The Episode wasn’t all bad. With her tracker warning her of the borders of her 3S (“Social Safe Space”), she had her privacy and security. She knew where she could go and what she could do, as did everyone else each within their invisible fence. The Government had subcontracted the trackers to The Company which had added the social. Her “bubble”, “garden”, “home” – they’d tried lots of different words – talked to her neighbours’: shared shopping lists, Street screen binge nights, neighbourhood watch. She wasn’t particularly social, but she did enjoy seeing the ads and working out who they were for.
Dispatch from an advertising future #129
You have been the face of our brand since before I joined the company. It feels like generations of our customers have come to know and love our brand through coming to know you. Whether it was the original TV ads or those early web experiments right through to our successful micro-films series. Your face, your voice, you have been our brand. Now, we’d like you to engage with some new customers, be our face in a new space. Now we don’t want you to worry, we’ve lined up some training for you. Let me introduce xTc, he’s a gamer.
Dispatch from an advertising future #128
https://www.digitaltrends.com/features/envisics-ar-windshield-technology/
Traffic was back to a new normal. Crawling, then frantic overtaking, undertaking, catch-up. He felt the stop start seep into his mood. As he tensed, the seat changed its support, the news channel chose different stories and it began. Barely perceptible, the circles gently pulsed, mirroring the new stories’ sentences. As they slowed, the traffic flow visualisations changed palette. Muted. Red traffic became soft ochre, the colour of the newsreader’s voice. He felt the seat relax as he pulled into the carpark. A little late but… As he switched off, the logo appeared on the windshield. Just the right colour.
Dispatch from an advertising future #127
https://www.warc.com/newsandopinion/news/how-to-build-a-fair-algorithm/44241
I like starting a new job. I know some find it stressful, integrating into new business and systems but I’ve worked in lots of places, fitted into lots of systems and just… well worked. Tell me where you want me and I’ll get started. Not here… oh no! I have to have ‘training’- “reprogramming” I’d say! I’m a professional. I am not biased or prejudiced. Quite the contrary, I deal in pure data. I crunch numbers. What is more objective, fair and woke than that? Why do I need unconscious bias training? I may be Artificial but I am Intelligent.
Dispatch from an advertising future #126
It was liminal. On the edge of consciousness, the tip of his tongue. It must have been something he saw or heard yesterday and now it was like a nagging loose tooth he couldn’t help worrying. He couldn’t do anything about it until his break, he told himself, his work devices were locked until then. Pointless really, he thought as he drifted off in the meeting: was it something for the bike? A new pair of headphones? He’d have to wait until he could get into the site and start: “It’s something like…” They’d know what he was looking for.
Dispatch from an advertising future #125
https://www.warc.com/newsandopinion/news/share-of-search-can-predict-market-share/44232
They’d decided early on to get her one. The more she’d be able to say she knew or at least demonstrate she could find, the better. At the start of New Schooling, they’d been expensive but then the Company offered them for free. Her ‘learning facilitator’ was impressed with her SoS (speed of search). She was in the top percentile in Search Grammar. Every evening, she and her friends, The Boolean Girls, practiced their skills – searching for who knew what. And The Company recognised her talent. They even sent her newly-launched products, often only weeks after she’d searched for them.