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Hypercorp Presence on the Mesh

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Thu, 2011-04-14 19:37

Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture

Hypercorp Presence on the Mesh

First and foremost, let me bring something to your attention. [url=http://www.sarifindustries.com/]The Sarif Industries Website[/url] This is a stunning beauty of a piece of transhumanism (and a curious look at a possible future). I almost drooled over the cybernetic eyes (would love a pair myself), and the CASIE (look under Insight) looks like what one might expect of Mesh Inserts. When you can finally pull your unaugmented eyes off that site, let's have a discussion, shall we? We already see commercials on TV for designer drugs. Occasionally, you see ads for things like mobility systems for the elderly. So, in the transhuman future, will you see ads for the latest cybernetics/bio-augmentations/morphs? What will they look like? How will people sell these sorts of things? I don't intend to answer those, but I figure it's cool stuff to toss out to people and maybe discuss if anyone has anything worth mentioning.

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[img]http://img813.imageshack.us/img813/982/exhumanbar.jpg[/img] [img]http://img804.imageshack.us/img804/4473/scumbar.jpg[/img] [img]http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/1396/gatecrasherbar.jpg[/img] [code][@-rep +1, f-rep +2][/code]

Thu, 2011-04-14 21:55

The Green Slime The Green Slime's picture

Re: Hypercorp Presence on the Mesh

I'm a bit quizzical on the whole topic of advertising in the transhuman era and have been giving it a bit of thought, so let me rant here. I'm not sure a transhuman will even know what an 'advertisement' is, at least not in any form we would recognise. Personally (and I don't believe myself to be an extreme outlier in media consumption habits) I haven't been exposed to an advertisement in a long time. My browser does a tip-top job of blocking all unwanted web content, whilst watching television I'm able to fast-foward the ad breaks in a blur at x64 speed, and when perambulating about in meatspace my eyes generally don't linger on any billboards, bus sidings or sandwich board lunatics I might happen across. I might get some junk mail now and again, which goes straight in the recycling bin unread. Hopefully I'm not unique in this regard. If indeed I'm not, then how much longer will advertisers be content with the scant few microseconds of daily attention they're receiving, at their vast expenditure, before they just give up? The concept of an unwarranted demand for attention is a very 20th century thing IMO, and I don't see it lasting much longer. We're already part-way transitioned into a media landscape so vast and vibrant that nobody has time to take in even half of everything they want, and the filters we employ to protect our attention and block the imposition of unwarranted sensory input are getting better and better. Hell, with just a cheap pair of noise-canceling earphones and an mp3 player we need never again hear the voices of strangers when we leave the house. Come the age of ubiquitous mesh inserts feeding a mental existence curated in its every second by an infinitely attentive, utterly beneficent muse, I can imagine one's personal sensorium becoming basically inviolate: you need never perceive anything that you do not choose to. So, what does advertising aimed at solipsists look like? Product placement, I think. There will be no dedicated advertisements, no pop-ups, no spam, no commercial breaks, no junk mail, because these can be so easily blocked. The only way advertising can penetrate people's filters is by embedding itself in the culture they choose to consume. As such, the advertising that succeeds is the advertising that goes completely unnoticed. Being parasitised by consumerism doesn't portend well for culture, but it's reasonable to predict that the more egregious and poorly-executed product placement trends will be met with derision and a lingering death. Understanding precisely how to make your advert-art excel and propagate in the ecology of ideas is the difference between the benighted quest called advertising and the eternal science of memetics.

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[img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/iso_userbar.jpg[/img] [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/aliens_userbar.jpg[/img] [i]Time will perfect matter.[/i]

Thu, 2011-04-14 22:18

Yerameyahu Yerameyahu's picture

Re: Hypercorp Presence on the Mesh

On the other hand, there are different kinds of advertising. In a world of 'weaponized memetics' and ubiquitous social networking, I'm sure there's plenty of word of mouth, celebrity passive endorsement, etc. Today in 2011, we're seeing 'astroturfing' and 'fake viral videos', and yes indeed, product placement of varying subtlety. Even anti-placement (corps sending *competitors* products to Snooki). I do agree that the consumer economy is very different from what we know, so that changes everything. For a hypercorp citizen, for an autonomist, whatever. :)

