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Maya Angelou said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” I’ll mix that with another quote from the late Marshall McLuhan: “The medium is the message.”
I thought of these quotes as I watched what could be described as the weirdest Super Bowl to date. We’ve lost over 2 million people worldwide to Covid-19. It makes me question whether we’ve lost the plot of even understanding visual cues, human emotion and being stewards of social responsibility.
What we witnessed in both the sporting event and the ads feels as if it were drawn up by people tasked more with creating false illusions than fostering trust. Some may say, “Hey, that’s advertising,” but as the game began, the visuals were practically a guide to what we should not be doing rather than what we could be doing. The first visual miscue occurred when it looked like 50,000 people (with some cutouts) were standing shoulder to shoulder in the stadium. I understand the need to make a stadium look full for television using cutouts, but we’ve been watching empty stadiums all season. Why the change now on the most watched event of the season?
Then we watched ad after ad missing visual cues such as masks or social distancing—as if none of the past year happened and we are all living in an alternative universe.
To tell stories that draw zero attention to the world we have lived in in the past year shows we’re missing the most important skill in our skill set: empathy. We still need to drive a message of responsibility even while trying to raise brand awareness and sell products. The visual cues are just as important as the copy for engendering trust with our audiences.
What we found in research with Suzy.com was that people are cautiously optimistic in 2021. They see the light at the end of the tunnel but understand they need to proceed with a healthy amount of wariness. There’s no surprise that digital adoption was the star of the past year. But with that adoption come new conflicts and struggles against what used to be societal norms. People want to ensure that as the year progresses, they are protecting themselves, their families, their health and their finances while maintaining connection and equality.
In other words, it would have been honest to show human fragility and how we can work together to rise above it, even while trying to be funny or inspirational. Yet none of that entered the visuals on Sunday evening.
Laurel Stark, creative director at TikTok, said: “It was really disorienting to see so many ads that appeared to be dreamed up, shot and produced in a Covid-free dimension. It made even the most heartfelt ads seem out of touch and disconnected from reality. Just as we have a responsibility as media makers to tell stories that are reflective of diverse people, perspectives and experiences, we also have a responsibility to normalize good human behavior. And right now, good human behavior looks like caring for each other by wearing masks, socially distancing and celebrating the surprise silver linings of living through this wild moment in time.”
Will people see us for who we truly are? Trust is earned in drops and lost in buckets. We earn that trust by admitting harsh realities. We show those harsh realities by using visual cues. Visuals help us bond around stories and go from the darkness to the light.
Not one ad with anyone wearing a mask. SMH.
