My week began with a rather depressing hypothetical question, “When it comes to digital marketing, do we have to go back before we go forward?”
A colleague of my husband’s had been lamenting the fact just this weekend that “We used to do really cool work, and now all our clients want to do is put their TV ads online”. Then I attended the Yahoo! “It’s a Broadband Life” conference in Boston where it was hypothesized that we should look to the involvement of Jeff Zucker in the Internet for his great television expertise - that we all can learn a thing or two from television as broadband penetration skyrockets among Internet users.
It wasn’t until this morning in the Wall Street Journal’s article on the return of black to fall fashion that it started to really come together for me. It’s a simple choice we have to make (bear with me here).
The web was once very much like fashion – avant garde, mysterious, followed to the T. Our experts were revered as futurists and pioneers. The industry was credited with seamlessly combining art and commerce, craftsmanship and creativity. Somewhere along the way, however, Internet followers as with fashionistas became increasingly empowered to go it alone, to experiment. In fashion this meant exploration of pairing haute couture with mass market bargains. It meant expressing individual style instead of adhering blindly to trends. While this is a good thing in many ways as shared ownership is in large part what pushes ideas forward, there was a corresponding slowing effect that could be the real rub.
My suggestion is that we can learn a thing or two from the fashion industry’s tenacity for maintaining the role of thought leader. Experts in the industry argue that the return to black trend (which is highly controversial after seasons of fantastic color which one consultant adamantly purports “saved the rag trade”) is more than just another pretty color to demand attention. Instead it is being touted as a sign of the industry’s seriousness, its skill and craftsmanship. There is no flashy color to hide behind – no TV ad that whirs and blurs to distract viewers from the lack of technological wizardry. Black in fashion holds meaning that traces back to Coco Chanel, Giorgio Armani and Audrey Hepburn and to a time of substance and seriousness in couture.
There’s no certainty consumers are going to buy it, but fashion is going boldly forth. It may be a stretch for some of you reading right now, but for me it is inspiring.
Let’s find our black.
Let’s harken back to the icons of innovation that digital technology can own and start leading the masses again.
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