Liar Liar? Are my pants really on fire?

on Jul 27 in Advertising, Culture, Strategy tagged by Peter Blackman

Is Michael Jackson really dead? I share an office with an art director called Damian who harbours a deep suspicion that he is in actual fact sitting on a beach somewhere. Sharing a coconut cocktail with Bubbles the chimpanzee. Finally happy in calm anonymity, and laughing at us between slurps of sugary sweet revenge through his swirly straw. He also doesn’t believe that Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon on the 11th September 2001. That’s my friend Damian. Not Michael Jackson. I don’t know what ‘Wacko Jacko’s’ view on 911 were. But given that well known nickname of his, I would guess that MJ might agree with Damian when he tells me that the hole (in the Pentagon) wasn’t big enough for a plane to have caused it.

Damian has seen Loose Change. His online hit one of 125 million on Google, plus 30 million views on Youtube. That’s a lot of views. Of one view. That view being a radical, alternative perspective on a momentous event in history. In an eloquent letter posted online to their supporters, the makers of ‘Loose Change’, Dylan Avery and Korey Rowe assert that “We are not dealing with conspiracy theories. We are dealing with facts. We are asking for the Truth and our requests will not cease until they are legitimately met.”

Regrettably for them - I do not believe that Avery and Rowe will ever discover the ‘Truth’. Nor do I believe that the US Government will ever publish a definitive account of the events of that day that are accepted as being the ‘Truth’. The truth has become relative. Subjective. Personal. I can’t convince Damian that he’s wrong about the Pentagon and Flight 77. More importantly I don’t want to. I could thrust a copy of David Aaronovitch’s excellent ‘Voodoo Histories’ into his hand and demand he read it -  but as we work together, he as art director, me as copywriter, it might strain relations slightly. In all probability he wouldn’t believe its conclusions anyway. After all -  it conflicts with what he believes to be true. So does it matter to us as creative marketing professionals? That ‘truth’ has become a fluid concept? Does it make creating campaigns that sell easier?

I find the fact that truth is not absolute profoundly depressing, but to paraphrase Mr Aaronovitch; in our post modernist / post structuralist society where we distrust the normative notions of truth all accounts of events are essentially stories and no single account ought be privileged above another. So the “truth or otherwise of conspiracy theories is less important than their existence, because they are, properly analysed, an expression of an underlying reality, representing a not entirely unfounded suspicion that the normal order of things itself amounts to a conspiracy”. Or to put it more simply -  everything is valid even if you might believe it to be false. So the box on the creative brief which says ‘Why should the consumer believe this?’ doesn’t have to have facts in it anymore. There’s no more need for ‘the science bit’ in commercials. All we need is the ‘truth’ behind our product story. Which leads to Seth Godin and his book ‘All Marketers are Liars’. At about the same time as Avery and Rowe of ‘Loose Change’ were publishing their dedication to seek out the Truth, Godin was writing on his blog about why he’d renamed his book:

“This book is about worldviews—the biases and expectations and shortcuts we use to get through the world. Here’s a punchline: when you try to change someone’s worldview forcibly, they get a headache. People become defensive in the face of a frontal assault on their worldview. Cunning is far more effective. And of course, I ignored my own advice by challenging the worldview of my reader right there in the title.”

Again - to put it more simply - people didn’t like being called liars. Godin is an engaging and superficially persuasive writer - so here’s his marketing perspective on truth:

“You believe things that aren’t true. Let me say that a different way: many things that are true are true because you believe them.”

“We believe what we want to believe, and once we believe something, it becomes a self-fulfilling truth.”

Godin uses an excellent example of this in the first chapter of his book, where he shows that while the wine glass manufacturer Riedel assert that “the delivery of a wine’s ‘message’, it’s bouquet and taste, depends on the form of the glass” the scientific reality says different. ‘When the proper tests that eliminate any chance that the subject would know the shape of the glass - there is absolutely zero detectible difference between glasses. A $1 glass and a $20 glass deliver precisely the same impact on the wine: none.”

Riedel glasses are rather wonderful to look at and hold, and as Godin goes on to point out, people believe that wine tastes better out of their glasses because “people believe it should”. Riedel have also been successful for a long period of time, all over the world, which demonstrates that there are a lot of people out there who don’t care about scientific, objective evidence. These are consumers who have moved into a state of mind which Kevin Roberts refers to in his book ‘Lovemarks’ as ‘loyalty beyond reason’. Which is of course the mindset of true believers of all major conspiracy theories. Never mind the evidence, the reason - a true believer will be loyal to their particular brand of conspiracy, be that JFK & Dallas, the Diana crash, 9/11 Pentagon. For to reiterate; truth is relative, not absolute. So whether it’s to do with wine glasses or the war on terror - on subjects about which we care deeply, there seems to have been a consumer shift ‘beyond reason’.

In his excellent book and website Counter Knowledge, Damian Thompson seeks to halt this flight from reason, worrying that “people who share a muddled, careless or deceitful attitude towards gathering evidence often find themselves drawn to each others fantasies. If you believe one wrong or strange thing you are more likely to believe another”

Hmm, so these people are muddled? Careless? Drawn to fantasies? From a marketing perspective these people sound perfect to sell things to! Unleash the crayons - lets create! Hold on a moment says Godin:

“When you are busy telling stories to people who want to hear them, you’ll be tempted to tell stories that just don’t hold up. Lies. Deceptions.”

