SYNOPSIS
What book are we doing?
This Is Water, by David Foster Wallace
Why are we doing it?
Because, in addition to being a good lesson about how to live, it’s a good lesson in the importance of empathy and seeing life through your audience’s lens
How can we use it?
To remind us of the language, meaning, and value of empathy
To reset us regularly back into our role as “the voice of the consumer”
To remind us that consumers are the source of a brand’s life
David Foster Wallace has been described as the greatest writer of his generation.[1] Jonathan Franzen called him “as sweet a person as I’ve ever known and as tormented a person as I’ve ever known.”[2] This Is Water embodies his sweetness and encourages us to do the same.
While Wallace is famous for his maximalist style,[3] This Is Water is short and sweet. His commencement address to the 2005 graduating class at Kenyon College was so well received that Little, Brown and Company stretched the 3,800-word essay into a 137-page “book”.[4] Its brevity makes it easy to read[5] often; it’s worth reading often.
Wallace opens with a parable, describing a fish who greets a pair of approaching fish with, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” After they swim away and some time passes one of the pair eventually asks, “What the hell is water?” This fish’s lack of awareness is a result of a mindset he shares with Wallace:[6] “Everything in my own immediate experience supports my belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence.”
We have a choice in how we think about and process the world: through the lens of self (like the fish) or through the lens of others (with empathy). In This Is Water, Wallace brings this choice to life by describing everyday encounters with strangers, and the assumptions we make about them when they’re having loud phone conversations in the lineup of a crowded grocery store or cutting you off in their giant SUV. The immediate judgements we make about others (through our own perspective)[7] may be correct; but we can also choose to think about the situation from their perspective, imagine what their life might be, and consider the possibility that there’s a different and deeper story behind them and their behaviour.[8]
The empathetic-and-aware way of thinking that Wallace advocates is an almost textbook definition of a Planner’s job. We have long been called “the voice of the consumer.”[9] Planners are meant to be empathy machines. We work in a world where many people, executives, agencies, clients, and brands share Wallace and the fish’s mindset: “Everything in my own immediate experience supports my belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person (or business or brand) in existence.” If planners don’t bring empathy into the boardroom, I don’t know who will.
For business, a lack of empathy for our customers can lead to an array of bad results: sometimes deadly (Boeing)[10], periodically businesses-ending (Blockbuster)[11], often tone deaf (Loblaws)[12], and usually sub-optimal. Short-term results may look positive, but failing to empathize misses the opportunity for a brand to reach its full potential by building loyalty, brand equity, and long-term value. Sadly, there are many examples of this. I’ve chosen just one from a recent experience to illustrate the point.
Canadians are feeling stressed financially,[13] pessimistic about the economy,[14] and financially vulnerable.[15] In December, walking through downtown Victoria, I came across the TD Bank undergoing a renovation. My immediate thought was, “You gotta be kidding me.” It’s possible that the renovation was TD’s response to customers’ and potential customers’ desires. However, given Canadians’ current state of mind, especially during the Holiday season, that seems unlikely.
This week, I visited the newly renovated TD branch. As I looked at the people in line waiting to see a teller, I wondered if they were thinking, “This is great. I feel uplifted and optimistic. I’m thrilled that TD is so successful, and I assume they will make me financially successful too.”
Or were they thinking about the two people they’d just passed on the street: one on the corner holding the tattered sign, “Go ahead. Change my day,” and the other bundled up in a blanket, sitting on the sidewalk directly in front of bank’s entrance, with a verbal version of the same hope, “Spare some change?” Might Canadians who are feeling financially vulnerable worry, even just subconsciously: “With just one or two strokes of bad luck, that could be me.”[16]
While this scenario focuses on personal-banking customers, consider a small-business-banking customer who barely managed to survive the COVID shutdown. Still trying to gain some traction and doing everything they can just to keep the lights on, they now face the stress of the looming CEBA Loan repayment deadline.[17] As they struggle to keep their business open (or make the difficult decision to close it), how does a new renovation by their highly profitable bank feel to them?
