What can agencies learn from Ben Mezrich?

The opening session of the Festival of Media Global brought together two speakers whose work puts them at the heart of global popular culture. 

Ben Mezrich is the authour of Accidental Billionaires, the book that was later developed into a movie and tells the tale of the early days of Facebook. 

Mezrich's career as a novelist did not have the easiest of starts. He readily admitted on stage that his early work was no great literary achievement. Eventually his luck turned when he decided to tell the story of a group of enterprising MIT students who used their mathematical skill to beat the MGM casino. The book, and subsequent film 21 were hits, and Mezrich established himself as a modern day story teller. He went on to tell how an email at 2am sent Mezrich on a journey investigating the troubled begginings of Facebook. 

Mezrich is an animated speaker, with many jokes to tell and points to make. He's fully aware that his two biggest (and only) publishing successes have focussed on the life and work of geeks. Whether this gives him any special insight into the brains behind one of the biggest social network brands on the planet is debatable, but the Accidentals story is a good one, engagingly told. 

Closing his presentation with details of his next project, Mezrich teased with news of Sex on the Moon, which involves another geeky male getting into trouble. Mezrich is definitiely a man that has found his metier. 

For the Festival of Media audience, Mezrich's career actually serves an interesting observation. At the very moment that he stopped trying to be creative, his work actually became more creative. 

The parallel for agencies here is immersion. Rather than trying to graft stories (or brands) onto people's lives, Mezrich, I suspect unconsciously, immersed himself in the lives of real people, and told those stories instead. The success of this move speaks for itself. 

Read Ben Mezrich's interview in M&M. 

Click here for a selection of photos from the morning session of Festival of Media.