Because 'I Chose To' - A short manifesto by a passionate advertiser & Origin's CEO, Fred Godfrey.

I recently went to see Bon Jovi play Madison Square Garden, and somewhere near the end something took hold in my mind that had been present all evening, but passing me by - the raw ability for emotion to trigger a reaction. It's strange to think about - until you look at it as being nothing but the emotional equivalent of every action having an equal and opposite reaction.

I want to talk about what triggered the emotional ‘response’, because when you strip away the obvious - this being a concert people chose (and pay good money) to come to - I think our industry has been seducing itself away from placing value on what might be about the most powerful and important thing we can tap as human beings - the raw power of emotion and its innate ability to evoke an almost involuntary ‘response’. 

Every plan we put together today starts and finishes with numbers we’ve agreed to chase (a metric, goal, KPI) and promised to deliver. That's not a flaw - it's discipline, and it's how we got good. But it has a side effect nobody planned for. If a planning decision can't be tied to a number, we don't make it. Not because we weighed it and declined - but because we never let it enter the room in the first place. 

Emotion is one of those things. It doesn’t make the list. There's no true measurement for did anyone ‘feel’ the connection. Not because we can’t ask that question - but because the person we’re asking might not even know it’s happening to them. When I looked at what raw emotion did to 20,000 fans and felt my own reaction, all I could think was - none of this is conscious.

In other words - is science drowning out art? Is the single input most likely to make someone stop, sense, feel, and choose to give something back the one input that our entire process has been engineered to walk straight past.

It's not that we're scared of emotion - though it is a risky ingredient. It's that we’ve forgotten about it - and in doing so, we have forgotten to create space for an incredibly important ingredient.

Look at what emotion does that nothing else on earth can do: it moves someone to choose to give back almost without realizing - 

• Time, in the form of attention. 

• Money, in the form of a purchase. 

• Trust, in the form of agreement. 

Now, look at that list again - because those three bullets above are the list. Consideration, intent, a website visit - it’s all there. Every choice we make starts with a thought, a reflective moment, a discussion. And there is no thought, no reflective moment or discussion that doesn't carry a trace of emotion inside it. 

I will admit that I shed a tear at the concert, and I will also admit that it took writing this manifesto to work out why - 

• I did not shed a tear because I was in the right city at the right time to see Bon Jovi perform. That's just targeting - vital, but not the answer.

• I did not shed a tear because he told me to.

• I did not shed a tear because the person next to me did. 

• I did not shed a tear because I like the music.

I shed a tear because something in me chose to.

Nobody forced it out of me. I gave it. Freely. Which is the whole point - emotion is the thing that makes a person volunteer the outcome you could never have forced out of them with all the precision in the world.

If there is one thing that 'choice' and 'emotion' both have in common, it's that they are triggered by deeply personal, internal moments - another reason why they've been left off the ad campaign planning table and a significant driver behind the company I've played a role in building. What moves you isn't necessarily what moves me; I'll leave it at that except to say read this recent article about creative logic and personalization if you want to understand what I mean.

So the choice advertisers thinks they have to make - passion or proof - is the wrong one. The thing we should be trying to do instead is harder than that; it’s refusing the trade. It’s also the premise this company is built on. Not that the creative matters instead of the outcomes, but that the creative is where the outcomes first originate.

You can't A/B test a standing ovation. But speak to them in a way that taps emotion and triggers the decision-making process, and you won't have to.

Thank you for listening.