Mark, Sully and Man went for a walk one beautiful evening during February 2018. After a while, they arrived at a river. Mark, jumped into the river and drowned himself. Sully ran to find a hiding ground, and then the narrator falls silent. There is a long silence, before the audience impatiently cries, “And what about the Man?” The narrator replies with a whiplash, “The man stood there and watched the fun”.

Every story makes a promise with which it lures its audience. What’s the twist that wrenches the suspense against their guts and keeps them hanging breathlessly? I think it’s the imagination of a good writer who creates the future and not just a theme like “Creating a Better future” or “Future is Blah Blah Blah”. I will leave it to the readers to use their imagination and figure out the Mark, Sully and Man among ourselves. Every story if you look at the history of the world, will have a protagonist and an antagonist. Rama and Ravana in Ramayana, Bheema and Duryodhana in Mahabharata or Prince Paris of Troy and King Menelaus of Sparta. Ironically all of the above examples portray the woman as the cause of the war.  What if the woman is the cause of the war as well as the Antagonist in the story? Will that not be exciting enough for many of us to enjoy that Soap Opera at the least for the next five years to come?   Apparently, if you rip apart the bleak state of affairs of the marketing stories across the industry, I dare you will find a much larger political apathy behind the scenes which crushes it and squeezes the original essence; even before it could see the light of the day. Standardising creativity, there would not have been a better joke for many generations to come.

In a recent article that I read in Campaignlive.co.uk mentioned a recent survey released during MWC 2018, confirms that for 85% of global mobile marketers, the video is the priority investment over the course of the next 12 months. What’s more, three-quarters of marketers considered it very or critically important to their 2018 strategy.

From a creative angle, let me read the data differently. I would say, 85% of the Global Marketers couldn’t think of any other channel of marketing other than video. Most of the marketers today only arranges for a videographer and allow the senior most leaders to do an impromptu rather than trying to get the story right. Isn’t this standardisation of creativity and does this leave the marketers with many choices?

Positively Yes! You also do have a choice of becoming the storyteller who remains busy writing the future. Stories can be written with much higher moral values than its current state, giving room to the creative folks to take wings and fly.

Are stories more compelling than politics? Some of you may differ here with me. Not least because so much politics around us is like spun in yarn and Jazz. Of course some of them above our pay grades!

In 1984, Terminator an American Science Fiction Film was released written by James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd. Thirty-four years from then, the common people like you and me could see that day portrayed in “Terminator” closer to reality. The central theme that drove MWC this year was AI and Automation. Most booth at MWC this year had something to talk about AI or Automation.  However, every single one of them had a standard template to narrate the story. Very few exceptions remain and continue to Innovate. Appreciate them!

I would rather challenge this genre to standardise life. Let’s hope in vain, that they succeed in providing equal quality of life to the world population. Politics, I will keep that away until you get on to my nerve. Oh, by the way, I am still sad that Mark drowned himself.

Originally published on afaqs.com

About the Author:

Ajeesh is Senior Marketer who has built high-performance teams to drive revenues for new and re-positioned brands across the B2B / B2C segments. He has a blend of the right and the left brain, creative genius, occasionally crazier and yet adamantly saner than the average person.  An educational evangelist and a brand champion he loves studying competitive landscapes and designing product vision and global market strategies.