You’ve no doubt heard of the singing sensation on “Britain’s Got Talent” over the past several weeks. A dowdy, 48 year old Susan Boyle shocked the judges and the audience with her extraordinary voice while singing “I Dream of Dream” from Les Miserables.
The video on YouTube has been viewed over 41 million times. For me this is where it gets interesting. I’m in marketing- anything that digitally goes “viral” grabs the attention of most marketers, because they want to know ‘why?’ and reproduce the effect for their own product, brand, name, etc. Not surprisingly, a marketing article in my inbox this morning stated, “It is essentially impossible to predict whether or not something will go ‘viral’. The best we can do is look, carefully, at the videos that get massive, widespread attention and try to learn something from them that we can use.” Therefore, the writer provides a frame-by-frame analysis of the Susan Boyle video to determine just what makes it so interesting? Take a look:
0:01-0:03 First Glimpse of Susan
The first time we see the star of the show, she’s sitting with drooped shoulders, putting a bagel (or something) into her mouth. The music starts as well and it is not celebratory at all. It’s the kind of music that you would imagine slow elephants stomping along to.
0:05-0:15: Susan Speaks
We hear Susan speak for the first time, as well as get a full-body look. She tells us she’s unemployed and 48 years old. Clearly, this is the opposite of the hot celebrity. The elephant music continues.
0:21-0:26 Pebbles
Susan reveals that she has a cat named Pebbles and that she’s not married. But she’s not depressed about it. In fact, she seems to totally able to laugh at herself as well. This is a key element. Susan is being set up as, well…a loser. But no one wants to feel bad about thinking she’s a loser. That she is able to laugh at herself gives us a bit of permission to laugh, because it is with her and not at her. This is picked up once more at 0:37 when she claims she is going to “make that audience rock”. She is nothing if not confident.
What follows are a number of instances where the judges and the various audience members openly sneer at Susan, including:
1:07 Simon Cowell
1:12 The male judge that isn’t Simon Cowell (sorry)
1:13 Cowell again
1:24 Young woman in audience (when Susan says she wants to be a professional singer)
1:35 Woman in audience (when Susan says she wants to be successful)
1:55 On the Brink
The music swells for Susan’s song and the camera cuts to two women in the audience holding their breath. Interesting that they don’t show any men sneering at her. In fact, the two main male characters (beside the judges) in the video are the backstage hosts who are clearly on her side.
1:57 Susan starts to sing
2:00 Cowell’s eyebrows go up
2:01 Audience goes insane
2:07 Backstage host wags his finger at the camera and says, “You didn’t expect that did ya? No!”
What Is There to Learn?
This video is absolutely mesmerizing. To be honest, I can hardly stand this kind of music. Listening to this stuff feels like someone is pouring an unending bottle of maple syrup into my ears. But I keep finding myself drawn back to it. I’m not alone. As of today, the video has been viewed over 41.5 million times. Okay, a bit of perspective: that’s not even half the number of views that that other English sensation, the “Charlie bit my finger” kid got.
But this is a really different sort of a video than Charlie Bit My Finger in that it is not just something oddball or funny. This is an actual story with a beginning, middle, and end. The real charge of watching this video is not so much that you get to see a great performance. Millions of people are good singers and it’s not a big deal. Millions of unknown people are good singers and it’s not a big deal. Millions of (let’s be brutally honest) unattractive people are good singers and it’s not a big deal.
But what the producers of this show got is that they could take this asset — an unattractive and odd person with amazing talent — and make it into a story. The real charge of this video is that you, the viewer, has a front row seat to your own incredible transformation.
Because, really, who among us didn’t have the exact same thought as the woman at 1:24? The producers showed us this reaction because it helped to solidify our own thoughts. And then, at 1:57, just 30 seconds later, we have our whole world view shaken completely.
Why Videos Go Viral
Why some particular bit of content (and others don’t) remains a totally unanswerable question. Very few of us have ever been successful at making something go truly viral. And yet, we are continually drawn in by these things.
