Digital Shadows.

This week, the case for keeping the humanity in advertising got a powerful boost, and/or shot in the arm, and/or kick in the ass.

It took just one brilliantly perceptive sentence.  

The provenance was a sad/glad Financial Times article about Jim Riswold, the now-legendary W+K writer who was, and I guess still is, lead dog on much of the best work in the Nike brand story. Which, of course, makes it some of the best work in advertising history.  

The sad part is the state of his health; the glad part is everything else including his sense that the only things that matter in what we do is “making a really good commercial” (link to the article below).

Amen.

Anyway, to the sentence, or rather, the ingenious phrase at the end: “…advertising that speaks not to us but to the digital shadows we cast.”

This, written by the reporter, not Riswold. Although maybe just being in the guy’s presence makes you a better word nerd.

The first thing that grabs me by the shorts is how precisely that depicts what marketing data really is—context-dependent and highly probabilistic, a map of our interests and behaviors. Far from valueless, duh, especially as a guide to relevance, but also far from the living, breathing, full color reality.

The second thing that appeals is a word the FT reporter didn’t use — “footprint.” As in the traces we leave stomping around the joint. As in understanding that shadows are entirely reliant on the source of illumination, and that’s not the same thing as a direct imprint. Or reflection.

The third thing relates to one other aspect of a shadow: it follows us.  Making what the data geeks call “a trailing indicator,” ergo a depiction of past, not present or future. 

Unless, course, the bulb is behind us. In which case we’re marching into shadow, which, as we all know is tricky and blurry business.

In that case, you need to pick your route with a combination of judgement, intuition, and informed guesswork. Just like human creativity.

Now ain’t that a kick in the head?

PS - The article, as promised: https://www.ft.com/content/ab4be8eb-6dc7-46b6-9604-4bea5795e8b7

PPS. Looked up from writing this post to see a CNN headline that said, “AI Report: Existential Threat to Humanity.” Now you know why this word nerd gets so wound up over this stuff.