Where’s your ‘It’s gonna be maaaay’?
Here’s an interesting video:
If you’re too busy to watch it, it features Justin Timberlake explaining why he sang ‘It’s gonna be maaaay’ on a song called ‘It’s gonna be me’. In short, the odd pronunciation was much more memorable, making the song stickier and ultimately more iconic.
I’m a firm believer in the benefits of such things. They’re unnecessary, illogical, immeasurable, inexplicable, hard-to-justify catalysts for true brilliance (and N’Sync songs).
If you want some examples of how they’ve made ads better, how about the little kid with the Scottish accent who ‘conquered worlds’?
He (she?) is by far the most memorable part of a great ad. He/she made it sticky in a way that precisely none of the other lines managed to do.
But it doesn’t have to be a line read or a performance. It could be a soundtrack, like this one:
It’s weird, it’s unexpected, its anachronistic to the visuals, it makes you wonder why they chose it, and it’s very cool.
It could also be a piece of writing, such as, ’It’s an oyster with two tickets to that thing you love’.
People don’t write ads like that, or talk like that. Why did they put it that way? Why didn’t they say ‘two tickets to your favorite movie’? Why an oyster? Who presents things in oysters?
OK, I think I’ve made my point.
If I were higher-brow I’d have titled this post ‘Reason is not the Need’, a quote from King Lear, explaining that humans would be no different from animals if they did not need more than the fundamental necessities of life to be happy.
We like the weird extras because something deep inside us needs them.
The tricky part is justifying them to someone who is paying for the bare necessities. Then again, that’s why you shoot the board, then have fun with some other takes. It’s why you encourage a little improv during the radio recording session. It’s why you… urgh… I can’t think of any digital examples because I don’t know any. Maybe there are some social lines that are really good, but I wonder why so many are written yet so few are awarded, or otherwise celebrated.
Anyway, see if you can add some random weirdness to your work. It’s liberating, and it’s why I gave this blog such a stupid name.
I’m sure people will try to stop you, but then you can just show them this post and they’ll almost certainly let you have all the fun you want.
It is much, much easier to edit the weirdness out than insist it stay in. Why, you’d be insisting on something that can’t be rationally defended. Saying that the oddness makes the piece more memorable rather than just being…odd. Who wants to be labeled as ‘weird’?
The sensible people who control the budget and pay for your services mostly don’t spend their time justifying weirdness. More power then to those who kept the weirdness in.