Marketing, Method Acting and the Pursuit of Personal Authenticity

Life is a journey. Professionally, Personally, and if we are lucky, Authentically

Section I - Authentic Youth

I grew up on the mesas beneath Pajarito Mountain in New Mexico for my early childhood and then in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains in Albuquerque for high school and on to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado for college. Being able to see the horizon stretch forever from a high mountain peak is also partly why later in life I now appreciate the sea as well as the mountains.  Nothing obstructs your view and there are endless possibilities and pathways between where I am and the horizon where the sun sets each day.

I was a kid that liked to be gone all day biking across open country and periodically having to stop to remove the cactus thorns that got stuck in my tires. I wasn’t inside often. Instead preferring to kick soccer balls against the wall of my house until the ball would break.  On rainy days I’d play the periodic video game on my what is now defined as an archaic antique ATARI system. But mostly on those inside days I was much more interested in reading profusely those books that told the stories of reluctant heroes, impossible tasks that were achieved and otherworldly creatures from places unknown. I could hear their voices and see their faces in my mind as the words rolled off the page. 

My first job would loosely be considered child labor now as I was delivering newspapers at 4am in the morning near the end of elementary school and my first company was mowing lawns and trimming hedges for neighbors.  I didn’t really care about the money actually but my parents felt it important for me to learn what was important.  Hard work, and personal sustainability were at the top of that list. Those values are solid for sure, but there is more to life than work.    

My first crush was the girl down the street who seemed super outgoing and would actually talk to me. I’ll leave her name out of it to save us both the public embarrassment but for the readers, I still remember her.  My first useful lesson in girls as a young boy was to take the time to talk to them and hear them out, you’ll probably learn something useful. It was way more useful than talking to my buddies who were, in cahoots with me, trying to figure out just how far you could fling a cactus with a stick and hit the guy who kept trying to destroy the fort we’d built under a tree in the “back trails.”  It was a war and we aimed to win it.  My second crush was the only girl on my soccer team and those two crushes overlapped. At age 10, there was nothing nefarious here, I thought they both were awesome.  They were both awesome and in both cases I learned spending time with great people was way more productive than flinging projectiles at enemies.  

We, as humans, are authentic when we are young.  We are pure and only ourselves when born and often that continues for a bit into our early years.  It isn’t until later where our environs start to define us, tell us what we are to believe, and for many of us, that becomes who we are.  The memories of what hides within our core, defines our soul and makes us a unique star in the universe fades.   

Section II - Method Actors

As a professional marketer for nearly 30 years now, it's imprinted into my methodology that each stage of a prospective customer's life is defined by key decisions, wants and needs, economics, skills, styles, beliefs and much more.  They do not need to be mine, although it’s easier if they are. I must be able to feel them in the same way as the prospect if I expect to draw out true success for a client or campaign. It’s not a matter of manipulating the words but truly understanding the language of the individual recipient.  The data that today exists hiding in the walls behind you means that oftentimes in the modern world the marketer knows more about what you want than even you do some days.  Whether we are literally plugged into a matrix like the movie, or it is simply an analogy; it’s guaranteed you are plugged in” to a system and even the most stalwart of us trying to keep things private cannot hide. The sheer amount of data has convinced some that understanding a person is now no longer much more than a dataset and formulas. It is not the wants and needs of the youthful soul, but only of the instilled map imprinted on your mind by the situation and culture you were brought up in combined with the societally imposed pressures of what is “success.”  A skilled marketer can put themselves in your shoes and learn to adapt the words, colors, images, messages of your surroundings and capture at least a piece of your truth.  How they use that information can either be with positive intent or an intent to corrupt for profit.  This is true in products, places, opinions, politics and everywhere else.  I often tell college students when speaking on these topics that as talented communicators, it is incumbent that as we truly see someone, we use these “powers” for good because many won’t. 

