Get unreal. How will virtual & augmented reality affect marketing & advertising?

By Gonzalo López Martí    – Creative director, etc  /  LMMIAMI.COM

• Disclaimer: from here on I’ll delve into some arcane theoretical issues of our business.
• Read on at your own risk.
• My bet is virtual & augmented reality will push advertising to go surreal.
• All the way.
• Salvador Dalí surreal.
• Lisergic.
• Psychedelic.
• Cuz, let’s face it, we hate reality.
• Latinos or otherwise.
• We love fiction so much that we want to immerse ourselves in it.
• You want to stay away from real reality if you want to be, errr… successful.
• Stick to dreams and pies in the sky.
• Airbrush, fabricate, concoct, put lipstick on that pig.
• When in doubt, go fictional (of fictitious, I never really understood the difference).
• Whether you are a filmmaker, an ad creative, a brand strategist.
• We humans just like to be lied to.
• By brands.
• By doctors, teachers, parents, political leaders, journalists, economists.
• Think of this motto: it’s not a lie if someone believes it.
• Much less if millions do.
• We will always choose fabrications over the other stuff.
• As a species, as a race, as a culture, as a civilization.
• Just like David Duchovny’s character in the X Files, we want to believe.
• We want to believe Donald Trump or Hugo Chávez will fix our problems.
• We want to believe a new luxury sedan will make us happier.
• In 2016, if you ask a child what his or her favorite animal is they’ll tell you it’s the unicorn.
• Or some dinosaur.
• That’s how bad our state of delusion has become.
• We can’t handle the truth.
• Truth hurts.
• Truth loses elections and wrecks marriages.
• Honey, you look stunning and no, that dress doesn’t make your ass look big.
• Some call it storytelling.
• I think it’s a blatantly misleading euphemism.
• BS.
• Big time.
• By this logic, the Bible is a massive lie too, a fairy tale.
• Ditto the Bill of Rights or the Constitution, for that matter.
• Just wishful thinking.
• Wait.
• Maybe we don’t really like to be lied to.
• Maybe we understand concepts better when they come in the form of hyperbole or metaphors.
• Conveniently packaged in movies, videogames, catchprases, bumper stickers, lawn signs, one-liners, tweets.
• More so if the metaphor or the hyperbole is aspirational.
• We know that every single individual featured in a movie or ad is an actor reading from a script.
• Directed by a filmmaker.
• Shot & lit by a director of photography (or cinematographer, to use Hollywood parlance).
• Made up and coiffed by hair & makeup artists.
• Replaced during risky scenes by stunt doubles.
• Retouched by CGI operators.
• Still, we suspend our disbelief.
• A long time ago I saw an Everlast ad with this headline: We could’ve paid a star athlete top dollar to wear our gear. We could’ve paid a star athlete top dollar to wear a dress too.
• So true.
• See, virtual & augmented reality is not science fiction.
• It’s way more that that.
• It’s Latin American Magical Realism.
• García Márquez stuff.
• A big opportunity for us Latinos.
• We’ve traded in delusion and magical thinking for generations.
• We certainly have the skill set and the know-how for this brave new world coming our way.