Once, I was asked to participate in writing a congratulatory message, which one person was supposed to deliver through outdoor advertising, as someone considered “creative.”
It’s worth noting right away that I can hardly be called “creative.” I’m not an artist; inspiration and insights aren’t really my thing. What I excel at is logic, organizing information, drawing conclusions, and connecting causes with effects. Yes, I do have a tendency to think differently from others and come up with genuinely unexpected ideas that might appear to be creativity or insight from the outside, but that’s just an appearance—mainly because an outside observer rarely follows the course of my thoughts. (End of self-promotion)
But despite the fact that I haven’t done anything creative in my life (I can’t even dance, let alone sing, draw, or compose), people expect “creativity” from me. I put this word in quotes because I’m already tired of the word itself.
So, the task was to create a greeting (for Independence Day) that wasn’t a tired cliché and still had an impact. Naturally, the final arbiter of the quality of the “creative” work was the client. And here we encounter not one, but two cultural pitfalls.
Trap No. 1
The different meanings of words that arise in people’s minds when they read these words. Any information comes to mind. recipient Before that, it’s just noise. And how the recipient interprets this information depends on the culture of which the recipient is a part.
As a simple example, the word “attention,” heard by a soldier from a sergeant or by a girl in a dark hallway from a grim-looking guy, will evoke not only different associations but also lead to different actions from the recipients.
And if we are now talking about a text that needs to be “gripping,” we are not just referring to the words themselves, but to the cultural context in which they are used. The performance of your country’s anthem may evoke a deep emotional response in you, but not in a foreigner.
It turns out that the cultural background of the client differs in one way or another from that of the performers, and the “taste test” as a criterion for quality is not applicable here. Most importantly, the cultural background of the readers of the greeting will also differ from that of both the performers and, even more so, the client.
A couple of months ago, the phrase “Thank you to the residents of Donbas” was perceived as a party line, but now these three words carry a completely different meaning and resonate in a whole new way.
Of course, it’s impossible to create a set of phrases that elicits the same reaction from everyone. You always need to understand who your target audience is, who will grasp the message better than others, and who it should resonate with. It’s even better if this target group constitutes the majority of the overall recipients of the message.
This is all the work of professional authors who get paid for what they do, but not mine. I’m just not developed enough as a person to understand the cultural background of the masses, the culture of a nation, let alone…
Trap No. 2
The issue is that we do not have a nation. There are residents of Ukraine, but there is no nation. Those who want to stand up when they hear the anthem are a minority. There are almost no people ready to embrace the idea of fighting for their homeland. The dream of the majority of Ukrainians lies beyond the borders of Ukraine — to leave the country and find a good job abroad. Moreover, it’s not even about the West anymore, but practically anywhere. Most of the population wouldn’t be able to name three Ukrainian writers or artists. Half of the country associates Ukrainian culture with the culture of Ukrainians as an ethnicity, rather than with the culture of Ukraine as a nation, while not considering themselves part of the Ukrainian nationality.
According to the latest data survey 49.8% do not consider Ukraine to be a truly independent state. 45.2% of respondents believe that they and their families have lost more from Ukraine’s independence than they have gained. 61.7% of respondents feel that the situation in the country has worsened compared to 1991.
We no longer have, and it’s unlikely we will ever have, an effective ideological apparatus. There are no values that are shared by everyone or even by the overwhelming majority. There are no issues that resonate with many. There is nothing that unites the nation and mobilizes it as a group.
I’m not saying that it’s bad. It’s part of the trend. Gradually, there will be some formation of common values for the majority, but not based on a propaganda machine, rather on social networks and the mutual exchange of culture among specific individuals.
At the same time, a significant cultural divide is forming between those who know what “The Hare of Fate,” “Hypno-Toad,” “Preved,” “Mitsgol,” “Recently, I met a boy…” and so on, are, and those who do not. The former are becoming more numerous, while the latter are dwindling. However, even among the first group, there is nothing that connects them to Ukraine. They are part of a different—cosmopolitan world, much to the dismay of Ukrainian ideologists—Russian-speaking and encompassing millions of people living around the globe.
In these conditions, creating texts that “hook” the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians is simply unrealistic. However, it is possible to work with a specific target group and engage with and “hook” their culture. You can choose a professional community, a certain age group of a specific gender and social status, or even target pensioners who are communists or pensioners who are liberals.
A good example of “appealing” to one part of the audience while alienating another and remaining neutral to a third can be found in President Yushchenko’s congratulatory message on one of the Victory Days. Just two words that, for anyone “outside the culture,” would simply appear as a neutral praise. Yushchenko, from billboards adorned with the standard symbols of Victory (the Order of Victory, St. George ribbons, and all that), addressed the people with the slogan “Glory to the Heroes!” Here, it’s not just the words themselves; even the order of the words carries meaning.
You can choose young widows. This is neither a flaw nor a societal problem. It is a fact, and interestingly, from a marketing perspective, it is quite a useful fact, as target audiences for different products and services can be segmented right at the stage of crafting slogans, selecting logos, or naming brands. This is a dream for marketers and, at the same time, an unsolvable challenge for political PR specialists, who need to come up with solutions that are equally appealing and non-offensive to everyone.
Do you wonder why political advertising doesn’t resonate with almost anyone? It’s because it doesn’t delve into the culture of specific groups and relies on diluted universal “values” that, in reality, aren’t characteristic of any cultural segment of society. Instead, political advertising is sterile and doesn’t offend anyone.
That’s how it is. It turns out that what will “catch” the client—clearly a representative of a minority in society, and certainly not a representative of the “people,” since they can afford to order outdoor advertising—won’t resonate with the general public. Even if you hire a professional copywriter, it still won’t be possible to craft a congratulatory text that truly engages the majority. At best, you’ll end up with a text that doesn’t offend the majority.
Ukrainian nationalists used the following slogan-response pair for greetings: “Glory to Ukraine” “Glory to the heroes!” This deviates from the standard structure of such greetings, where the word “glory” always comes first. Naturally, on Victory Day, which is firmly associated by a significant part of the population with the victory of the Soviet people over fascism, and given the rather ambiguous interpretation of the role of Ukrainian nationalists in achieving that victory, the phrase “Glory to the heroes!” was perceived as a rehabilitative flattery towards the veterans of the UPA-UNSO, while still managing to imply that “nothing too controversial was said.” Moreover, it succeeded in not provoking the Russians, who are very sensitive about the memory of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War, as the Russians, who flock to Kyiv during the May holidays, largely did not grasp the nuance of this greeting.