I Feel For You
13th January 12
Jules et Jim (1962, Francois Truffaut)
Author: Jim Carroll, Chairman, BBH London
I was watching the splendid Truffault film, Jules et Jim. There’s a scene in which Jules, courting the mercurial Catherine, endeavours to impress her.
‘Catherine, I understand you’, he says.
Catherine replies,’ But I don’t want to be understood.’
I paused for thought. Don’t we spend our lives trying to understand consumers? What if, like Catherine, they don’t want to be understood? Understanding implies explanation, logic, rationality. And, critically, it suggests control. Which is precisely, I suspect, why Catherine didn’t want to be understood.
As a young Planner I’m not sure I completely understood the behaviour, ethics and attitudes of British consumers. But I did feel a strong sense of empathy with them. I felt for them in a way. I wonder now whether I’ve lost some of that natural, instinctive judgement. I wonder whether, in a data fuelled world, we have a diminished regard for feelings in our engagement with consumers.
A friend of mine occasionally dismisses films she did not enjoy with the simple assertion that she ‘did not feel it’. As an Anglo Saxon I was originally somewhat nonplussed. Surely a fuller explanation would help? Similarly we were always taught to grill Clients on their responses to work, to demand that they account for their instinctive immediate reactions. Now I wonder whether I have been wrong on both counts: in the way I expect my friends to assess movies and my Clients to judge work.
Shouldn’t feelings always trump understanding? Shouldn’t feelings suffice?
Do you ever find it a little sinister when modern marketers promise to translate data into knowledge, and knowledge into sales? I do. I confess ‘hidden persuasion’ has never been my bag. I don’t aspire to that level of control.Of course we all want the web to be all-knowing, but should I want it to know all about me? Personally I don’t want the web to know me; I want it to feel me. And I find the prospect of an empathetic, all-feeling web increasingly attractive.
Who am I to talk? I’m generally uncomfortable with unfiltered emotional expression. I shudder at the prospect of corporate hugs. Nonetheless, I return to work with a modest resolution: in 2012 I want to base more of my judgements on empathy and feeling, rather than on logic and understanding. And I’d like the web to do the same please.
Chaka was, as ever, right all along. ‘I feel for you’…
It’s hard to find something more valuable than empathy; it may be our scarcest resource.
It’s interesting to see this post the same day as Fast Company’s article on female entrepreneurs and “Genderalizations.” http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679125/why-genderalizations-make-sense-for-female-entrepreneurs
Wise words Jim. I wonder if Tesco have been relying too much on data and too little on empathy.
Couldn’t agree more, Jim. I’t's a particularly critical facet of any user experience practitioner worth their salt. And as it happens, that’s true of magicians too. http://vimeo.com/9198586
[...] of my core beliefs—a designer’s most powerful tool is their empathy. In Jim’s post, I Feel For You, he reminded me that empathy also applies to the whole sphere of marketing and [...]
Obviously I’d have referenced Omar Little in The Wire (catch phrase “Y’all feel me?”) over Jules et Jim but otherwise completely agree as ever… Happy New Year Jim.
[...] in my mind as they don’t uncover feeling. As great BBH planner Jim Carroll states in this post ‘it’s far more about empathy and feeling than logic and [...]
It’s why I really love the films of directors of old like Kubrick and Godard and Resnais, or the living directors like Nolan or kar-Wai. They construct elaborate tomes of cinema, with layers upon layers of meaning, while still leaving room to “feel” meaning.
With regards to work, too; completely agree.
Wait my bad. Godard, Resnais still alive.
I meant still making films. I think. :-s
The grass is always greener, now isn’t it?
I wish I had more insights into the semantic web, it will likely help get us there.
Empathy works, was what your fellow citizen Matthew Mayes said and made a lasting impression on me.
Lovely post, thank you, Sir
Thank you for all your kind and considered comments.
Coincidentally I saw The Iron Lady at the cinema over the weekend.The Margaret Thatcher character argues forcefully that there’s too much recourse to feelings in the modern world. I was not unduly troubled by this as she’s consistently managed to hold polar opposite views to my own over the last 47 years or so. (You’ll recall she was also uncomfortable with the concept of society.) Good hearts make good government,not ideologues…
Thanks for the post. Now you’ve got me trying to imagine what the “empathetic web” might look and feel like.
Yes,Phil.
And I have to confess I found it easier to request an ‘empathetic,all-feeling web’ than to define it.
in the context of marketing, isn’t empathy just another means of control?
Well,I prefer to think that empathy is the basis for open, two-way communication.
Steady Jim
Many people in marketing et al seem to translate empathy as gut instinct – which I know you didn’t mean. Derived from the Greek word empatheia it means recognising and understanding the feelings of others. Subsitute in the word attitudes for the word feelings (more comfortable for us Anglo-Saxons) and you’re pretty close to a definition of a planner’s job. The problem with much data driven web work is that it assumes an understanding of peoples’ feelings and attitudes just from their clicks. To produce a more empathetic web you need to gain a fuller understanding of the person beyond just their clicks/tweets/comments moments.
To Paul’s comment above re Tesco – damn right. Every Little Helps was a great translation of tons of data, research etc into something that people saw as understanding them in a deeper way than just money off. Sadly they now seem to have lost their desire to understand people and are only talking to data points.
Yes,I wish I’d written that,Andrew.
That’s exactly how I feel too.
Time to dial back on my Corporate hugs then.
Yes,a robust handshake should do the trick,Steve…