The Shawshank Redemption – tell the simple truth

How can a movie about two men serving life sentences for murder help us make consumers fall in love with brands – without going to prison?

Everything I Know about Advertising I Learnt from the Movies: #6

The Shawshank Redemption dramatises the emblematic silence of existence and the gradual eruption of the unconscious into symptomatic actions. Discuss.

Or, rather (if you’re still reading, that is) don’t.

Shawshank has been global number-one on IMDb's Top 250 since 2008. That’s a poll of real people, who pay to go to the movies (or stream them on Netflix) rather than those who are paid to be snooty about them, and might prefer 1970’s Belgian avant-garde cinema instead. Shawshank ranks very highly in lots of other polls too, and, all-in-all, is probably the world’s most-loved movie.

But what’s that got to do with the existential angst of someone who makes advertising for a living, I hear you ask.

Our job in advertising is to connect with people – real ones, lots of them, not professional critics or advertising awards juries – to make them think (and hopefully act) in a certain way. The problem is most advertising doesn’t make people think or act, because it doesn’t connect with them, even if it does win critical acclaim and a stack of awards. At best it’s wallpaper. At worst it’s just bloody annoying.

So how do we connect with the people we want to buy our products? 

One way is by telling the truth. Simply. And when I say truth, I don’t mean in a “washes whiter than…” kind of way, which usually comes across as bullshit. I mean by saying something in a certain way that feels true, authentic, real. Human. And that is also simple, leaving little room for misinterpretation and confusion – like John Lewis Christmas ads used to do. Which brings me back to Shawshank.

Andy Defresne, played by Tim Robbins, has just been banged up for life, times two, for murdering his wife and her lover. He is soon befriended by Red, played by Morgan Freeman, who has by now served twenty years of his life sentence. When Red asks him why he did it. “I didn’t,” says Andy. “Oh, you’re going to fit right in,” replies Red

Maybe Andy’s telling the truth. But Red isn’t.

Soon afterwards, Red is called before the parole board, with a chance of release, and they ask him one simple question: “Do you feel that your time served in prison dramatises the emblematic silence of existence and the gradual eruption of the unconscious into symptomatic actions?”

OK, I’m lying. Their actual question is: “Do you feel you’ve been rehabitated?” But it boils down to the same thing.

 “Oh yes sir. Absolutely sir,” Red replies, “I learned my lesson. I can honestly say I’m a changed man.”

The decision? Parole denied.

Fast forward ten years, and he’s back in front of the parole board again. Same question. Same answer. Same result.

Another ten years later, after he’s served forty, they ask him again. “Rehabilitation?” he responds. “What does that even mean? It’s just a made up word.”

He doesn’t claim to be rehabilitated, but simply wishes he could go back in time and talk to his reckless younger self. He then tells them to stop wasting his time, to just go ahead and stamp the stupid form so he can go back to the prison yard.

Spoiler alert.

As you might guess, his parole is approved. Why? Because he cut the crap and just spoke the simple truth. Not the contrived lie that he thought they wanted to hear. Though it took him twenty years to learn it.

It is this truth, authenticity and simplicity that helps to make The Shawshank Redemption so well-loved.There’s something deeper in the story that we can all connect too, even if we haven’t been in prison. Or an advertising agency.

I’ve served rather less time in the ad business (and none in prison, yet) and like Red, I’ve learned a lot of things. One of them is that telling the simple truth means seeing and saying something that many others don’t. Or as McCann have been saying for over a hundred years: “Truth well told.”

It may not always be pretty, but telling the truth through engaging stories that connect with people’s lives in an authentic way is what will get their attention, and get them to love your brand. Maybe even as much as the Shawshank Redemption.