We're the Superhumans: A Neuroscientist's View

Heather Andrew, UK CEO of Neuro-Insight

At this year’s Cannes Lions, the film Grand Prix was won by Channel 4 for We’re the Superhumans - the highly acclaimed and most shared ad for its coverage of the Rio 2016 Paralympics. Eliciting “the fastest Grand Prix decision ever made” the piece is a celebration of strength and energy. The narrative tackles the topic of diversity and equality in a bold and provocative way; designed to move people, make people think and celebrate differences.

For the jury of industry creatives, the decision was easy; We're the Superhumans ticks all the boxes as a bold and entertaining piece which also drove a real world response. But what is it that turns a good piece of entertainment into such an effective piece of communication? What were the characteristics of this ad that made it so successful?

Using brain research to look at second by second responses to this ad, we were able to identify some of the factors that make the content so powerful from the brain's point of view.

One of the primary indicators of communication effectiveness is the extent to which the content is encoded, or stored, into memory. That's because memory encoding correlates strongly with future decision-making and actions - including purchase behaviour, donations, or even which channel to tune into. Our findings showed that memory response for We’re the Superhumans was extremely high because it effectively leveraged three key drivers of memory: narrative, emotion and personal relevance.

This is how the ad achieved it…

Narrative

The ad begins by creating intrigue right from the start. Our brains respond well to puzzles and stories, and will encode into memory “clues” that potentially help to understand what is going on. In the Superhumans ad, the intrigue continues for much of the early part of the ad, with the introduction of new elements like characters, settings and feats.

This keeps the brain engaged, but there is a danger that the brain can become overwhelmed trying to make sense of too many diverse elements.  The Superhumans ad avoids this by keeping common threads running through the narrative – crooner, Tony Dee, sings from his wheelchair as he travels through the scenes and members of the orchestra also appear repeatedly in different settings as the ad unfolds.  The music and central character deliver a strong narrative consistency; creating a metaphorical breadcrumb trail for the brain to follow through all the changes of scenes and characters. 

Other executional elements help to reinforce the strong narrative impact.  The repetition of “yes I can” along with recurring visual images provide the brain with patterns to follow, and memory response is also boosted with high levels of human interaction.  As human beings, we empathise with and follow the interactions of other people. The interaction in the ad is another factor that drives high levels of memory response among viewers.

The result is an ad which, despite many scene changes and multiple ‘vignettes’, has a consistent thread running through it, ensuring that it maintains the brain’s interest and engagement throughout.

Emotion

Each vignette within the ad contains footage which show people doing dramatic and extraordinary things; a man pole vaulting with just one leg, someone steering a rally car with just one foot, a young girl eating using her feet. During the first part of the ad, the emotional response of viewers was slightly negative; watching the characters and athletes doing what viewers might have thought was impossible appeared to drive some initial concern and emotional withdrawal.

But by the second half of the ad we start to see a significant shift in reaction.  Emotional response becomes much more positive, suggesting that the incredible actions of the characters are overriding any initial concerns the viewers might have had.

And throughout the whole ad, emotional responses, whether positive or negative, are powerful.  This is important because emotional intensity in itself is a strong driver of memory encoding – essentially an evolutionary mechanism reflecting the fact that things which elicit very strong emotions are likely, in our development as a species, to have been linked to our survival. In the Superhumans ad, emotional intensity is high the whole time as viewers see people doing things that are truly extraordinary.

Personal Relevance

We’re the Superhumans focuses on the extraordinary and seemingly impossible feats of those who are face challenges in their everyday lives. Presumptively, it could seem that these feats are things that viewers might struggle to relate to, and yet their brain responses show that they do identify with what’s happening and respond to it a way that suggests a high level of personal relevance - a third key driver of memory encoding.

This relevance response in the brain shows that viewers are identifying with the characters in the film.  They may be different to viewers in some respects, but they are doing things that those watching can relate to - doing ‘ordinary’ things, albeit in extraordinary ways.  This relevance response in the brain is perhaps the greatest vindication that the film is achieving what it set out to do – people are relating to the characters in the story and empathising with them; not seeing them as somehow different and apart.

A worthy winner

The pattern of brain response associated with We’re the Superhumans shows just why it was such a powerful piece of communication.  It delivers a narrative that is compelling for the brain to follow and elicits strong emotions that are moving from initial withdrawal to ultimate, positive, approach.  And most of all, the strong sense of personal relevance shared by viewers shows that it is succeeding in presenting the participating athletes as people we can all relate to and admire.