Maslow’s pyramid and the great trade-off between simplicity, accuracy and popularity

I recently came across an interesting piece about Abraham Maslow’s seminal “Pyramid of human needs”. The key takeaway of the article is that Maslow himself never intended his theory to be seen as a rigid scale, even less so a pyramid-shaped one. It took a professor of management to simplify and reframe his work under the form of a diagram. This allowed it to travel, first penetrating business circles, then general culture, then pop culture, eventually becoming the basis for some hilarious memes.

The question that strikes me here is twofold:

First, would this theory have gone that far without the pyramid vehicle (hint: probably not)?
Second, and most importantly: would you rather have your idea largely adopted, along with the risk of being diluted or distorted? Or would you prevent it from being shared too widely to avoid any misinterpretation?

The pyramid was a convenient way to spread Maslow’s theory — and spread it did. However, more than half a century after its introduction, it strayed a lot from its author's original framework, with contradictory effects.

On the one hand, the framework has been hackneyed, misread, if not voluntarily twisted to various uses, especially by marketing professionals and business consultants. One could argue the concept has no substance anymore.

On the other hand, at least part of Maslow’s vision is now widely known and helps millions in understanding other cultures, devising strategies or deciphering their own feelings. It gave people a good-enough tool to navigate the world and build new theories in completely different fields.

Because it ended up being vague and easy to grasp, more people related to it and used it. In other words, the more the Maslow Pyramid was used, the less heuristic (as in “scientifically useful”) it was. But, at the same time, the more heuristic it became.

A paradox and a decade-long debate

Behind this paradox lies the classical debate about scientific popularization. Do we consider that complex ideas and research can be translated into simpler, more palatable ones to be shared? If so, who should do it, scientists themselves or writers? How far into simplifying ideas can we go? And how can we know popularization is eventually successful — is it when a concept is invoked frequently within TV debates or dinner parties? Or when it is vaguely familiar to millions?

Another example is the famed Schrödinger’s cat paradox, a thought experiment named after the Nobel Prize recipient Erwin Schrödinger’s work in quantum mechanics. The neither-dead-nor-alive cat story is both stimulating and easy to tell (plus — CATS!!), which propelled it into popular culture through books or TV series. However, it remains a tiny part of Shrödinger’s research and an even smaller part of quantum mechanics. So can we consider its popularity as a real success? Did it help people to expand their thinking?

A delicate balance to be found in communications

This fundamental question of balance between simplicity, accuracy and popularity can be extended beyond science, notably to politics and communications. How far can one go into simplifying a notion, an idea or a particular value to make sure it spreads without being "lost in translation"?

In the marketing space, research tends to confirm simplicity’s power to make your brand remembered. Actually, advertising success is positively linked to the high distinctiveness of a brand. Distinctiveness can be about a tagline (eg Audi’s “Vorsprung durch technik”), color (Tiffany & Co’s signature blue), jingle (Intel’s chime) and so on. All these assets must be put front and center in communications and supported in media on a long term basis so that consumers associate, understand and remember them almost subconsciously. Therefore, and again, the more simple and easy to appropriate the assets, the more powerful and universally recognized they end up: think of McDonald’s Golden Arches or Netflix’s “tu-dum”.

Nevertheless, this also means that the more universal they get, the less companies can control how they are perceived and used. Logos or slogans are twisted everyday, sometimes in unexpected, critical or even offensive ways. For instance, Nike’s Swoosh is so easy to draw it can be used to signal coolness on a kid’s drawing but also late-stage capitalism on a street artist’s work. And when Gucci's interlaced Gs are illegally used on cheap t-shirts, they still make undirectly for brand presence (Gucci even famously played with bootleg by making fake-fake clothing such as sweatshirts barred with the name “Guccy”).

Similarly to Maslow’s pyramid, the stronger a brand asset becomes, the less it belongs to the brand itself. But entering popular culture is also the best way to cement the brand’s presence in consumers’ minds and gain cultural legitimacy. Not all brands can take such risks for sure; but for those who dare, the trade-off can be highly beneficial. As a brand, building extremely simple assets, hammer them and finally accept to relinquish some control over is the best way to spread and be remembered.

The Instagram aesthetic is dead, long live the Instagram aesthetic

Heartbroken latte

I have seen a lot of people sharing Taylor Lorenz’s great piece about Instagram’s perfect aesthetic being "over" (the general idea is that influencers are now raking in more likes for posting unedited, candid pics). Though it holds some truth and is full of compelling examples and fun quotes, I must say the article misses two major things.

