The IPG Emerging Media Lab recently hosted a group of masters degree students from the USC Annenberg Program on Online Communities. The new program grooms leaders of social networks and virtual worlds. Lab staff led a brief tour and discussion on how emerging platforms such as social media are expanding (and complicating) opportunities for marketers to reach their target audience.
We’ll be announcing more details about our relationship with USC shortly, but see what a couple of the students had to say about the Lab on their respective blogs:
From misshiss.wordpress.com:
“Among the various of sites, consultants, and publications that address new media from a marketing perspective, IPG’s Emerging Media Lab’s “show and tell†approach stood out to me as as an effective and results-driven balance between breadth and depth of information.
As Josh Lovison addresses in a recent Future of Media blog post, “emerging media” is a troublesome term whose definition is largely in the eye of the beholder. The prominence of dualities like new/old, mainstream/niche, and technology/behavior further muddy the water, and the interdisciplinary nature of the field make forming an objective definition a goose chase. Luckily, I don’t think a concrete definition is what marketers want or need: a subjective yet sound distillation of pertinent information is much more valuable. Though I was initially uncertain of the filters that IPG uses in this distillation process, the tour, review of their publications, and a discussion of their philosophy has convinced me that IPG’s “brick and mortar” and online content effectively serve marketers with a streamlined summary of what’s happening, what’s possible, and best practices in regard to emerging media.” Read more.
From Socialicious.wordpress.com:
Last week our class visited the IPG Emerging Media Lab – a place that gives a peek into the technological landscape of the future. After learning about the cutting-edge technologies that are sprouting out of brilliant minds, here are a few of the most fascinating things I learned about:
* The Modern Refrigerator: Somewhere to store food, with a computer/TV on the door that could display RSS feeds for recipes or kitchen needs and possibly (in the future) RFID tags that can inform you when you’re out of milk!
* HOME: A playstation video game/space/SNS that provides private spaces for players to have conversations with friends or even work through homework with professors. This is a game where players can shop using micro-purchasing and where advertisers can incorporate their latest campaigns inside virtual malls showcasing storefronts with the latest trends. This takes shopping and advertising to a whole new level. Read more.
We look forward to continuing the conversation with USC’s APOC community.
