Recently, I was working on a project for a client and helped write marketing copy for several digital ads. One featured a photo of a man with a stern expression, crossing his bulky, tattooed arms. The copy I wrote implied he was an elementary school teacher and really a softie at heart.
The client ended up going in a different creative direction with the ad and made the call not to run the tattooed teacher iteration. However, weeks later, when we were already on to other deliverables (website content, press release), folks from the team were asking about “tattoo man.”
“I’m still thinking about that guy,” one person said.
“I wonder if we could find a real teacher like him and write up the profile?” another suggested.
“The image, the idea, it was just interesting,” another said.
Clearly, tattoo man was memorable. This is because he felt like a real character from a real story.
Here are a couple reasons why.
First, tattoo man felt real because he was consistently inconsistent. In Wonderbook, Jeff VanderMeer uses this term to talk about how real people don’t always totally make sense. No one is a perfect type, which is why characters who are all one thing––evil, good, rebellious, obedient, a sports-obsessed jock with no other interests, a queen bee fashionista who thinks about lip gloss all day––don’t feel authentic. Real people are full of contradictions and juxtapositions and oddities. So even though tattoo man didn’t fit with the audience’s immediate expectations of what a K–5 teacher looked like, he did fit with their subliminal expectations of a real human being, surprises and rough edges and all.
Second, tattoo man felt real because he cared. The ad copy made clear: this guy was passionate about his job. He was all about getting it done for his “kiddos” in the classroom in super relatable way. Real-life humans constantly want things: a good night’s sleep, a new car, a glass of water, a job where they make a difference. Because desire is a deeply human experience, it’s much easier to relate to, and root for, characters when we know what they want. Tattoo man’s desire was particularly altruistic––success for his students––so it was even easier to cheer for him and get invested in how his story would progress.
This is a great example of how, if you know about the elements of storycraft, you can do a lot with a little. One image and a bit of text in an ad was enough to make people think about this character. Even weeks later.
What happens next for tattoo man? I’m not sure. But I hope his kiddos are doing well.
Happy storytelling,
Erin
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Erin Becker (she/her)
Writer | Communications Consultant | Storytelling Expert
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