In college, a friend and I compared vacations we'd taken over the years. She had a well-stamped passport and most of my trips were within driving distance.** When I asked about vacation pictures, she told me she didn't take pictures on vacation.
"I'd rather enjoy the trip than take the pictures."
I see her point, but I also enjoy taking pictures. And in a world swimming in technology, platforms and sites that fuel consumer generated media, the documentation of an experience is becoming more important to the consumer than the experience itself.
At Mashable’s Media Summit, Ricky Van Veen used this picture to make this point: “We have a new generation that places documentation above experience.” Instead of watching the President and the First Lady at one of their Inaugural Balls, they watched them through their mobile phones to make sure they got the picture or the video. Younger consumers in some cases even make decisions on their social calendar based on the photo opp it provides. More here from David Spinks.
It will be interesting to see how this trend unfolds. But it’s another facet of changing media consumption habits.
It reminds me of an excerpt from the book Data Smog: "As we severely limit content, we learn to savor it more. I experienced this paradox firsthand when I asked my brother Jon to film my wedding. He used an old Super8. -SNIP- The three-minute films he created are cherished glimpses into our wedding and reception, in marked contrast to an uninterrupted three-hour video that dulls our senses and renders useless our memories. A medium that captures almost everything conveys almost nothing.”
Applying the above trend to your content and experiential marketing efforts – is your brand serving up important glimpses? Are there moments of discovery? Is it easy to share?
Cross posted to my work blog, Social Study.
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