Let’s Play a Game.
Truth or Dare? I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid I always took the ‘dare.’ The prospect of momentary humiliation for which you may receive momentary respect far outweighed the idea of giving up a personal and potentially more permanent view into my warped teenaged psyche. Plus, the dares sometimes involved stuff with girls and that wasn’t happening naturally very often.
Luckily at this stage in life, I’m beyond the point of being coerced into a choice between the two. And frankly, so are we today as marketers. At FitzCo, we believe we live in the era of Truth AND Dare. This is at the core of how we think, how we go to market and how we judge our success. The rules of the game have changed.
What do we mean by the TRUTH? By definition, the truth is fact or honesty. But when we use it, it goes a step beyond. We think of the truth as a new revelation about human nature — it’s something you’ve probably always known but never realized. Once revealed, the truth gives you a moment of pause and then the floodgates open because as our creatives and creators will tell you, the truth is a powerful springboard.
But the truth alone is not the answer (Proverbs?). What we do with truth is what matters because with great power comes great responsibility (Spider-Man). This is where the DARE enters the equation. The dare is the bold way in which the brand acts on the truth. Being daring is not about crazy stunts, humor for humors’ sake, or being irresponsible in an attempt to make a splash. Being daring is calculated risk-taking, challenging convention and doing groundbreaking work that doesn’t just disrupt the conversation, but provokes a new one.
There are two reasons why we believe in Truth AND Dare:
1. Brands today can’t afford to ignore the truth. It’s too easy to get found out and more importantly, called out if you don’t live by the truth and find an unexpected way to connect.
2. Brands today have to dare because it’s too easy to blend in. People have an endless choice of things to watch, read or interact with. Brands have to dare or risk being ignored or worse yet, skipped altogether.
The Will to Dare
When we work with our partners, this is the promise we make. We know we are at our best when we adhere to this principal which means we are doing our best for them. The will to dare is:
A sense of purposeful misbehavior;
socially sanctioned excuses to disobey category norms.
All rooted in the unadulterated truth about
people, culture, a category and/or ourselves.
To succeed today it’s not enough to disrupt,
you have to provoke.
This is what we do for brands every day.
Truth AND Dare.
Fitzgerald & CO is a full-service agency located in Atlanta, GA. To see more of the daring work we do for our client partners, please visit www.fitzco.com.
