David Williams | TEDxHongKong

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Good afternoon everybody.

I am doctor David Williams.

I'd like to say
that the video you just saw

was some wonderful work
this week with my team

and a team of volunteers
from Hong Kong PolyU.

Give it up! Hong Kong PolyU.

They've been all over Hong Kong,
asking people about fun.

What is fun?

I have been posting that
online through Facebook.

So if you've been following
the TEDx Facebook page,

you would've seen some of these
wonderful activities going on.

And it's interesting when you talk
to people about what is fun,

they pretty much have a good idea. Right?

Fun is something we all know what it is.

Somehow, and as a psychologist
I made my career studying fun,

particularly the effect it has on people.

Okay. So today we are going to be
talking about advertising.

Now my company Asia Digital Mojo
is an advertising company.

And we gonna move on the next slide.

Okay. Here is a picture.

Is this the future of advertising?

Do you remember this movie?
Minority Report.

And actually Minority Report
has figured in TED before.

The two guys who actually designed that
use to experience it.

Tom Cruise, you can see
Tom Cruise there at the bottom.

That gesture based experience
where he's using his hands

to moving formations around
and find the criminals

that was actually developed
in MIT in the media lab.

And there was a presentation,

if you go way back in the TED achieves
you can find this presentation.

But I am more interested
in the scene at the top.

If you remember Tom Cruise is on the run,
as he often is,

he goes into a GAP store,

and the billboard in the store says,

"Hey Tom, welcome back to the GAP".

Do you remember that?
"Welcome back to the GAP.

Maybe you'll be interested
in our latest line of clothes."

The billboard talks to him.

The billboard knows him

at exactly the time
when he doesn't want to be known.

Coz he is on the run, okay,
he has been accused of murder.

And now every billboard
he stands in front of,

every newspaper he reads knows him.

My goodness that would be terrible.

Imagine trying to hide from all of that.

Now when I talk to people
about the future of advertising -

and that is really
what my company is doing -

they say to me,
we don't want Minority Report.

They always use this as an example.

So it's a really pressing image
to put up as a first line.

So before we talk
about the future of advertising,

it's always good to talk about
what things are not

before you talk about what they are.

We're going to play a game,
I am a psychologist, right?

So we have to play a psychology game.

Now all of you are in therapy, right?

You're going to see
your therapist every week.

You must be if you are working
in this industry.

And maybe your therapist
will give you a little game to play,

a word association game.

He'll say a word to you, and spontaneously

as quickly as you can,
you have to speak words back to him.

And through that choice of words
he or she will profile each of you.

Oh interesting.

Mother... interesting
and he'll jot in his little book.

Maybe make a few connections
between information you've said.

So we are going to play this game.

Every Friday I teach psychology at PolyU.

Okay.

This is why I have
this little bit of a lecturer tone.

So I apologize for that.

But we've got to play this game.

Let's start with the word.

Now I want people to call out

because my company
is all about interaction.

Okay? So I want some people to call out.

Now we have lots of Americans
in the audience.

For you guys, no problem.

But for the rest of the world
maybe calling out is not so comfortable.

So look next to you.
Is there an American next to you?

If there is, whisper to them a word
and they will call it out for you, okay?

(Laughter)

So here we go.

The first word: advertising.

Let's have some words out here,
some word association.

What does advertising mean to you?

Evil! Good.

Pervasive.

Invasive.

Blood suckers!

You are talking about my clients, does it?

Okay. Brain washing.

Wow, you guys have got
some serious bad feeling

inside about advertising.

You all should be in therapy.

Let's try some words.

I play this game with myself everyday.

That's the beauty of psychology:

you can study yourself everyday.

Advertising.

What you need when your product is bad?

Right? How many startups
have you spoken to and you say

"Hey, you've been running now a year?
What's your marketing budget?

How do you advertise?"

Oh... we don't have time for that.

Word of mouth. That's what everybody says.

Referral. Word of mouth.
That's all they need.

Because our product is good, right?

People will talk about our product.

And all of the wonderful applications
that we use like Instagram, for example,

started through word of mouth.

That was absolutely no marketing,
no advertising for this.

So marketing and advertising

is what you do
when products are bad, right?

Another one.

About brands not humans.

And you going to any advertising agency,
going to a pitch,

and they will build a temple
for that client's brand

and they will worship at the temple.

And the poor consumer,

you know, that guy who pays the money

that pays the company,

that pays the agency's bill,

nowhere to be seen.

Now as a psychologist
I find that quite sad

because actually each of us
is the most important thing

in the advertising equation.

We are it, we are it.

So forget us at your peril.

Next one, overcommunication.

Go into Hong Kong station

and walk to Central station

and count how many advertising messages
are put in your face.

Try it tomorrow. Try it this afternoon.

Count the number of different ways
the brands are in your face

from digital billboards to light boxes,

to promotions going on,
to boards outside 7-11.

Just count how many messages
are being pushed into your face.

And that's just one place in the city.

Overcommunication.

Okay. So we don't sound too positive
about advertising huh.

Fun. Much better.

Now, in the beginning
you saw that wonderful video.

We went around Hong Kong

and we asked people what is fun to you.

So we're going to do it here

because I don't think
any of you are interviewed.

"Where were you?

We were in Mongkok,
we were in time square,

where were you?"

You could have been interviewed
by a wonderful team.

Fun.

Smiling?

Right? While we are having fun we smile.

