As television audience viewing patterns have been upended during the past few years, Hollywood has adapted some new conventional wisdom when it comes to the state of TV: Linear hits don’t exist anymore, especially on basic cable. Series don’t grow their audiences several seasons in. It’s no longer possible to make shows that appeal to…Read More
Conan O’Brien considers himself a lucky guy. And not only because he was fortunate enough to spend 28 years reinventing late-night, first when he was NBC’s surprise pick to replace David Letterman as Late Night host in 1993, then followed by an innovative 11-year run on TBS’ Conan, which ended in June 2021. O’Brien is…Read More
When Conan O’Brien, Adweek’s Media Visionary, moved from NBC to TBS in 2010, his team knew it wanted to handle the social media and YouTube distribution of his show clips itself. The digital strategy wasn’t yet a priority for media companies, but “we needed to control how this stuff got out,” said Jeff Ross, O’Brien’s…Read More
Though summer is typically for socializing and taking scenic vacations, creator, writer and star Quinta Brunson spent the months in preproduction for the highly anticipated second season of her ABC runaway hit, workplace comedy Abbott Elementary. Things are much different for the in-demand showrunner this time around. Between her ensemble’s collective popularity and an expanded…Read More
It’s only October, and The Trade Desk has seemingly made news this year on every pressing topic in ad tech. As buyers were puzzling over how to make their supply paths more efficient, demand-side platform The Trade Desk cut out multiple middlemen, announcing in February it was removing Google’s Open Bidding as a source of…Read More
As we settle into the New Normal phase of the pandemic, we’re more dependent than ever on TV, media and digital & tech brands to keep us connected to each other and the wildly changing world. Adweek’s annual Hot List, which highlights the standouts in these categories, is packed with the people, platforms and companies…Read More
The optic nerve dominates.
It’s piped directly into our brains and uses a lot of processing power to help us discern the world through vision.
As a result, it’s louder than our other senses and often outshouts the rest of our brain. That’s why it’s easy to be fooled by a magician.
This focus on sight means that we often are at a loss on how to deal with things that are invisible.
It works in our favor with the placebo effect. We can see that we just swallowed a pill, or wore a brace, or bought an expensive bottle of wine. That input helps us heal or enjoy the moment, even if the organic invisible things behind the scenes don’t quite match what we saw.
And it works against us when it’s time for our community to process things that are invisible over time (like evolution or systems change) or invisible in the moment (like viruses and greenhouse gasses).
When there’s a conflict between what we know and what we see, we often default to the wrong one.
The closer we look at what other people believe and do, the more clear it is that our view of the world doesn’t precisely match theirs.
It never has, but now it’s magnified. The things we thought were a given, aren’t. No one believes what I believe, not exactly.
How is it possible, we wonder, that people like us don’t believe what we believe or do what we do? Not just people we don’t know, but the people we do know.
And how do we dig in to overcome magnified divisions to find shared objectives, to fight for justice and dignity and what’s right at the same time we connect with people we might be inclined to push away…
Simply asking the question helps us find a way forward. Realizing that people don’t know what we know, don’t believe what we believe. And most of all, that they have a noise in their head, just as we do.
Welcome to Marketing Morsels, a menu of delightful news items from the past week. Enjoy the assortment, from a creepy Netflix stunt to new products from White Castle and Evil Genius Beer Company. Morsel #1: Truff will never say “when” Picture this: You’re in an Italian joint in New York City, and the waiter is…Read More
Sports leagues and individual teams have long tried to create year-round fandom, even as the football, basketball, baseball or hockey season comes to an end. The Worldwide Leader in Sports, ESPN, has also long sought ways to keep fans plugged in, non-stop. And it’s Emeka Ofodile’s job to see that they do, whether that’s on…Read More
