Tell Me I'm Not Being Pessimistic

Watching Survivor last week (sue me), I became a little suspicious.

A basic, and fairly predictable, element of the players' strategy on the show is to start voting off the physically dominating players once the two tribes have merged. (For those who don't watch: when the tribes merge, everyone starts playing every-man-for-himself, and has a chance to win immunity from being kicked off each week). It generally makes sense to get rid of the people who are likely to win individual immunity in the challenges.

But this season that hasn't been such a major concern. The immunity challenges have been much more varied than usual, with a combination of balance, accuracy, speed, memory, etc. being vital. Strength, in fact, has been the one attribute relatively less important for winning these challenges.

Spoiler warning for those who watch the show and aren't up-to-date...

Very interestingly (at least to my suspicious mind), in the episode AFTER the physically strongest (by far) player was eliminated, the immunity challenge finally required a lot of strength an endurance. The players were dragging themselves through it, clearly exhausted.

Essentially, the big strong guy that everyone was concerned about competing against was doing no better than the others for several episodes. Suddenly, once he's gone, the competition is something he'd probably win.

Now, I'm not claiming that the game is fixed. But, it certainly seems reasonable for me to be a bit suspicious. Why would the producers of the show want to get rid of the big strong guy rather than anyone else? I don't know. And chances are, it's just a coincidence.

But how hard would it be for the show's host to mention something (within the context of an episode) like "Remember that the next challenge could be anything. The order of the challenges was selected months ago, without any consideration of which contestants might still be in the game. The next one could be something that you're all good at, or something you all have to suffer through..."

We're still taking their word for it, but I think the simple act of acknowledging that circumstances might look a bit strange would alleviate many of those concerns.

Same goes for any other brand.

Most are pretty good at stating, via media statements and the like, that consumer concerns are unwarranted. They try to take control of those suspicious thoughts. But, this generally happens outside the context of the brand experience.

If I've heard a rumour about a product being unsafe, for example, there's something satisfying about seeing the packaging or instructions or the product itself making a claim about safety. Much more so than hearing the identical statement made via a press release or similar.

Within my brand experience, just reassure me a little bit and I'll probably be much more content and trusting.