#04: Cultural Products, Free Speech and Pop-Up News
Before getting into this week’s edition, I’m going to need a minute to recover from the new Rise of the Skywalker trailer. Wow. JJ Abrams is a true StarWars geek and it shows in the hypertexuality of the trailer. If you have a *good* Easter Egg video please send it to me.
A quick note as well, I’d like to celebrate the legalisation of same-sex marriage and decriminalisation of abortions in Northern Ireland. Progress!
⚡️Fast culture (something popular/trendy/viral this week)
Last week the Disney+ epic twitter thread unleashed a wave of UGC content. As each title available on the platform was tweeted individually and chronologically, it became a historical recap of Disney’s cultural products. The 70’s were a particularly weird time with titles like The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), Justin Morgan Had a Horse (1972), The Barefoot Executive (1971) and The Million Dollar Duck (1971), but back then, Disney made and marketed films for kids, not for adults. It was only a matter of time for Twitter to reimagine those titles with a spin of today.
We love a good listicle and more so if we can reinvent the past with a twist to reflect the bizarre state of the world where influencers promote CBD gummies, and we keep track of life through our Amazon orders.
🌎Slow culture (related to greater changes in society)
What do we think “free speech” means today? On Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg gave a 45-minute speech on the topic and tried to convince people that Facebook is a neutral messenger.
This article from The Guardian argues that Zuckerberg is embracing an outdated, 19th-century view of speech. He seems to believe that there is a marketplace of ideas through which the best ideas prevail once we encounter evidence and argument, but the problem of the 21st century is that too many people are yelling and debating complex issues with an informed public is increasingly hard. The Washington Post reported that political spending on digital ads for the 2020 election could exceed $6 billion, so it seems that the company doesn’t really care about who pays for an ad, or what the ads say, just as long as they pay. The advertising industry could leverage its power: as the government failed to regulate Facebook, it would be harder for the company to ignore advertisers. This is wishful thinking, but what if top Facebook advertisers like Samsung, P&G, Microsoft, AT&T, Amazon and Nestle demanded more from the company to protect democracy?
🖌Unusual pattern (exploring the relationship between the unrelated)
I’d never seen the concept of “pop-up” been used in the context of news until last week when Sky News announced the launch of a Brexit-free news channel.
The press release says: “A new pop-up channel dedicated to Brexit-free news is now on air on Sky channel 523 from 5pm to 10pm Monday to Friday.” Yes, we are all tired of Brexit and it shows: a third of people are avoiding the news entirely, and more than 70% of them blame Brexit.
In edition #2 I linked to an article stating that the conversation around Brexit is evolving so quickly that the public can’t keep up with the new terms and vocabulary. Now, in juxtaposition to this, the Brexit-free news channel is quite ironic. The company says that the channel will cater to people who want to “hear about issues away from Westminster and Brussels with a focus on hard-hitting, original journalism.” This channel does damage in two ways: first of all, it keeps antagonising the politicians vs “normal people”, as if they lived in separate parallel worlds; and second, it shows that even when Brexit is the 'will of the people', said people can still be given the luxury of opting-out of the conversation and not hear anything about it. So convenient for the media to contribute to ignorance.
🎯Cultural insight (the insight from culture behind an advert)
BT has launched its biggest brand campaign in 20 years with a revamped brand identity, advertising push and tagline, "Beyond Limits." The protagonist of the ad is a girl who recites the opening paragraph of Charles Dickens’ “The Tale of Two Cities” to Stormzy’s song "Blinded by your Grace Part 2". Watch it below.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us”
Adding a layer of technology on top of this social commentary makes of a brilliant reinterpretation of a classic for today - and I’m dying to know how this idea from Saatchi&Saatchi came to be. The ad exposes the contrasting duality of the role of technology and a tension that we wished we could be set free from. When tech feels both the best and the worst of current times, the brand chooses the side of the “light”, focusing on children’s opportunities for the future. If only this was so easy in real life, but I’m sure the message will resonate with the hopeful and optimistic ones.
🕶 Bonus track
TikTok of the week: I think we finally have a best practice TikTok ad campaign. Elf Cosmetics worked with an up-and-coming artist from Florida to create a song called “Eyes Lips Face” (after the brand name’s acronym) and to go alongside a hashtag challenge, which was then propagated by influencers. Content with #EyesLipFace has reached 2.2B views. Vox wrote a very good article on what made this campaign different.
And some extra links:
John Lewis says that the small screen is having a big effect on sales
Why do Instagram playgrounds keep calling themselves “museums”?
An incredible piece of digital journalism on 100 days of Hong Kong protests
Thanks so much for reading, and if you want to share any thoughts on this week’s edition, just hit reply to this email and I’ll get back to you, or connect with me on Twitter.
Flo
Cultural Patterns is a newsletter by Florencia Lujani about cultural insight, creativity and strategy. If you’ve enjoyed it, consider subscribing :)