Clemenger’s Ben Keenan confesses ‘I’ve never clicked on a banner ad’ at MADC Presents event

Last week it was Ben Keenan’s turn in front of another sellout crowd at the Local Taphouse in St.Kilda at MADC Presents’ latest event.

It wasn’t a catalogue of digital advertising campaigns, as some might have been expecting. It turned out to be a highly entertaining discourse on the pros and cons of the internet age, liberally dosed with sociological observations of the way it’s changed our lives. There was some great work too, but only to drive home the points.

Keenan is an insightful man. No surprises there really, he’s the interactive creative director at Clemenger Melbourne. What was so refreshing though, was Keenan’s ability to take large, theoretical communications issues and illustrate them with such simple and engaging examples.

Take movies for example. So many old plots have been destroyed by technology. A 15 year old would laugh at the concept of Psycho today, because Trip Advisor is such an integral part of our lives. Likewise, who could forget Molly Ringwald’s birthday in 16 Candles with Facebook to take care of it.

Keenan shared some very funny loves and hates and deftly illustrated the social power harnessed by the internet – or as he calls it – a relevance engine.  #I’llridewithyou #putoutyourbats and #OccupySandy were three great examples with the pertinent corollary being that when advertising gets it right, it too becomes culture.

He finished with a rather ingenious demonstration whereby several audience members were disturbed to learn that people had died in their childhood homes. Trove was the data source and it was a simple example of turning data into something relevant, meaningful and engaging. But as Keenan put it, “creative have always used data, we just didn’t call it that”.