Get yourself a cup of warm cup of tea or coffee, plonk yourself in front of a screen, it could be a connected TV, laptop, or phone. Head to the comments section of your favourite song on YouTube. Chances are you will find hundreds if not thousands of kindred souls who felt something more than the everyday by listening to it.
The comments section of Let It Be by The Beatles shows that the song continues to move people across decades and age groups. Listen to it, as you read about the mother of a deceased twin finding solace time and again by listening to the song Paul McCartney wrote for his mum. Or people finding hope in times of need.
Scroll down from Daniel by Elton John and you’ll find stories about gone-too-soon Daniels or the Daniels still out there living their lives. Warren Zevon’s Keep Me in Your Heart is filled with comments about people snatched away by cancer or people still fighting this formidable enemy.
Why is it that a national anthem moves even the most disinclined? Why does a lullaby remind every one of their childhood? Why does music, a particular scene from a movie, a documentary about an obscure subject or even a talk move us to tears?
Time has flown by many times, at night or during the day, when I sat fascinated by this world, the space inhabited by feelings expressed in the most heartfelt of words. It takes a lot to bare yourself in front of an audience comprising people from all walks of life, all bents of politics. But then, this is social networking at a more leisurely pace.
Nobody expects a YouTube profile to have lots of identifying information about the user. This gives a certain sense of anonymity. It makes people be their real selves, the selves that feel as well as express sadness, joy, anger, rejection, exhilaration and all those feelings that make us who we are; feelings that are anticipated, feelings that are feared, feelings that every human craves from someplace deep down inside their heart.
Now this is true engagement, true ROI on those long nights and hard-working days that the artist or speaker spent to get to this stage on the World Wide Web. The same holds true for every good piece of content online, no matter the culture or language. Look at the genuine praise heaped on the Cadbury Gorilla advert or the nostalgic musings on jingle-laced 90s ads. Way better than some hearts left absent-mindedly under the many ads that are trying their very best not to appear as ads.
To borrow and tweak words from the great Howard Gossage: people don’t react to ads, they react to something that makes them move, and sometimes that’s an ad. Some call this entertainment, some storytelling.
So, what works? Common sense dictates that when you set out to get some reaction out of anyone you are talking to, personalisation works to a certain extent. But it’s key to remember that the ad is talking to one person as well as an entire group of disparate people into something specific, for example, fedoras or wolves.
At some level, it should have the power to serve as a collective experience. One that promises to reward the maximum number of viewers with a memory they can talk about in their own unique way with their own unborrowed feelings attached to it.
But in the region, most of the real work coming out seems to be skimming the surface, leading to people skipping at the sixth second. We seem to understand cohorts, groups, and tribes. Not the humans behind the labels and numbers. We don’t need data to tell us that given some exceptions, almost every human wants love, appreciation, and self-realisation.
Having said that; it’s not enough to just write and read about it. It has to lead to a reaction, the awakening of a deep instinct to see people as people, not audiences. In the everyday struggle to get the campaign approved before the launch day, every one of us has compromised, given up and moved on. And that’s understandable.
But if we take one step towards understanding the real challenge for marketers – the pain point that keeps them up at night – and then honestly set out to seek a solution for it, the results will reward us. Not necessarily with the trophy kind, but the kind of feeling you get from the satisfaction of having made a difference to the success of a brand that pays the bills.
Now, when you read one of the YouTube comments and feel the urge to like or respond to it, do that. But also save that clarity, that state of mind to use it the next time you need to talk to humans – those fragile beings that continue to thrive in the face of every challenge.
By S A Hassan Bilgrami, co-founder, co-ECD and co-worker at CIQ
