Orchestration Rising

“A conductor should not just make music, he should make people feel something.” - Gustavo Dudamel

Language is holding us back.

This is not a new phenomenon, especially for anyone who has worked in (again especially, digital) advertising for any length of time - Teams calls are festering with people using the same words, but each finding wildly different meanings in the conversation. Just ask anyone to concretely describe what a "scrappy" idea means.

Endlessly frustrating. And likely causes quite a bit of inefficiency, to say nothing of soured client/agency relationships due to miscommunication.

But the bigger language problem holding us back has yet to fully emerge.

The language we use in advertising - the metaphors that give our work, its processes, artifacts, and outcomes, shared meaning - are not built for the future of how brands will be grown.

Walk the halls of any agency and you'll hear the same remnants of military terminology - objectives, tactics, targets, campaigns, assets, flighting, executions, post mortem. And of course, the proliferation of the Strategist title across all domains.

I'm not wild about the potential long-term effects on Mental Health of imbuing our daily work with the language of violence, but the even-more-under-appreciated problem with this language is that it mischaracterizes the nature of the intent of our work. It offers the appearance of clarity and order, of the certainty of conflict (us vs. them) and binary outcomes, the sequential nature of planning, and the idea of a chain of command.

Where this goes so wrong is that it assumes that brand building works by compelling people to action.

There is a mountain of evidence, growing ever larger, that shows that brands are MEMORIES.

Growing a brand is not an exercise in compelling action among groups, where winners are determined by the territory gained or lost, it is in the more delicate art of manipulating neurons over time.

And in a world of memories, more useful constructs will come from the language of humanities than conflict.

Of music, art, and psychology over engineering and science. Where the artist and group's vision guides the composition of the work, not a concrete objective to be conquered. Where there are many routes to success, but all involve FEELING something. Ask any teacher - getting people to remember things clearly is not a simple exercise; you need to activate the senses, again and again and again in different ways to help memories take shape.

“A conductor’s job is to find a way to get the musicians to want to play the music, rather than making them do it.” - Herbert von Karajan

Creating advantages in a world of media, cultural, and attention fragmentation will require more organization across component parts, keeping disparate thoughts and ideas in sync. In the era of "Lots of Littles" (thanks Dr Grace Kite) and the rise of "hand to hand combat over air cover" (even with the military metaphor, it's a great framing device @Catherine Kehoe) orchestration becomes as important a strategic skill as prioritization. Brand builders will benefit from exploring how to keep attention and evoke emotion while balancing a range of different elements in harmony, finding the perfect tempo for how ideas build together over time.

WARC 's new white paper, "The Multiplier Effect" eloquently lays out that brand ideas are most successful when they first "go deep, then go long." While relying on US-based data to explore (and validate) the globally recognized evidence of combined brand/performance effects (spoiler - the US is not exceptional, the same rules of marketing & advertising apply here) the WARC team uses Tom Roach's Build, Nudge, Connect model to show how a brand campaign platform needs to be pulled through all stages of creating and activating strong memory structures.

Making the most of this new world requires shifting our language. Some of the more deeply entrenched jargon may take time to dislodge, but we can take small steps and use consistent nudges towards embedding the way our work actually works into our lexicon.

My first reframing - instead of the language of warfare & engineering (campaign, build, blueprint, brief, experiment), attempt to frame things through the eye of a conductor.

Why a conductor?

A conductor shapes the overall interpretation of a piece, making choices about tempo, phrasing, dynamics, and emotion to bring out the full expressive power of a piece.

They must understand every instrument’s role, the harmonic structure, and how different parts fit together.

Their ability to anticipate musical moments helps keep the performance cohesive. Beyond artistry, a conductor is responsible for keeping the orchestra in sync. This is especially crucial for large ensembles or complex compositions.

Great conductors don’t just beat time; they elevate the music, infusing energy, passion, and meaning into the performance.

Orchestrating components of the communications ecosystem is more than creating and launching them, it is looking for ways for each piece to work alongside others more effectively. This isn't necessarily about just integration or consistency - in some cases it's finding ways to create more dynamic range. Pull back in one area to give another more room to shine.

Orchestrating goes beyond traditional areas of Comms and Creative - it gives us a better working metaphor for working with and building with communities and Fandom. Creating work inspired by Zoe Scaman's brilliant thinking on fandom, brand flywheels, and community would all be better served by thinking about how to enable others within your composition, rather than dictate what fits and exactly how it should be created. Conductors leave space for artistry.

Orchestrating speaks to the fact you may no longer be leading teams (or even worse, managing). You are orchestrating the work of both people - some you work with regularly, others are more infrequent collaborators - and AI/Agents/Assistants to support the more human arts of our work.

Seems like a perfect recipe for creating more memorable moments.