What dogs tell you about the dangers of researching like everyone else

I was told a good story about what happened when British planners first went to work in the US. I hope it's true.

Apparently, loads of TV ads suddenly had dogs in them, because the cunning expats knew it was a great way to smuggle creative through research. Show Americans creative with dogs in it and they'll love it. 

It says a lot about creative development research of course, but it also says something about what happens when everyone has the same starting point. 

When everyone uses dogs as their starting point to get work through, all the work has dogs in it, so all the work looks the same. 

That's the problem with doing research the same way as everyone else, or reading the same stuff. Even following the same process. 

All the work ends up in the same place. 

You can see it in the glut of activity out there which is all about a brand doing good in the world, because all the data seems to say people want to know they can trust a brand to be more transparent and share their values.

Not only is this very questionable. I don't see tax dodging, not a nice place to work Amazon losing market share right now. 

When everyone is at it, it loses its potency. 

I don't mean the few who have 'doing good' built into their DNA, I mean those who use it for marketing and nothing else.

Back when we really hated banks for causing the crash and you couldn't move for banking brands looking to build trust and be nice, Halifax saw that people might SAY they want banks to be good, but what really drove them was not wanting money to be a pain in the arse.

The do, not just the say. 

Perhaps, what life was really like, not what journalists wanted it to be like. 

It led to things like guides to asking friends for money back you've loaned them. A moment full of awkwardness and creative potency. It was fresh and human in a market of forced loveliness. 

All it took was dipping into what banking looks like in real life, rather than the news.

Sure, the 'doing good stuff' would have generated PR, but would it have sold? 

It's dead easy to look at the surface, to look a a 'trend'. The real gold tends to be in real life.

The more you live it, the more potent your work will be.