Brands, monkeys and polyamorous parties: the quest for the middle ground

Let’s step back to 1992.

Crisp, fall morning; Nirvana in the Discman; heading to an 8:30am Psych 101 course. Centre stage in a 600-seat auditorium stood professor Rory O’Day. Three mornings a week he stood like growling Lear bellowing out to 400 first years the basic tenets of psychology. While I remember most of the content in a vague way, I sure remember Rory. I was thinking of him after watching the Sundance festival darling Our Social Dilemma on Netflix. If you haven’t seen it, it is powerful, filled with well-meaning people trying to make themselves feel better after helping to create a monster.

As a film it enlightens us about who is evil in the era of persuasion, but as an exploration of our primary social dilemma, it also misses the bigger question: Are humans good turned evil by social media, or are we evil made more evil by attention seeking algorithms?

Back to school and to Rory for an answer. Rory spoke about how humans are innately selfish creatures, but that human societies are innately good in their construct. He was not suggesting we go home and take a good look at ourselves, but rather he was suggesting that we turn around and give the person behind or in front of us a good look in the eye, shake their hand and say thanks for making me better.

Watching this doco, I thought, this is, really, what we are losing at the minute. Our ability to see, to know, that left unchecked by others we tend towards our darker instinctual side rather than the light of our socialised selves. Turns out Yoda was right. Fear is the path to the dark side.

A case of monkey see, monkey do? 

Without socialisation we are not much more evolved than primates with nicer outfits (sometimes). We fall into our base behaviours of aggression and exclusion. Socialisation has helped us overcome the two traps that stopped baboons not named Donald from ruling the world. Most primate communities usually avoid other groups and are prone to violent clashes when they cross. Predictably started by the males, usually over food and women. Because of this knowledge, sharing is extremely limited. It also engrains in them only one type of grouping style. These groups range from gorillas who prefer monogamous small family groups to the chimps whose polyamory ways make a cocaine-fuelled swingers party look subdued.

Humans are unique in that we move between different group constructs in relative harmony. We can believe in both monogamy, polyamory and everything in between. Why? We talk it out and through discourse we err to the mean rather than the min/max of individualism. We meet on middle ground. This, for example, is what saddens me about the state of America. I have never liked it as a ‘lived experience’ but adore it as a brand concept. Land of the free, make your life better through hard work, and be brave, are ideals that have run through humanity since Mesopotamia. It is a mythology that even in times of great darkness was the centre of discourse between people who believed. The silent, unseen middle. It is unfortunately these voices that have been silenced. It’s hard to say whether that will ever now change. Communication has now been divided and wedged to within an inch of its life. Show me freedom and I will answer you with fear. Oh dear. 

The problem with the letter K

Many commentators refer to Covid-19 as 'the great acceleration', but I believe it should really be called 'the great polarisation'. The rather alarming stat hidden in Covid-19 times is that we are heading for a K-shaped recovery.

While some believe this is about public service (busy hiring), private sector (busy firing) as to form the legs of the k, it is a story about broader inequality as the recovery and even current experience is already split between industries and economic groups. Those on one side of the divide are those in the land of the triple threat of balancing childcare, WFH and a very uncertain future. This is more existential in the way it presents as there is a promised return to normality. On the other leg of the crisis the triple threat of different circumstances mixed with increasing costs, lower wage earning and less job security. It’s much more immediate.

Bye bye to the middle then?

The middle ground was and is valuable territory. In politics winning the ‘swing voter’ wins you the day. In business it was also where you historically found scale. A middling product for the middle class. Since the start of the Internet (the same time I was walking into Psych 101 with my Discman) the middle ground has been ripped into pieces like territory to be claimed. Managing issues on two fronts is challenging but winning while managing three that overlap is impossible. This is what has happened to those in the middle categories and more broadly in life. The space has been eaten from the bottom looking for profit by removing cost, from the side through enhanced experiences and from above from vertical integrators. 

From the bottom: pull demand down through the deep discount formula, less range, margin invested into price continually, an unwavering and consistent experience. Think Costco, Trader Joe’s, Cotton On, Dollar Store and Aldi.

From above: pull demand up away from the middle through enhancement of experience. Think Apple, Netflix, Mecca, Uniqlo and Sonos.

From all sides: vacuum up all demand from above and below through bundling, easier experiences, gaining whole-of-customer spend and margin investment. Think Amazon, Alibaba, Tatuken, JD and Walmart. 

Why does the middle really matter? Because it holds together all sides like a tent pole. As Homer Simpson once said, “The dizzying highs, the terrifying lows, what I love are the creamy middles.” Someone pass me a donut.

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Be better to each other.