36 w w w. i d e a l o g . c o .

n z

57601 Idealog text.indd 36 04/6/2006 10:17:50 AM

 idealog ■ may/june 2006 37

57601 Idealog text.indd 37 04/6/2006 10:18:00 AM


Ambition: Internationally-celebrated film maker
Currently: Film editor, actor
Big break: Winning the 48Hour film festival
twice gave Gerard and collaborator Luke Sharp
the money and clout to pitch a comedy/
drama series called The Last Year
to TV3.
The show awaits NZ On Air
funding.
“There are so many creative
and talented people in this
country who don’t make it because
they’re not in the right place at
the right time. I hope that digital
technology can change that.”
38 w w w. i d e a l o g . c o . n z
57601 Idealog text.indd 38
nt Timpson is a film buff from way back. This self-
confessed movie nerd knows more about the big screen
than most die-hard rugby fans know about the injuries of
Buck Shelford—and there have been a few.
But ask Timpson if he knew how happily his own film
career would progress and he shakes his head. “I’ve been
stunned at the volume,” he says.
Not volume as in sound, but volume in entries. Timpson is founder of the
48Hour film festival, a competition to find the best short film made within
a precisely-timed 48-hour period. The wacky, stress-filled, movie smack-
down has become a cause célèbre, not just in the rarefied airs of Grey Lynn
movie circles, but for anyone half-competent with a digital camera and a
sister with acting skills. In its first year the competition attracted 88 entries in
Wellington and Auckland. By year three it almost tripled to 234 entries and
expanded to Christchurch and Dunedin. This year the competition is being
run nationwide and Timpson expects entries to pass 450.
“It might plateau at year five, I guess,” he says. We doubt it.
Suddenly it feels like we’re all filmmakers. In fact we are. The world’s most
popular camera brand is not one the professionals would necessarily pick.
It’s Nokia. There are already 350 million camera phones out there, meaning
we’ve all become snap-happy movie makers and photographers. Flickr, a
picture-sharing website, boasts over 100 million photographs on its servers,
up from 15 million just a year ago.
Suddenly we’re all publishers too: research firm Pew claims 44% of
American adults have created some kind of Internet content. We’re now all
historians (Wikipedia), columnists (blogs), book reviewers (Amazon), movie
critics (everyonesacritic.net), advertising creatives (Trade Me) or global
authorities on matters obscure (visit any specialty site).
Thanks to technology you can be a singer (Songstar), a musician
(GarageBand), a disc jockey (MP3 players), TV programmer (MySky),
model (MySpace) and designer (go to Nike.com and design your next shoe).
You might have a Ulysses in your bottom drawer but printing and
distributing it was always beyond the ability of most ordinary folk. Now you
can it take to Blurb.com, where wannabe authors can have their masterpiece
published for as little as $50.
Digital technology has lowered the barriers that once stood between Joe
Public and his artistic cousins. It’s a massive change. Marketers have even
coined a snazzy new name for this onslaught of digital artists: Generation C.
04/6/2006 10:18:09 AM
 Marketing to a generation of wannabe artists
might feel like riding to hell on a skateboard. But
the smartest marketers are finding rich veins
to exploit—you just gotta know how. Here’s a
selection of Gen C marketing strategies that work
“Generation C is probably today’s fastest-rising niche,” declares
Trendwatching.com, publisher of a popular marketing e-newsletter.
“Are you creative, opinionated and technofluent? Do you have access Hollywood execs freaked at the idea of Peter
to professional equipment and online distribution? You may be part of Jackson video blogging his way through the
Generation C,” writes Digital Hive, a weblog for direct marketers. making of King Kong. In fact, it thrilled fans,
The way these trendspotters see it, Gen C is a mega-shift in the way we built anticipation and created a DVD to sell for
operate, not just as consumers but as a society. It’s leading, say some, to a a tidy sum.
global renaissance in creative endeavour. Lesson: Involve,
If it all sounds a bit like, well, marketing speak, you could be right. No involve, involve
one yet agrees on what the C stands for. Trendwatching.com says it’s C
for ‘content’, meaning Gen C are defined by their production of original
material. The bloggers at Digital Hive say it’s all about ‘creativity’—that
Gen C want to become co-creators of their world (“Don’t just sell me a
car—involve me in designing it”). Tomi Ahonen, a Swedish telco consultant
and author, has another definition: C is for ‘community’. He says young
consumers walk around with “a gang in their pocket”, continually txting,
phoning and pxting their friends and families. “No decision is now made
as individual, everything is done in community.”
Tom Eslinger, Saatchi & Saatchi’s worldwide interactive creative director,
says it’s all the above but is also C for ‘channel’. “You can have all the
digital devices and creative skills you like, but opening a channel to reach
millions of customers and fans marks out Generation C.”
Whatever. You would miss the point if you got hung up on the semantics
of Gen C. What can’t be ignored is the explosion in creative endeavour—
in the arts, in commerce and in government, where policy on culture and
creativity is being rewritten around the world as a cornerstone
contributor to economic growth. Are we witnessing a
creative rebirth—another Renaissance, even? Generation
C may be ill-defined and misunderstood but the
combination of technology, prosperity, peaceful times
and youth is shaping a mega-trend in the way the
economy works. Better listen up.

