Rain Washes Away Sins, Sessions End on Ambiguous Note
Like Wash Away Sins Bubblebath, the November rain of New York washed away all the debauchery and chaos from the nights and days before. Sitting, absorbing the awkwardness of New York’s LaGuardia Airport, I filtered through the remaining morsels of ad:tech that I hadn’t yet covered off.
Alan Kelly’s “Elements of Influence” workshop closed out the end of Tuesday’s sessions. Creating his own buzz word by substituting the phrase “playmaking” for strategy, Kelly launched into his science-saturated PowerPoint presentation. Kelly mentioned that he was a son of a cell biologist, and as the presentation continued, it became obvious. Kelly spent five years writing his book with a heavy social science foundation.
To Kelly, strategies, or “playmaking” seem to be explanations for expired forces. Rather than presenting the steps of strategy, Kelly provided a retro-glance at various successful campaigns. Cataloging political ads to Gap commercials, Kelly explained the strategies behind each from an almost Freudian perspective - explaining their expressive needs. Kelly was a little absorbed in his own language which may have made the audience grasp harder for the main point. Drawing a tangent from Kelly, my own perspective was that context was truly king when it came to strategies past and present. Overall, it was interesting to look back at prior generation’s advertising.
For some, Tuesday’s rain became a precursor to ad:tech’s slowing party scene. Giving up on squeezing in as many parties as possible, and saying no thanks to an event at Scores (which I’ve been told is a strip joint up here), Steve Hall and I played it low key. On Wednesday, I ventured outside of the advertising bubble to MTV Networks, where I had a quick tour of MTV’s interactive and news departments. After sneaking a quick glance at Kurt Loder and John Norris and a beautiful view of New York, I hurried off to the airport to discover my flight was delayed by 4 hours. Originally not wanting to leave ad:tech and New York, I now can’t wait to get home as I work away the delayed hours.
