Travel – Riffs on technology, marketing & culture

Quick Read: We have all seen those ads that start with “what if…”? But did you know that behind the facade of their deliberate wacky-ness there is a method to their madness.

In a world where Rhinoceros are domesticated pets who wins the second world war?

Or sample this..

In a world where a piano is a weapon, not a musical instrument, on what does Scott Joplin play the Maple Leaf Rag?

Counterfactuals. That’s what Amy and Sheldon call them.

First the definition.

Counterfactual thinking is a concept in psychology that involves the human tendency to create possible alternatives to life events that have already occurred; something that is contrary to what actually happened. (source)

It turns out that counterfactual thinking can have a huge influence over us.

To help us find greater meaning in our lives

In her book, ” The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life That Matters ,” Emily Esfahani Smith suggests that counterfactual thinking can be a way to find greater meaning in significant past events, be they positive or negative.

In one experiment referenced in the book, researchers had asked participants to think about a turning point event in their lives – be it positive/ negative /or neutral.

Subsequently these participants were segregated into three groups.

Group 1 (counter factual thinking): these participants were asked to describe how their life would look if the turning point event had never happened
Group 2 (factual thinking): these participants were simply asked to recount the turning point event in detail
Group 3 (meaning association): these participants were asked to reflect on why the turning point event was meaningful.

The researchers then asked these participants to respond to two statements about their turning point event: “It made me who I am today” and “It gave meaning to my life.”

Results showed that that participants in group 1 perceived the turning point events as more meaningful than those in group 2 (those primed towards factual thinking) or even those in group 3 (those primed towards meaning association)!

As Esfahani Smith points out in the book, research suggests that counterfactual thinking helps us find meaning in our lives for two reasons:

We’re able to attribute greater benefits to significant past events. Participants in the study mostly imagined that their lives would be worse if the event hadn’t happened.
It helps us tell more coherent stories about our lives – as though everything we have experienced has happened for a reason.

Influence on advertising response

As per (1) and (2) above, if counterfactual thinking indeed makes us better story tellers and helps us become more cognizant and appreciative of our own narratives, could it also have an impact on how we assess and internalize the narratives and stories that we are exposed to on a daily basis a.k.a advertising and marketing?

That’s exactly the hypothesis that these two researchers had set to validate and presented their learnings in the paper titled Counterfactual Thinking and Advertising Responses.

In a nutshell their research proved that invoking counterfactual thinking before an exposure to the advertising message can prime us up to be more receptive to and become more critical of the (key persuasive) message that follows.

No wonder many NGO marketing messages are structured around counterfactuals.

tapproject_print — Agency: Droga5 New York

Or even those ads like the following recent ones from Amtrak that are made with the objective to persuade the viewers and drive a behavioral change.

Can you think of any other advertising examples that ride on counterfactuals?

(Featured Image: What If )

Quick Read: A world fleeting by giga bytes per every nano second lends itself to the emergence of a paced down, nuanced and a deeper notion of travel as an experience – of the body or the mind or the soul.

Google ‘wandering’ and it says the following:

What if there were to be an aim for wandering?

Speaking of which, what if a sign post says ‘Please Trespass’.

That’s literally one of the unique joys of living in Sweden.

Called allemansrätten, or the Right of Public Access, it means as long as the land is not cultivated, and as long as no damage is caused, most of Sweden’s nature is yours to explore. This right of public access allows anyone to roam freely in the countryside, swim and travel by boat in someone else’s waters or even to camp or park a motor home on another person’s land.

Because it has existed for generations, allemansrätten is a part of the national identity of Sweden. School groups explore the forests from an early age and families often fish, pick berries or go for walks in the woods together.

No wonder, many people in Sweden can identify a surprising number of birds, fish and trees by name. (source)

What if we could all go to the woods to live deliberately.

What if we willfully subject ourselves to the challenge of stillness and get away from the tyranny of the screens to appreciate solitude and seek inspiration from the nature?

‘Walden, a Game‘ is an upcoming video game that challenges the player with this very question. See its trailer here.

Inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s classic Walden, Tracy J. Fullerton, the director of the Game Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, came up with this idea of a video game as a way to reinforce our connection to the natural world and to challenge our hurried culture.

A game that has apparently been in development for nearly a decade, ‘Walden..” takes takes six hours to play. It starts in the summer and ends a year later — offering players tasks like building a cabin, planting beans or chatting with Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Should you not leave sufficient time for contemplation, or work too hard, the game cautions: “Your inspiration has become low, but can be regained by reading, attending to sounds of life in the distance, enjoying solitude and interacting with visitors, animal and human.” (source)

Costing $19.99, the game is billed as the world’s most improbable video game for obvious reasons. Nevertheless it signals the mainstream arrival of the phenomenon of people seeking a sense of calm, a modicum of mindfulness and a pinch of presence amidst a world fleeting by giga bytes per every nano second.

So let the world wait

Perhaps as a reflection of such times that we live in today, we also have brands that have positioned themselves around this emerging need of the individual to seek these moments of peace and calm.

In its recent set of commercials, Black Dog encourages one to pause to unwind and relax. It asks one to take the time to savor all the things that truly matter – “because life is in the pause”.

In his recent annual book of ideas and insights titled Non Obvious-2017 edition, Rohit Bhargava references some interesting trends in this space (of ‘willful wandering’ and its adjacencies) to watch out for in 2017. He calls them “desperate detox”, “deep diving” and “mainstream mindfulness”. (check out his insightful commentary around these trends and much more in his must read book)

Putting it all together, the industry that is rife with disruption due to this trend is obviously travel. And an emerging category of travelers in this space is called the ‘Post Tourist’.

The Post Tourist

The term ‘post-tourist’ is commonly used to refer to a new breed of travellers, those who eschew common tourist hotspots and opt for a more unconventional experience, immersing themselves in local culture for an extended period of time.

No wonder, Airbnb tells us “Don’t go there, live there”

As Rohit says in his book..

“In a world filled with quick burst experiences, the future of travel seems to be something more meaningful, far deeper, and involving much more willful wandering.”

Given this, what’s my insight?

If travel is nothing but a state of mind, I have a feeling we are just fastening our seat belts before the category takes off.

A category called, willful wandering – of the body or the mind or the soul.

(Featured Image: From Walden, a Game)