It isn’t all Hollywood. It isn’t either all Cannes. Movies have a great deal to tell us about...us. About social media and of course advertising. They have a great deal to tell us or should have a great deal to tell us ... because as is often the case we’re not listening.
We’re not listening, although the business success, the popular success and the oscar successes are screaming loud enough. So here are four simple lessons to learn, four simple things that can radically chance the efficiency of what you are doing. A contribution to the 4th weekly blogpost round up #usblogs We’re only listening to people who are not like us. A British King with a speech impediment, a paranoiac ballet dancer, a stubborn on the border of freaky web billionaire, a young lady who talks to rabbits and a secret agent exploring dreams. These are the year’s most successful characters, these are people with whom evryone of us, or at least a vast majority identified with, cried for, got goose pimples with. And yet none of these characters have much to do with us... Apparently. They live lives we will never know, some of them we wouldn’t even dream having. (I have no desire whatsoever to become a ballet dancer, let alone a paranoid one).
And yet I keep hearing in meetings that we need people in our advertising that are like the people who will buy the products, that we need community managers that are like the people they will ‘manage’ (if that was ever going to be the case...). But the reality of this we see on our web and on our screens everyday: average people build to be ‘like us’ are people everyone is happy to forget immediately and that fail miserably at doing what they we created to do: make us identify. Reality is that is is far easier to identify with people of extreme character who look nothing like us. We’re only listening to people who have real issues .
Paranoid, speech impeded, freaky, girlfriendless. This is the key to what makes these unreal characters fel real. Like us they are fighting for life, struggling against themselves and others, like us they have issues that make them human, and so they become people we’re interested in. The Speech has not been a success in the royal courts or the speech impeded. This would have promised a short career. Suddenly we all felt we were in the shoes of that king, we felt what it was to be called Bertie when people should bow to you. That’s because we have all had our speech impediment. Never at that level, but we know what that fear feels like, we know what it is to fight against...yourself...and in public. We lived it at school when we were kids, we live it at the office. So you need a character, but he needs to have a fight, a struggle, one that reminds us of something we fear deep down. Same again in advertising, same again in social media. Take Old Spice for example: We’ll never be him, and we’re reminded: does your man look like me: no? But we have a way to fight against insecurity: we can ‘can he smell like me: yes’, can he cook, can he built a kitchen, can he give you the night of your life: all of our everyday fights really. We pay attention if you’ve paid enough to deserve it.
Nathalie Portman, Colin Frith, Leonardo di Caprio. And yes you would say Jesse Eisenberg a relativelly less known actor. But who is the director behind that risk? No one else that David Fincher. There will be exceptions of course, but the reality is that major talent is involved in almost everyone of these popular successes, that a lot of attention has gone into the content of the film: producing it, getting the right cast, the right place. Something that few marketing budgets allow for anymore. But it’s not all just thrown in the dustbin: it’s all there to create conversation starters. Stores that are fed well in advance of the film appearing, and each of these support the film, they get behind the launch and its publicity. So it’s not just about the money, it’s also about what people who received it do for it, how they get involved, how they relay, how they involve us all in their character. There is a myth today that the digital world can allow huge successes for no money at all. The reality exactly like in the movies is that yes it can be a great deal cheaper, but hta tthe real successes-everyone of the top 10 from last year took a great deal of investment. In making great content, and in putting it forward. A story lives. My final lesson from movies is that a success is a rapid thing. It takes a good story, it takes money, but it dies quickly enough.
Which is why Hollywood has moved from a one time movie producing business to an experience produced: derivated products and sequels are where a lot of money comes from. A lot of the movies who won last night won’t be ripe for that, but be sure you’ll find derivated products from sites, to DVD’s to Music, to ‘after black swan’ on their next poster. For those of you who would like to decrypt this in more depth, I highly recommend the book: Mainstream
Like in social media, like in advertising, good stories need to be given life: a before a during and an after.
Let’s face it, the lifespam of wha twe do has grown shorter and shorter, with digital natives getting used to millions of new stories everyday, and they grown accustomed to getting their stories where THEY want, so across platforms. Because their life span has gone shorter and shorter. So isn’t it time we listened a little to what movies have been telling us: find characters who are out of the ordinary, find a cause they’re fighting that we understand in our deepest, and tell these stories in the most extraordinary way.
