What can Wall•E tell us about advertising?

You’ve seen Wall•E, right? Cute little robot? First half of the movie has no dialogue? There’s a lesson about advertising in that film. And it has to do with this quote:

“The audience actually wants to work for their meal. They just don't want to know that they're doing that. That's your job as a storyteller, is to hide the fact that you're making them work for their meal. We're born problem solvers. We're compelled to deduce and to deduct, because that's what we do in real life. It's this well-organized absence of information that draws us in.”

-Andrew Stanton, Filmmaker

Wall•E doesn’t talk, remember? He beeps. He flits about collecting things. But he doesn’t talk. So how do we know his story? How do we know what’s going on? We figure it out because we want to figure it out. Because we are drawn into it.

The brilliant insight in Stanton’s storytelling is that it doesn’t take place in the story itself, it takes place inside our minds. We fill the gaps. We supply the meaning. We complete the narrative.

This is what the best advertising also does. It leaves something for the audience to figure out. In a world that increasingly relies on data and measurement, it’s easier than ever to know who clicked, for how long, and where. But data can’t tell us why. And that’s where the human side of communication comes in. The longing for meaning and relevance and story. The longing for completeness.

The most progressive marketers are not afraid to leave part of the story untold. To leave thoughts unfinished. To leave something for the audience to do. Because those marketers know, like Andrew Stanton, that that is exactly what we want.