BOURNE
I fought my way out of an embassy.
I climbed down a fifty-foot wall -
I went out the window and I was doing
it - I just did it. I knew how to do it.
MARIE
People do amazing things when they're
scared.
BOURNE
Why do I? – I come in here, and the
first thing I'm doing is I'm catching
the sightlines and looking for an exit.
(He leans in. Flat out now.)
BOURNE
I can tell you the license plate
numbers of all six cars outside. I can
tell you that our waitress is left-handed
and the guy sitting up at the counter
weighs two hundred fifteen pounds and
knows how to handle himself. I know the
best place to look for a gun is the
cab of the gray truck outside, and at
this altitude, I can run flat out for
a half mile before my hands start to shake.
Now why would I know that? How can I
know that and not know who I am?
The Bourne Identity (2002), pre-shooting script
Secretly, maybe not even that secretly, most grown men on the planet also wish they knew the stuff Jason Bourne knows.
Bourne is a classic Hero Archetype, a cape-less strain of the Super Hero variety. Utterly resourceful, awe-inspiringly capable... but also an insomniac who slowly discovers he’s a Highly-Trained Super Agent.
In The Matrix (1999), Keanu Reeves is Neo, an Office-Cubicled Nobody who has the faintest itch of a suspicion that his world might not be all it appears, and that his name could just be letter-jumble. After much self doubt and gun-play, and having Kung Fu mastery brain-jacked straight into his Prefrontal Cortex (or somewhere), it all comes good. Bullet-time, for him, is slow time, and he quickly rearranges Neo to appreciate he’s “the One”.
Journeys of self-discovery are just great when you end up in a place where you’re some kind of James Bond or Cyber Superman.
I find Hero Mythology fascinating.
I think brands help with our self-constructed Inner Super Hero’s, and that a certain sub-genre of advertising is there to knowingly appeal and feed The Batman within us.
Snickers TVC, “I’m Batman”
Personal Fable
“The Personal Fable, a term coined by David Elkind (1967), is used to describe a form of egocentrism normally exhibited during early adolescence, characterized by an over-differentiating of one's experiences and feelings from others to the point of assuming those experiences are unique from those of others. A person might believe that he is the only one who can experience whatever feelings of joy, horror, misery, or confusion he might encounter.”
Source: Wikipedia
They say our Ego-Centricity dilutes as we pass through childhood, as with greater sense of Self we develop a wider sense of Other(s). We gradually, begrudgingly learn: not everyone is purely here for our own amusement or distraction. It’s a tough dawning. Maybe even a lesson that doesn’t find its footing with everyone? Does Ego diminish that much with maturity? Consider the various egos that have ever orbited your working world. How many, past or present, have really developed cognitive range beyond that of a 6 year old struggling to “de-centre”?
Take it as rhetorical. Response unnecessary.
My point is this:
We all like the idea of a Universe existing for and serving our ends, where we’re the heroic central lead in our own remarkable life narrative. Being “The One” is a Play-Theme impossible for our ego’s to tire of.
Adolescent or not, we’re all very capable of dreaming up and living out Personal Fables, of feeling and wanting to “Feel Unique”. In many ways, I’d argue this is pretty healthy: to feel special, of worth, have a little self-esteem going on.
A little like Neo, for the vast (male) majority, “All Things Hero” brain-jacks wirelessly into whichever parking-bay of the encephalon is responsible for wish-fulfilment.
Ford Focus "Superhero", by Ogilvy Advertising (2006)
The American illustrator Bob Peak was a grand master at overlaying Glamorous, Dynamic Scenarios on basic Product Sell print advertising. From the vaults: 7-Up, Winston cigarettes, Diners Club; three examples from his prolific canon.
7-Up “Get Real Action”, by Bob Peak, plays like an action scene from a Steve McQueen movie.
Winston "Flavor your fun..." press ad, by Bob Peak, shakes (not stirs) memories of the Bond movie On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
Bob Peak’s “Diners Club Guy” is classic ad invention. A strong-lined, cool-cat archetype alluring to any who felt they could roll with the Rat Pack.
Fast-forward fifty-some years and the same rules are still conscientiously observed. Here we have Jude Law as... “Dunhill Guy”.
Jude Law in Dunhill - Spring/Summer 2009 advertising campaign
And here’s the question: When we look at these kinds of ads, are we looking at Jude, or looking at Jude and then transposing ourselves onto the scene, imagining how cool we’d look in the dune buggy or safari suit? (OK, maybe not the safari suit.)
The Pretending Layer
Ad Agency Über Planner Russell Davies uses a terrific expression, “The Pretending Layer”. Davies talks about how using a product, a computer for example, should contribute to our moment of private Role Play.
“It's not just a useful or beautiful or functional object - it's got some little nod to who we're pretending to be when we're using it... for the imaginary me.”
This is something Apple’s advertising understands supremely well. Their Silhouette Device is a really very smart one, a cipher for audiences to place themselves in the scene, to jack right into “the feeling of using” Apple.
2008 TVC screen-grab, “Gamma” for Apple iPod+iTunes. YOU, iPod wearer, in the moment.
The Pretending Layer nods to our eternal Inner Child, to that 5-year old within who liked dressing up in primary colours and maybe a cape.
Universal Studios Orlando Super Bowl Inner Hero Ad (2009)
And as we grow older and grow up, our Imaginative Play goes sub-surface, but stays close, finding subtler forms and assuming more implicit brand-costumes.
We still self-define. We are cool, trendy, maybe edgy. We are chic, a geek, possibly geek-chic. We’re going places. In-Places where It-People go. Etc Etc Etc. For going and being any, some, all these things, brands help build our Personal Narratives and bolster our pretences.
Where we choose a Swatch over a Seiko, a Panerai over a Rolex, it all says something, and it’s all very deliberately meant to say something. We have Boden Family moments. We have Butlins Family moments. We’re an up-scaling Prada couple. We’re a down-shifting Primark couple.
We buy into brands because they’re signifiers. They signify a whole bundle of values that we buy into, believe define us and our view on the world.
“Our Brands” echo our definitions of who we are and who we want to be, and at a more playful extreme, the brands we assimilate help sharpen the resolution on our Super Hero projections.
Honda Civic 30th Anniversary press ad: “Heroes don’t ever grow old.”
Bond film director Lewis Gilbert once said that the magical effect of a Bond movie is you leave the theatre walking that bit taller. All boys, of all ages, deep down, want to be 007.
Dodge bullets, fly, always get the girl, we know we can’t, but we still like the idea, and there’s nothing wrong with dreaming, of still feeling like a kid from time to time. Advertising knows this and is here to help, here to fuel our escapist flights of fantasy with suitable mental props, a fictional scenario here, a role model outline there, an Invitation-to-Regress served on-the-side.
Once equipped, how far we go with our Super Hero role-play is really up to us... though a little moderation is probably advisable.
DAVE LIZEWSKI
I always wondered why no-one did it
before me. I mean, all those comic books,
movies, TV shows... you think that one
eccentric loner would've made himself a
costume. I mean, is everyday life really
so exciting? Are schools and offices so
thrilling that I'm the onlyone who
fantasized about this? Come on, be
honest with yourself, at some point in
our lives we all wanna be a superhero.
Kick Ass (2010)
SP.
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