I wonder if this is actually reaching anyone?

"I wonder if this is reaching anyone. Hey, is anyone even listening?
Hey, you listening to this record right now? Tell me. Is it even reaching you?"

These are the words suddenly spoken by Goro, the vocalist of an unsuccessful punk band, during a recording session in Kotaro Isaka's "Fish Story." It expresses the frustration of believing in a great song yet feeling no sense of it reaching anyone. As someone working in communications, I understand that feeling well.

People often talk about "trending ads," but honestly, I've never witnessed ads becoming a topic of conversation in everyday life. I've sadly never encountered people out and about saying, "Did you see that commercial? That copy is great!" Unless you're watching TV with someone, I don't think people just casually bring up ads. Sure, I talk about ads with people around me. But that's my job. Plus, since they're also involved, they probably only give me carefully chosen feedback. (Though, to be fair, getting outright rejected to your face would hurt...)

Getting a real sense of the public's voice and reactions is surprisingly difficult. Laughter or emotion—those "movements of the heart" happen inside each person's mind, making them inherently hard to see. Unless it's a massive hit campaign where the copy becomes a catchphrase, someone like me—just a regular ad creator—could only gauge the impact of my work indirectly, through things like "product sales" or "image surveys."

But as the sender, just knowing "it seems to have gotten through" isn't satisfying. We want to know how it got through. Did this copy make them laugh? Did it make them pause? Or did they just ignore it? Hey, you watching, tell me! Is it actually reaching them?! That's what we think.

That's why, back when I was young, I'd get anxious on the day my newspaper ad ran. I'd watch businessmen flipping through morning papers on the commuter train. Once, on the bullet train, the person next to me was staring at a car magazine ad I'd worked on. I plucked up the courage to talk to them. When I asked their thoughts, they said, "I was just looking because I like this car. The ad itself... well..." That trauma made me unable to talk to strangers ever again.

But times change. Now, if I want to know how an ad is being received, there's a great way even for someone as closed off as me. Just type

 

〈Client Name〉 Ad

 

If someone has tweeted their thoughts, they'll come up in a long list. Since I'm searching for my own work, it's a form of what's called "ego-searching." Not many people go out of their way to write blog posts about ad impressions, but the spread of casual platforms like Twitter has made previously unseen public voices "visible." While it might be a bit skewed to call it a microcosm of society, I still think it's revolutionary.

At the time, I searched for a campaign by an English conversation school. Since it was a successful project, a long list of positive reactions appeared. Not just comments like "It's so funny I laughed out loud!", but also things like "I'm starting to worry if my English is okay" or "Maybe I should try taking English conversation lessons." The copy is hitting home! It's spreading! It's working! What a rush. It was the first time I directly felt, with certainty, that my work was truly reaching people.

Since then, I've become a full-fledged ego-searcher. Sometimes negative opinions pop up and get me down, but the desire to see reactions always wins out. You might think, "Why waste time on that when you could be writing new copy?" But constantly tracking reactions can lead to interesting discoveries in its own way. I've started to understand the "mechanics of diffusion" for successful campaigns, and I've developed my own "rules for creative that spreads." So, in this column, I want to share my observations and thoughts on "how things get conveyed" and "how they spread" in the social media era.

By the way, is this column actually reaching anyone?