spice YouTube videos whipped up by Wieden+Kennedy in 48 hours. 'Creating more work for less money is the big paradox,' says Matt Howell, president of the Boston agency Modernista."

Howell's quote is likely the most telling. It's noble to draft the new treatise and brave the edge, but ultimately people expect a fair paycheck for the effort. As Seth Godin stated recently, the challenge of the Internet is "either you do something I can't do myself (or get from someone else), or I pay you less than you'd like."

"At a time of shrinking budgets, chief marketing officers don't know where to turn. They have little confidence that old-world agencies know how to navigate the chaos, and they don't know which newcomers to trust.

With clients in a tailspin, the very role of agencies is in question.

Squeezed by clients, agencies are also beset by a host of new competitors attacking from every direction."

Sounds like fun! The quotes in Fast Company from Hyper Island convey these sentiments with greater emotion. We are in an era graced with great change and even greater creativity—but at a cost to old ways, comfortable assumptions and lazy habits. As the esteemed writer Robert Grudin put it back in 1991, “Creativity is dangerous. We can not open ourselves to new insights without endangering the security of our prior assumptions. We can not propose new ideas without risking disapproval and rejection.”

Great to see our friend and previous CATFOA presenter Edward Boches quoted heavily as well!