Many people believe that the more you know about your audience, the better your work will be. This is why, in certain creative industries, market research is so prevalent. The movie industry and advertising in particular are stuck in the headlights of this dark art.
Henry Ford was famously quoted as saying:
If I’d asked people what they
wanted, they would have said
faster horses.
Instead, he came up with a motor car they could afford.
Consensus leads to predictability. A great creative work surprises its audience by presenting ideas and thoughts never encountered before. That’s the thrill of a memorable idea.
When Matt Groening created The Simpsons, he wasn’t responding to a piece of market research about dysfunctional families. He just thought this particular family would be a great vehicle for observing the world we live in.
Inspiring people isn’t a mathematical process. You’ve got to surprise yourself as well as your audience. There is a randomness to creating that must be celebrated not scorned. If you look up the word ‘surprise’ in the dictionary, you’ll notice that nowhere does it say, ‘as expected.’