idealog ■ may/june 2006 39

57601 Idealog text.indd 39 04/6/2006 10:18:29 AM

 was taught at school that the European Renaissance was the
result of man rediscovering himself after years of slumming
it in the Dark Ages. The revolution in arts and science was
literally a rebirth of inner, and especially Italian, creativity. But when
I read about it now, I’m told the cause was more prosaic: peace,
trade and communication opened Europe to a host of new influences,
especially from the Middle East. “Trade revolutionised taste in
Europe,” writes historian Jerry Brotton.
Are we entering a similar point in history? Could we be witnessing
an explosion in creativity and culture, thanks to the new digital age? I’ll
Ambition: Dancer, poet, musician
nail my colours to the mast. I don’t believe there’s any more creativity
Currrently: Year nine student
innate in the MP3 generation than anyone else. I don’t believe the C
Obessesions: Lulu is a dedicated
stands for creativity. Yet we may be seeing the same conditions which
creative: she submits poetry to
gave rise to the Renaissance—where trade and peace led to a flowering of
writerswindow.co.nz where it’s
creative endeavour.
critiqued and voted on by other
True, most of that original expression is not much better than home
year-nine kids. She blogs on MSN
videos and angsty teenage scribblings. Ant Timpson is the first to admit
and has home page on bebo.com,
the popularity of the competition has not necessarily led to an increase
a community site for high-school kids. She’s
in quality.
toying with the idea of submitting cartoons to
But it has led to an increase in output and, crucially, an environment
newgrounds.com, a flash animation fan site
that values and rewards creative endeavour.
that visits.
Other people have said as much. Richard Florida’s ‘creative
“I want to be famous—but not for being, like,
class’— or what the founders of this magazine have called ‘commercial
well-known, but because I have achieved
creatives’— is a fast-growing and important part of the working
something really amazing and I think the
population. Gen C, however, is different. Despite my flippant
Internet will help me do that.”
introduction, I don’t believe that we’re all artists, publishers and
filmmakers now, at least not in a professional sense. The hardcore of
the creative economy is made up of individuals who have turned their
creative output into a fulltime career. They’re professionally inquisitive,
original, tireless and determined. They’re quite a different sort of
person from the after-dinner blogger. But my point is this: not since the
Renaissance have the conditions been as favourable for amateurs to
aspire to or actually join the creative class. It’s never been a better time
to be a wannabe.
10949

40 w w w. i d e a l o g . c o . n z

57601 Idealog text.indd 40 04/6/2006 10:18:39 AM

 Take two examples. At one end of the Gen C spectrum is MySpace,
the website purchased by Rupert Murdoch last year for US$580
million. Murdoch is no media slouch and what he has bought is
really a fantastic media model. Speaking recently to—yes, this is
for real—the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper
Makers, Murdoch predicted he might be among the last of a dying
breed. “Power is moving away from the old elite in our industry—the
Get out of the way and let the customers
editors, the chief executives and, let’s face it, the proprietors.”
exchange. Being part of the discussion has
MySpace is a collection of millions of pages of autobiographical
become the prime reason we do business
data, blogs, homemade movies, pictures and lists or, as the site
with Amazon and Trade Me.
describes itself, “an online community that lets you meet your friends’
Lesson: repeat after me: $700 million
friends.” Is the content genuinely creative and world-changing? If
you can call teenage dribblings, incoherent ramblings and bad digital
movies creative then yes, it is.
Taken by itself, MySpace might suggest that the C in Gen C stands
for ‘celebrity’. As with reality TV shows like So You Wanna Be A
Pop Star?, MySpace taps into the desire for fame embedded into our
tabloid culture. Maybe after Generation X and Gen Y comes Gen W,
for ‘wannabe’. A UK Sunday Times columnist described it as C for
‘conceited’.
That sounds elitist and a mistake—and not one that Murdoch
would make. Who knows whether MySpace might not throw together
another Fisher and Paykel or discover another Peter Jackson?
In fact, maybe it already has. Twenty-one year-old amateur film
maker David Lehre was last heard speaking to MTV after his 11-
minute film, MySpace: The Movie, was downloaded by some 3.4
million viewers. That was back in January. He’s unlikely to be the last
talented youngster spotted on MySpace. The site has also launched an
album of greatest songs—as voted by the members—containing bands
that never would have made it through the record companies’ net.

