As a renowned new-media expert and faker, people often ask me: ‘Is it
already too late to make a mark in the fast-developing creative
maelstrom that is interactive advertising?’ Generally, my reply is:
‘Yes - get out of my way’, because the last thing I need is another
huckster beating me to market with a patchily implemented, semi-obvious
idea that he or she will then flog to a client with more money and
techno-paranoia than sense. No, that’s my job.
Truthfully, though, there is plenty of room. Currently, you only need to
know half a jack about computers to join the new-media crowd. My lady
who does for me could turn a packet as a multimedia consultant these
days. She already administers my Internet site.
The thing is, it doesn’t matter how bad you are because the client will
never find out. Everyone who understands the Net, CD-Roms, computers,
and so on, is now trying to make a buck out of it. And those who are
paying these people are doing it so they don’t have to understand any of
it themselves.
They have a background in PR, are ‘not very technical’ and feel
Weekending is often very funny indeed. Computers are not their thing,
they say.
If they were, perhaps they’d discover that the ‘innovative hyper-linking
feature’ that their Net ad site boasts is pretty ubiquitous on the World
Wide Web. Or that the site’s ‘full-screen, colour ad spread,’ takes the
average punter 12 hours to download via a modem. Or the ‘simple user
registration’’ that their Web team pitched to them as an instant
mailing-list accumulator actually dissuades people from ever reading
their copy. Or that the ‘groundbreaking audio-visual CD-Rom’ they put on
every magazine in the country last month was suspiciously similar to
every other bog-standard, macro-media, director-written pile of art
student rubbish you find on this rich, thick, creamy gravy train we call
interactive. I’ve seen every one of these scams in new-media pitches,
and they are swallowed every time.
Look, the mechanics of car maintenance are not my thing either, but that
doesn’t mean I splash out on 4,000 Skodas for my company and then ride a
horse to work. And then you ask these people why they don’t spend more
time online, in front of their PC, and they’ll say: ‘Well, 90 per cent
of it is rubbish, isn’t it?’
You should know, you’re commissioning it.
Dan O’Brien is a new-media consultant.E-Mail: danny@cityscape.co.uk
