Creating in-flight videos.

"To fasten your seat belt, insert the metal tab..."

To fly is to ignore. You ignore the inflight video that seems not to have been updated since 1966. You ignore it because it is irrelevant. Because you have seen it before and because it does not impart useful information.

Unfortunately, I'd guess that 99% of all that the ad industry produces--maybe 99.9% of what our online friends generate--falls into the in-flight video camp. Tired. Uninspired. Not admired. Should be retired.

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

In short as an industry, we have given the viewer permission to stop listening. And because they have stopped listening, as an industry, we've fallen prey to magic elixers that will "engage people in conversations about brands." We hold social media and tweets as a shibboleth, a panacea, the "engagement" answer. We say, "this will get people to listen!"

The simple truth is people will listen. They will tune in. They will take note if you give them useful information in an executionally brilliant way. Movies are breaking attendance records. TV viewership is at an all-time high. More books are sold than ever before. And so it goes.

People are listening. They are paying attention. They want entertainment and information.

But not to in-flight videos.

Which is what we seem to be creating.