WE FIND YOUR DREAM JOB!

WON’T At Aquent we treat you as a unqiue individual and understand

TREAT
one size does not fit all. Our Auckland office is experiencing
a high demand for creative, client service, marketing and

YOU LIKE media professionals – both freelance and permanent opportunities.

Check out our jobs online at www.jobs.aquent.com

A NUMBER ... or call 09 309 6691 for a confidential chat.

Australia China Japan Korea Malaysia New Zealand Singapore

aquent.com | Creative Marketing Advertising Media PR Business Support

idealog ■ may/june 2006 41

57601 Idealog text.indd 41 04/6/2006 10:19:09 AM

 A more impressive example of Gen C at work is the open-source
movement. The framework of exchange is much the same as MySpace:
it’s digital, worldwide, volunteer-based and self-organising. Like MySpace
diaries and the 48Hour films, not all the output is good. Software archive
freshmeat.net lists over 30,000 open-source projects; many of those are
abandoned, dying through neglect, incompetence or argument. But the
projects that people find useful, like Apache, a free Web server, quickly
develops a community of interest. Want a feature? Write it yourself. Want
to adapt it to a new purpose? Go right ahead. If your customisation is any
good, it might be accepted by the high priests of open source, the project
leaders, and become part of the core software where others might improve it
further. If the project leaders really like your work you might even be invited
into the inner sanctum and given ‘commit rights’, allowing you to make
changes on the original software yourself.
Consider the surprising (or maybe it shouldn’t be surprising) story
of Ben Goodger, a University of Auckland student who a few years ago
started making his own changes to Mozilla, an open-source Web browser.
Goodger was originally scratching his own itch but found he had a knack
for improving the browser. Mozilla engineers noticed too, and Goodger
now leads development of the Mozilla Firefox browser from Google’s
California offices. Last year he made the cover of Wired magazine. Not
a bad career progression for someone who was merely tinkering with
Mozilla because he could.
This isn’t just about software; content is also produced collaboratively.
Wikipedia allows us to tap into the collective expertise. Google Maps data
is repurposed by people who want to create their own global maps of pizza
joints, alien landings or Elvis sightings. If you have something to contribute
then there’s probably someone, somewhere who wants to hear from you.
The open-source movement is a metaphor for what’s happening in every
sector. It’s the volunteer economy, the content economy and the creative
economy. It’s Gen C.
Ambition: Famous stop-
frame animator
(think Wallace & Gromit)
Currently: Obscure
stop-frame animator
Major achievement:
Aged 12, Simon spent
six months making
a three-minute
stop-frame movie using his school’s digital
camera. “But a gang broke into the school and
stole all the gear including the tapes. It took
me a year to do it all again.”
Big break: Republic Films hired Simon after
school to help with commercials and animation
and offered him a full-time job last year. But he
chose instead to focus on his passion—making a
seven-minute movie, House Keeper, in his attic.
“I’ve been at it a year and I’ve got three
minutes of film. You’ve got to love it or else
you’d never do it. The biggest problem is
working in the attic. It’s so damn hot up there
with the huge film lights.”

