People are people, too
My wife and I are in between TV shows.
In theory this should be impossible. Netflix alone produces about 3,000 hours of original content each year. That’s 125 days of viewing.
But it happens. And it can happen to you, too.
You choose a show together. There are 12 episodes. “Great”, you think, “that should take us a couple of weeks!”.
But disaster strikes. The show is better than you expected. Your wife, a rare but serial TV binger, can’t get enough of it.
Three days later you’ve consumed it all. And now here you are. The lull. The valley of indecision between TV shows.
A more intimidating place I could not imagine.
You see, every couple has this dynamic: shows I like, shows you like, and shows we both like.
When you first get together, that Venn Diagram looks a little like this:
There’s a nice healthy balance of common interests and personal tastes. It feels like you could share a future. A future where you can enjoy Severance together, but where you watch Arsenal: All or Nothing on your own time.
But this, dear reader, is a fantasy.
After a short time, you realise that all relationships sit on a spectrum:
Some couples have huge overlap. Perhaps they both exclusively enjoy the sword and sandals genre, and so heartily go from the finale of Game of Thrones right into episode one of The Witcher, happily holding hands and skipping right past the doors labelled Sports Biopics or Space Stuff.
Whereas some couples exist at the other end. The overlap is tiny. They basically hate everything the other one loves. One loves watching the slow and toe-curling churn of Better Call Saul or Ozark, the other wants to watch Emily in Paris.
But the thing is, it’s actually even more complicated than that. Because there’s another dimension to all this: quantity.
After a decade or so together you realise that on this spectrum of overlap, there is also a difference in just how much TV you’re both interested in.
You might share a large overlap, and then have about the same again in shows you like but the other doesn’t. They might have a tiny amount of outside interest. This is a lovely and harmonious balance.
At the other end is the nightmare.
Here, there are two problems. The first is that you enjoy way too much TV. Yep, that’s a thing. The second is that your partner doesn’t really enjoy watching TV at all. That means that the overlap is miniscule. These are couples who rarely watch anything together. One person in the bedroom binging on Bridgerton, the other in the lounge watching Crystal Palace away at Wolves because “their striker is in my fantasy team!”.
This is a tough place. My condolences.
But unfortunately this isn’t where it ends. Oh no.
There is one more variable still: willingness to commit “time" to watching TV.
This is why couples fight. Think you’re fighting about money? Or parenting? Or housework? Think again my friends.
What you’re really fighting about is how much of your time you’re willing to dedicate to your quest to watch every minute of your Venn Diagram.
A nice healthy balance is on the left. Willing to commit one or two hours a day to a vast overlap of TV interests. Calm. Serene. Easy.
On the right: one person who is willing to watch almost anything, and would give up their firstborn in order to be able to sit down undisturbed to rewatch Deadwood. Meanwhile the other person regards watching TV as a waste of their lives, but would probably be quite happy mindlessly scrolling through TikTok with Grey’s Anatomy on in the background.
The horror.
People are complicated.
We all have our own tastes, our own biases, our own preferences for how or when we like to consume TV. From the outside we are “Tom & Viki”, a couple like any other. You know how we’re going to dress, or what kind of restaurant we’re likely to enjoy, or that we hate organised fun. But we are very different to “Jack & Hannah”. Who knows where they fall on the TV viewing spectrum?
And this is the challenge for most agencies when branding a company. Because within each company there are different people, and their overlaps of taste, opinion or vision for the brand exist in tension with their willingness to adapt, evolve or simply commit to the process.
But to the outside world, brands are like couples. A unified front comprised of an amalgam of their personalities.
This is why having a Brand Process or Framework is likely an error from the outset. As an agency your job isn’t to apply to same thinking to each brand that comes your way, or to ask the same questions of each stakeholder.
The best agencies are the ones who understand that their clients are people, too. They try and understand individual motivations and biases, and understand that their role may be as a mediator one week and a leader the next. They bend, they shift, they adapt.
Because a brand’s audience is just as complicated. And a usable Brand Strategy needs to have the same ability to bend, and shift and adapt.
You cannot and should not try and be all things to all people. That’s how you end up with endless CSI shows or the depressing remake of MacGyver.
No-one actually wants to watch those. They exist precisely because people either need something on in the background whilst they scroll through Reddit, or because couples can’t agree on their next TV Show.
But if you take the time to understand people then you can take a chance. And if you take a chance you can be Squid Game, Stranger Things or even The Tiger King.
Fortunately two of those shows were in mine and my wife’s shared tastes, and I had plenty of opportunity to watch the other in my own time.
But how I’m going to convince my wife to watch Aston Villa vs Southampton on a Friday night, because the Villa striker is in my fantasy team is a whole different challenge. (I’ve bought her some hazelnut Ben & Jerry’s as a sweetener).