Are we just talking a good game?

A foolish man I once knew finally proposed to his lovely girlfriend. He got her the beautiful ring and they announced the engagement. But after countless efforts to set a date, she finally got him to confess…

He’d hoped that the act of proposing was enough of a ‘show of commitment’, and maybe they could just forget the getting married bit?

It’s a mistake that I think many of us are guilty of in our work every day. We make such a song and dance about embracing the digital age that secretly we hope we can get away with carrying on as we were.

Of course everyone’s busy talking about new models of communication, from selly telly to digital engagement; from being didactic to creating conversations. Because everyone can see which way the wind’s blowing.

But look closely at the way many people talk, and something very interesting is revealed. Like a gambler’s tell, or body language ‘leakage’, there’s a lexicon of control that gives many of us away…

‘We want to make audiences pay for our content’ say the broadcasters

‘We want to make consumers talk about and share our ideas’ say the brands

And, best of all, the classic - ‘We want to make people love us’

Really?

Transfer that language into any human situation, and you soon realise how absurd it sounds

‘I’m going to make you pay’

‘I’m going to make them talk about me’

‘I’m going to make you love me’

We can’t make people pay. We can only offer something that's so valuable to someone that they’ll be prepared to part with their hard-earned cash to get it

We can’t make people talk about us. We can only give them things that are interesting or useful enough that, of all the things they could be talking about and sharing, they’ll choose this

And as for making someone love us? Surely we all realised that wasn’t possible before we’d even emerged from our teenage years.

So isn’t it time we all stopped talking about what we want to make people do?

Shouldn’t we instead start asking what we can do to earn their time, money, or love?

As we’re always saying, the digital revolution is ushering in a new era of consumer/audience control.

Although, actually audiences and consumers have always been in control.

It’s just that before, we were always too busy talking at them, to notice them ignoring us.