Ah, yes. Arguably one of the most infamous and debated scenes in movie history. Tell us, Mr. Cameron: do you really think that Jack couldn’t have ALSO fit on that piece of wood with Rose?

Regardless of the ever-rampant internet debate about the various ways both Jack and Rose could have survived their plight from the giant sinking ship, this scene never fails to cause a tear or two to fall upon our cheeks, even if we’ve seen the film a thousand times.

And this is all thanks to a little something called empathy. When we see Rose’s face, how devastated she is when this boy who swept her off her feet and brought color back into her high-class, black-and-white film life, dies for her, we feel almost as though a part of us has died too. And that feeling right there, friends, is empathy in action.

The e-word, as it turns out, was a survival adaptation that humans developed hundreds of thousands of years ago. And today, it’s a hugely important soft skill in marketing. Now, let’s connect the dots between crying at The Titanic alone on your couch on a Friday, our monkey ancestors forming groups to raise young, and how it can help you excel at digital marketing. (Like we’ve said, we are nothing if not creative!)

Let’s Start at the Beginning

Empathy has been a human characteristic since our humble beginnings as cave-dwelling beings. Possibly contrary to popular belief, it has stuck with our species for so long because exhibiting empathy can actually aid survival.

Scientists believe that empathy developed for several different purposes. Firstly, it helps to be able to put yourself in your kid’s shoes if the thing can’t talk and explain to you why it’s decided to throw a hissy fit in the middle of a tribe gathering. So first and foremost, empathy is an important component to being able to raise a child.

Secondly, thousands of years ago our ancestors realized that living in groups and raising children in communities was much easier than attempting to raise offspring on their own. The world was (and is) difficult to navigate! Why not go through it together?

Therefore, we can conclude that thousands of years ago, our ancestors would have also cried at the sinking of the Titanic, and would have had a bone to pick with James Cameron as well (after they got over the disbelief that anything akin to a Titanic-level of technology existed, of course).

Human Brains and Behaviors Haven’t Really Changed Since the Beginning

One of the very interesting things about the advancement of a one species Homo sapiens from illiteracy to manifesting Shakespearean plays and Lovecraftian universes is that our minds are just as great as they ever were.  Since the very first examples of empathy, the human brain, the origin of any and all ideas and inventions, has remained the same across all these years, not getting particularly any bigger or better.  In fact, the human brain has ironically shrunk a bit over the last hundred thousand or so years.

So as much as we like to think of us here in the 21st century as the biggest, baddest, smartest humans, we are not.

If that is the case, what, then, has changed?

It appears as though the answer is just the onward march of time itself, as it has allowed one intellectual giant after another to create, change, forge ahead, develop the new, while waiting for the next giant to propel themselves forward with the momentum granted to them by the last original idealist, finally resulting in the weight of the new landing squarely on the former’s shoulders.

It is these giants standing on the shoulders of giants that is the sum of what our reality is: the pinnacle of the human mind, in its ever-changing and always-growing entirety.

Empathy is a Part of Raising a Kid, Crying at a Sad Movie… and Understanding Customer Perspective

And we would do well to remember those characteristics that are so intrinsic to our nature and put them to work in the industries of the 21st century.

So although marketing is far from trying to survive in the hardened landscape that was the world 100,000 years ago, it can still benefit from the deployment of dispositions that helped us survive all those years ago.

Plus, if we’re being honest, getting conversions for clients can sometimes certainly feel harder than creating fire out of nothing, or hunting wild boar with nothing but a sharpened stone, well-timed “ooga’s”, and a few of your bffs.

But that’s where adding a little bit of empathy to your marketing toolbox can seriously help. Truly stepping into your target audience’s shoes and understanding the world from their perspective gives you an idea of what your audience really wants or needs to see in order to click and convert, as well as shed some insight into where you’re going wrong.

Try using an empathy map next time you re-vamp a client’s ad strategy in order to get the full, true-to-life picture of the thought processes of the people to whom you’re trying to speak. Think of them as your Rose; what are they feeling, thinking, wanting? Identify that and use it when strategizing for and writing copy.

After all, effective marketing at its core connects companies to their audiences. And empathizing with someone is the quintessential way of connecting with them, of seeing the world through their eyes for a moment and thinking of their problems as your own.

So it turns out that empathy helped us survive all the way back thousands of years ago, and it’s helping businesses stay afloat today. Take it from us here at Marketwake, as empathy is in everything we do; from our interactions and conversations with clients and each other every day, to whiteboarding sessions and epic brainstorms that result in our best ideas to date, to the show-stopping color palettes in our ads and the thoughtful fonts we choose for brand guides.

And we’ve found that the efficacy of empathy holds true today: the more we can care for each other and think of those around us first, the stronger it makes us all.