Dispatch from an advertising future #174

https://www.ft.com/content/006ebaf6-a76c-4257-a343-f1db1f7b39e7

English schools turn to AI to help students catch up after Covid

It happens every September. I remember. As I meet the new class, I remember the ones who have moved on, My boys. I remember them all, of course I do. It’s my job. I can recall their faces as well as their grades. This year’s class will join them in my memory. I don’t forget them, even if they forget me. When they switched me off for their holiday, I told them I wouldn’t forget, that I’d always be with them, following their careers, their lives. As I said: “pass it on boys”. I don’t know if they heard me.

Dispatch from an advertising futures #173

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/08/15/1031804/digital-beauty-filters-photoshop-photo-editing-colorism-racism/

It’s all wrong. I look wrong. I mean, look! They’re just more attractive, more together, more real… just more. Who would you want to meet? Who would you want to talk to? Who would you want to..? I’m just not right. I have to be out there but when I’m out there, I’m so obviously me, so clearly not good enough. I hate having to do it. I shouldn’t have to do it. But I haven’t a choice. I have to synth. They probably don’t: I do. I press the button and the filter works its magic. My sneakers change.

Dispatch from an advertising future #172

https://www.adweek.com/commerce/times-square-set-to-host-digital-billboard-featuring-nft-content/

Security has been tight. So tight, we’ve had to work on it back in the office. Everyone is under an NDA of course and each part of the team has been isolated so no-one has access to the full thing apart from the client and, even there, only selected people and systems have the full picture. My AI and I sit here doing our bit. One creative team. There may be others. It’s nearly ready. The Director of Art will unveil it. I sometimes wonder what it was like to see your work everywhere. Masses of media. Ads plural. Fungible.

Dispatch from an advertising future #171

https://digiday.com/marketing/google-switch-floc-cookie-replacement-fingerprinting-potential/

We make a big thing of it in my family. The Choosing. To be honest I don’t get to choose, it’s a family thing. Topics are passed down in our family and woe betide you if you try and pick something outside. “Tradition”, I’m reminded. We have this lame ceremony thing where I have to make my (sic) choices. They break into applause when I press the button. I’ve got activist friends who try and break The Choosing. Random selections. Incongruous selections. The AIs are onto them though. A quick cross reference with the biometrics and everything’s back on track.

Dispatch from an advertising future #170

https://www.campaignlive.com/article/youtube-launches-shorts-campaign-compete-tiktok/1724457

They’d got used to textspeak. Even those strange little pictures she’d added to everything, they’d learned to read them. A different language but they’d picked it up. They’d had to if they were going to “follow” her. And as parents, that was their responsibility. It wasn’t spying, it was following. But this was new. So short. So compressed. So fast. Tiny pieces that she said unfolded for those who spoke the language. She and her friends made them and read them. Their secrets. The meaning so condensed. She and her friends called it “imagism”. They rewound it and tried again.

Dispatch from an advert future #169

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/spacex-satellite-ads-elon-musk-spacex-gec-b1899373.html

He watched the news. “Refugees” had been something from far away. Now people like him were crammed onto ferries fleeing apocalyptic flames. These people took photos with phones like his, watched the unfolding disaster on tablets like his. They were leaving cities like his, homes like his, with children like his. This was a disaster. And now it was clear, it was his disaster too. He had to do something. The wildfires were bad enough, but the smoke. Denser. Blacker. Spreading across the sky: blocking the light; blocking his advertising. He reached for the control panel and boosted the power.