Carpool Karaoke Fail: Authenticity Rules

In content, authenticity is our North Star. In this season of producing annual investment outlooks – the most sought-after content in finance – look for ways to put authenticity first.

To get the Compound Return newsletter in your inbox every month, subscribe here.

Issue 9 | November 17, 2016 | Carpool Karaoke Fail

I’ve got a bone to pick with Lady Gaga.

I should explain. I’m talking about her recent appearance on Carpool Karaoke, the series of video shorts where late night host James Corden “carpools” to work in L.A. with a celebrity. They’re usually musicians, of the legend or legend-in-the-making variety, from Elton John to One Direction. He even has Michelle Obama singing with Missy Elliott.

The magic of Carpool Karaoke is that you get to see these elite performers in a casual setting. They’re just hanging out, with a guy who adores their music but isn’t too intimidated to sing along and crack jokes.

If you suspected you could be best friends with Adele or Jennifer Lopez, James Corden is your stand-in. You may even come away liking someone you had previously dismissed (ahem, Justin Bieber), after you see how funny or interesting they are. It’s enchanting.

This is content marketing at its best. It’s marketing, for sure. The prospect of millions of YouTube hits is not lost on performers who have a new album or concert series to promote. But who cares? The content – seeing icons goof around like regular Joes – is worth it. It’s silly and relaxed and fun and authentic.

But sometimes, it doesn’t work.

Some guests aren’t able to interact in a relaxed way. In those episodes, the authenticity evaporates – like in the recent episode with Lady Gaga. She still sings her face off, which is fun to watch. She’s weird and fascinating and incredibly talented. But she acted like a person being interviewed, so the dynamic between her and James Corden didn’t feel authentic. It wasn’t an icon behaving like a regular Joe – it was an icon acting icon-ly, and making her interviewer work hard to fake rapport.

Authenticity rules

In Carpool Karaoke, as in any kind of content, authenticity rules. That’s an important North Star as year-end approaches, because every financial content marketing team is considering their 2017-outlook materials.

In the financial world, The Outlook is the cornerstone of content. It’s the number one thing that audiences seek from investment firms. And what they want, like any audience, is authenticity. They want to know the real deal – what are your top investment brains thinking about? What worries do they have? Which of the current headlines actually matter to them?

Don’t go Gaga

Make The Outlook worth it for the audience. Give them the most authentic version that you can. A few tips to consider in this season of investment outlook production:

• Help audiences hear a real voice. Where possible, match language to the syntax of real humans. Shorten sentences, and be careful of jargon.
• Smarten it up. When you take out jargon, you can talk about more complex topics. Add explanations where appropriate, but don’t be afraid to wander into complex matters, which shows your audience that you believe they’re intelligent.
• Be as direct as your compliance folks can stand. When something is too watered down by the various editorial rounds, it loses meaning. No one wants to know if stock prices “could lean toward being more volatile.” Try to dig into specifics, even when offering hypotheticals and possibilities. If everything “could be” and “leans toward” and “tends,” you haven’t said much at all, and your audience knows it.
• If there’s something you don’t have an opinion on, say that too. If you think the consensus is mostly right, say so, and point out where you do differ.

And when you need a break from The Outlook production, check out this ranking of Carpool Karaoke episodes, which I found spot on.  (Beware…if you read through these, you are likely to stop and click on one or two…kiss 30 minutes of your life goodbye. They’re fun minutes though.

Looking for a help with year-end investment outlooks? Reach out to learn more about how I can help you build your financial brand with engaging and human content.