The first Elvis festival in Parkes, NSW, was in January 1993. The brainchild of a couple of Elvis fans running a restaurant in the town, who thought it might be a bit of fun. A couple of hundred people showed up.
Every year since then, except the last two, it has grown. In 2009, 9,500 showed up, at the last one in January 2020, 25,000 showed up, supported by a worldwide online audience.
How does this happen, across all the boundaries we usually use to define who we are? Colour, religion, ethnic origin, age, social status, wallet size, and so on. The Elvis festival cuts across all these boundaries.
All humans are attracted to ‘people like us’. This is how we define ourselves. For the Elvis festival to succeed, all they had to do was define ‘people like us love Elvis’s music‘. The rest was easy, well, not easy, but on some sort of cumulative automatic pilot. For Elvis fans, defining themselves that way breaks down any other barrier between them and other Elvis fans.
There is a bloke at the local Gym I go to who from time to time creates a real stir. An Elvis fanatic, he does an occasional show at the gym for fun, during one of the classes. He dresses up and sings along ‘karaoke style’ to recorded Elvis music. He is terrible, but does not care a bit, and the classes end up being a huge, dancing, singing, sweaty party.
It is infectious. Few in that class would describe themselves as an Elvis fan, but the communal vibe breaks down all the barriers.
When you want to create alignment in your organisation, attract customers, or just be noticed, find something that everyone you want to communicate with can relate to. Find the hook that enables them in some small way to say to themselves: ‘that is for me‘