The first one is that the imperfect, messy aesthetic Lorenz is describing has been around for years, thanks to Snapchat’s huge influence over pop culture. The irony is that when Instagram successfully cloned Snapchat’s Stories feature in 2016, they also copied its "perfectly imperfect" aesthetic and quirky mindset (for French speakers, here's an article I wrote back then about this aesthetic change). The Stories format, which favors ephemeral, immediate, as-candid-as-possible picture sharing, was meant to become the counterweight to IG's hyper-crafted pictures. It eventually became more than a mere counterweight: its massive success introduced the "messy aesthetics" which have thrived on Instagram ever since, through memes and influencers, small or big.

The other important point is that, even though pastel-coloured housewares, exposed bricks walls and flare effects have become less popular, there is still no such thing as authenticity on Instagram. Even the messiest picture is as painstakingly curated or distorted as the heavily filtered ones. The bad flashes, the quirky outfits, the faces — every detail one posts is there to show how cool, "non-self conscious" one is.

There is still no such thing as authenticity on Instagram. Even the messiest picture is now as painstakingly curated or distorted as the heavily filtered ones.

As human beings, everything we share or do collectively is more or less staged to send more or less subtle messages. Therefore, it’s no surprise this universal behaviour is dialled up on social media. Even when we try to go unfiltered, we end up trying to distort reality to our benefit. Take again Snapchat, the O.G. of messy aesthetic: the app popularised sharing bad pictures and silly jokes, but also made applying all sorts of embellishing effects onto your face mainstream, eventually leading to what some call (in an oversimplifying way) "Snapchat dysmorphia".

 

If the original Instagram aesthetic is over, it’s because it’s been 1) killed by Instagram itself and 2) replaced by another aesthetic, which isn't more authentic at all. Whether in the real world or online, we just keep applying lenses onto our lives.

The ONE thing that could actually work out in the Accenture/Droga5 union

Like everyone in the advertising industry, I’ve been trying very hard to wrap my mind around Accenture’s surprise Droga5 acquisition, announced on Thursday.

I have seen tens of (more-or-less nuanced) analysis pieces and hundreds of (not-so-nuanced) comments on Fishbowl and Twitter about it. I’m certain you have too so apologies in advance for this one; I’ll make it quick.

Apart from the irony that, while every advertising pundit declares the agency holding model dead, the already 450,000-strong Accenture is building up a brand new one from scratch, I remain skeptical about the consultancy’s ability to integrate, let alone nurture, Droga5’s and other independent shops’ creative culture. Don’t get me wrong: I am confident Accenture will leave maximum freedom to its ad agencies roster. However, consultancies’ model is about plugging in different know-hows to devise frameworks and scale them up, while sheer creativity is often messy and difficult to replicate at scale, which means it could get inefficient in the long term.

However, it has suddenly struck me that maybe we naysayers are too focused on Accenture’s shopping spree's impact on the “mere” communications industry. If one takes a step back, there’s actually one field in which a Droga/Accenture collaboration might work tremendously. A field that could be much more profitable: actual consumer product development. And by “actual”, I mean real, tangible BtC products and services, not two-day workshops and fancy innovation units developing disruptive ideas but which remain mostly PR-oriented.

Chutzpah and rigorousness, ideas and execution

This is one field neither consultancies nor agencies have managed to fully explore. As communications and consulting people, we are very good at explaining why other products are incredibly successful or fail miserably. The thing is, we seldom invent them ourselves. It is because most of the time, we only cover one portion of the value chain.

Actually, consultancies have the ability and the discipline to secure a business plan, then prototype and develop services, plus the clout required to take ideas up the decision ladder. On the other hand, communications people have of course creativity and chutzpah on their side, but also something else that is often overlooked: the ability to deeply understand people and dig up insights to exploit. Except this time, consumer knowledge would not only be used to adjust communications about already existing products ­ — it would be the very basis for new products. If put together, both sides could finally cover the complete value chain and transform R&D across numerous industries.

Of course, this is a very long shot. To work, such a venture would mean hiring people from very different backgrounds than advertising, consumer research or consulting. It would mean bringing more engineers, scientists and retail experts in so as to turn neat PowerPoint concepts into real-world products. And above all, it would mean taking much more financial risk. But still, being able to fully externalize R&D for major brands or even create one’s own products could represent an incredible payoff in the long run. Could the next Glossier, the next Airbnb, come from a communications company?