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Yes,and. ..

WHAT AGENCIES CAN

LEARN FROM IMPROV

bBROUGHT TO YOU BY

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Y&R Canada’s SVP and Strategic Planning Director Kasi Bruno – who recently completed her first improv class, and Sulaiman Beg, Director of Global Digital and Social Communications – who is a performer at the Magnet Theater in New York (This is a plug: if you’re in New York you should totally take a class, and or check out a show. Sulaiman will buy you a beer.) highlight some of their key improv learnings that will make marketers more innovative and effective as brand champions.

eIMPROV 101

NWhether you’re in a client pitch, presenting to your boss, or sitting around brainstorming with your team, one of the most important skills for a marketer is being able to think on your feet.

Stimulating your brain with books, music, theat-er, concerts, etc. is one thing, but stretching and exercising the body’s largest creative muscle is another.

Improv, specifically longform improv comedy – a theater-style where performances are created in the moment – has gained significant popu-larity over the years with theaters popping up in the U.S. and beyond.

TO C O M M U N I C AT E ,be confident and present,

LISTEN,collaborate better,and create relationships andcontent brick by brick.Sound familiar? It should. These are skills that are crucial to a marketer’s success.

In classes, teachers instruct students on how to

“l istenthink fastTo

you have to slow down and

– to your client, to your gut, and to each other. Improv is ‘listening training.’

– Rick Andrews, teacher and performer at The Magnet Theater ”

g1. Surrendering your idea can lead to a better idea.

When you initiate an improv scene, you sometimes have an

idea of where you want the scene to go. Well, like life, im-

prov never goes as planned. Your scene partner may (and

probably does) have other ideas and because it’s all about

building, you have to “yes, and…” the hell out of anything that

comes out of their mouths. And this means letting go of

whatever idea you had for the story – a “kill your darlings”

moment. And that’s ok. Because when you surrender for

the group, it just means the group is also surrendering for

you. And the scene is always better for it. It takes a really

bright person to find the nugget in an otherwise bad idea

and find the thing to build on. What’s the thing you can say

“Yes, and…” to about every idea?

g2.What people ask for is not

always what they really want.

Listen for the real want underneath the surface. If someone

asks “Where did you get your shirt?” they may not be asking

where you bought the shirt, but rather expressing that they

want it. When you are actively listening, you’re not just lis-

tening to what someone is saying, but how they are saying

it. Listen for the real motivation, the real desire. Your client

may not always ask directly, so if you can really listen and

peel back questions, you’ll start understanding what they

are really asking for.

p

g3.Get out of the way.

Don’t step on a joke.

This is a golden rule of improv. If someone’s getting a big

laugh, and you have nothing to add, stay silent. Don’t be

selfish. An improv scene typically ends on a good big hearty

laugh from the audience. If that laugh happens: say nothing!

Sometimes the funniest thing to do is say nothing. Some-

times the most creative way to build on something is to say

nothing. So if you get the big laugh, or sell your work to a

client, start the car, as they say. Know when to wrap it up

and quit while you’re ahead.

g4.People will always watch people with a point of view, even if they

disagree with it.

Your POV is unique. No one else in the world thinks like you

do – so apply it. This isn’t about aggression or being over-

ly assertive, but it’s about one of the fundamental guiding

principles of improv: commitment. Commit to your ideas

and to your point of view. Because a stake in the ground is

at least something people can engage with. If your opinions

and ideas are as weak and malleable as over-cooked spa-

ghetti, well that’s, as clichés go, not very interesting.

l

g5.But...always leave yourself

somewhere to go.

Don’t go to your max right out of the gate. Be direct, have a

point of view, but don’t burn out after your first statement.

Leave yourself room to heighten, to grow more passionate.

Leaving yourself someplace to go is a huge part of building

narrative and emotion with your audience.

g6.Don’t use wimp words

or safety nets.

We tend to fall back on words and phrases like “maybe,” “I

think,” or “perhaps...” this doesn’t give anyone something to

sink their teeth into. Start strong, be direct, and be specific.

The more direct you are, the more you empower the people

around you to decide how to act and react.

“Using ‘sort of’ to reduce the risk of making an error or caus-

ing offense is a tactic an editor friend calls ‘strategic softening’…

Sometimes I think of epic declarative statements, and wonder

how they might be rendered in today’s hedge-speak. ‘It was sort

of the best of times, it was sort of the worst of times.’ ‘I came, I

saw, I kind of conquered.’ ‘I sort of have a dream.’ Sound kind of

weak? Definitely.”

- Steven Kurutz, The New York Times

Q

g7.You don’t have to

be loud to be heard.

Improv is not about being the loudest or funniest person

in the room. In fact, sometimes lowering the volume of

your voice can encourage people to lean in and pay closer

attention. So true in life.

g8.Fail Loudly: Trust in

yourself and your team.

It’s often been said that the best improvisers in the world

(think your Tina Fey’s, your Amy Poehler’s, your Will Ferrell’s,

and for you real improv heads, your TJ and Dave’s) have an

80 percent success rate on any given night. Even the best

have off nights. They fail. But, improv is about failing loudly:

because even if you get it half wrong, you got it half right.

Fail loudly so people can hear the part you got right. Our

tendency is to quiet our voices when we’re unsure. Don’t.

If you’re too quiet, no one can hear even the small part you

got right. And a good improv team knows that there are no

mistakes, only opportunities. If you’re listening, when some-

one falters, you come in to support their idea. To the audi-

ence it all looks like part of the show.

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