The Unscriptable Moments That Build Reputation

Humanise the meaningful.

Hello my champions of creative goodness. How are ya?

Today I want to dive into a little topic that I am super passionate about, and that is the human goodness we can do to elevate the experience for the people we work with.

Everyone reading this is a craft-based, creativity-infused builder of things. You might own a business, work with brands, or create cool visuals for people who love looking at cool visuals.

I don’t think creative people like that need motivation to continue doing the things they already do so well, but I do think there is another layer we often forget to think about… the human layer. The stuff on top of the craft. That is where some new magic can be found.

It looks like over the coming years a lot of businesses and brands will automate huge parts of their customer journey, which is logical, so the question for me becomes…

Where does the human come in and make a decision that was not obvious?

I am all for becoming more efficient and dialling in a good process, as many of you will know, but it’s often the stupid-on-paper, “not good for business” decisions that build a reputation worth talking about.

One of my favourite examples of human creativity elevating a brand’s reputation is the story of Joshie the Giraffe.

A family went on holiday to California and accidentally left their son’s stuffed giraffe at a Ritz-Carlton hotel where they were staying. To put the little boy at ease, his dad told a little white lie and said Joshie had decided to stay behind for an extra holiday.

The dad had phoned the hotel and asked if they could find it, send it back, and hopefully reunite the little guy with his giraffe.

The hotel staff found Joshie amongst the laundry and could have simply posted the toy back.

But instead, they created an entire photo album showing Joshie relaxing by the pool, driving golf carts, getting spa treatments with cucumbers over his eyes, and “enjoying his extended vacation” before finally sending him home, all to back up his dad’s story.

That tiny, unscriptable moment of human creativity transformed a forgotten toy into a story that millions of people still talk about today… just like I am right now.

And I think that’s freaking fascinating.

Because I doubt that family remembers much about the facilities at the Ritz-Carlton, the weather, or even how good the food was… but they will absolutely remember Joshie’s holiday forever.

This got the old curiosity up… Why do moments like this stick with us so deeply while so many other experiences disappear from memory almost immediately?

Why do we instantly want to tell our mates about them, repost them online and emotionally connect with complete strangers because of them?

For that we probably need to get a little ‘sciencey’.

Now remember, I’m not a scientist. I’m just an inquisitive bloke with a scraggly beard who spends far too much time researching human behaviour, but here’s what I found out…

Your brain is basically a very clever prediction machine. Most of the time, your brain is trying to conserve energy by guessing what is about to happen next based on previous experiences and familiar patterns. If things go exactly as expected, the brain doesn’t need to pay much attention because nothing new or important is happening.

Win for brain power.

This is why most of our routine experiences disappear from memory almost immediately.

If you are anything like me, you get in the car, drive somewhere you’ve been a thousand times before, pull up, get out, and suddenly realise you barely even remember the journey itself. You obviously drove, stopped at traffic lights and avoided crashing into things, but because your brain already knew the pattern, most of the drive happened on complete autopilot… and it’s even easier now I don’t have to change gears anymore. Thank fook for the automatic.

Humans do this constantly. We predict things, filter things and automate familiar experiences because if we had to consciously process every tiny detail of every moment of every day we would mentally collapse before our cheeky 11am coffee break.

That’s why so many experiences we go through every single day become, well… forgettable.

You expect the hotel room to be ready when you arrive. You expect somebody at reception to hand you a key, point you towards the lift or stairs and solve any mini problems in the quickest and most logical way possible, so when all of those things happen exactly as predicted, your brain simply processes the experience efficiently and moves on because nothing emotionally interesting actually happened.

But when something interrupts that predictable pattern in a creative, emotional or unexpected way, your brain suddenly pays far more attention because it wasn’t expecting it.

That’s why the Joshie story mattered so freaking much.

The family expected the hotel to find the giraffe and simply post it back. Problem solved. No dramas here people. Everybody moves on with their lives.

But instead, the hotel staff created this ridiculously brilliant, fake holiday for the giraffe that made it feel like Joshie was genuinely out there living his best life in the California sun and making mates along the way. They went to completely unreasonable measures just to bring a little bit of joy to a child and back up his dad’s white lie, and that exact unpredictability is what made the whole thing unforgettable.

Humans remember meaningful and surprising moments far more than they remember predictable and functional ones.

The hotel didn’t just solve the problem. They transformed a completely ordinary customer service interaction into a story that people are still retelling years later… and I think that’s the bit most of us miss as business owners.

People rarely remember what was efficient, but they almost always remember how something made them feel.

I mean, I almost bloody cried the first time I read the Joshie story because I instantly thought about how my own son would feel seeing his favourite toy off living its best life and making mates on holiday.

I take Lightning McQueen with me on work trips because I miss my son Rocco, and I take silly little photos of him at random places because I know my son lights up when he sees them. He genuinely thinks daddy and Lightning are away together having a good time, so this little giraffe story hit a proper emotional note for me.

The Joshie story stopped being “good customer service” and instantly became something far more human because you could feel the love, effort and humanity inside the decision those hotel staff made… and that kind of creativity can never be automated.

Nor bloody should it.

I hope this story sparks the creativity inside you to go against the grain when you can. To be unpredictable with your kindness and to find ways to connect with others that might be out of the ordinary.

People remember people who thought about them in different and unique ways.

I think, over the coming years, businesses and brands will increasingly be judged on what they choose to keep human.

Automate the predictable.
Humanise the meaningful.

Love ya.

James
- The People’s Branding Mentor