A Pecha Kucha (20x20) to reflect on the modern digital and social media consumer. How has it come about that we depend on technology as much as it depends on us? And what can we make of that? This discussion was designed for a one-hour meeting of Fashion & Branding lecturers at the Amsterdam Fashion Institute in October 2015.

1. PECHA KUCHA
20 x 20
twenty slides, twenty seconds
Social Media & Digital Marketing:
A Reflection
Kimberly Waldbillig
for AMFI Fashion & Branding weekly
October 2015

2. CLOSE your eyes and breathe in. Feel the cool breeze
of the ocean whispering up the back of your neck and
see if you can taste the salty air. Watch as the warm wa-
ter starts to wash up onto your feet. And then, take a
picture. Add a filter. Add a hashtag. And press Submit.

3. HOME is where the WiFi is. Our love for the internet
knows no bounds. It opens up a whole new world for
us. We can do things we otherwise might not be able to
do, with each other. And marketers have been capital-
izing on our needy relationships for a very long time.

4. BUT wait, you think. This is indeed not all it’s cracked
up to be. A bunch of salesmen and snake oil. ‘Social
media’ and ‘digital marketing’ are just new ways to
make a quick buck on the backs of the masses. Let’s dig
deeper into this issue.

5. DESPITE huge fifteen-year growth rates, still only an
estimated 42% of the world has access to the Internet.
But the newest generations of internet users, especially
in developing economies, are skipping cable television
and desktops and are using mobile screens instead.

6. RIGHTFULLY so. We can broadcast live to the world
in real time. In snack size fragments, with Emojis,
from the front row, in virtual reality. We use these
social media to connect with brands, and brands
depend on these interactions to be part of our
everyday lives, or at least the lives to which we aspire.

7. DENYING the growing sophistication of digital
experiences is impossible. More user-generated
content is being produced than ever before.
How can brands make the most of a presence online?
How can they understand how to take appropriate
risks in the digital, social ecosystem?

8. IT’S NOT easy. The digital marketing landscape is frag-
mented, especially considering the number of plat-
forms which have blossomed to serve our insatiable
avarice. As consumers of internet content we are con-
ditioned to overload and anticipate brands to take an
intelligent and informed omni-channel approach.

9. THERE are many salient examples of the power of net-
works. Changing lives as did the fund raiser for ALS
that spread like wildfire through the U.S., the ice buck-
et challenge, even nerdy celebs like Bill Gates joined in.
While social media are engines for non-profit causes,
and politics, they’re also breeding grounds for stunts.

10. EVERY second of every day, sixty minutes of video
is uploaded to YouTube. That’s eighty-six thousand,
four hundred hours of video per day. Swedish hipster
PewDiePie has 31 million subscribers, which is more
than Rihanna, and made 4 million dollars last year
up-loading videos of himself playing video games.
Beauty vlogger Zoella’s first book sold more copies
than JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter.

11. WHILE internet celebrities may be raking in the Ben-
jamin’s from their latest content ‘going viral’, viewer be-
ware: an online identity doesn’t always need to match
up with one IRL. Heard of a Catfish? Like this cartoon
says: ‘on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog’.

12. IT SEEMS this to-be-interrogated identity is part
and parcel to being an internet user. Some of us ob-
sess over this identity, using tech to make it beautiful
or track everything from pulse to sleep, to behaviors,
to thoughts. The quantified self. Reminiscent of Jean
Baudrillard’s ecstasy of hyperreality.

13. BUT AMIDST this ecstasy is the all-seeing eye of con-
stant surveillance, Bentham’s panopticon, always work-
ing as if you’re being watched. But many are truly il-
literate about how they’re being watched, how their
information is being used online. Participating means
dealing with dynamic privacy terms in exchange for
the promise of ‘a better experience’.

14. SO WHAT about our children, my future children,
and social media? We all know someone who uses
Facebook like a baby book. When these babies are old
enough to create their own accounts, will the machine
serve their newsfeeds a baby picture posted long ago by
a family member asking... ‘Is this you?’

15. WE CAPTURE moments like objects and process
visual information faster than ever before. These are
average AMFI students. Average brands are still exper-
imenting with media and figuring out how to ride the
social media tides. Designing FOR and participating
IN experiences that actually matter is getting
increasingly difficult.

16. ATTENTION spans are short and selfies abundant.
Some of us live in fear of digital media, others find it
frivolous. A paradox, we have: get clicks and engage-
ment to create brand value, and avoid negativity that
will destroy brand value.
How can we harness the power of digital for good?

17. FIRST GET a baseline. But how do we measure? Do
we use number of unique sessions, or average length
of time per session? What’s the CTR, or the ROI, or
the conversion rate? In digital marketing, if you didn’t
measure it, it didn’t happen. Analytics allow brands to
tie dollars to clicks and to eyeballs.

18. BUT IF we only used metrics and statistics, they
wouldn’t paint a complete picture. Analytics may tell
us the what, but they don’t always explain the ‘how’ or
the ‘why’. Some soothsayers believe the digital world to
be only a reflection of the physical world, the glowing
screen a black mirror. How can we know what is the
real truth on the internet?

19. A QUOTE from Huxley’s Brave New World: “The per-
fect drug. Take a holiday from reality whenever you
like, and come back without so much as a headache.”
In today’s reality algorithms and artificial intelligence
govern our experiences in exchange for our data. But
today it's track or be tracked, program or be
programmed.

20. I ASK MYSELF, will the concept of ‘going off the grid’
ever cease to exist? Can we escape from our devices?
Maybe we in this very room are part of the last gener-
ation who lived ‘without’, the generation who doesn’t
devote 8 or more waking hours transfixed to a digital
screen. We can not escape the need to be online.

21. WHAT WE CAN do is promote awareness about how
to develop self-control and healthy behaviors online.
To be more responsible with our own data as it comes
to social media and the internet in general. Think back,
about six minutes ago we were at the beach. Let’s all
close our eyes again and take three whole minutes to
relax.