Empathy…It’s what’s for dinner

Throughout my week, I visited 9 different agencies…9! While these agencies definitely had differences from one another-Some were big, some were small. Some were part of holding companies, some were independent, some were more traditional scope, some were digital production focused. One thing remained constant throughout the week…Empathy. 

This week taught and reminded me the importance of empathy. Whether it be mentally migrating into the shoes of your target audience, your teammates, your client or even your competitor, empathy is an important thing to always keep constant as it envelops a strong holistic view that will only benefit you. Here are three examples of empathy being lived out at some of the agencies I was fortunate to visit. 

1.) AKQA: All members of the cross-functional panel that spoke with us on Tuesday morning preached that, “Working as a collective is vital and we must treat every perspective as valid.”

2.) Radical Media: Jon Kaman, Co-founder, CEO and Chairman of Radical Media, spoke of how he uses the word “audience,” instead of “consumer,” because a member of an audience is genuinely more interested in the work that a brand puts out.

3.) BBDO: Lily, a former Duck and copywriter talked about the importance of recognizing human elegancy. She elaborated on this by saying that, for a team to fully produce work that reaches and speaks to their target, they must “take a step back to understand the impact that brand makes on the daily life of the audience.”

I believe that empathizing with one-another is one of the most vital things that we must do to succeed in this storytelling industry and succeed in our lives. 

-Noah Wilskey