In my mid- to late teens and early twenties I had the opportunity to perform on a lot of stages with some immensely talented people.  Just like the stories I would read when younger, we could take audiences through emotional and life journeys while they never moved from the seat in the theater.  I was never a great actor myself but I could get buy, enjoyed it immensely and I learned.  In my class were people like the incredible Tony Vincent whose voice can often transcend what most of us think possible of human vocal chords, and Neil Patrick Harris who continues to amaze audiences through film and stage by showcasing such a wide array of personas and characters over the years that it makes my head spin. Later I had the chance to share the stage with people like Jeni Holtan Grouws whose combination of blues with a spin of jazz still makes me laugh and cry simultaneously through her lyrics and sound.   The most talented performers can immerse themselves as one with their audience, truly become their stage role and still find their way back again to who they are.   

My early time in theater and on some stages taught me a lot about how people react to emotional inputs, how different cultures can respond in drastically different ways to the same line in a play or lyric of a song. And for some in the audience, those words stay in their minds forever, often guide life decisions and sway how they view the world around them.  In truth it is part art and part science and when combined effectively the result feels like magic.  It creates an emotional response and draws people back over and over.  

The truth is that kind of connectivity is what drew me into a career in communications.  Immerse myself into what others felt, how they viewed the world and seeing where in all of it I actually fit and where it was just acting or writing a line for an audience but knowing I wasn’t a part of it.  I certainly wasn’t going to make it in performance in any real way but still wanted to feel a connection with people in a way that turned understanding others into a life's work.  It wasn’t until much later I realized that simultaneously I was really finding myself through others.  My work is grounded in desire to bring people things that positively impact them and help to lead a fulfilling life. Sometimes that is a grandiose venture and other times it's a simple but pure pleasure that is only momentary. 

Similar to our youthful soul, early stage careers can be anchored in a way that is a healthy altruism. Inevitably others will try to explain to you that it isn't realistic and our altruism and authenticity fade.  We become part of a systeml.  It may not be easy, but it is realistic and likely more fruitful in ways that matter if you choose those paths and pick alignments where your lines are not just for an audience but when putting yourself in the audiences seat, you are as comfortable in that place as you are drafting what is on the screen, in the ears or on a stage.  You are communicating authentically and with belief not because you are paid to do so but because it is truth.        

Section III - Authenticity

Life is tricky. Jobs, families, economic pressures, societal expectations often make it easier to become and represent what we are told vs what we might feel closest to.  I spent the first 20+ years of my professional life working in advertising and pr agencies effectively as a word and strategy mercenary for hire.  I’ve drafted campaigns and ideas for so many different verticals and clients I’ve lost track. Very rarely did a campaign fail to achieve its goals and oftentimes greatly exceeded expectations on the little spreadsheet at the end of a project that attempts to define our worth.  But each time you step into a role, you have to take on the mantle, write the position, understand those internally who need to believe and the audience outside who you desperately need to buy in order to put food on the table.  Each time, if you aren’t also part of the audience, it’s a little harder to bring yourself back.  Each time, a part of you is imprinted elsewhere and replaced in your own mind by different DNA.  And after 30 or 40 years it’s a bit hard to discern who you are and what you actually believe in.  For some, it’s a moment of permanent acquiescence and for others it's like running full force into a brick wall on a freeway at 80 miles an hour.  You wake up remembering what you’ve always known and always told your clients but chose to willfully place aside yourself, authenticity matters.  And then you have to find your way back. About a decade into that, I’m still working on it but I'm a hell of a lot closer.

Those spaces I work in now, as often as possible, are focused on those people and brands with values that align with a desire to positively impact the lives and make healthier customers and communities.  It is often with those who are most true in serving the needs of an audience but aren’t quite sure how to tell people about themselves.  It is often those organizations who are regularly beaten down for challenging the status quo that need the most help in showing a market why they are better and what the status quo is so afraid of.  It is often those products that make the world a better place or people healthier that have difficult hills to climb in gaining acceptance.  

I haven’t achieved this completely. But the closer we get to serving our most authentic customers, the more comfortable we are and the easier it is to identify those areas that aren’t aligned.  Who among you will work towards true authenticity in those you work with and work for?  And which companies will seek out those who not only know the data but can help you truly see your customers? So many find success only in driving a trend line or a click instead of really reflecting on what each us most needs and where truly deep authenticity can occur for a brand or for marketing our own personal path.

Reach me at chris.day@alwaysdriveinnovation.com if you'd like to dig deeper into how your company or personal brand can work better.