I've written before in this space, maybe even a number of times, about our modern misunderstanding of time.
Our species having eliminated virtually all connections with those over 40 or 50, seems to think everything happens in the moment. And for the first time. We all but ignore the long arcs that makeup life as it really happens.
The worst effect of this sort of malady is that we ignore, obviate or otherwise don't notice a certain human permanence. That humans--from Lucy about 4.5 million years ago (not Desi's wife) to our more recent ancestors, homo-sapiens about 200,000 years ago--have a lot of built-in wiring that likely isn't going to change anytime soon.
If you believe for a second, as I do, that humans in their development aren't that different from other creatures, you'd realize that we are born with a lot of pre-wiring already wired.
We're not all of a sudden going to pay attention to things because they're well-targeted. We're not going to find boring things interesting because they're gussied up. As Steve Hayden once said, most messages work because of the promise of sex or the fear of death.
If you believe as I do, that we basically follow three impulses, the need for food, the need to mate and the need to protect ourselves, how we do that has changed. What we need really hasn't. For the most part, life is pretty primal.
For a second think about the loggerhead turtle. Only one per ten-thousand makes it from hatchling to full-blown turtle, but every one of those little creatures is born with an understanding of their world that could boggle your mind.
From ab ovo, they can read the Earth's magnetic fields, navigate to the sea, out to the Gulf Stream, around the world and back to their place of birth without having to cram for the SATs or, heaven forfend, having to enroll in Trump University. You'll seldom run into a loggerhead with $500,000 in student debt.
I've spent my career at a variety of different agencies that have specialized in a variety of different media. At one time I thought it would help make me into a good creative leader if I were conversant in traditional advertising, direct marketing, interactive and events. Just like if I were living on the steppes with the Mongols a thousand years ago, I'd be better off if I could ride a horse, shoot an arrow, sew a yurt and pillage a village.
My point today is simple.
In all my agency journeys, I've seen two types of belief systems.
The modern one is the "that will change everythings." They believe that a new channel, new sort of mustard-flavored ice-cream or new recombinant sort of music will be so massively new it will change the very wiring of humanity. How we think, shop, make decisions, share information.
I hold to a more ancient view. That the things that made great stories in Angkor or Çatalhöyük or Pompeii or Cahokia or Ithaka or Ur or Aleppo or Machu Pichu or even the Globe Theater in London are the things that make great stories today. The same goes for ads too. And it's all pretty simple: I attribute the to Bernbach, but they might be genuine Tannenbaum's. "A little truth buys a lot of trust." And, "You have to give something to get something."
Those two statements go along with something I find myself saying to a lot of clients. Though I'm not sure how many actually hear me, or if I'm just being grin-fucked.
That is, people like brands that act like people they like. Honest, funny, reliable, courteous and all that chazarei. But most brands come across as bombastic, half-truth tellers and missing when you need them most.
I'm not one-hundred percent sure what my point is today. Other than it takes a human to sell to a human.
If I were CPT-3, I'd worry about humans replacing me.
Some of us are still good at empathy, even if we aren't as fast as machines.
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