“The thing is, lying doesn’t pay off any more. That’s because when you fabricate a story that just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, you get caught. Fast.

So, it’s tempting to put up a demagogue for Vice President, but it doesn’t take long for the reality to catch up with the story.”

Fair enough you might think. Lying isn’t very nice, and it’s particularly awful to be caught in a lie. But wait a moment. Who’s to say what a lie is these days? When truth has become so personal and subjective? A quick analysis of Godin’s other political references leads to the strong suspicion that the ‘demagogue’ in question must be Sarah Palin.

One half of a Republican party Presidential ‘ticket’ that secured 59,934,814 votes in the 2008 US election. So nearly sixty million people didn’t think McCain/Palin was a fabrication, or that ‘reality’ caught up with their story. OK, they didn’t win, but do they deserve to be called liars? Or that their supporters were taken in by a lie? Godin’s point is valid - that you ought not to lie to consumers. The example he uses to make this point is an execrable one based on his own biases and beliefs. It also undermines his own thesis. If all marketers are storytellers, and we live in a world where truth is relative, then every story is valid, even if you disagree with it. Godin is seeking to make absolute judgements against people, brands or organisations that he does not believe in, while at the same time championing the ‘creation’ of stories, the crafting of ‘authenticity’.

The twentieth century Labour politician Aneurin Bevan was famous for calling the Tories ‘vermin’, so it’s clear he held his political opponents in low regard. At the same time, he is also famous for the quote ‘This is my truth. Tell me yours” which demonstrates an awareness that those same opponents were entitled to hold a different, potentially opposite view on what the ‘truth’ around an issue might be. So, you might tell me your ‘truth’ -  be that about the advantages of Apple Macintosh computers or that Lord Lucan is still alive. I may disagree, but I cannot call you a liar or a deceiver. Not if you believe what you tell me to be true.

Godin goes on to conclude his new foreward to the book:

“That’s why I think this book is one of the most important I’ve ever written. It talks about two sides of a universal truth, one that has built every successful brand, organization and candidate, and one that we rarely have the words to describe.

Here are the questions I hope you’ll ask (your boss, your colleagues, your clients) after you’ve read this book:

“What’s your story?”
“Will the people who need to hear this story believe it?”
“Is it true?”

If what you’re doing matters, really matters, then I hope you’ll take the time to tell a story. A story that resonates and a story that can become true.

So, go tell a story. If it doesn’t resonate, tell a different one. When you find a story that works, live that story, make it true, authentic and subject to scrutiny. All marketers are storytellers, only the losers are liars.”

It all sounds messianic and empowering, this talk of ‘universal truth’, but what we’re really talking about here is relative, subjective, personal truth. Create a story, about a brand, a candidate, an organisation, or a major historical event, and ‘resonate’ your way to a place of great intellectual and/or fiscal strength - the island of loyalty beyond reason. Successful brands are founded on the authenticity, the truth of their story - whether it’s objectively and universally true or not. Wine tastes better from a Riedel glass not because it is scientifically proven to do so -  but because emotionally it feels like it ought to. Using that Riedel glass over and over again is reassuring. It is an affirmation of your personal taste and intelligence. So is believing in UFO’s, that Sarah Palin is a dangerous demogogue, or that Flight 77 never crashed into the Pentagon. You may hold these views and beliefs precious -  but they remain just that; a point of view, a belief. Not a truth. Which means that someone who disagrees with you holds an opposing view. Not that they are a liar or a loser. Again, conspiracy theories are a neat reference point. Can you remember the last time you debated with someone who held what to you was a preposterous point of view? How about that for many people in the UK it is easier to believe that their own government and royal family murdered a Princess for fear that she might marry a Muslim, rather than that Diana was the victim of a random, violent accident. A conspiracy theory involving the Duke of Edinburgh and Mi5 provides a welcome explanation for some -  for it shows that human agencies are powerful and that there is order rather than chaos in the universe. So Diana conspiracy works for these people. They live it. Give it authenticity. The fact that I might think it is fantastical nonsense which abandons all grasp of reason is to miss the point. As a marketer I have to be aware of what they believe and why. To not care about truth or lies. To accept that if reason sleeps - what monsters does it produce? That if Sarah Palin is just such a dangerous monster - why did nearly 60 million people vote for her? Not dismiss her as a liar and a loser due to my own bias and prejudice. This is cake and eat it territory. You can’t say ‘all marketers are storytellers’ and then denounce a story because you don’t like the way it starts, middles, or ends.

We live in an age of abundance and over supply of ideas, products and media. An age where the reason for choosing a brand is no longer based on reason. Where the choice of political belief or theory is no longer based on reason. In both cases personal choice springs from the same emotional well. One that forms a deep attachment to a crafted story of authenticity and truth which is subjective, personal and unassailable to objective reason. Like believing that Michael Jackson and Bubbles are frolicking on the sand somewhere hot. I mean, that’s just nonsense isn’t it? Or is it?