“The View From the Phlipside” is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY. It can be heard Monday through Friday around 7:30 AM. The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program. Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moment’s notice. WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed. You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com. Copyright 2013-16 by Jay Phillippi. All Rights Reserved. You like what you see? Drop me a line and we can talk.
Program scripts from week of April 11, 2016
My name is Jay Phillippi and I’ve spent my life in and around the media. TV, radio, the movies and more. I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion. Call this the View from the Phlipside.
Robot Ads
There is a mystique in our culture about advertising. It’s something of an American art form. We’ve idealized the whole process in movies like “Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter” to television programs like “Mad Men”. It’s the ultimate intersection of creativity and capitalism.
But it has always been a uniquely human exercise. Until recently apparently. Just this month the advertising agency McCann Japan has moved into the next level of advertising. They have created and are now employing an artificial intelligence creative director. In simple terms, it means a robot advertising executive.
Let that sink in for a moment. The obvious difference is that there will be no womanizing and drinking a la Don Draper. But what does it really mean for advertising?
The folks at McCann Japan are looking for ways to better reach the Millennial generation. Finding advertising that can plug into that demographic is the “golden ticket” in most of the media world. The advertising agency launched a taskforce that they call the McCann Millenials to find search for the magic. Their first project resulted in the new “employee”, that’s how the agency refers to its robot exec, which they are calling “AI/CD beta”. The team spent time analyzing advertising in Japan, including the award-winning commercials from the last ten years. They created a library of that information the AI/CD beta can now mine on future projects. The robot will actually serve as the creative director for the team. After six months of development, they believe they are now ready to take it live and even have a client lined up. A multi-national company on the client list has agreed to work with AI/CD beta on a campaign in the future.
I’m fascinated by the whole idea. A couple weeks back I noted a scientific study on what does and does not work in advertising. That’s certainly the kind of information that an artificial intelligence mad man could use. The other side of the coin is whether or not it will result in the kind of advertising that will reach its target audience. Are Millennial consumers just waiting for advertising that pulls together the threads of what has been done before? Will that result in new and innovative advertising, or will it simply result in carefully rehashed ideas that have been used before?
Is creativity something that can be analyzed and digitized? Or is it something uniquely human? Or has artificial intelligence really reached the point where it can cross that divide?
It will be interesting to keep an eye on this project.
High Tech AND Low Tech
It’s one thing for a company that has resisted the rise of technology to fall behind in things like social media. I am astounded when it happens in an organization that is a technology leader in its industry. I am a fan of probably the most technologically advanced auto racing in the world, known as Formula One. The cars in F1 are mobile science projects, using the highest tech materials, sensors, and technology to create incredible racing machines. The sport has highlighted such great drivers as Juan Fangio, Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, Mario Andretti, Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher.
So with all that high tech flying around the race track, one might assume that it is equally at home with the latest in communication technology. You might until you ran into the diminutive, billionaire in control of Formula One, Bernie Ecclestone. The eighty-four-year-old Ecclestone has been a vocal critic of social media in the past and continues his battle with modernity today.
First, a look back. In 2014, the racing series was faced with declining television viewership numbers. Given the billions of dollars involved from sponsors maintaining the number of eyes on the races would seem to be a primary concern. It was at that point that Bernie was asked about social media and attracting a younger audience demographic. He offered this statement – “I’m not interested in tweeting, Facebook and whatever this nonsense is,” and then followed it by stating that he had no interest in the younger audience. What he wanted were more seventy-year-olds with money. I swear to you, I’m not making that up.
So I really shouldn’t be surprised about the current kerfluffle with defending driving champion Lewis Hamilton. The three-time world champ is the face of the series. He’s 31, good-looking, immensely wealthy and enjoys the jet-setting lifestyle. Lewis also loves social media. One of the things he likes to do are Snapchat videos. He takes his followers into the life of an international race car driver. Into the pits, into the garages, into places that you normally can never go. It’s the kind of media exposure most companies would kill for. Not Formula One.
Bernie issued a ban on the videos inside those sacrosanct precincts because he felt they were diminishing the value of the broadcast TV rights. Proving that the old guy has no idea of what is actually going on. Ten-second clips of Lewis Hamilton being Lewis Hamilton increases the value of the franchise.
