Is there a difference between depth and authenticity?

… between shallowness and a lie?

We’re a society that is defined more and more by soundbites. Defining others more and more by snapshots. The problem is we’re not that good at it.

In the majority of companies and the majority of ad agencies today, there is no discussion of soundbites and snapshots. There is discussion of stategies, of big picture direction. What about the little pictures and the stories they tell?

Ask yourself next time you’re reading/watching an ad, perhaps your own: “What snapshot am I left with?”

Ask yourself next time you leave a retail experience: “What soundbite am I repeating to others?”

Without asking these questions, we tend to commandeer others’ soundbites. We fall back on the same clichés. We’re disingenuous. We “photoshop” our snapshots so that they are no longer windows to the truth. They’re the curtains we hide behind.

Give yourself permission to ask these questions. All of the sudden, branding becomes less like clay and more like marble. We don’t stretch it into a new form, we chip away the extraneous in order to discover the form within.