Friends and folks, it’s time to learn humanity from a bee.
You’re thinking I am probably bonkers with that statement.
While I won’t confirm or deny that, I assure you that the following article is
based on an intense bout of research.
The thing is, as advertisers, we are constantly people of
thought and analysis – looking at hard facts and data, observing trends, researching,
learning, innovating, and the like. But when was the last time, we just put
down our surveys and looked around us to imbibe, observe and learn through
curiosity? The two reasons I expanded my lens of thinking and analysis, were my
daughter and the bee. Random? Not really.
Three months after birth, my daughter (now 19 months) was
diagnosed with severe neutropenia (very low immunity to illnesses). We were
given the ‘Wait & Watch’ prescription, but instead of waiting for things to
watch out for, my wife tried giving our baby a spoonful of Manuka honey (known
for its healing benefits) every night. Today my daughter is growing up as healthy
as any other child and falling sick as often as them too.
Now, that fascinated me. Man-made medicine couldn’t do much
to help, but something a honeybee created, did. And I was hooked to this power
of healing that came from this little creature. I started reading about
honeybees and watching videos about their habits and what they can teach us, with
the passion of an apiarist. Suffice it to say that the wife was worried. But
she didn’t know that these new facts and figures can help inspire humanity.
And here’s how I reached that conclusion – Let’s pit MAN
against BEE in a challenge to see who is more human. Who do you think would
win?
MAN VS BEE ROUND 1
THE PURSUIT
When a Bee goes to a bed of flowers, it ignores the immature
ones, the bad ones or the flowers that have already been fed off. It only seeks
the purest, freshest and the cleanest.
Now when we are in pursuit of sustenance, or the business we are going for, the
money we are going to make, and the people we are going to hire, we aren’t
always looking for the highest and purest quality. We don’t employ people who
think fresh, and instead, get those who are invariably caught up in a web of
politics, corruption or greed.
ROUND 1 GOES TO BEE.
MAN VS BEE ROUND 2
THE TRANSACTION
Even though the bee shares a transactional relationship with
the flower it pollinates, it will always give a lot more than it takes. And
what it gives makes the life of the
flower better. If you observe a bee about to eat from a flower, you will
see that it keeps hovering gently over the flower, so as to not put its entire
weight on the most delicate part of the flower. Now the bee is relatively heavy
for something as delicate as a flower. Watch how it shows its compassion. It sits but it doesn’t break. It puts
demands but it doesn’t break. What a great way to eat. What a great way to live.
That analogy writes itself.
Are we putting too much pressure on our people, our families, our suppliers
and our consumers? We have to ask these
questions. As an industry, we have relationships with people but we keep
demanding incessantly until the people that love us (our own employees, our
consumers, our families, our community) break.
(HINT: Social media folks! It is time to stop asking people to upload videos or
share a story to have a chance to win a trip abroad. Make your brands help
people live better.)
LOOKS LIKE BEE WINS ROUND TWO, TOO.
MAN VS BEE ROUND 3
THE ETHICS
Do bees steal food
from other bees? Do they see another bee eating from its flower and say,
“Hey, let me go mess it up for him!” Do they sift through the waste paper bins
of other bees looking for discarded ideas they can steal? Well, no. Bees recognize the fact that everyone is
entitled to the sustenance that they have. So, it moves away to another flower that
hasn’t been touched yet.
If someone opens up a new creative shop, most big
advertising houses go after the new guy and take its clients leaving it to
struggle and ultimately, fade away. In truth, there are plenty of other places
we can go. We don’t have to take the
food of someone’s plate to fill our plates. The world is big enough for all of
us. But the Mean Girls (Men) that we are, we choose to steal.
BEES WIN HANDS DOWN WHEN IT COMES TO ETHICS.
MAN VS BEE ROUND 4
COMMUNITY SPIRIT
Collectively, bees travel nearly 55,000 miles and visit two
million flowers in a day to gather enough nectar to make just a pound of honey. When our bee
comes back to its hive, it does a peculiar dance, hovering around the hive.
This dance informs its fellow bees about the navigation path and the
coordinates directing them to the area where this bee got its food. It
therefore, helps them pollinate too, so they can nourish themselves. This ONE bee helps the community get
nourished and richer. The bee recognizes that it cannot build a hive by itself.
It has to do it together with the other bees.
And what do we do when we see someone successful and doing
well? We get jealous. And if we’re doing well, we make sure we don’t share our
secrets with someone else.
We live in such a competitive and selfish culture in today's
world, that most of us refuse to be generous with the ones we mentor and lead.
Young talent loves trainings, loves travelling and meeting new minds from
around the world, loves shining at these trainings; it's one of the best forms
of motivation and employee retention - contrary to what most believe. Maybe 5
years down the line they’ll make more money than us? We don’t want them to have
fancier cars than us! We don’t even think a Mercedes would match their annoying
Hipster vibe.
Unlike the bee that helps
others, when we’re busy creating work that matters, we don’t have time for
the people who matter.
AND YET AGAIN THE BEE WINS…
So in 4 (seemingly
pointless) rounds, it is easy to see that the miniscule creature - the bee - is
way more significant and bigger than us .
Just like us, this bee is earning its livelihood, it has
relationships, but it is not only benefitting itself, but also its community
and the environment around it.
And it is their joint efforts that create the very honey
that heals people, including my daughter thousands of miles away. Such an amazing power of healing can come from
that little effort.
We all know that
humanity has gone sick and it needs healing. Especially in our industry.
If a community of
bees can heal ailments around the world, imagine what a community of powerful advertisers
and even more powerful brands and clients can do? If we can be like the bees
and work, live and create a harmonious community, we don’t just benefit and
heal each other, we benefit and heal mankind. Advertising for a greater good,
is a result of that.
The
way the bee eats, it produces more life. The way we work today, and the way we
consume today, we don’t produce more life. What we manufacture is more pollution,
intoxication, social waste and economic waste… Mankind has gone greedy, eating
for itself with everybody wanting something for him or herself. Looking to be number
1. Eating this planet alive. And the
biggest tragedy of this world is that those very honey bees of the world are
disappearing every year.
Let us learn to consume like the bee, so we make our world
better. Have your share of the pie but it doesn’t mean that it should cost the
world. It doesn’t mean that it should cost the next generation.
It’s time to create more than just ‘buzz’
for our brands and more ‘hives’ in
our community. Okay, no more ‘bee’ puns. All I’m trying to say is with just a
few pointers from our little friends, we can make the world better, with little
efforts, and truly ‘bee’ all that we can ‘bee’.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist that last one.
