April 01--Headed off to -- or recently returned from -- spring break? If you've been in a hotel, a theme park or on a cruise, I'll wager you've been asked to do one of two things, and probably both: "Share Your Story" and "Connect."
It's both out of control and, let me assert, a bit of a debasement of the pure and gentle narrative arts.
In the world of leisure marketing at present, there are no bigger buzzwords than sharing, connecting and storytelling. It is a consequence of corporations in these businesses figuring out the power of social media over traditional modes of advertising, wherein consumers mostly were represented by idealized models and the story, told very clearly, came from the lips of, say, the hotel or some other not-so-hidden persuader.
In previous generations the central character was always the property -- "Eat at one of our six delicious restaurants" -- and the narrative penned on Madison Avenue, as when Don Draper of "Mad Men" worked on a campaign for Conrad Hilton. It wasn't uncommon for advertisements to try to get you to picture yourself sipping a mai tai on the beach, but the consumer mostly did that receptive part in his or her own head. You read the story of the resort, told in words and pictures by the owners of that resort, dreamed vicariously of being on that sun deck, were assured you would fit right in, and plunked your hard-earned cash down.
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These sophisticated days, the problem with that sort of promotional language -- clearly coming from the hotel -- is that it means you know you are watching an advertisement.
Now Hilton's heirs would prefer you tell your own story -- for free, of course, copiously illustrating it with your handy smartphone and sharing it with your friends. They'd rather you were at the center of your own story, because that brings them the patina of experiential legitimacy. For the first time in marketing history, they're actually happy not to be the protagonist.
What they hope is that the resort where you are staying, or the boat you are sailing on, or the park where you are playing, will be featured as a location: Let's call it a prominent minor character, a best buddy making it possible for you, the star, to have a really good time in your own story, meted out on Snapchat or Instagram or Facebook one image or slice of dialogue at a time. Enormous efforts are being expended to persuade you to do that. As often as possible.
Staying at a chain hotel in recent days, I was struck by how many props had been arranged around the place quietly persuading you to craft an ongoing and very shareable personal narrative of your vacation, ideally replete with the readily available hashtag the hotel prefers. Although seemingly organic to the spot, these props seemed to show up anywhere you might think of taking a photograph, including many a manufactured opportunity present at anything that could be associated with a personal story.
Take, for example, the logo-fused photo backdrop long associated with red carpets and Hollywood premieres. Those set-ups -- theatrical lights, logos and all -- are now ubiquitous and exceptionally popular in hotels and cruises. Some savvy arts producers also are seeing the worth of this: I saw people crowd around in the lobby of the Paramount Theatre in Aurora to take their photos against the logo of "West Side Story," a show that, for the record, is some 60 years old. But you also can now see more subtle manifestations of prompted storytelling -- the arrangement of furniture in the lobby, the presence of those suggested hashtags at photo-friendly vistas, the constant reminders to share, share, share.
You might consider all of this as a great democratization of storytelling, typically the province of a particular group of specialists. With the ubiquity of cameras, and of channels that allow you to serialize your personal narrative in manageable bits, to vacation now is to tell a story in real time, to share that which never before went beyond your inner family circle. If you take the benign point of view, you could argue that the marketing people's manic emphasis on social media is demystifying an act of self-documentation, encouraging you to share your story far more effectively than your English teacher probably ever got out of you. We do as we are told; if we are told to share our story, share it many of us do. Better, perhaps, than keeping your story to yourself.
On the other hand, the seemingly benign writing and photography coach constantly encouraging you to share your story only really wants you to share something it considers allied with its brand. Share something Dionysian or off-message and, well, it suddenly becomes not so shareable in the corporate mind. If you read what leisure marketers are reading, you'll see that it's not just about encouraging people to share their stories as they see fit, but to encourage them to share the right kind of stories. Not all protagonists in all kinds of situations are welcome. Social media strategies always include reactive policing and judicious deletion. Of the kind that would insult any writing teacher worth her salt.
Which brings me to the buzzword "connect," plastered all over the joint where I stayed. Connect with this! Connect here! Connect with that! Connect there! Connect! Connect! Only connect.
My, how that word has become debased. Connection has been reduced to the search for an outlet.
The "connect" fad is a consequence of several things, beginning with how time started to become so scarce, which led, of course, to more outsourcing of family tasks that promoted togetherness, which led to more dislocation and the pervasive feeling of disconnection that we tend to try to correct by going on vacation. Frantically, in my case.
Except that vacation -- probably very brief, probably expensive, probably pockmarked with work -- can intensify disconnection, because we're so busy doing all of that sharing we are being asked to do. Especially if we are young. For if we are young, we probably are on our phones anyway.
But because we feel this lack of connection, we tend to spend our money on experiences that we desperately hope will offer connection and, of course, those that cater to our leisure and entertainment experience want to cater to that need by getting us to market their experience as enhancing connection, whatever that means.
But your hosts, of course, very much want multiple shallow connections -- emotional, sure, but mildly and uncontroversially so -- to as broad a network as possible. They don't want you to connect very deeply to a very few people. That does not sell many tickets to Disney World. They want a light touch and tens of thousands of followers.
Of course, as the great novelist and traveler E.M. Forster explored so profoundly more than a century ago, the deepest connection isn't even to your close family members, lovers or friends. It is to yourself.
"Only connect the prose and the passion," Forster wrote in "Howard's End," "and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die."
That's not a bad spring break assignment, when the kids aren't looking. And it'll work just as well at the Motel 6 as the Ritz Carlton.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@tribpub.com
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