Embracing Analog: Why Physical Is Hot
As we spend ever more time in the digital world, what's becoming increasingly valued is the time we do NOT spend online or in front of a screen—the time we spend with real people and real things. As JWT observed in its Trends for 2012 report, "people are fetishizing the physical and the tactile." It's not that we're abandoning digital—far from it. But as we buy ever more apps and ebooks and downloads, as digital screens become our default interface with the world, we seem increasingly to seek out physical objects and experiences.
To find out why, Frank Rose and JWT Intelligence have designed a study to assess the emotional value we attach to physical objects as opposed to their digital or virtual counterparts. Using standard association techniques, we are measuring unconscious emotional reactions to various things—including books, music, photographs, and other people—in physical and digital form. The results will be presented and analyzed for the first time at SXSW.
Presenters
Ann Mack oversees global trendspotting for JWT where she and her team help brands turn shifts in the zeitgeist—related to everything from technology, gaming and globalization to retail, philanthropy and the environment—into opportunities.
Ann has worked on strategic projects for clients including Unilever, Kellogg’s, Estée Lauder and Kimberly-Clark. She is most widely known as one of the industry’s most famous experts on cultural and behavioral movements, trends and memes and their impact on brands and brand behavior.
The reports Ann and her team generate have become famous in their own right. For example, her annual “10 Trends” and “100 Things to Watch” are highly anticipated cultural markers not only for brand marketers but for the public as a whole.
Ann has appeared on NBC’s Today Show, The Early Show on CBS, Fox and Friends, and Sky News; has been interviewed by numerous radio outlets, including the BBC and NPR; and has been quoted in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, USA Today, and International Herald Tribune for her thought leadership. Some of Ann’s recent speaking engagements include the AdReview Conference in Johannesburg, AMAP in Mexico City and Social Media Week in New York.
In addition, Ann has led the re-launch of JWTIntelligence.com and the development of JWT’s AnxietyIndex.com, which focuses on helping brands navigate consumer anxiety. To do so, she has harnessed platforms like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to establish, grow and galvanize a global community that feeds into not only these projects but other seminal reports like “Gen Z: Digital in their DNA,” “Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)” and “What’s Cooking? Trends in Food,” among others.
Before joining JWT in 2004, Ann led Adweek's coverage of the digital advertising industry as Interactive Editor. She started her career as a crime reporter for the Mansfield News Journal in Ohio after graduating magna cum laude from Ohio State University with a BA in journalism.
Frank Rose is the author of The Art of Immersion: How the Digital Generation is Remaking Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the Way We Tell Stories. He speaks frequently about the impact of technology on entertainment, advertising, and society, which he covered for more than a decade as a contributing editor at Wired and a contributing writer at Fortune before that. His work has also appeared in The Atlantic, the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, New York, Esquire, Vanity Fair, and Rolling Stone. Among his other books are The Agency: William Morris and the Hidden History of Show Business and the national best-seller West of Eden: The End of Innocence at Apple Computer, now available in an updated edition. His books have been translated into Dutch, French, German, Japanese, Korean, and Italian.
PAUL WOOLMINGTON
Paul is a ‘Renaissance’ entrepreneur of the media, advertising,
digital, marketing and communications industry. He has held leadership
positions at the highest levels both globally and domestically in
management, media, integrated business, digital and communications
strategy. Across a diverse group of companies including IPG , Y&R Inc
, WPP , MDC Partners and Naked Communications.
Hating to be type cast, he has built up experience in a complimentary
array of disciplines and what connects all has been his successful,
driven entrepreneurial spirit that he has brought to large
corporations and businesses he has built.
Paul is currently devoting his energy to a portfolio of ‘angel’
investments and advisory roles in a number of dynamic businesses. In
addition he has immersed himself in select high impact work for
government, purpose and social cause organizations.
Prior to his current hands on entrepreneur role, Paul co-founded Naked
Communications Americas, a pre eminent, objective communications
management consultancy. The first of its kind. The Wall Street Journal
credited Naked Americas as a Top 5 Agency ‘to watch’. The F.T. called
it ‘marketing’s most creative business’ and The Washington Post stated
‘the agency of the future’. Paul was personally recognized as one of
the top 10 most creative people in Marketing Services by Fast Company
Magazine in 2010. ‘The Media Maestro successfully disrupted the US
Marketing scene with his agency’s approach to communications
agnosticism’.
Throughout his career, Paul has advised a number of charitable, arts,
media, digital, social, event, content, technology and
insight/research concerns as well as actively serving on a broad array
of industry bodies.
Championing innovative and disruptive thinking, Paul has been
extensively published across all media and has served on a diverse
array of creative, marketing, media, digital, effectiveness, strategy
and integration gatherings, festivals, conferences and award juries.
Born in Africa and raised in the UK, Paul has traveled extensively
around the world both professionally and personally. Paul lives in
Manhattan with his wife Carol and their two children, India and
Monday, March 11
