(Writing advertising for the few, the proud, the passionate ...
and sometimes the crazy)
OK, so what’s a meta-narrative? My use of the term comes from Jacques Derrida and ‘deconstruction.’ (Don’t ask me to define deconstruction -- Derrida himself did a poor job of it.)
Essentially, a meta-narrative is a shared set of stories among a large group that lies at the heart of the group’s ethical, social, psychological beliefs. It’s so deep that we rarely see it or question it -- which is why deconstructionists love to pick it apart.
A meta-narrative can encompass the world, a country, a religion. The American meta-narrative, for example, involves our country being ‘a city upon a hill’, the Wild West, democracy, the unassailable perfection of the Constitution, etc.
Advertisers and marketers fashion their work on these deep-seated, shared beliefs. Writing an ad that contradicts the narrative is suicide.
How far would you get with an ad that says: (‘Americans... love to follow their leaders and hate being independent individuals), that’s why you need to buy X because everyone else is'?
I put the first part in parenthesis because that’s the meta-narrative that goes unstated.
But what happens when the sharing breaks down? Well, take a look around: red states and blue states have different narrative interpretations, as do young and old, the 1% and the 47%, east coast and west coast... this goes on forever in our country.
This recent phenomenon is due, in part, to the fact that we have personal access to all the information in the world. Literally.
No one interprets it for us in the light of the American narrative we used to share; instead we each have our own interpretation and so the meta-narrative decays -- and it has done so very, very quickly over the last decade. Again, look at our political landscape.
These days we're left with fragmentation not consensus and that’s bad for advertisers and marketers.
How in the world do you tell a compelling story when there’s little common ground? At times, writing an ad seems like telling the tale of George Washington and the cherry tree to a Sri Lankan fisherman. It’s not that he’s stupid; it’s that there is no meta-narrative on which to ground the story and connect meaning at a deep level. To the fisherman, the story is simply about cutting down a tree and not about American honesty and pragmatism.
So, what to do?
Well, the problem that’s been exacerbated by the Net is also solved by it.
But first, the new reality: most ads have to be tightly, tightly focused (as do the products themselves) on one of the newly formed and always malleable sub-groups (whose members can change quickly).
Think Zumba participants or tennis players or ex-military or families of small children. These people share a meta-narrative... at least during the time of their participation. And because many are ‘new’ to the activity, they’re generally pumped and passionate and ready for a message that uses their (temporarily) shared beliefs.
No one buys more musical accessories and related merchandise (bumper stickers, T-shirts saying ‘Make Music, Not War’) than a new musician. And no one buys the latest writing software (I just did, Apple Pages) than a (male) professional who needs to try the latest thing (mostly so he can criticize and talk about how much better he would have made the software).
What’s consoling is that the Net also provides inexpensive ways to find sub-groups and target them. Using social channels to tell multiple narratives isn't as cheap as everyone makes out but it's not cost prohibitive. Twenty years ago you couldn’t afford to produce five various print ads, each tailored to a specific group, and run them in associated magazines at $10,000 - $50,000 a pop.
The solution is tailored ads moved into tight-knit communities that could be smaller than you ever thought worth the effort. But capture a few of these and you're into the bigger bucks.
The (sad) truth is that we’re losing our identification with country and religion and even family. We’re becoming parties of one, with our own unique meta-narratives that can be, at times, frightening: Charles Manson had a unique narrative and you see where that ended.
Advertisers must DEAL with what’s REAL (now I’m Johnny Cochran, for god’s sake).
That means changing how they create, what they create and the products they sell to suit the few, the proud, the passionate and (sometimes) the crazy.
“Consumers want a new story... authenticity, not spin... participation, not propaganda.”
