9 Things Adland Can Learn From the Celebrity Selfie Leak
It has been quite a strange old week in the digital realm –
and I’m not talking about the announcement that MSN Messenger, the foundation
of my digital education, is going to be decommissioned once and for all. There’s
no time for net nostalgia when the pillars of the information age (Apple, the
cloud, selfies, hacking and, err, celebrities) have come crashing down together
in a most dramatic mess. Photos hacked from over 100 stars’ iCloud accounts
have been leaked online, resulting in an FBI hunt and a media circus. But aside
from the sleaze, prurience and scandal, there’s a lot to learn from the story,
particularly for brands and advertising industry. After all, take out nudity
and it’s got all the buzzwords you'd find in a Cannes seminar schedule. So let’s get to the bottom of it.
OK, so there was Snowden and the revelation
in February that GCHQ was harvesting millions of Yahoo webcam images and then
the claim that NSA workers pass round naked pictures that they find in their
reconnaissance and the Facebook messenger app controversy… but while there’s
been growing public concern it hasn’t resulted in a mass change of behaviour.
Teenagers are still Snap Chatting and Whats Apping and ice bucket challenging.
If anything’s going to turn online privacy into a cross-demographic debate, it’s
going to be celebrities. Lots of celebrities. Naked. Back in Cannes, Sir Martin
Sorrell said that Snowden and the NSA revelations posed a potential threat to
the exploding data side of the advertising industry – but the leak this week is
raising the issue of online privacy with a far wider demographic.
2. Sex doesn’t always sell…
As much as we might like to think that the
advertising industry has moved past the hackneyed mantra that ‘sex sells’,
boobs and bums still abound on billboards and print ads and in cinema spots. But
if you’re still wedded to the idea that where there’s cleavage there’s cash,
think again. The person responsible for hacking and disseminating the images
has claimed on 4Chan (don’t go to 4chan. I went there once. I can’t unsee
things) that they are disappointed with the amount of money they’ve made from
the affair. And that amount from harvesting naked selfies of some of the
world’s most popular celebrities? $120.
3.
… but it does get clicks.
So the images may not have made any money
for the disturbing circle of hackers who obtained them, but they’ve been shared
and gawked at by the freeloading creeps of the Internet. It’s a salient lesson
for ad agencies who cram their case studies full of ‘Facebook likes’ and
‘Twitter shares’ and ‘hit counts’. Just because people are clicking and sharing
your work… they’re not always the people you (or your client) wants to be
clicking and sharing.
4.
It hasn’t happened unless a famous person has
done it
It is with a fairly heavy heart and heavier
fingers that I write this. We’ve known about online attacks and hackers and web
security and revenge porn for years, and yet they don't become a massive story
until it happens to a celebrity. It sucks but it’s true. Familiar faces are
always going to catch our attention more readily than unfamiliar ones, we’ll care more
about people we feel we ‘know’ more than those we don’t. It's all to do with salience and our ruthless attention processes... and little bit to do with unevolved ape brains.
5.
Apple is having a bad week
Oh. Dear. If, like me, you might have been
a little bit sick in your mouth when Apple released its ‘Environment’ ad in
response to the pollution and exploitation in the manufacture of smartphones,
you might want to take something to settle your stomach. The Apple iCloud was
hacked by people who were able to figure out the celebrities’ email addresses
and then use password-guessing software. If that wasn’t bad enough, Desperate
Housewives star Eva Longoria has just claimed that an Apple employee was able
to access her account information in order to contact her with personal
messages. With the iPhone 6 due to be revealed next week, the timing couldn’t
be worse. Be prepared for lots of fuzzy, warm imagery and the repeated abuse of
words like ‘safety’ and ‘confidence’. And then maybe a knowing spoof from
Samsung. Having said that, it’s probably
not the worst idea in the world for ad agencies working on tech and online
brands to retool their strategy a little to focus on security…
6.
Maybe we’re going to reach ‘peak sharing’?
Hey. Here’s a thought. Perhaps people don’t
want to share absolutely everything online? Maybe they want to keep some stuff
to themselves – even if it’s something that they’ve stored to an app or cloud
or computermatronical device. Nude selfies are the most obvious but with social
networks claiming ownership of family photos or ice cream brands entreating us
to tell the world about the three tubs of caramel and praline ice cream we’ve
downed in one sitting, brands have been fuelling and riding our ever-growing
tendency to overshare. When it works, it works well, but there are countless
examples of brands trying to create online shareability when it’s just not
appropriate. Worse than that, plain daft and off-putting.
Online security is a bit like malaria,
hospital super-bugs or, to be more du jour, Ebola. Just when you think you’ve
found a way to prevent it, it evolves and becomes resistant. It’s probably not
a bad idea for agencies, production companies, post houses and the like to
check their own defences. Whether it’s storing unphotoshopped celebrity images
or working for a controversial client, there are several reasons the ad
industry might find itself subject to a digital security breach. So stay safe
people. And for f**k’s sake, change your password from ‘password’.
(I say almost because there’s certainly no ‘like’ or ‘respect’ on the part of the hackers. And also because some people are just weird.) The hacking scandal has affected around 100 high profile celebrities, and yet nearly every news article leads with a photograph of everyone’s favourite photobomber, who was the one to contact the police when the images started to appear. She’s been deemed the biggest draw by news picture editors, appealing to both her vast legion of fans and creepy voyeurs alike. On the other hand, the warm and friendly J-Law brand has also been instrumental in marshalling supportive public opinion – and if your fantasy best friend is violated in such a way… well it’s going to bring it home. The J-Law brand is very much an image of a modern, relatable Hollywood starlet; strong-yet-clutzy, funny, talented, likeable and strictly no bullshit. She’s already a spokesperson for Dior and – stating the obvious here – if you’ve got deep enough pockets, she’s got to be number one on any number of brand wish lists.
9.
Puns are going to happen…
… and there’s just no fighting it. As the
images flooded the Internet, reddit users quickly branded the leak ‘The
Fappening’. It’s not big and it’s not clever and everything about the story
makes me feel queasy. But c’mon, ‘The Fappening’? Not even a little chuckle?
