07/07/2021
Here's a book I've recommended you read before: Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces.
I often recommend it to people who are interested in branding and marketing, because I think that what we are doing is very similar to what people have been doing for thousands of years: telling stories. If you want to integrate your brand into the cultural fabric, you really have to be able to see what the fabric is made of. It's mostly made of stories, and most of those stories have, at their core, a hero.
Much of what Campbell's folk heroes have in common is that they all want something. One hero wants to find a girl. Another hero wants to avenge the murder of his parents. There's always this one thing that the hero wants. The story starts when we've defined what it is, and it ends when we've resolved it.
The thing about folk tales is that they've had many thousand years of practice at engaging people in very deep and meaningful ways. And what those thousands of years of practice tell us, is that people don't want to hear about the other things the hero also wants. They want to hear about this one thing.
If I had to estimate how many ads and brand messages out of a hundred fail to communicate with their audience, I'd say it's at least ninety. Let’s call them the noisy ninety.
For most of the noisy ninety, it'll be something to do with the fact that they are confused about what their consumers actually want. So, they end up trying to be more than one thing to them.
Consumers tune out right away for the same reason they would tune out of a spy movie where the hero spends half their time trying to save the world, and the other half trying to lose weight.
To be clear, it's not that they don't think those other things are interesting. Those other things just need their own story. Different wants, different stories.
So, to avoid being part of the noisy ninety, here's a simple rule: think of your consumer as a hero, find out the one thing this hero really wants, and then resolve that story for them.
What is the one thing your target audience wants? How are you resolving it? Comment below!