• by Seana Mulcahy , September 11, 2006

I don't really want to talk about advertising, media, marketing, promotions and the digital space today. The media today is painful as much of it reflects the horrific tragedies of 9/11. Everywhere you look, there are newscasters rattling off the names of those we lost, interviewing the surviving kids, husband, wives, and partners. When you turn on any news station you'll hear some 2,749 names of victims we lost that day. Flip a channel and you'll see Ground Zero.

It seems that after five years, those of us who lost friends and family feel the same way. It often feels like many days are still Sept. 12, 2001. I think this rings true even for those who didn't lose anyone. Five years later it's still a sea of emotions.

So what do we do as a culture on a day like to today? More specifically, what do we do in our industry? Do we advertise or not? If we do advertise today via any media online or offline, do we change our creative and copy? Do we pay tribute or do we treat it like any day?

I personally am blind to most advertising today. As media professionals we need to use this form of mass communication to show our strength, our resilience, our pride, sense of giving and protecting, and our recent awareness.

Between 8:46 and 9:03 many of us were able to reach colleagues, friends and families by e-mail, instant messenger, landlines and mobile phones. Although many people were lost in that brief 20 minutes, many more were saved.

PEW Research just did a study on this matter. The bottom line is, Americans are concerned with protection against terrorism. According to the survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Aug. 9-13 among 1,506 adults, nearly every American (95 percent) can still recall exactly where they were or what they were doing when they first heard the news of the Sept. 11 attacks, and roughly half (51 percent) say that the attacks changed life in America in a major way. On a personal level, 22 percent report that their own lives have changed in a major way because of the events of 9/11, up slightly from 16 percent one year after the attacks occurred. In the view of nearly half of Americans (47 percent), the 9/11 attacks are about as serious as the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and another 35 percent say the 9/11 attacks were more serious than that event.

If you are looking online you might want to consider the September 11 Digital Archive. The site uses the digital space to collect, preserve and present the history of the September 11, 2001 attacks. I also found a list of links to similar spaces online

The 9/11 Tapes / 9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes / 9/11 Commission Final Report / 9/11: The Darkest Day / Moment by Moment: 9/11-14, 2001 / AP: 9/11 Five Years Later /Flight 93: Forty lives, one destiny / CNN: 9/11 Memorial.

I'll leave you with this thought as I mourn today: How can we use the digital space and the power and speed of the Web today?

Peace.