Creating Marketing Things for Ourselves

"Once you start conceiving of your book as a commodity, you start thinking about readers as potential buyers, as customers to be lured. This makes you try to anticipate their tastes and cater to them. In doing so, you begin to depart from your own inclinations rather than respond to what the Irish novelist, Colm Toibin, has referred to as “the stuff that won’t go away.” “It seems that the essential impulse in working is … to allow what haunts you to have a voice, to chart what is deeply private and etched on the soul, and find a form and structure for it.” Facing up to what haunts you and finding a form and structure for it can never be a commercial enterprise. That stuff’s too chaotic and unpredictable, too messy and gorgeous, to fit a popular template. But it’s the source of your originality and may well prove popular in the end."

Author Jeffrey Eugenides shares somewhat of a fact of creativity. it tends to work best when it's something we want ourselves. Which I think is problematic for the business we're in. Everything we do chases the whims of something or someone else. So our question then is how we "chart what is deeply private and etched on the soul" when it's not only an expression of something that burns within, but rather something meant to move someone else.

Not to get all emo on you, I think the answer is love. We don't have the luxury of chasing every eccentric act of creativity that crosses our mind, we aren't in the business of provoking for the sake of provocation. And frankly, very few can build a career on that sort of indulgence in any industry.

So love though, think of how you bought gifts for others this past Christmas. Did you hurriedly buy the first thing plausible you could find? Or did you have the most success in considering the tastes and fashions of someone you care for? Did you buy it to check a box on a list or did you buy it because you wanted to show that person that they hold some meaning for you? If your purchase is more considered, the act of both giving and receiving becomes more satisfying. Everyone wins.

The best strategists and creatives I've found are not only passionate about the work, but the joy of the work stems from something bigger than building stuff you like or building because you need a pay check. The best find something about those who will ultimately touch the things they make that they genuinely care for, admire and respect. The best work is not simply transactional, but an empathetic exchange of something of more import than selling a few widgets.

So that is the job for the New Year, to get beyond the scowls and politics, the holier than thou attitudes we sometimes take towards an audience who may seem far away and not of us. It is to stay out of the high rises and in the streets. To not imagine only soccer moms, tech geek dads and rich, extreme white teenagers when we find ideas, but to create experiences for how the rest of us, and the most of us, live, too.

Austin Kleon says of musicians, "You can ignore the audience as much as you want — just don’t expect to get on the fucking radio."

Ignore your audience all you want, just don't expect to be rewarded for it.

Comments

[Mike Wagner]

Really like this line..."The best work is not simply transactional, but an empathetic exchange of something of more import than selling a few widgets."

Part of the tension you describe, for me, is resolved and complicated by my Christian faith. And perhaps that what you are getting at with your mention of "love".

Didn't Dylan sing, even if he may not of believed it, "you got to serve somebody."

One thing is for sure, you got my mind racing...thanks!

[Paul McEnany]

Thanks Mike! I've been back home in Texas, so many recent conversations about faith. I hadn't really thought about it in those terms, but it probably still holds true. Much harder for religions to grow when those within look down on those yet to be converted. Which probably happens with any group, religious or otherwise, whenever the tie that binds them is strong. Any probably why religious institutions that focus on love thy neighbor are generally more attractive than those based on fear of some other.

Anyhow - interesting angle for sure. Thanks for the comment and the share!

[Leighh]

I started working on a project this year in response to what i found to be so many cynical and occasionally downright mean spirited Agency xmas cards.

Understanding marketing and being able to sway people is a gift and a power that can either be used for good or for crap. I know which side of that equation I'd like to try to be on.

And i'm with Mike, i really liked the line "the best work is not simply transactional, but an empathetic exchange of something of more import than selling a few widgets."

Happy New Year Paul :)

[Paul McEnany]

Thanks Leigh! A few too many cynics in our business for sure. We'll have to do some coffee soon! Curious to hear how things are going over at Gravity.

[Jasmin]

This is such a good reminder for us to keep it real. It's almost counter intuitive in most agencies, as the culture encourages nasty behaviour. We love sharing terrible stock photos that get used as personas, it's part of the bonding experience to sit around the boardroom and roll our eyes collectively as we get briefed in to do another mom project.

I accept your challenge to try to shift the internal perceptions of audiences this year. :)

One of the main barriers we can start to remove is the stigma of the audience of one. While it's true we can't design for a single person, we shouldn't be afraid to sit and talk about what our friends and family say, do, think and feel about stuff. If we get a big enough of a group talking, that turns the one into many, and that's a pretty good start.

[Paul McEnany]

I totally agree! Not always a bad thing to personalize the project a bit. I think we've all seen projects move forward when no one around the table believes in it. And I think that has a lot to do with the - hey, I'm not the target audience - mentality. Obviously there's a balance there. Like, if you're 60 and you've never spent any time on tumblr, you might not understand why an animated gif might be effective. But generally speaking, better use yourself, your friends, your kids, whatever, to think it through rather than selling your gut short.