In a recent post here on Digigen, I talked about my concept of The Visual Economy. An idea which seemed to drive alot of thought and discussion, both on and offline. It has spurred me on to believing that it could become a term similar to the idea of Web2.0 which Tim O’Reilly first talked about in 2006. I know this is a lofty ambition, but better to aim for the stars sometimes isn’t it?

The definition of The Visual Economy was about

An economic evolution based on placing products and brands in their most visual context. The acceleration of which occurs because people entering the workforce are skilled in the production of visual products. (This has come from the ubiquity with which free or cheap creative tools are found, and the ease in which they are deployed.) This consequently adds more emphasis for a brand to define and redefine its visual output, with increasing value being placed on images, video, and branded content.

The main question I get asked though is, “isn’t this just made up nonsense, what are the signs that this is happening?”. I admit, The Visual Economy may seem like an obvious thing to talk about, but nobody has really placed this name on it. As for the indicators, here are five things that have triggered my thoughts recently as to indicating that we are in the midst of The Visual Economy.

1) The Shift from UGC to BGC. When YouTube first started, it felt that Chad Hurley and Steve Chen aimed it very much at the User Generated market. It was about people uploading clips for other people. There didn’t feel like there was a lot of value in this. Therefore, it is no surprise that we have seen the shift from user-generated content to brand-generated content. Both consumers and channels (see YouTube’s Original Programming Channel) are seeking out professionally crafted content, not user generated content.

This means less “cats on skateboards” more beautifully shot, branded skateboard shots…

2) From Facebook to Google +. Potentially slightly controversial as both would say they operate a visually appealing platform. However, as Guy Kawasaki and Robert Scoble have rightly pointed out, Google+ focuses on storytelling through images and is therefore much more visually appealing than Facebook. It drives more interest and gives more control to your own personal visual economy.

3) From text based company annual reports to visual based, interactive company reports. One of the first companies to do this was Benetton, who launched a very visual company report back in 2005 (link here). Although many companies have started trialling this, a vast majority are still creating the bland reports we associate with print versions. Why not jazz it up with an introductory video from the CEO talking about the year, showing his passion, and being more visual.

4) From ads about company products to content showing the inner workings of the company. Tracing back to source has been a consumer desire for many products, but ads simply can’t convey this in the depth that many consumers want to see. Its enlightening to see many brands developing content strategies which are born out of opening up the heart of the brand, showing inside the inner workings and giving consumers an understanding not just of the products, but the place that they come from.

A great example of this is Royal Enfield, the bike maker crafter, who has a tour of their Chennai factory on YouTube.

5) From talking about purchases to “haul” videos. There are many exponents of this but the most obvious places that “haul” videos are being seen is YouTube mainly around fashion. Kate McQuaid-Jones is a great exponent of this, but is part of a wider visual trend to show off your purchases online. It now crosses over into grocery, beauty and other areas of shopping.

I’d love to hear other suggestions for indicators of The Visual Economy. Drop me a note below.

For more about The Visual Economy see the original post here

The simplest propositions are the best. Aaron Koblin and his team have one of the simplest propositions at Google Creative Labs, but it also lends itself to being able to be unbelievably creative.

Create an emotional attachment between Google technologies and its consumers

Needless to say they do this extremely well through Wilderness Downtown and Ro.me. However, perhaps some audiences already do have an emotional attachment, perhaps the younger audiences don’t just associate it as a provider of search results. It feels like this is an older, more archaic view of Google… “oh you mean those guys that help me get to stuff quicker?”.

The younger audience has grown up as Google has. They have entered and interacted with Google through YouTube mainly (25% of the YouTube audience being under 16 according to some research), they have used Gmail (sparingly) and obviously still use Google for search. But perhaps the emotional attachment to Google, could be targeted to an older, more unaware audience. An audience who don’t get Arcade Fire or Dangermouse.

In the last week, I have read about three really interesting technology incubator funds. These funds are set-up to specifically identify, test, review, and propose ways that brands can be using technology in the future. The most obvious ones that I have read are; BMW, Google Africa, and MIT SENSEable City Labs. Its sad that at a time when the UK Government is pulling the plug on front-line services, teenage trust programmes, and other notions of entrepreneurship, that the only way is through brands…(didn’t we have this debate about schools as well?)

The interesting thing about two of these is that they are based in NYC and developed specifically to look at urban futures. As Wired points out, in 2008 50% of the global population now live in cities, by 2050 it is predicted to be 70%. Its a really interesting thought to think this is the case and that urbanisation is the future for most people. Its not suprising therefore that BMW and SENSEable City Labs are focused on understanding how humans will interact with technology in the future.

The three Technology Incubator funds work out like this:

BMW Technology Incubator Fund is designed to look at the specific way humans move through cities and the technologies they use to help them navigate. This means a heavy focus on mobile (no way really?) and Location Based Services. I love the phraseology that BMW now use to describe themselves as moving from being a car company to a consumer company. I guess it harks back to Google moving from being a search engine to a technology company. (I’m going to talk about BMW’s evolution over the next week) The fund, $100m, of it is specifically focused in NYC.

MIT SENSEable City Lab is again from NYC, a spin-off from MIT. It was created to look at how humans interact throughout a city and how the city, products and buildings, could be designed better to support these changing interactions. Its clear that companies like Audi see this as a massive future for them having invested in the company. Expect a beautifully designed Audi city car soon then…

Google’s African Tech Incubation Fund is the curveball, but is also the thing that led me to investigate this further. The Google ATIF, also known as Umbono, is designed to enable African tech entrepreneurs to turn their ideas from reality to fully fledged start-up. What this does represent is a massive opportunity at cracking the African market, which many companies have struggled with. As a country where mobile is more dominant than broadband, we could end up seeing huge tech leaps in these areas which could affect other more developed markets… wouldn’t that be a great thing?!

Technology for good seems to be the marker of all three of these funds. Although BMW’s seems clearly to be the most commercialised, these all feel like they can provide some learnings and products which will benefit the world as a whole. In terms of collaboration, as we talked about here earlier this week, this is a much wider aspect than most brands will be able to afford. However, it does set a marker for brands to follow in terms of generating ideas which benefit the consumer.

I’d love to see the UK create a Teen Technology Incubator Fund, non-government funded, which would allow technology aware teens to pitch ideas and see them come to fruition. Perhaps it already exists, but it would be great to create. Anyone in?