by Jarvis Cromwell
I’ve spent a career digging into various aspects of the public mindset — a beastly challenge that requires not only an ability to make sweeping assumptions but also an eye for nuance. You need to be able to spot the patterns that have staying power in otherwise shifting sands. And that’s no easy task, which is perhaps why I’ve always loved it.
So I know this sounds cheesy, but I had an epiphany at the movies the other night. In this case, I had a sense there’s a pattern emerging in the public mindset that’s likely to stick around longer than the obligatory fifteen minutes.
It’s about the issue of control.
I have been thinking a lot about control recently. The issue has been cropping up in the past few months as a core customer mindset for almost every client we work with, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence.
The “a ha” moment occurred while watching the movie Win Win, which stars 
Paul Giamatti as a struggling small-town New Jersey attorney Mike Flaherty. His law practice is off. He’s barely scraping by. We watch Flaherty juggling the bills, plunging the toilets to avoid paying a plumber, and never quite getting around to hiring the arborist to remove that dangerous tree in his front yard despite frequent reminders from his wife Jackie, played by Amy Ryan from The Office.
Oh, and Flaherty also coaches the high school wrestling team. They stink. Can’t win to save their lives.
Life for Flaherty is anything but in control. And boy, does it make him anxious.
The arc of the story turns when Flaherty decides to take guardianship of one of his geriatric clients, Leo (played by Burt Young), who has been declared legally incompetent due to dementia. Leo wants to stay in his house and is dead set against going to a nursing facility. Flaherty tells the court he’ll take care of old man at home. But as soon as the legal ink is dry, he puts him in a nursing home and pockets the $1,500 stipend from the state. Flaherty rationalizes his ethical lapse as a win/win: he and his family get cash they desperately need, the old man gets decent care.
Soon after, the old man’s teenage grandson shows up from Ohio. Sixteen year old Kyle (Alex Shaffer) sports punk blond hair and a bruised cheek and is fleeing a terrible home situation. His mother is an addict in rehab and so he has taken the bus all the way from Ohio to live with his grandpa. Flaherty finds the boy on the old man’s stoop, and with Grandpa away, he brings him home for what is expected to be a quick overnight followed by a bus trip back to Ohio.
Kyle ends up staying much longer than expected. His life may be as out of control as Flaherty’s, but we soon discover he’s got something Flaherty doesn’t: an amazing talent for wrestling. Kyle enrolls temporarily in the high school, joins Flaherty’s team, and the story moves on.
From here, Win Win could have easily morphed into another feel-good sports movie. But in this case wrestling takes on a more important theme by serving as a powerful metaphor for control — something Flaherty sure wishes he had.
Flaherty (to Kyle): What’s it like…to be as good as you are?
Kyle: It feels like I’m in control. Of everything, you know?
Flaherty: Must be nice.
In some of its better moments, Hollywood is able to shine a mirror up to the public mood and spin a narrative that makes some sense of it all. And there has been a gathering trend for some years now of consumers wanting to gain more control over their lives — in all kinds of ways.
A bucket load of research is picking up on this trend. Euro RSCG’s New Consumer Study, for example, shows consumers taking control through their consumption choices. They call it “proactive mindfulness,” with 72% saying they are shopping more proactively and mindfully than they used to. And the study sees a move towards simplification as another means of gaining control, with two-thirds saying that most of us would be better off if we simplified our lives.
Or perhaps DYG put it best when they referred back in 2008 to the growing “take command” attitude of the public:
“Simply put, there is a massive trend toward individuals wanting to control and run more and more aspects of their lives.”
And with public trust levels still at historic lows and anxiety levels running high, every marketer – consumer and B2B alike – should be asking how they are helping customers exercise more control over their lives or businesses.
Sure would be nice.
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