Watching Whales or Watching Ads?
When it comes to ads there's one video I like to rewatch for inspiration. It's a really wonderful video that captures everything that ads do right: storytelling, tension, a big idea and memorable execution.
It's a video of a whale:
Whales fascinate me. Maybe it's the scale. Maybe it's the scarcity. Maybe it's the feeling that there's something deep and considered going on in their minds. There's a deeply magnetic mystery to them that I find irresistible. Just like the hand full of folks on the Whale Watching Boat in the clip above.
You can skip to about 1:48 and watch as basically nothing happens for a few seconds, and then suddenly, WOOSH, a whale leaps out of the water, shows off his belly and then splashes everyone in the boat. Nature, baby!
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It's also worth watching to the end, and to enjoy the sounds: laughter, surprise and even a baby crying. The sounds are wonderfully human. They're the noises of people trying to parse what they've just seen. Literal incredulity. Even though they're on a Whale Watching Boat, even though they will have hoped (and semi-expected) to see this happen, they still can't compute it.
And as for me, sitting thousands of miles away watching a years-old video on YouTube that gives away the spoiler in the title, I too find it almost impossible to articulate. I get butterflies watching this clip.
The people on that boat are never going to forget that moment. Nor will I. Hopefully (if you watched it), neither will you.
The point is this: we are simple creatures, we are easily impressed. You don't have to change the world to get people's attention. It doesn't have to be surprising, heck even when people expect it, it can still be powerful. But like this whale, you do need to break through the noise and you do need to make a splash.