Thu, 2011-04-14 22:21

Lilith

Re: Hypercorp Presence on the Mesh

@Green Slime: I don't know, that sounds a little too hopeful to me, especially since it requires intelligent thought on behalf of the advertising agencies, who aren't particularly-known for that particular capacity. It's disingenuous to say you haven't been "exposed" to advertising; it's more apt to say that you--like many of us, I'm sure--pay the advertising you see little mind. That doesn't change the fact that it's still [i]there[/i], that's you're still invariably exposed to it in [i]some[/i] fashion. In turn that doesn't mean it doesn't "affect" you to some extent, even if you don't want to admit it--or indeed, that you're even consciously aware of it. Say what you want about the effects of subliminal advertising, but the fact remains people prefer (or at the least are more curious to try) things that they are familiar with, even if it's to the tune of "I think I remember hearing about this". Probably the biggest factor in favored of continuing advertising (and indeed, the continuing research for "better" and/or "smarter" advertising) is the fact that more and more money gets poured into it every year. I mean hell, look how much companies in the US pay every year just to get a two-minute spot on TV during the Super Bowl. I don't think advertising will go away so much as it, like the rest of humanity, will evolve. Already we're seeing advertisers working on ways to make it so consumers will only receive advertising that caters to their interests, and finding ways to stick ads in new places (much to the chagrin of the video gaming community, to use one example). As far as EP goes, I recall reading that one of the functions of a muse is too, essentially, be a spam filter. That says to me that hypercorps probably have as much presence on the mesh as regular ads do on the 'Net today; the only difference is you have someone who (literally) intimately knows what your interests are, and therefore can block 99% of that flotsam out there from ever reaching you, while at the same time reminding you that those new cybereyes you were interested in just went on sale (15% discount if you order in the next ten minutes!). You said it yourself, really: the advertising that succeeds is that which goes unnoticed. In that regard, I honestly don't think that's all that different from the current state of things.

Thu, 2011-04-14 22:28

Yerameyahu Yerameyahu's picture

Re: Hypercorp Presence on the Mesh

Honestly, the corps are only too happy to have you filter your ads. They *want* you to get the ads that you're interested in, likely to use. They use carpet-bombing because they have only recently begun to have the option of sniping. :)

Fri, 2011-04-15 01:30

InsidiousAlgorythm InsidiousAlgorythm's picture

Re: Hypercorp Presence on the Mesh

I don't think it would be "overt" advertising, or at least not ads as we see them now, probably filtered by the Muse as well so only those things that interested you would get in. Visually it would rely a lot on the labels my peers used and swore by. Like if brands earned rep of sorts.

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Fri, 2011-04-15 06:01

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Hypercorp Presence on the Mesh

Who do marketers sell to? Not the consumers, but companies who buy marketing. So their key marketing target is to convince companies that marketing works and will make or break their product. Whether it actually does work doesn't matter as long as the advertising companies and marketing department get paid, and the company thinks they have a great campaign. It was surprisingly recently anybody actually started properly investigating what kinds of ads work, and the findings generally contradict what advertising firms do (e.g. humorous adverts are well liked but rarely help sales or even product recognition). Companies like Google are more numerate and use their ability to statistically analyse their data to set prices, but they are unlikely to try to get advertisers to stop advertising inefficiently: the more ads, the better - even if they don't sell products well. Advertisements are also part of shared culture. Remove the ads, and most modern societies actually lose a part of their culture. It might not be the most well regarded culture, but it is part of the glue giving people shared referents. If advertising goes entirely personal or group-focused this will disappear. When you can buy things with a thought, then ads triggering desire works. But for anything where you care about the actual thing you get, you will let your Muse do a price comparison. So targeting ads for Muses is probably where the big money is.

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Fri, 2011-04-15 09:50

Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture

Re: Hypercorp Presence on the Mesh

Arenamontanus wrote:
humorous adverts are well liked but rarely help sales or even product recognition

One example does not a trend break, but the Old Spice Guy disagrees with that; 107% sales increase after Old Spice started using that viral marketing campaign, and everyone with the internet knows instantly what you're talking about if you lower your voice and go "Hello, ladies..."

Arenamontanus wrote:
Advertisements are also part of shared culture. Remove the ads, and most modern societies actually lose a part of their culture. It might not be the most well regarded culture, but it is part of the glue giving people shared referents. If advertising goes entirely personal or group-focused this will disappear.