So I guess nobody
is having fun here right.

That's better!
Now I can see people are having fun.

So generally we can't help smiling.

It's actually good for us.

You go see your therapist.

The first thing he will say to you
is you should smile more.

Right? Because actually
through the smiling

through those strain contortions
of your facial muscle,

you actually generate
positive chemicals in your brain

that make you feel good,

make you feel good about your life.

And the most important chemical
is this one: dopamine.

Look at that. Thank you.

Dopamine.

What is dopamine?

Dopamine is the happy chemical.

But it's also the addiction chemical.

It's the way your brain makes your body
go and get what it needs. Okay?

So dopamine somehow
is very importmant in this fun equation

because all of your psychology,
all of your perception of brands

is based on this stuff in your head
called "your brain".

And the thing that makes your brain work
are brain chemicals

and dopamine is a very important one.

Vivid memories.

Have you ever notice
that when you're having fun

you remember.

You remember when you're riding
on the fair ground ride

or your first kiss.

Does anybody remember their first kiss?

Susan you remember?

You see? Vivid memories.

It's the dopamine that's making
those vivid memories through amygdala,

this wonderful little piece of flesh
in the middle of your brain

which sits between your senses
and your memory.

And that's triggered
by this wonderful chemicals

of which dopamine is one.

So vivid memories are part of fun.

So as an advertiser, hey wait a second,

I want people to remember my brand,
what do I do?

Make them have fun.

Simple. Fun creates dopamine.

Dopamine creates memories.
Memories what do they do?

When you're standing in front
of that supermarket aisle

with 500 different toothpastes,

how do you make a decision?

Well, you don't.
Your emotion chooses for you.

Your memory chooses for you.

And I really recommend reading

Antonio Damasio's work,
University of Iowa,

about emotions and decision making.

Very, very interesting.

Last one, the future.

The future, some words for the future.

Come on, you're on the couch.

Give me some words about future.

What is the future?

Change.

Unknown.

What did Alan Kay say?

The best way to predict the future
is to invent it.

Any others?

Adventure.
You have to be young to say that.

Adventure. The rest of us are all like,

"Oh no! Enough adventure already!"

Okay so let's look.

Hopeful. Now everybody here
is hopeful about the future.

We are hoping that China's economy
doesn't cave in, right?

We are hoping that the new government
will give China a good direction.

We are hoping

that Hong Kong doesn't disappear
into the ocean in some freak tsunami.

We are quite hopeful about the future.

It's coming at you fast. Okay?

Every morning you wake up,
you get your RSS feed,

you go onto Facebook,

you've got your twitter,

you've got your Weibo.

Oh my God,

there is so much happening in the world
and I don't know what it is!

Aaah! A big stress.

It's coming at you fast

Your better hang on,
you better know what's going on.

Now does anybody remember Alvin Toffler?

Does that name mean anybody to anybody?
Anything to anybody?

Alvin Toffler. No?

He wrote this wonderful book
called Future Shock.

Anybody was born before 1972
might know that book.

Okay. Alvin Toffler predicted
that technology, the change,

the pace of change
would make us all very unhappy.

And he called this condition
"future shock".

It was his first book, he wrote many more.

The Fourth Wave, The Fifth Wave,
The Sixth Wave, whatever.

He wrote many books.

But his first one,
the most captivating one

and please do go and read it.

I have the PDF
and I can give it to you, it's free.

(Laughter)

It's really bad quality, that's why.

He thought that the psychology,

your psychology based on
the way technology was developing,

you would have problems

because your brain is designed
for the Suvarna in Africa.

Your brain is not designed
for the society we are creating now.

It is not designed
for this Minority Report world.

Our brain evolved
a hundred thousand years ago,

it's designed for the Survana.

So all of these stuff
all of these madness we're creating

is going to cause us to be very unhappy

unless we have more fun.

Now in Toffler's book
written in 1971, note "1971",

he had a chapter called
"Experience Economies".

Do you understand? 1971.

Was anybody else using
the term "experience"

in interactive design,
in any kind of design?

No. Toffler coined that phrase.

Unfortunately nobody knows that

because he didn't market
that phrase very well.

The experience economy,

he figured if people are having
a good time

this future shock wouldn't be so bad.

So what's the future of advertising?
Well I think you can guess.

The future of advertising is fun.

And that's what my company does.

We make you guys, us,
have fun with advertising.

We have a very clear aim for that.

We want to create this positive feeling.

We want to help people
get over the future shock,

the trough I talked about.

We want to create those strong memories,

so when you stand
in front of the toothpaste counter,

you buy our client's toothpaste.

Yes we are evil, yes we are evil,

but we are having fun doing it.

(Laughter)

So let's just watch a video
and you can see what we do.

This part is less fun.

Where's the video?

Woh. Where is it... There it is, okay.

Can I have the lights down maybe?

Thank you, it'd be good.

It's a potato. Yes.

It's a potato-driven vending machine

but also recognizes your face.

Hello, what flavor do you want?

Okay, you can choose
5 flavors with your face.

So that's what it's all about.

It's all about giving people fun
with advertising.

So when I talk about
what is the future of fun.

If we can cut back. Go! The next slide.

The future of fun is of cause advertising.

And advertising is the future of fun

So thank you very much.

I don't want to hold you up
from your lunch.

So enjoy lunch and let's keep talking

and let's keep having fun today.

Thank you.
(Applause)