Seems to me our social media and advertising experience would be so much better...
We’re not listening, although the business success, the popular success and the oscar successes are screaming loud enough. So here are four simple lessons to learn, four simple things that can radically chance the efficiency of what you are doing. A contribution to the 4th weekly blogpost round up #usblogs We’re only listening to people who are not like us. A British King with a speech impediment, a paranoiac ballet dancer, a stubborn on the border of freaky web billionaire, a young lady who talks to rabbits and a secret agent exploring dreams. These are the year’s most successful characters, these are people with whom evryone of us, or at least a vast majority identified with, cried for, got goose pimples with. And yet none of these characters have much to do with us... Apparently. They live lives we will never know, some of them we wouldn’t even dream having. (I have no desire whatsoever to become a ballet dancer, let alone a paranoid one).
And yet I keep hearing in meetings that we need people in our advertising that are like the people who will buy the products, that we need community managers that are like the people they will ‘manage’ (if that was ever going to be the case...). But the reality of this we see on our web and on our screens everyday: average people build to be ‘like us’ are people everyone is happy to forget immediately and that fail miserably at doing what they we created to do: make us identify. Reality is that is is far easier to identify with people of extreme character who look nothing like us. We’re only listening to people who have real issues .
Paranoid, speech impeded, freaky, girlfriendless. This is the key to what makes these unreal characters fel real. Like us they are fighting for life, struggling against themselves and others, like us they have issues that make them human, and so they become people we’re interested in. The Speech has not been a success in the royal courts or the speech impeded. This would have promised a short career. Suddenly we all felt we were in the shoes of that king, we felt what it was to be called Bertie when people should bow to you. That’s because we have all had our speech impediment. Never at that level, but we know what that fear feels like, we know what it is to fight against...yourself...and in public. We lived it at school when we were kids, we live it at the office. So you need a character, but he needs to have a fight, a struggle, one that reminds us of something we fear deep down. Same again in advertising, same again in social media. Take Old Spice for example: We’ll never be him, and we’re reminded: does your man look like me: no? But we have a way to fight against insecurity: we can ‘can he smell like me: yes’, can he cook, can he built a kitchen, can he give you the night of your life: all of our everyday fights really. We pay attention if you’ve paid enough to deserve it.
Nathalie Portman, Colin Frith, Leonardo di Caprio. And yes you would say Jesse Eisenberg a relativelly less known actor. But who is the director behind that risk? No one else that David Fincher. There will be exceptions of course, but the reality is that major talent is involved in almost everyone of these popular successes, that a lot of attention has gone into the content of the film: producing it, getting the right cast, the right place. Something that few marketing budgets allow for anymore. But it’s not all just thrown in the dustbin: it’s all there to create conversation starters. Stores that are fed well in advance of the film appearing, and each of these support the film, they get behind the launch and its publicity. So it’s not just about the money, it’s also about what people who received it do for it, how they get involved, how they relay, how they involve us all in their character. There is a myth today that the digital world can allow huge successes for no money at all. The reality exactly like in the movies is that yes it can be a great deal cheaper, but hta tthe real successes-everyone of the top 10 from last year took a great deal of investment. In making great content, and in putting it forward. A story lives. My final lesson from movies is that a success is a rapid thing. It takes a good story, it takes money, but it dies quickly enough.
Which is why Hollywood has moved from a one time movie producing business to an experience produced: derivated products and sequels are where a lot of money comes from. A lot of the movies who won last night won’t be ripe for that, but be sure you’ll find derivated products from sites, to DVD’s to Music, to ‘after black swan’ on their next poster. For those of you who would like to decrypt this in more depth, I highly recommend the book: Mainstream
Like in social media, like in advertising, good stories need to be given life: a before a during and an after. Let’s face it, the lifespam of wha twe do has grown shorter and shorter, with digital natives getting used to millions of new stories everyday, and they grown accustomed to getting their stories where THEY want, so across platforms. Because their life span has gone shorter and shorter. So isn’t it time we listened a little to what movies have been telling us: find characters who are out of the ordinary, find a cause they’re fighting that we understand in our deepest, and tell these stories in the most extraordinary way.
Seems to me our social media and advertising experience would be so much better...
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