"How often can something be incredible before it becomes normal for it to be incredible and thus not looked upon as incredible anymore?"- Rob Auton
Zebras are amazing. Monochrome in a dusky landscape. Unique, striped, designed to distract and disorientate predators, they are evolutionarily marvels.
Truly a wonder of our world.
And there are so many other marvels- the micro chip, hearts, bees, bullet trains, disco music, bagels, sunshine, Marvin Gaye's voice, the seasons, Wi-fi, the toilet flush, squirrels and beanie hats.
So many wondrous, magical things that we take for granted everyday.
Yes, despite the stripes, the distinction, the uniqueness, the fact that they can run at 65km per hour, we have become bored of the zebra. The incredible has just become normal. (The 65km per hour fact, I googled, another piece of magic that has become the norm).
We’ve all seen a zebra now. Nothing new there. Even on a visit to the zoo you are likely to skip past them in a rush.
And all the other marvellous things that exist, we just walk past without a nod of acknowledgement never mind a round of applause.
Unfortunately, humans get bored easily. New research has seen a decrease in humans attention spans falling from on average 12 seconds, to 8 which is now one less than a goldfish. (Another beautiful creature that we don’t get excited about anymore. It’s a golden fish! A fish that is gold! Take a moment to think about that).
Image credit- https://www.wyzowl.com/
The brain is constantly searching for the chemical hit of new stimuli and excitement due to a phenomenon called Hedonic Adaptation, basically, a happiness “set point” that no matter what we experience, how exciting or amazing, our state will return to our base level of happiness. It’s been described as a treadmill since no matter what you do to increase happiness, it will always go back to the same place.
Image credit: Khan Academy
It’s why you get excited about hearing new music, but over time, the feeling fades as the brain gets accustomed to the patterns and melodies and you are back on the Hedonic Treadmill.
So, even the most exciting, wondrous, magical and sensational things in the world will eventually lose ou attention.
And this is something I always try to remember when creating work to engage an audience. It’s so easy to do the same thing that you did last time, especially if it worked. And it’s hard to try and make something different for an audience when nothing much has changed with what you are selling. This was especially true for me when I worked in broadcast marketing, with the same briefs for the same programmes and formats coming around annually. But if you want to engage an audience, doing something differently is so important.
This default to what has worked before has been a bad habit of the creative industry for generations. Record companies demanding another hit that sounds like the last, the film industry rushing sequels out, artists repeating the same techniques and methodology to try and capture the same thing, forgetting all the time that it's the new, the unexpected and the different that connects with people.
The screen writer William Goldman summed this up when talking about the film industry, when he said “no one knows anything”. Because you don’t know what is going to get an audience excited, what is going to move them, you only know what has gone before and now we know, that like the more you use a tissue, it has less impact.
There are many times when I’ve been given the same brief as before and followed in the footsteps of the last campaign I made and then been in meetings afterwards with data miners scratching their heads as to why it wasn’t as effective as last time.
Don’t forget you are selling to goldfish. They are bored with zebras and humming birds and heart transplants and they will be bored with the same ideas you put around your work.
Try to find enough difference to turn some heads. Add some random, change your technique, your tools, tear up the old brief, kill those sacred cows, choose a different angle and find something incredible.
Different will make the work better. Different will make your job better.
It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.
So, lets all put some spots on those Zebras.
Tony Pipes is an award winning Creative Director working in Entertainment and the Arts. Ranked 3rd in Creativepool’s top 25 most inspiring ECD’s, he currently works at the Royal Opera House, London.
