the art of the brand

Here’s the state of the art,
from the “push” side, as reported today by AdAge.
“(the client’s agency) erected a billboard
in Manhattan that uses technology to project voices at passers-by. The billboard
uses technology manufactured by Holosonic that transmits an “audio spotlight” from a
rooftop speaker so that the sound seems to be contained within your cranium.”

AdAge wanted to know if its user base, the industry’s top professionals thought this was a “good idea.”
The industry professionals were as of about 1 p.m. today 51/49 about it.
And that’s the point. It doesn’t matter which way they “leaned” because the statistical reliability will be junk here.
Call it 50/50.
Ask yourself why.

Here’s my answer:
the wording of the question requires a yes.

On a larger scale, it is also a societal cultural enhancement and therefore a “good” to broadcast more loudly a discussion the industry working to “get inside people’s heads”. And about how well it is able to succeed, by using “pull” applications, in which people’s belief in the illusion of choice is used to bend their frame of reference.
Let’s set up a thought experiment to clarify this:
I create something “fun” for you to do. I make it fun by lessening your anxieties about “belonging.” I let you vote for a person as being a good person. I define good, within a set of choices as “marriage worthy” and “hot” and “kissable” and “makes me feel transparent” or “something strange”. I do this , simply, over and over.
Readers familiar with the MMPI will know the technique of asking the exact same “loaded” question in a broad variety of contexts to observe shifts in how people rebound from the question.
Slowly but surely “would make a good partner in raising a child” becomes very distant from “marriage worthy” and “makes me hot” or some variant gets closer to it.
And the animal brain takes over, and society celebrates.
The industry already does that. Daily. Hourly. And is getting better, thanks to relational databases and flash applications, and lots of server capacity to tuning in on the exact nerves to stimulate by colour and sound for each individual.
We’re not there yet. But it is provably at the point that the most socially active people in the USA can be targeted by 100 or more aiming points that the end target volunteers to aim.
And the results can be tabulated, and presented to a data feed manger in less than 5 seconds. Seem unlikely? Try going to Gooogle and searching for a three word phrase. You will quirte often get back 2-3,000,000 hits. Now look at how long Google says it took to find what you may have wanted.

All the remains is better interpretation, and the art of interpreting the datamine is improiving also..daily.

The brain already can only pretend to block out sounds. It only pretends to block out sights. The sensory input keeps coming in, and the brain has no choice but to adapt or fail.
The question I would ask is after this technology is more embedded into the economy, how will people who know who is talking when they “hear” thought–and the argument will raise to skinner/freud, hume/kant, and hopefully, to what is the purpose of society.

The issue for the information industry is what side will it “think” it chooses to be on?
Who are we?
who, in such a world is an “i”?
the art of the brand is supposed to be about being able to answer that question with honour.