What Do You Mean?
Last night a bunch of us Naked people saw a play, The Crumb Trail, as part of the Under the Radar theater festival. One reviewer called it, “a decamerous contemporary installation/performance piece dealing with the notion of crisis and engagement.” If I’d only read that description beforehand I would’ve had something intelligent to say afterward. Okay, maybe not intelligent, but I’d have at least known there were ten parts to the performance.
As it happened, I didn’t have much of anything to say about the play or its meaning. A mass indictment of culture/materialism/consumerism/American Idol/recycling? Meta-narrative? Self-referential interrogation of meaning itself? Nope. Not these or any other undergraduate musings could I regurgitate by night’s end. I did know I was gratified, entertained and, as I made my way home in the polar night, cold.
Strangely, it felt good (even great) not entirely knowing what the play meant. I’ve since attributed this to my place in the ad industry. So much effort is put into defining the most effective ways and things to communicate to the audience and our intention is typically to make ads that demonstrate whatever it is about that particular brand/product that is deemed important: its inherent values, benefits, promise, etc. It’s why we throw around phrases like, “does it pass the common sense test?” and why we spend millions of dollars on market research. We want to ensure the meaning is clear, that people will take our communications to mean what we want them to mean. Experiencing something in which its meaning is a lot more murky was a happy departure from this pattern, a liberation even.
I think there’s some merit to this idea, but I think it errs in its assumption that consumers, in contrast, want only experiences that evince meaning. Or, that a successful communications strategy should deliver on this expectation above all else. A number of campaigns have proven this doesn’t have to be so. The Cadbury Gorilla and its various iterations are a favorite around these parts and there are plenty of other random pieces of entertainment out there that deliver enjoyment, without being tethered to a specific brand idea or promise. For Cadbury, entertainment and enjoyment have, in effect, become the brand idea.
Perhaps such an approach is a truer reflection of marketing, particularly for us marketers who claim to create ideas that embrace the consumer’s POV. Though I seriously doubt I could write a synopsis of The Crumb Trail, it’s helped me realize it’s sometimes less about an experience that’s full of meaning and more about a meaningful experience.
Wow.. many beleive that there are no coincidences. Came to your site looking for a contact number to call someone there,and ran across your post.
turns out, I’m taking my college-aged daughter to “The Crumb Trail” tonight, and just last was desperately Googling for a clear explanation of what we’re in for. Didn’t find much clarity there, but Ben Brantley at The NY Times suggested this:
“The point, you see, isn’t so much finding your way as acknowledging that you’re lost, I’m lost, we’re all lost in the unmapped forest of the early 21st century.”
THERE’s a “up” notion.
Wow… many believe that there are no coincidences. I came to your site looking for a contact number to call someone there, and ran across your post.
Turns out, I’m taking my college-aged daughter to “The Crumb Trail” tonight, and just last night I was desperately Googling for some clear explanation of what we’re in for. Didn’t find much crystal clarity there, but Ben Brantley at The NY Times DID suggest this…
“The point, you see, isn’t so much finding your way as acknowledging that you’re lost, I’m lost, we’re all lost in the unmapped forest of the early 21st century.”
Hardly an “up” notion! But it helps a bit.
He also said…
“[it's] about the illumination that comes from groping in the dark.”
OKAY, so THAT idea is more akin to the art and science of comms development.
Ad great Keith Reinhart used to say that “good advertising appeals to the both heart and the head.” I think, though, that it’s its appeal is not always meaningful in a rationale sense… it’s not always a clear, linear product message served up in a mildly engaging and entertaining wrapper. Sometimes all you SEEM to see is wrapper. But there’s ALWAYS meaning there… always a relevant, product-related message.
I think what the Cadbury Gorilla spot is saying (in a terrifically subtle way) is that eating Cadbury chocolate is pure joy… on the level you experience when cranking a favorite song. Use of the Gorilla playing the drums to it instead of a person (or Phil Collins) made the spot much more appealing, but no less meaningful. It probably made the spot appeal more to a younger demo as well… perhaps part of their strategy?
Even though it was created a while ago, the spot even passes the current Recession Test on some level… saying something like, “fine, give up stuff, but don’t give up the simple (relatively inexpensive) things that bring you pure joy (like music and chocolate).
Where the spot loses me (or at least seems to break me out of my mood) is with the tag line accompanying the product shot at the end. Instead of reflecting and amplifying the emotional message of the spot and saying something like “pure joy” they combined the joy message with the ingredient claim that their bars containing a glass-and-a-half of real milk (“a glass and a half full of joy”).
Too much, I think. So, what… MILK is joy? Oh, and a glass and a half is a lot, I guess. But measuring joy?! They make me think… deliberate even… after a spot that was totally emotional up to that point. Why do that, especially if it’s not a simple idea?
It MIGHT have been a workable “joy + milk” compromise if, when the gorilla finally started playing, he was pounding a “drum and a half” of glass kettle drums filled with splashing milk, a la Blue Man Group. Then again, in trying to communicate both ideas (even with the same entertaining platform), it probably would have been a less powerful spot.
But back to my main point (made you wait long enough, didn’t I?)… that the “groping in the dark” portrayed in “The Crumb Trail” applies to our business. It’s akin to the free-thinking, semmingly random and certianly unmeasurable creative process that yields great ads; but ALSO that this thinking is preceded, informed, motivated, AND made effective by a clear, customer-intimate understanding and a deliberate, focused creative strategy.
Thanks for letting me visit! Now, to see if I get as much out of the play as Evan did…