Usually, the reason that we give for why something goes viral is that it is absurdly funny or remarkable in some way. But the Susan Boyle video got spread along for an entirely different reason: because of the video’s fundamental effect on you. Now, I’m not claiming that this video has turned around hardened criminals. In fact, I’m not even saying that the effect is lasting in any way. But as a viewer, you go through a real change from beginning to end.
What is shared, then, is not so much the video itself, but rather the feeling. I don’t want you to watch the video nearly as much as I want you to experience the experience. And this just keeps happening. In fact, as I was writing this, I was invited by a friend to become a fan of Susan Boyle on Facebook. Me and 1.5 million others.
So, how do you make something go viral? Well, no one really knows. But maybe Susan Boyle revealed to us that, when we dig deep and try to give people something — instead of just showing them something — we have a greater chance of getting passed along.
Amazing! So this marketing expert is telling us that to provide something of value to our clients/customers we have to tell a story, give something rather than just show something. Reminds me of something I heard recently from Donald Miller, the author of “Blue Like Jazz”: ‘Narrative is the most transformational tool there is. Story has the power to change people’s lives.’ When there is a narrative, people can engage. Miller also says:
If I were to play some sounds of a jackhammer, birds, and a truck backing up, you would say that is noise, not music. But if I were to play Beethoven, you would call that music. They are both noises, vibrations, but what is the difference? I have no idea. There is a difference between random events and story. The mind engages stories, not random information. A story is music. Random information is noise.
Maybe the same is true in marketing. If we present a random ad that’s not engaging, it’s noise, it becomes the background to the more engaging material you’re looking at on a website or in a magazine. But how do you make a static banner ad that has 5 seconds to grab the viewer’s attention tell a story? When I write copy for a website or an email blast how do I tell a narrative in 100 words or less about a customer service position opening at Citigroup?
I love that the power of story can positively impact my job, but I also want to know that the story of my life is something grand and interesting. I agree with Miller, “If you are working in order to fund a better story, that’s great. But if your working is your story, then I’m not sure that will be very satisfying.” So what if there was a frame-by-frame analysis of your life to determine what made it just so interesting? Would your story be viral? Here are some other things I’ve learned from Donald Miller to make your story better:
- Story in its most basic form: A character who wants something and is willing to overcome conflict in order to get it.
- A character is what they do, not what they feel or think or want to be.
- Imagine a documentary film crew making a reality show about you. What would the theme of that show be?
- If you want to take your kids fishing, it’s different than taking them fishing.
- In a good story, a hero can’t think more of himself than he does of others. If he does, then he ceases being the hero.
- In a good story, the character always wants something. But a movie is not very satisfying if what he/she wants isn’t very impressive (like a car). The same is true of your life. If it’s not interesting in a movie, it also won’t be very interesting in your life.
- The best stories are when the character wants something, and if he doesn’t get it, people might die.
- Very seldom are humans happy. They only look back on a moment and think they were happy, even though there weren’t. They also look forward and think they’ll be happy when they get something or do something. Humans are happiest in the past or future but rarely in the present.
- A good test for your story is this: If you were to die, what would happen in the world?
- The times in your life when you say, “I don’t know if I’m going to make it” — that is when the story is getting good.
- I think the reason that God made it difficult for men and women to communicate is because he wanted to introduce conflict in the story. Because when it works, it is a beautiful thing.
- The only way to change a characters character is through pain.
- I think you would agree: The times you’ve changed for the better is through pain.
- God doesn’t ever stop at the end of a story and give the moral of the story. He doesn’t. He just tells another story.
- believe the main way we consume story is through engaging each other.
- What would it be like for Christians to silently tell better stories through their lives?
Go here for Donald Miller’s full “Power of Story” discussion: http://www.jakebouma.com/2007/11/17/donald-miller-story/
