Marketing and Advertising In Interesting Times

Let's... Go... Fast...

Here's a fun fact: the wildly common belief that "may you live in interesting times" is a Chinese curse? Apocryphal. No equivalent expression exists in China. But that's all beside the point. Everyone knows the sentiment, and more importantly, few would disagree with the idea that we are, well, living in those times right now.

Lesser known, but still generally well-accepted, is the belief that works of art, literature, music and more also improve in times of turmoil. The sense of immediacy created by political events that inspire, for good and ill, is good for the creative process. It generates a focus, a primal need to create, that just can't be replicated in times where people are comfortable and content.

Which leads me to how my family and I spent our Sunday night, at the movies, to see the well-regarded animated movie "Zootopia." I won't get too far into the plot of this, because it really is a movie that shouldn't be spoiled, but I'm not ruining anything by saying that it definitely seems to be a creation that mirrors our times. That it does so with a deft stroke, some genuine cleverness, and real craft in the artwork and voice acting is all a bonus. (I'd also consider it surprising, from such a  mainstream movie studio as Disney.) But I don't think it's overstating the case that the era in which we live in makes the movie even more effective than it might otherwise be. (Oh, and special kudos to the filmmakers for naming two of their characters Walter and Jesse. That made my inner Vince Gilligan fan wildly happy.)

This is, of course, a common experience. Television shows got dramatically better once we left an era of limited distribution and competition, and into a realm of more diversity in popular awareness. American pop music had rebirths in the latter half of the '60s and early '70s, matching some of the most turbulent times in the nation's history. British punk music is born during extremely difficult times in the late '70s, and might have had its fullest flower in America 25 years later, during the backlash to the G.W. Bush presidency. And so on.

Where this leaves us, as professionals, is a time where middle ground work isn't going to do as well, and where incremental steps are going to seem, well, pedestrian. It's a time where adtech is giving us opportunities to do things that seem particularly aggressive, both from a distribution and a creative standpoint. Hard "R" content and tough talk seems to speak to more leeway in pitches, and in final execution. And the fact that everything happens at a greater speed is, on some level, it's own push towards redder meat.

No one really knows, of course, how our world is going to change in the next 6 to 12 months, and every presidential cycle comes with its own prediction of "most important in our lifetime." But we do know that with distributed communications technology, social media, and a profit-driven 24/7/365 news engine that is chasing ratings from the sensational, having our messages cut through the clutter, while still protecting brand, has never been more challenging. Just doing what you've done before, or taking very small steps toward optimization, might not be enough.

And on the plus side?

That means you've never had more freedom to experiment.

Interesting times, indeed.

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