I saw a slogan on the side of a bus the other day: "Swap laptops for flip-flops"
This is the latest in a long line of media and advertising that suggests that the computer is a part of our work lives, and that generally we should loathe it. Also that it is never part of our leisure lives; something we might actually enjoy interacting with. You've heard of "laptop widows", and people saying things like "put that thing down, you saddo" - well, it's all the same thing.
I guess 15 years ago that holiday advert might have said something lilke "ditch the mobile, take a break" - it made the basic assumption that the mobile phone was something you used for work, and nothing else. It pre-supposed that getting a mobile phone call was an interruption; something to be avoided.
For a few, it still is, but nowadays, one of the most popular pages on Virgin Mobile's website is the part that tells you what the overeas tarrif is. Simply because people going on holiday overseas, want to know what their phone calls and texts will cost them. They don't do this because they're keen to be in touch if there's an emergency at work - they do this because they like talking to their friends and family on their mobile phones. It may be a piece of technology, but it doesn't mean it's "sad" or "anti social" to use it when you're on holiday any more. It's become a normal piece of person-to-person communications. It's transcended the 'sadness' or geekiness that early technology adopters were labeled with, and become mainstream.
Whereas 10 years ago you wouldn't have dreamed of turning your mobile on whilst on holiday, today's mobile phone user has at least one of their three mobile phones (actually, the UK average is 1.2 phones per person) that they actively want to use to increase their enjoyment of their holiday.
So, the laptop's pertty much gone the same way. Sorry to the advertising creatives, but you'll have to come up with some new ideas I'm afraid.
For those of us lucky enough to have the freedom to do pretty much what they want on their work laptops, provided it's legal and the thing is still useable for doing some actual work on, we learned a long time ago that the PC was also a leisure toy. Whether we keep bits of our music collections on it, download epsiodes of Lost, use it to manage our digital photography, or spend our time Facebooking, there's one common theme - this doesn't have that much to do with work...
This therefore makes it a highly likely accessory to take on holiday. Many of us may choose to take our Macbooks instead of our Dells... but it's still a laptop nonetheless (although the Apple enthusiasts I know might argue it actually transceded 'laptopism' and is actually an ethereal and spiritual object that is more a part of their minds rather than a physical possession).
I bought a 2GB SD card the other day - and on the packaging it said: "When you're on holiday away from your computer, the last thing you need to do is run out of space on your camera". It's the same assumption... just a different focus. This is an age where back-packing millennials are stopping at internet cafes to upload their pictures to Flickr. Not only does it clear space on their cameras, and get shared with their friends and family, but it also backs them up, so if they get mugged by bandits, they don't lose their pics!
The rise of digital photography may be the straw that finally breaks the mainstream into taking that laptop away with them – or demanding internet access and in-hotel PCs from their holiday providers.
We also haven't even talked about the plain utility of having access to the internet as an information resource. Whether I've holidayed on the Isle of Wight, or the isle of Crete, there hasn't been a week when I haven't thought that it would be nice to be able to look something up. It might be places to go, the opening times of the steam railway, or finding out a route on Virtual Earth.
When we do trends research here at Conchango, with our partner The Future Laboratory, we see this behaviour shifting, and it shifted a while ago. This is not a crystal ball prediction of the future - those that grew up with this stuff, and those who discovered it at university, and those single young women in their thirties who rely on it for flirting and dating and communicating with their friends overseas, and those newly free of debt and dependents in their 50’s and... (you get the idea) well, they see a laptop not as work technology, they see it as a part of their social lives; a tool for creativity, for communication and for information.
My parents used to spend ages every holiday writing postcards. That wasn't frowned on – in fact, it was required. In the same way, today's holidayer might well be uploading their photos to Flickr, or writing a travel blog. It amounts to the same thing, only the tools are different.
So - what does this mean for those advertising creatives who think we're still in the 1990's? It means that they might be "considering their audience" but they're not truly running a human-centred design process. If they were, they would have realised that their thinking was potentially outdated.
But campaign design traditionally has never been user-centred. It's centred on a good creative idea, and a 'consideration' of audience. In the past, whilst society was nice and stable, insight into the viewer, listener or reader could be gained from a Mintel survey, or a quick trip to the shopping centre. In that world, the ideas hit home easily, and rarely missed.
I'd argue that it's time for a change. Attitudes and usage of technology is making its way so deep into users’ lives, and has so changed their interaction with brands, and is still shifting, daily, that you have to be more diligent in investigating its relevancy to what you’re promoting; and to wrap these phenomena into your campaigns (without jumping on the bandwagon of course).
User-centred design processes are used to design product; and today's marketing savvy and advertising cynical consumer wants utility and functionality in their brands. They want things that are useful, insightful and meaningful. They want things like NikePlus. They want campaigns that surprise and delight, not that churn out the manic visions of a drug-fuelled advertising studio a few hours before the deadline. They're fed up with big brands 'missing the point' - and you can find their cynical rantings on any number of blogs, and particularly YouTube.
Treat advertising like product. Use the techniques and tools of product design to create things that have meaning in people's everyday lives and therefore make a real connection. We use user-centred techniques, like personas, like scenario design, to map out daily scenarios and then to work out where the brands we work with touch them, or have the potential to touch them.
We make those scenarios and personas recognisable, challenging and realistic. This means that what falls out of this process is true innovation, and things that have the potential not only to delight, but also to engender long term loyalty, and advocacy.
Total experience design considers everything in a user’s interaction with a brand – and finds the points at which this interaction is weak, or non-existent; and by deep insight and understanding of that user, invents new interactions.
If we blindly stuck to only the bits on which we have to execute - the side of the bus, the billboard, the website, then we'd miss the wider point. At Conchango, we do digital – but we have to think, strategise and plan much wider and deeper than that – even if we only execute digitally. The hip bone is connected to the thigh bone (thanks Tayler), and we can't avoid that truth...
Oh, did I mention... I'm currently on holiday! (sad but true - doh, now I'm doing it!)