Being relatable shouldn’t be the end goal

We're drowning in data, wielding the smartest media in marketing history and, yet, a staggering 85% of online ads go unnoticed. Has the temptation to serve the right message to the right person at the right time steered us towards predictability – and boxed us in creatively?

Remember the days when creativity was all about being the odd one out? Agencies thrived on their uniqueness and this shone through their work. But now, it feels like uniqueness has been replaced by a fixation on relatability. Holding the mirror up to people's everyday lives has become a seal of success and source of pride. Don't get me wrong, there's some relatable work that is fantastic. But not all fantastic work is relatable.

We're in the business of memory-making, not just getting people to nod along. You want to be Nirvana's first chord, not another forgettable elevator tune. Our goal should be to create work that makes people care when they couldn't care less. Work that becomes the talk of the town over drinks. Our endgame? Being memorable, because people can only buy from brands they remember. Prioritising memorability is what brings the most value to our clients. So why are we becoming so focused on showing people what's familiar?

We like to think we have a role in shaping culture, right? Well, if we look at what's going on in pop culture, only a fraction of it is about relatability. Take zombies, for instance; it's not just zombies watching zombie movies. Can you believe it? Zombies, with their lifeless eyes and slow gait, tap in to something deep within us. Look at The Walking Dead. It's not just about undead heroes; it's raw human drama. Fear, survival, love – the whole messy package. We're not zombies, but zombies grip us and make us ponder life, death and our self-destructive tendencies.

Even non-fiction narratives often deviate from relatability. Keeping tigers in cages and conspiring to murder aren't common experiences for the 64 million households that watched Tiger King.

Plenty of pop culture hasn't aimed for relatability as a measure of success, and yet there's so much we can relate to in those stories. They don't need to mirror us to tap in to our fears, hopes and questions.

In this era of relentless pursuit of relatability, we find ourselves fixated on consumer insights to the detriment of other powerful, influential and truthful sources. Make no mistake, consumer insights are gold mines, providing profound truths about life. But they're not the only source of truth.

Truths can be uncovered in culture, competition or even within the confines of organisations themselves. For the launch of Royal Enfield's new Himalayan adventure bike, we found the truth of the mountains to be bigger than the consumer truth. No matter what riders expect when they arrive, the Himalayas hold little regard for meticulously crafted plans. It's this unassailable truth about the landscape that we chose to breathe life into.

When we confine ourselves to the narrow corridor of relatability, we inadvertently close the door on all these alternative sources of truth. And when we broaden these sources of truth, we open up new creative possibilities.

To keep our industry relevant, we need to ditch the ordinary, explore alternative sources of truth and commit to creating the most unforgettable work of our careers. Work that even zombies would remember.

Having more data than ever shouldn't lead to predictable stories. People might just pay more attention to what they wish they'd seen before, rather than what they already know. Trust people's imagination and explore the gap between what's relatable and what's unexpected. That's where memorability truly resides. Because what challenges us is harder to forget.

Damien le Castrec is chief strategy officer at Droga5 London