Lazy, presumptuous and complacent: How can we break out of the echo-chamber?
As marketeers — or more generally, as humans who tend to cluster together with those of a similar demographic profile — it can be easy for us to exist in a media “echo-chamber”. Following or befriending people and brands with whom we have an affinity means our views are constantly reinforced through social media and interactions. The risk is that this can contribute to a narrow and distorted world-view, and a lack of empathy for those not like us. This can be unhelpful in our industry, where success is dependent on creating communications that resonate with people from all corners of society, both geographically and culturally.
An eye-opening example of this is the shock and disbelief we all witnessed in London on the day of the Brexit vote announcement. In our culturally diverse capital, many of us, myself included, failed to anticipate the strength and scale of support for the Leave campaign outside the M25 (let alone Medialand). If we can be so wrong about the opinion of more than half the UK population on this one (big) subject, it calls into question how flawed our instincts could be when it comes to judging these consumers’ attitudes towards the brands and products we look after, and not least the communications we create.
Recognising this issue, Ogilvy reacted recently by sending their strategists “out into the wild” to connect with real people. Plenty of industry voices argued that this was not a new approach. But it’s certainly one that seems to have become less common, fuelled almost doubtlessly by wealth of data and information we can access without leaving our desks. Has the convenience of modern life made us lazy, presumptuous and complacent — quick to jump to inaccurate or even dangerous conclusions?
For times when it’s not practical to get “into the wild”, The Perspective is (ironically) a website that aims to tackle the issue by providing contrasting perspectives on subjects you might otherwise have a fixed or strong opinion. It covers a wealth of subjects, from the trivial (which is better — the original Beauty and the Beast, or the live action remake?) to the philosophical (Does the Bible lift women up or tear them down?). It’s not a platform designed to change opinions one way or another, but to lend a sense of balance — and maybe see things from a different angle, which can only be helpful. Especially when it’s not convenient to jump on a Megabus to Bradford.
