The Weekender #16
Cannes, The Primacy of Me, are you a Deontologist or Utilitarianist?, and more
Welcome to the Weekender.
We must adapt to a new reality: Purpose has evolved from we to Me.
I wrote about this here many weeks ago in a post I called The Primacy of Me.
This is now the central finding of the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report: Brand Trust, From We to Me.
Over the past decade, brands have championed societal causes to earn relevance and loyalty, but today, consumers need hope and personal stability. Across age, income, or politics, respondents in 15 markets on 5 continents agree that they want brands to be active partners in a better day-to-day life.
Instead of changing the world, consumers want brands to change their personal world.
Eighty per cent of people trust My Brands, placing it far ahead of the traditional institutions of business, government, media, and NGOs. This is driven by a notable increase in trust in brands among both High- and Low-Income consumers since 2022.
You can read more in the Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report here.
Cannes 2025
It’s been all about 2025 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this last week. Everybody who is anybody, from Bill Gates to Sam Altman, Rory Sutherland to Hollywood celebrities, is celebrating and exploring the best in engagement, brand experiences, creativity, strategy, and more.
Cannes used to be the home of the World Mobile Congress (WMC) before it relocated to Barcelona. When in Cannes, I would take my team from my business consultancy there, hire a moored yacht, and entertain potential clients from around the world.
Free drinks and food, music, and half a dozen nice-looking male and female waiters paying them every attention. It was expensive, great fun, won enough business to make it worthwhile, and was such a popular ‘good time’ venue for visitors that we had to limit admission by ticket.
However, it ultimately led to my small consultancy’s financial downfall after winning an African telco contract that never paid out the several hundred $000’s they owed us for the work we had done.
Last week’s event, I thought, was a little underwhelming. Even among the winning ads, brands, and strategies, nothing seemed to stand out or be truly new. But if you’d like to explore for yourself, visit here.
For a more extensive write-up, including articles on how the desire for more experiences is driving a pivot in creative advertising, go here.
I hope you found the 1st issue of last week’s Intelligent Interfaces newsletter interesting. Thanks to everyone who has commented, shared, or restacked.
Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here.
Are You A Deontologist or Utilitarianist?
We want to know whether our self-driving car/taxi will be a Waymo, Wayve or Cybercab.
Engineers focus on whether the winning technology will use visual data only, or a wider range of sensors.
But aren’t we missing another question? Should our driverless cars be deontologists or utilitarians?
And if they absolutely have to choose, is it better to run over two pensioners or one pregnant woman?
Where are their ethical frameworks?
When they decide whether or not to let people cut in, should they be guided by Kantian categorical imperatives? When they consider how close to drive to other vehicles, should they apply Benthamist principles?
These questions, say the International Standards Organszation, are more than mere philosophising; they are crucial to making driverless technology actually work. “One reason this technology is not entering the world fast enough is because the car companies are so focused on the technology, on the radars and lidars, that they forgot about this ethical behaviour. And that causes people a lot of stress about these vehicles.”
The arrival of driverless cars has delighted philosophers who love a thought experiment to understand the world.
To their surprise, self-driving cars raises the “trolley problem”.
The trolley problem makes us consider the trade-off between fixed moral rules, action, inaction and strict calculations of harm. If a trolley — or driverless car — is set to kill two people, but you can divert it to kill only one — thereby saving a life, but also actively choosing to kill a life — should you?
Broadly, how you answer depends on whether you believe in minimising harm (utilitarianism) or obeying rules (deontology).
There is now a considerable body of work on how this might apply to driverless cars, and how we value life. What if the people are old? Young? What if they are pets? Edmond Awad at the University of Exeter helped create a website, the Moral Machine, where people can test their response in different circumstances. Broadly, around the world he finds we value the young over the old and more lives over fewer, but there are cultural differences in how we weight it.
This, he said, is useful even if we never find ourselves facing the choice between ploughing into five dogs or one octogenarian. “Maybe we will not find the car-facing scenarios where they kill one or the other, but they do face these moral trade-offs all the time.” Which car do you drive closer to? How much risk do you take when overtaking? Does that change depending on the passengers in the car? “Basically, how do you distribute harm across the road users?”
So far though, there is no unanimity on rules. Patrick Lin, from California Polytechnic State University, said that muddling through on these issues might not be an option.
Rule inconsistency — for example, trying to programme both consequentialism and deontology into a car can result in contradictory decisions, which could crash the programme (and the car).
Worse, from the manufacturer’s point of view, it could result in a car breaking the law for a higher good (and a higher liability).
With thanks to The Times.
See Which You are on the moral machine quiz, here
The Saturday Night Live star carries on a conversation with a pair of oranges in ‘Nothing Outshines a Blue Moon ad.’
See the ad here
A Phone (That’s Not a Phone) to Help You Stop Using Your Phone
The next bonkers trend? The Methaphone—a clear slab of smartphone-shaped acrylic—is part cheeky art project/ art helpful tool for those looking to curb their phone addiction. So now we’ll carry two metal slabs around?
Wired (6-minute read)
Roger Berkowitz’s TEDx talk, Speak Your Mind: Why Free Speech and Listening Matter, argues that democracy thrives on open dialogue and the exchange of differing viewpoints, rather than a commitment to facts or to truth. (17-minute video)
See you mid-week with a deep dive into consumer/brand disruption and new experience thinking.
It’ll leave you brighter, sharper, and challenge your strategies.
Enjoy your weekend!
Michael