On Tuesday, organizers of the upcoming London 2012 Olympics unveiled their mascots, two lovable characters “Wenlock and Mandeville“. As we would learn in the animated introduction that was reminiscent of the noted Children’s series “Thomas and Friends” from the 1980’s, they were forged from the last drops of steel used for the construction of the Olympic stadium and later re-tooled as a loving present by retiring worker, “George”, to his grandchildren.

A delightful tale, that went off the charts by any focus group of the intended viewers. Alas, poor “Wenlock and Mandeville” have not been treated so kind by the mainstream media but in an amusing turn of events, says a great deal of how far off course much of the business community is in understanding the present-day evolution in connectivity.

As per the Telegraph, Stephen Bayley, design critic firmly establishes the lack of touch with the present day as following his scathing review of the lovable duo, complains that they are, “appalling computerised Smurfs for the iPhone generation”.

While the “Smurfs” hit their heyday in the early 1980’s, with a modest revival in the following decade, making the notation a tagline for the generation looking to comfortable shoes and affordable prescriptions, comments such as these, sting with the inability to understand society is in the midst of the next phase of the Digital Revolution. Call it evolution or revolution but over the last decade the pace of change has pushed into top gear and those not realizing this, are left behind talking of, well pop culture icons thirty years past.

Equally, the “iPhone” generation comment is not only well off course in this situation but has the same residue that is fouling social media titan Facebook. With the latter, that now boasts its user base is growing exponentially; its largest growth demographic is women over the age of fifty-five. One very crucial point to remember in product launches, is should a new product get into the “wrong hands” and be associated outside of the intended market, it might never recover. While Facebook, whose success is based upon a pre 2005 paradigm, frets over public outcry on privacy that might be its greatest flaw. Facebook’s present demographics is a recipe to have your product, that tight new design, jettisoned into the wrong hands and killed off quickly before it ever gets a chance. With its now ever-present agricultural mayhem and other application’s it has lost its sex appeal fast and a product launch nightmare. With the power of the modern social media web, companies must now be wary that the wrong product placement will crush the launch straight out of the gate.

The evolution of the digital revolution is pushing quickly into an era, where product placement is at an entirely new level of visibility. The wrong move and your product could be associated out of its intended market and relegated to the discount aisle before it had a chance. The future of Social Media is reliant upon forward thinking and not rooted in the past and for that, the London Games have hit the target.

Prepared by J. Davies
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