So, you have spent some time thinking about how weird humanity is, haven’t you? I mean, if you’re in business, it’s your job to provide Ninja fast customer service with Ninja calm to people who, honestly, they are really, really weird.

Not that life lacks opportunities to ponder humanity’s weirdness, but my recent catalyst was hearing some German Hip-Hop at work.

How diverse humanity is, I pondered. How many different genres of music there are, and within each genre, so many different varieties and persistent promise of evolving to another genre. We can’t resist mixing things up to near nonsense. We place so much importance on what our expressive innovations stand for and what our genres say about us. And yet, we are never very different from each other.

Let’s step back a bit from the subjective sense of a genre’s importance. The real purpose of a genre is to give context to the actual communication. The communication — a song, a painting, a book or a poem — is intended to convey a story or an emotional state. The emotion at the core of that communication is the common human denominator that divides into all art.

When the genre provides context for a message, it really communicates your tribe so that others of your tribe will more easily identify you (as being like them) and identify with your message. Some musical genres are more concerned with love, some with heartbreak, some with a desire to celebrate, some with mourning, some with disappointment in social systems. Members of different tribes will be naturally more concerned with certain themes

But truly, all of these themes are so universal. If you go through modern rock history, sift through foreign music, consider medieval ballads, they will all of them have these common human elements. The style will change. The words will change. The words may even be 90% nonsense. But the message will be one of those core emotions that people find a great deal of satisfaction in exploring.

Maybe the purpose of artistic expression is to attempt to discover the core elements of our humanity.

And then, of course, you communicate your discovery. And the point is that your marketing message is no less a piece of art. To make it really speak to people, consider your base message. Imagine it in non-verbal terms. Associate it with a core human emotion. What feeling are you trying to evoke?

It can be one of those great feelings, but it doesn’t have to be. People respond to threats and injustices too. But the resulting emotion should be satisfying. If you want to focus on a threat, show them the means to protect against it instead of evoking fear.

The point is not manipulation. You have something to offer, you believe in it, you know it’s the right solution but you need to communicate that. When you found your marketing on an emotional core that you believe in, there won’t be any element of manipulation. You won’t have to manipulate because the people who are attracted to your message will be your people.

From there, you will probably begin to build your words. This is the beginning of your slogan or your message, your sales copy, logo or brand. Definitely sketch out a few ideas of what you are trying to say that will convey your core emotions. But don’t get too fixed on it. Your next step is to approach your message from the outside in.

Remember a favourite song and how it completely moves you. I’ll guess that it affects you in two ways. First, it will give you some positive emotion. Secondly, the music will make you want to tap your feet, drum along, dance or sing. Those are both essentially emotional responses. The one has to do with the emotion in the message; the second is the genre or the style surrounding the message. But have you ever looked at the lyrics and thought to yourself, “wow. What does that even mean? I know this song is about love, but that’s only vaguely hinted at.” Seriously, don’t get bogged down in the words.

Spend some time thinking about your style. What’s your genre? What’s your tribe? What kind of people would you really love to be working with? Who do you relate best to vs who makes you feel alien and defensive? You can think about totally superficial things here. Think kick-ass movies, awesome songs, favourite books, the favourite outfit you had when you were fifteen, the candies you and your friends reminisce about from childhood, the food you bake when you’re lonely. These things are the esthetic fabric of your life, but they will be common to many other people. Just like you’ll find people who love Hip-Hop in Germany.

When you find the flavour that you want to wrap your message in, try to distill it down to its elements. If we’re thinking about a comfort and tradition core, you might choose a retro esthetic. Then you have to pick: which era retro? retro hipster? retro family values? retro decor? retro toys from your youth?

Now you have permission to get fussy about your words. Just remember to keep the words secondary to the emotion and the esthetic. A secret bonus is that this process will make your marketing more fun. It will make you come up with things that really speak to you, things that are a delight to communicate and elaborate.

Some examples of good emotions to work with are: pride, love, loneliness, security, fun…

What have I missed?