More on being digital
You probably saw this already but Brian wrote a nice response to Randall’s manifesto around the need for creativity in online advertising. Brian’s point (which I agree with completely) is that creativity online is different from creativity offline. You can’t bring biases and frameworks from one place and simply apply them to the other. There are (probably) universal principles for creativity but they are much deeper than simply telling good stories or writing pithy headlines.
Yet again, this reminded me that we often subconsciously bring frameworks of thinking from the physical world into the digital world. I think we do it all the time. For example the idea that we buy digital ad space based on size is fairly ludicrous. Online, space is virtually unlimited – websites don’t fill up, there’s always more room!
However, to be perfectly honest, I’m as guilty of as the next person of slipping into that kind of thinking from time to time so I’ve created this handy chart that can be used to quickly check my thinking. I’ve posted it here, it may be helpful for you too.
Possibly related posts
Tags: charts, frameworks
stephanie gerson Says:
March 3rd, 2009 at 3:30 pmonline space may be unlimited, but that doesn’t mean there’s no difference between being at the very top of a website vs. stuck in a sidebar at the bottom. i.e. space still matters.
but that’s not really what I wanted to say, which is: what about broadcastability, reproduceability, shareablity, mashability? not to mention the social dimension… indeed I’m kinda lazy for not defining the actual laws I’d add to your list, but I know there are certainly more.
a fruitful exercise might be to take a few examples of offline and online creativity (at least, in your opinion), and identify any patterns?