I don't entirely think it's lost, so much as augmented. It's the same way social networking or finding groups like this forum on the web don't eliminate traditional face-to-face interaction and, even if it did/does if we end up with EP-style VR where we can all go to our ideal little paradise on lunch-break and chat "in person", it hasn't eliminated interaction itself, just changed it. Whole new cultures would emerge from that, as people formed little clades and, by linking through larger social networks, created a lot of new cultural material. It's like how Rick Rolling and similar memes started on 4chan, the internet's mind-swamp, as filthy and fecund with ideas as it is, eventually moved into mainstream (including the Ohio congress doing a video for it). Ads would hardly be any different; successful ads spread as memes across cultures, like the Old Spice Guy has, while ones that are less interesting fall flat. Sub-culture specific ads might also appear, but even these would spread if they were particularly cool.

Arenamontanus wrote:
When you can buy things with a thought, then ads triggering desire works. But for anything where you care about the actual thing you get, you will let your Muse do a price comparison. So targeting ads for Muses is probably where the big money is.

That's the fun thing about that, too: Ads aren't a bad thing. I like some advertisments; they're how I've found some really cool stuff. Hence, having a Muse filter out which products you might like and which you might not, and ads for them, wouldn't mean blocking them entirely. Maybe you like a certain pattern for your smart clothing, or a certain designer, so your friendly little AI lets you know when a new design comes out from them, or when someone else releases a similar design.

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Fri, 2011-04-15 14:54

The Doctor The Doctor's picture

Re: Hypercorp Presence on the Mesh

Yerameyahu wrote:
On the other hand, there are different kinds of advertising. In a world of 'weaponized memetics' and ubiquitous social networking, I'm sure there's plenty of word of mouth, celebrity passive endorsement, etc. Today in 2011, we're seeing 'astroturfing' and 'fake viral videos', and yes indeed, product placement of varying subtlety. Even anti-placement (corps sending *competitors* products to Snooki).

Do not overlook the value of using easter eggs in other media as forms of advertising. There are people who spend more time experimenting with games, websites, and DVDs looking for things hidden by the developers for fun than they do actually interacting with those forms of media, and that inquisitive sort makes up an important market segment. For example, some of the clues in the Portal 2 ARG consisted of information hidden in other forms of media (slow-scan television signals were found in MP3 files, and messages were also found in a DLL that were uncovered upon disassembly (poking fun at people looking for exploitable bugs)). There could be an entire corporate subculture of developers in the world of Eclipse Phase who still had some of the hacker nature in them whose jobs it is to hide things in other forms of media that serve to advertise the company (or one of its partners) in some way. It is also not inconceivable that there would be mesh hackers who occasionally take jobs sabotaging the crypto-memetic advertising schemes of some companies (like replacing a cleverly constructed product placement with a virus that selectively corrupts all of the applications in the user's mesh inserts, producing the opposite effect on the reputation of the corporation). Some might even do so gratis, save out of political ideology.

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Fri, 2011-04-15 14:59

#10

The Doctor The Doctor's picture

Re: Hypercorp Presence on the Mesh

Axel the Chimeric wrote:
Sub-culture specific ads might also appear, but even these would spread if they were particularly cool.

Case in point: part of the viral marketing campaign for the television show [u]True Blood[/u] before the series began involved placing poster-sized ads for True Blood (the fictional blood substitute) in some nightclubs with gothic/industrial nights in New York City. I do not know how effective it was in the end; at least, I do not recall hearing anything negative about them.

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Fri, 2011-04-15 22:35

#11

The Green Slime The Green Slime's picture

Re: Hypercorp Presence on the Mesh

The Doctor wrote:
Axel the Chimeric wrote:
Sub-culture specific ads might also appear, but even these would spread if they were particularly cool.
Case in point: part of the viral marketing campaign for the television show [u]True Blood[/u] before the series began involved placing poster-sized ads for True Blood (the fictional blood substitute) in some nightclubs with gothic/industrial nights in New York City. I do not know how effective it was in the end; at least, I do not recall hearing anything negative about them.

Interesting example. Imagine how much further such a scheme could be taken in EP - you could actually release True Blood as a real drink, and 'vampires' (hardcore fans sleeved in custom biomorphs) could really buy it and live on the stuff. Eventually, even something which started out as fantastically batshit crazy as True Blood could modulate into being a 100% sober documentary as the fantasy, assuming sufficient popularity, acts as an attractor upon developments in the real world. This would be the ultimate convergence of art and advertising. The stuff being sold through culture wouldn't simply be pre-existing products shoehorned into the art in some clumsy ad hoc manner, but rather elements of the fantasy world which seep through the forth wall and alter reality.

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[img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/iso_userbar.jpg[/img] [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/aliens_userbar.jpg[/img] [i]Time will perfect matter.[/i]