What’s Your Background?
By Vishal Sagar, Creative Director
“What’s your background?”
I have lost count of the number of times people have pointed this question towards me. What’s worse, I have lost count of the number of times I have asked this question to friends, acquaintances and strangers. And I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon.
Just last month, a dear client insisted on asking one last question, as a marathon meeting neared the finish line. She said — “What’s your background? How can I get it?” It took me a second to realize that she wasn’t enquiring about my background but my Teams’ background. It struck me then, that my go-to preliminary question has a new normal too.
Word it the way you like (tell me more about yourself or let’s talk about you or what’s your background or any other way), the fact is that this question offers insights, fuels a conversation like no other. Since we inherit a great deal of our background, every word in the response is years in the making. Every word helps us understand people, their culture, values, journeys, thought process, insecurities, drive and most importantly, the choices they make.
Albert Camus famously said, “Life is a sum of all our choices.” And our background is the invisible code that dictates the choices we make. You figure out the code, you figure out the person.
David Fincher’s Mindhunter is just this. A pursuit of the code. The show’s true genius does not lie in making its viewers crack the code to create a stereotype, but in showing the pitfalls of building one and believing too much in it.
In advertising, it pays to solve the code. The moment you can put a face to the given demographics or psychographics, you are onto something. You are doomed to be generic, every time you cannot figure out the code. So, any given opportunity, I don’t shy away from asking — What’s your background? Here’s what I find the most intriguing.
Place of Origin: Mark Twain captured the cultural differences of the three largest cities in the American Northeast, when he wrote, “In Boston they ask, how much does he know? In New York, how much is he worth? In Philadelphia, who were his parents?”
Boston has been a place for higher education, New York, a city of financial might, and Philadelphia, a city of historical lineage.
We might often joke about the stereotypes associated with our native places, but there is plenty of truth to the notion that the place we come from shapes our worldview. The place we come from runs deep and impacts everything we do. Consciously or sub-consciously.
Family: There’s a reason why the New Testament opens with a family tree. The genealogy of Jesus.
From success to failure, resilience to vulnerabilities, we owe a lot to our families. If it wasn’t for his family, NBA legend Scottie Pippen would have never signed a 7-year-long contract with the Chicago Bulls for peanuts. His father’s stroke and younger brother’s injury played on his mind as he looked to secure his family’s future. Second only to MJ in skills, Pippen was among the least paid NBA stars of his times.
Time: Put simply, it’s the difference between lmk and let me know. In the world of memes — 80s kids, 90s kids. And if we talk jargon — Boomer, Millennial & Gen Z. Time to watch out for Covinials. Whether a floppy disk makes you feel nostalgic or clueless, is a factor of time and time alone. Here’s a fun fact, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were born 8 months apart. Microsoft and Apple — a year apart.
Talking about time, it is impossible to not bring up the times we are in. A new normal awaits us all. And with it, a new world economy, culture, social fabric, political balance and what’s your background.
The new normal might change its meaning, but one thing is for sure, what’s your background will continue to break ice and fuel conversations. And I’ll happily take that for now.
