Me X Time = MeTime
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/99392 w=400&h=300]
Noah Kalina took a picture of himself every day for 6 years. 2356 consecutive days of changes in styles, apartments, tastes... Six years of maturation, refining of thoughts and attitudes.
At an average of 3000 advertising messages he likely received per day, that's over 7,000,000 different ads Noah combated throughout this time. With all the changes in such a short period of time, did he ever jump demographic groups? How many of these marketers treated him any differently in 2000 than they did in 2006. The answer is probably very few. Most just saw an 18-29 year white male.
This is a visual representation of the fact that it's time we stop treating human beings as numbers, or just parts of a whole. It's ridiculous to assume that a single person is roughly the same at 28 as 22, it's even more insane to aggregate that across multiple people.
It's important that we recognize individualistic differences across not just the greater marketplace, but especially among our own customers. How many of those companies shouting the 7 million messages actually took the time to understand Noah, and build a product or series of experiences that grew with him, and appreciated his developing wants? Again, probably not very many.
Is it easy to approach Noah as Noah, and identify his particular needs? No, it's not. And it probably never will be, but that doesn't mean we should just give up and identify him like the first line on his personal ad.
26, SWM...How much of the story does that tell, really?