The Cultural Tour Bus

 We are on a cultural tour bus.

“It’s the difference between traveling where you go on the tour bus and they show you Notre Dame, it was built in whenever, or the one where you end up spending a month in Paris and you end up in one bar and then you’re off. I’ve always preferred the second kind. Get me off the tour bus.”

Love this little bit from David Simon of the Wire and Treme. He describes his hatred for writing for the “Average Reader,” referring to him as “that fucker” which is probably understandable for anyone that’s been asked to design for a target of 18+. Yeah, thanks for that.

He’s developed these rich stories because of a total immersion in a distinct environment, his use of live muses for characters in order to write in a proper language within a realistic storyline, an awareness of the point of view and an adherence to a core purpose, a statement that he wanted to make. Probably 4 key areas for us to develop in ad-like things, as well.

But for now, I guess my point is that we’ll never get that kind of immersion with 95% of clients that are out there. Even with a Budweiser sized budget, it’s just not possible to immerse a team in someone else’s world enough. A single insight doesn’t really give us much understanding at all. And really, with the surface level nonsense most are doing, we’re usually just pecking at observational scraps rather than reaching for some perceptive nirvana.

So maybe it should be the other way around. We shouldn’t be observing them as much as they should be living with us. We just need to get better at either selecting the archetype or maybe just selecting the clients that fit the passions of our staff.