Culture, Code and Creativity

I have no doubt I’m not the first person to say this but I think David ‘Shingy’ Shing might just be one of the coolest people to walk this planet.

Fresh off a plane from the Mobile World Congress, AOL’s Digital Prophet (no joke, that’s his official job title) took us on a whistle-stop tour of the latest trends emanating from the world of digital.

David Shing pays OMD UK a visit

Here are my highlights:

  • The most overused word Shingy heard last year was ‘disruption’ but most brands don’t really know what that means. Without changing your business, disruption doesn’t really happen. Airbnb and Kickstarter are both brands that are truly disrupting the space
  • Understanding human needs is half the job of meeting them. Technology changes our behaviour but it doesn’t change our needs
  • 75% of purchase decisions today are made emotionally. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a £1 bottle of water or a £50k car. That’s how we make decisions as humans
  • We are no longer consumers consuming content. Those days are long gone. What we now have is someone who is a creator, a critic and a curator of their own experiences. Audiences now have an audience
  • The four Ps of Marketing still exist, but they are totally different in today’s world. It’s now all about Platform, Performance, Pedigree and Partnership
  • 70% of people would rather read about a brand than be advertised to
  • The younger generation today tend to carry three devices. In terms of values, these guys want to achieve happiness, they want to spend time with their families and friends, be true to themselves and be financially stable. These values are more closely aligned to their grandparents’ generation than their parents’. They just have a different way of showing it
  • Why does every brand on the planet want to target this audience? They represent a 2.45 trillion dollar spend by 2025 and at that stage they will represent 75% of the workforce
  • 37% of children under the age of two can operate a swiping device
  • The world is completely overwhelming. We’re hit with 1,900 media messages per day. 250 of those are ads
  • One of the largest contributors to stress is media overload. With all of this stuff coming at us, the only thing that won’t change is there being 24 hours in a day. The key for brands is to capture attention. Relevant is always more important than real-time
  • 88% of what people do is app-driven but people are downloading fewer of them and spending more time and money on the ones they already have
  • The average number of apps we have on our phone is 40. The average number we actually use is five
  • 70% of people try a mobile experience once. So unless you provide a totally different value, people will try you once and never come back
  • To quote Leonardo da Vinci, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. This has never been truer for apps today.

And if you’re still not convinced that he’s the best, check out his interview with Kevin Spacey. It’s well worth a watch.

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OMD UK

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