Three ads in a row, one commercial break, all of them solo piano. Same tempo, roughly. Same slow climb to the chord that tells you something meaningful is coming. The first was a bank. The second was an insurance company. The third I honestly cannot name, because by then I had stopped watching and started counting.
The bank wanted me to know it sees me. It has been a hard year, the voiceover said, and we are here for you. I have never met this bank.
Somewhere in the last two years, empathy became a format.
You know the format. Handheld footage, natural light, a family at a kitchen table, a piano that will not stop. Text on black. A logo at the end, small, tasteful, as if the brand is almost embarrassed to be here. The whole thing is engineered to make you feel seen, and it is now so common that feeling seen has become the least distinctive thing a brand can offer.
Empathy is not a tone you adopt. It is a receipt you show.
Compare two spots from the last two months. Gillette spent ninety seconds in January telling men to be better, scored and shot exactly as described above, and the loudest thing about it was the argument that followed. Microsoft ran a spot about kids using the Adaptive Controller, which Microsoft built, which costs what it costs, which exists whether or not anyone runs an ad. The ad did not make the case. The controller did.
That is the whole distinction. When the empathy is downstream of something the company actually did, the piano is a bonus. When it is upstream of nothing, the piano is the product, and audiences learn to hear it as a sales cue. They are not cynical. They are trained. Three spots per break for two years will train anyone.
So before you sign off on the sad piano, I would ask two questions in the room. What did we change that we would still have changed with no camera present. And who at this company would be uncomfortable if this ad ran, because if nobody is, the ad is not saying anything. I've watched this from inside brand strategy rooms. The scripts that survive the comfortable version of that meeting are the ones nobody remembers by Thursday.
The ad did not make the case. The controller did.
I sing karaoke twice a month at a bar in Southeast Portland with a floor that grabs at your shoes and a host who calls everyone baby. Two weeks ago a man in a Blazers jacket sang Landslide, badly, and the room went completely quiet. No production. No strings. He just clearly meant it, and everyone could tell in about four seconds. That is the bar. Most of these ads are not close to it.