Pixar Power: Know your audience

(Source: Pixar, Joy and Sadness, Inside Out, 2015)

Pixar is a master at connecting with their audience. After fifteen Oscars, nine Golden Globes and eleven Grammys, it’s clear they’re doing something right. Pixar’s Emma Coates points out that knowing what’s interesting to your audience may be very different from what’s interesting or fun for you to talk or write about. Let’s see how you can capture “Pixar Power” when tailoring your story to your audience.

Take for example the 2016 Oscar winner, Inside Out. In the movie, eleven-year-old Riley moves from Minnesota to San Francisco due to her Dad’s new job. Her five core emotions are personified on screen — Joy, Disgust, Fear, Sadness and Anger. The film depicts Riley’s introspective adventure of conflicting emotions as she struggles to adjust to the move. In the end, Riley accepts her new home and reconnects with her parents.

Pixar showed different versions of the movie to viewers in different countries. In this version shown in the US, watch carefully what vegetable is used to bring out the most disgust in Riley, the main character:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgqj1kZbCVE
(Pixar, Inside Out, 2015)

However, in the Japanese version, Riley hates green peppers instead of broccoli. Kids in Japan love broccoli, so Pixar made a change. Similar changes were made for what sports Dads like best. Different versions of the movie show Riley’s dad daydreaming about soccer or hockey, depending on the audience’s home country.

Peter Doctor, director of Inside Out, talked about the movie’s keen attention to minor details. “We learned that some of our context wouldn’t make sense in other countries. For example, in Japan, broccoli is not considered gross. Kids love it. So we asked them, ‘What’s gross to you?’ They said green peppers, so we remodeled and reanimated three separate scenes replacing broccoli with green peppers.”

Twenty-eight different graphics across forty-five scenes were tailored to match varying audiences, demonstrating Pixar’s keen focus on matching its content to resonate with its unique and diverse audiences. These small changes have a massive impact on the audience by establishing a shared social identity between the viewers and the movie content. Shared emotions and feelings create a sense of oneness and understanding for the audience.

Shared social identity is a phenomenon we’ve all experienced in situations like meeting someone from your home state or town, an alumna from the college you attended, or a fan of the same team you love. I grew up visiting my grandfather at the Longfellow House in Cambridge, where he worked as the house curator, and my mom spent much of her free time giving tours. So whenever I meet anyone from Cambridge, I feel an instant bond, whether it’s rational or not and even if we have very little in common. The power of our shared social identity creates a sense of oneness. “It’s startling how small and meaningless the shared group criteria can be as complete strangers start acting like close friends,” writes David D from Thrive Themes in a blog about connecting with your audience.

Familiar content breeds a sense of oneness between characters and their audience, as does the experience of being part of an emotional journey. The Hero’s Journey, originated by Joseph Campbell in his book of the same name, serves as the template for most modern storytelling or the movies we all watch today. In Pixar’s Finding Nemo, Marlin, Nemo’s dad, goes on a journey to find his son after he is captured. Marlin is a nervous, protective, helicopter dad when the movie starts. When Nemo is captured, Marlin decides to risk it all and to swim into the open ocean to bring Nemo home. He is helped by Dory, who accompanies him on the journey. When Marlin finally finds Nemo, he returns home, a changed father fish. The audience is transformed with Marlin — empathy, oneness and emotion join them.

The final scene shows Marlin letting Nemo go on a field trip, despite lurking dangers in the ocean, something he never would have allowed before his transformative journey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAezL6z17Dg
Pixar, Finding Nemo, 2003

So what does this mean for you? Get to know your audience:

• College Admissions Officers
• Future Employers
• Graduate School Admissions Officers
• Current Employers
• Constituents
• Stakeholders

Then research them to understand their core values, missions, shared language, imagery and more to hone your story to fit with what is relevant to them. How many times have you talked to someone and what they’re talking about holds no interest for you? It might make you feel restless, annoyed, or like you’re wasting time. On the other hand, when you meet someone who holds your interest, teaches you something about themselves and creates a sense of shared identity, it is a totally different experience.

I’m not suggesting you become a chameleon and transform yourself into a different person with each new acquaintance you meet. I’m simply prodding you to listen to what your audience is saying about themselves and make your story relevant to them and their core values.

In order to do this, making yourself vulnerable in some way is the key to making the empathic connection with your audience. Making up your hero’s journey with you as the hero, who has undergone a transformation and has returned to your ordinary life with a changed, more enlightened perspective on things, is what you need to storytell about.

Think of a symphony that starts with quiet, repetitive music and slowly builds to a crescendo — exciting, loud, multi-facted, tonal — then returns back to the beginning rift. The audience has been brought on an emotional journey and feels a sense of oneness with everyone in the room.

You have the power to bring your audience on an emotional journey where they empathize with you, but only if your journey is relevant and reflective of what’s important to them. It’s not that hard because the human condition transcends college, company and graduate schools. It’s the journey of all humans but one that is unique to you. You are the only one who can tell it. Harnessing the power to do just that will make you stand out.

I hope you enjoyed this post — if you want to connect, you can reach me here via email Kimberlya.norton@gmail.com or connect with me on social: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Also, you can find my book, STORY: the art of standing out on Amazon — here is the link to buy it: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H94D3L1.