n an elegant, Japanese-style office, squashed between a motorbike

shop and a panelbeater, I’m sitting with some clever company.
If anyone understands Gen C it’s this trio of women fashioning
themselves as the Providence Report, a high-level market research company
based in Dunedin and Auckland. Sandy Callister, Sandy Burgham and Jude
Hooson are seasoned researchers with five major reports under their belts
and a strong sense of what makes Kiwis tick.
For them Gen C consists largely of youth, but not exclusively. Most
importantly it’s technology-driven. It’s the MP3 generation. Nike is using the power of just-in-time
“My daughter is a great example of Gen C,” says Callister. “She’s 13 but manufacturing to mass-
has joined a poetry club on a website where these kids critique one another’s customise shoes. Want a
work and vote on the best poems, a lá reality TV. She takes it deadly red swoosh with that? Click
seriously and is always talking about concepts and looking for meaning!” here …
Providence identifies some common themes linking Gen C: Lesson: Involvement by
Virtual lives. Gen C have rich online lives and many, especially Asian design
Kiwis, will have multiple identities for life online and off.
Almost famous. Gen C are convinced they can become world-famous and
rich by expressing who they are as individuals (and not by donning a suit).
Just your opinion. A generation used to political correctness and positive
affirmation, Gen C won’t be told by self-appointed experts that what they do
or make is crap.
Reality bites. But just like New Zealand Idol, they know the court of
public opinion can vote them off at any time (no matter how good they are).
Everything is for publication. Whether it’s a family holiday or the showers
in Big Brother, nothing escapes the blog or the camera. Not even King Kong.
Everything is a game. Day-to-day life should be challenging but ultimately
fun. Even a book on Warren Buffet investment tips should be a comic strip.

57601 Idealog text.indd 42 04/6/2006 10:19:21 AM

 “Whatever Gen C do, it somehow involves originality and expression.
Nothing is just about work; it’s about meaning and transformation.
Life as art,” says Jude Hooson.

o what now? What are we to make of Gen C?

Growing demand for self-generated
For business, the consequence is that Gen C wants to become
content forced MTV to shift their MTV Über
involved in everything—design, production and even marketing. Think
from pay TV to a free Internet site, mtvu.
of consumers as co-creators of the products. “We were always taught
com. Now paid for by advertising, the site
that brands are owned by the customers. But the changes in technology have
consists of self-made playlists, music,
accelerated that idea to make it a reality,” says Kevin Kenrick, general manager
blogs and videos by users.
of Telecom Mobile. As an experiment, Telecom last year launched the Rubbish
Lesson: the kids wanna talk
Film Festival, asking users to submit their homemade digital camera movies.
Kenrick says the company was “amazed and overwhelmed by the number of
entries”. A thousand mostly dreadful movies later Telecom is still receiving
On reality TV every plonker thinks she can
submissions and will run the event again and expand it this year. It recently won
sing—so let the market decide. Telecom’s
the best mobile campaign at an advertising awards event in London.
Rubbish Film Festival generated 1,000
Okay, so that’s a marketing stunt but at MTV it’s a business. MTV Über was
entries last year of mostly, well, crap
a cable-only TV channel aimed at college kids. Demand for interactivity (viewers
movies. But it got everyone using the
upload their own music, videos and playlists) was so great that MTV turned
network and, hey, some of it’s not that awful.
it into a free online channel that’s funded through advertising. The content is
Lesson: Let the market vote on what’s good
largely edited and created by the users. How long before Telecom or Sky TV
offers a similar, self-edited channel through MySky?
The lesson for marketers and manufacturers is this: how are you involving
your customers in co-creation? It might be as simple as a Subway-style menu of
self-assembly options. It might be getting your customers to do the marketing—
how many emails do you receive with Hotmail ads at the bottom? It might
simply mean getting out of the way and playing host to customer interaction.
Ask Sam Morgan, founder of Trade Me, if that’s a good idea.
As for careers, there’s a future in plastics—or at least plasticity. Gen C might be
the first generation whose parents have no expectation that the road to success
is through the professions. From cheap surgery in the Philippines to free legal
advice off the Internet, professionals are being forced to find new and creative
ways to add value. If I were a parent I’d want my kids to study at the University
of Flexibility. And I’d certainly want them to study the commerce of everything.
Finally, if Gen C is a real phenomenon, it will have national implications.
The countries that win will be those with the most robust respect for the
fostering and commercialisation of intellectual property. If Gen C is defined by its
desire for original thought and unconstrained outcomes, then our country could
look a little like the United States in 1900, marked by inventiveness, optimism
and a determination to become rich through talent and effort.
Alternatively it could collapse from the misguided idea that fame and riches
come through a lucky break on a TV show. But Gen C has the potential to move
beyond the conceited, celebrity culture we are drowning in. Here’s to the Gen C-
ers who stand for something original, creative and good. Your time has come.

Additional reporting by Vincent Heeringa

Jake Pearce is a marketing and innovation specialist

who has worked in Europe and New Zealand developing
products and providing strategic marketing advice.
A year ago he founded Oxigen and is currently working
on developing some world firsts.

44 w w w. i d e a l o g . c o . n z

57601 Idealog text.indd 44 04/6/2006 11:25:13 AM