For some news a little closer to home, Renny Gleeson, global director of digital strategies for renowned ad agency Wieden + Kennedy (invented “Just do it” for Nike, and does work for Starbucks, Nokia, EA etc.) gave an inspiring talk at Indiana University yesterday. It was a basic overview of the digital advertising scene and how business models and strategies are adapting to the evolving environment. The benefit of attending these talks is the opportunity to hear from someone who is actually in the business and is targeting their talk towards you (in this case students). It is a whole different feel from watching TED talks.

Gleeson touched on hot topics like viral and social networking which are seen almost everyday on advertising blogs and sites like Adage but what stood out the most of course were the examples he showed. He ended his talk with “I want to see a ghost.”

He touched on something that happened in China that I was not aware of, a phenomenon much like American Idol called Super Girl. This TV show which allows viewers to vote via text message gathered a massive following in the hundreds of millions, resulting in the Chinese government forcing it to shut down. Why? Because this could teach the people of China that mass collaboration can change things. Personally I feel the future of Chinese communism looks grim, in the age of information the government can only hold the people down for so long. We’ll see what happens…

Filed under: Advertising, China