Flashy new in-store décor at a bank that claims to be, “Ready for you,” may lead the voice of a consumer to ask, “What about me are you ready for?”
In Wallace’s opening parable, the oblivious fish is so consumed with himself that he fails to notice even the thing that’s most essential to his life. Without water, he is dead. Anything so vital deserves not only to be noticed, but to be known and nurtured.
For brands, aren’t consumers your water?
[1] For example: “He was the greatest writer of his generation — and also its most tormented.” (David Lipsky) (https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/the-lost-years-and-last-days-of-david-foster-wallace-883224/) and “Wallace was hands-down the most talented American writer of his generation.” (David Free) (https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/david-foster-wallace-was-a-genius-now-let-me-convince-you-to-read-him-20220411-p5acjo.html)
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/books/15wallace.html
[3] His essays are detailed and divergent and his magnum opus is the 1,079-page encyclopedic novel, Infinite Jest
[4] This is the Volkswagen Think Small of books – white space dominates.
[5] The speech (book) is also available in audio. Hearing Wallace’s voice delivering his writing, is a treat. This is the only book I prefer to listen to than to read.
[6] And, whether we like to admit it or not, so are most of us.
[7] Looking at a situation through our own lens, we ask, “Why are they doing that thing they are doing to me or at me?” “How is their existence affecting me?”
[8] Imagine, for example, you’re in traffic at the end of a busy day and someone in a giant Mercedes SUV cuts you off. You might tell yourself the story that they’re entitled, self-absorbed jerk. And you may be right (https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/fair-society/fast-and-furious-research-shows-owners-high-status-cars-are-collision-course-traffic). And while you may be right, you may also choose to consider whether the driver may be rushing their ill child to the hospital, that they’re desperate to get the child the care they need, and you are in their way much more than they are in yours.
[9] Calling people “consumers” is, in my opinion, one of the problems. The term sets us up to look not at the whole human, but the part of them that’s useful to us and represents our interests (i.e., they buy my stuff). But for simplicity, I’ll use the term throughout this essay.
[10] Boeing’s 737 MAX has been grounded again after last week’s mishap, less than four years after its previous 20-month grounding (and associated investigation) for their failure to look at end users’ lives (346 people died) over their own interests. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/feb/22/downfall-the-case-against-boeing-netflix-documentary-737-max
[11] Among other things, Blockbuster’s addiction to the revenue stream from penalizing its customers with late fees kept the company from appreciating customers’ perspective and giving them a reason to keep coming back https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2014/09/05/a-look-back-at-why-blockbuster-really-failed-and-why-it-didnt-have-to/?sh=4fa371b01d64
[12] While a price freeze on your discount store brand might seem great to Galen Weston, “one of the wealthiest rich kids-turned-oligarch executives in Canada,” the offer didn’t resonate with non-billionaire Canadians (https://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2022/10/jokes-about-loblaws-galen-weston-price-freeze-internet/).
[13] According to an RBC poll, “Financial uncertainty is the new normal,” with almost half of Canadians feeling more stressed about money than ever before (https://www.rbc.com/newsroom/news/article.html?article=125830); Angus Reid reports that 62% of Canadians “feel stressed about my financial future” (https://www.angusreid.com/intelligence/the-shifting-spend-priorities-of-canadian-consumers-2023/)
[14] According to a Pollara survey, 82% of Canadians believe that Canada is in a recession (https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/82-per-cent-of-canadians-believe-the-country-is-in-a-recession-survey-1.6717166)
[15] According to a Financial Resilience Institute report, 76% of Canadians are financially vulnerable (https://www.hcamag.com/ca/specialization/financial-wellness/195-million-canadians-financially-vulnerable-report/462746)
[16] If this sounds like hyperbole, consider the volume of people using a food bank who likely never previously imagined needing such support. Food-bank usage has nearly doubled since 2019 and is at its highest level since 1989. The demographics of people who use food banks has shifted: 1 in 6 is employed. (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/food-bank-use-highest-in-canadian-history-hunger-count-2023-report-1.7006464)
[17] https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/small-business-ceba-loan-deadline-forgiveness-1.7063084
