Why Questions are Better Than Answers


When things are complete, or we know too much about something, there is no longer reason to engage with it. Yet marketing ideology continues to prescribe ads to be “clear, complete, simple and direct” for every situation. Leaving gaps raises questions; What am I missing? Things unresolved lead to more engaged audiences motivated to find out more. “What you don’t know is what keeps you going, keeps you interested,” says Stuart Firestein, neuroscientist in his TED Talk The Pursuit of Ignorance.

Anthony Bourdain knew this intuitively. And it's a major reason his show was hugely popular and he became an icon. There have been other travel shows and other food shows, but they are produced to give people answers. A complete look at something. Here’s what this town is like. Here’s where this food comes from and how to make it. Anthony Bourdain's goal was different. It was to make people interested in the world.

From the book "In The Weeds, Around The World and Behind The Scenes with Anthony Bourdain" by Tom Vitale:

“Without fail, Tony was completely unpredictable. One of his most important rules was that the show had to be different each week… Always pushing forward, doing the hard thing, even the stupid thing, as long as it was the different thing. Tony was a big believer in failing gloriously in an attempt to do something interesting, rather than succeeding at being mediocre. ‘If it’s not interesting, we may as well be working at a lunch counter,’ Tony said.”

“Tony viewed the end-of-the-episode "conclusion" as a betrayal... He’d always rather leave the audience thinking, keep them guessing, wondering.”

Leave the audience thinking, keeping them guessing, and wondering is also valuable advice for advertising. Why should a cartoon rabbit sell basketball shoes? Or a gorilla drumming to Phil Collins sell chocolate? “Left field” ideas like these are often more powerful and memorable than simplicity and clarity.

Seemingly incongruous combinations of a limited set of elements can produce an endless stream of surprising, evolving, interesting, yet well-branded ideas: a brand with (a) life.

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