At least with those useless troublesome, future of the sport, young viewers. But Bernie’s not worried about them.
Orange Street News
I’ve never made any bones about the fact that when it comes to journalism I am old school. I’m talking Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite kind of old school. I believe that journalism is about being as objective a possible, working from the facts and working hard to get the story in depth.
I think I’ve found a new hero. And she’s nine years old.
By now you may have heard the story of Hilde Kate Lysiak, from Selinsgrove, PA. She is the nine-year-old daughter of a former New York Daily News reporter who has created her own online news outlet, that she calls the Orange Street News. A week or so ago Hilde got a tip that a murder had been committed just blocks from her home. She verified the information and then went directly to the scene. There she interviewed neighbors, got the facts and reported the story on her website.
Hours ahead of the adult news outlets in town. Who apparently got some of the details wrong when they did report it. And had a nine-year-old call them on it.
The astounding part of the story is less about Hilde’s work than it is about the reaction a small segment of the mouth breathing public. Hilde Kate Lysiak is being attacked for her work. Not because she get’s it wrong but because she is a nine-year-old girl. She received comments that told her to play with dolls and go have a tea party. At least one person felt it appropriate to use obscenity in comments to a nine-year-old. A former mayor of Selinsgrove, apparently announcing the end of his political ambitions, called her work “sensationalist trash”. The video of her reading these comments with a barely controlled nine-year-old girl’s giggle was the perfect response.
All because she did the journalism thing right. Amazing.
When I cruised on over to the “Orange Street News” website I was impressed. She is covering local politics by attending meetings, she followed a local vandalism story to the end and covers her beat on her bicycle. In other words, she does exactly what journalists have done for decades. Whether it’s drugs at the local middle school or the hacker who is attacking local teens social media accounts, Hilde has the story. And she does it at nine years old.
Hilde started her newspaper at age seven. The idea of kid newspapers is hardly a new one, she stands in a great tradition. I’m not sure any of her predecessors has brought the kind of professional intensity and journalistic integrity that she has. I’m not sure a lot of modern adult journalists do.
In fact, I’m seriously considering an annual subscription for a mere fourteen ninety-nine .
I think I’ve found a new hero. And she’s nine years old.
By now you may have heard the story of Hilde Kate Lysiak, from Selinsgrove, PA. She is the nine-year-old daughter of a former New York Daily News reporter who has created her own online news outlet, that she calls the Orange Street News. A week or so ago Hilde got a tip that a murder had been committed just blocks from her home. She verified the information and then went directly to the scene. There she interviewed neighbors, got the facts and reported the story on her website.
Hours ahead of the adult news outlets in town. Who apparently got some of the details wrong when they did report it. And had a nine-year-old call them on it.
The astounding part of the story is less about Hilde’s work than it is about the reaction a small segment of the mouth breathing public. Hilde Kate Lysiak is being attacked for her work. Not because she get’s it wrong but because she is a nine-year-old girl. She received comments that told her to play with dolls and go have a tea party. At least one person felt it appropriate to use obscenity in comments to a nine-year-old. A former mayor of Selinsgrove, apparently announcing the end of his political ambitions, called her work “sensationalist trash”. The video of her reading these comments with a barely controlled nine-year-old girl’s giggle was the perfect response.
All because she did the journalism thing right. Amazing.
When I cruised on over to the “Orange Street News” website I was impressed. She is covering local politics by attending meetings, she followed a local vandalism story to the end and covers her beat on her bicycle. In other words, she does exactly what journalists have done for decades. Whether it’s drugs at the local middle school or the hacker who is attacking local teens social media accounts, Hilde has the story. And she does it at nine years old.
Hilde started her newspaper at age seven. The idea of kid newspapers is hardly a new one, she stands in a great tradition. I’m not sure any of her predecessors has brought the kind of professional intensity and journalistic integrity that she has. I’m not sure a lot of modern adult journalists do.
In fact, I’m seriously considering an annual subscription for a mere fourteen ninety-nine .
Call that the View From the Phlipside
Copyright Jay Phillippi, 2016
Theme music for “The View From the Phlipside” and “TVFTP – Podcast” is “Hustle”
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0
Stories Are My Life 
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