Norse Code
If you travel to Maes Howe on the remote Scottish island of Orkney, you’ll find ancient marketing wisdom carved on the walls in the form of Viking runes.
Maes Howe is an ancient Stone Age chamber, first excavated in 1861. Archaeologists had to drive a shaft down through the top of the mound – but when they ventured inside, they discovered someone else had broken in long before.
The walls of the Stone Age chamber were covered with over 30 inscriptions of runic graffiti, which was a very exciting discovery as not many examples of ancient writing survived – and when it does, its usually religious, legal, or political texts, which is hardly an unbiased and representative message of the people.
Graffiti like this gives us amazing insight into how people really lived and thought in ancient times.
According to Orkneyinga saga, over 800 years ago in the dark of an Orkney winter, a group of Viking warriors had sought shelter from a terrible snowstorm.
And what do Vikings do when they’re cold, tired, and far away from home? Sit round a nice fire, tell some sagas and write down the greatest ideas of their times to preserve them for future generations, of course.
So what ancient marketing wisdom did these runes have to say?
Brace yourselves…
The Vikings wrote, among other things, ‘Haermund Hardaxe was here’ and ‘Ingigerth is the most beautiful of all women’.
That’s it.
One runic inscription was written up very high, near the top of the roof, which meant the archaeologists had to construct platforms, wobble on stilts and fill out a lot of health and safety risk assessments to get up to translate it.
Of course, they thought it must be the most important and wise of all the runic inscriptions – so they were a little disappointed, but might have been able to see the funny side, when they discovered it read ‘Tholfr Klossienn’s son carved these runes really high’.
The Vikings didn’t invent graffiti by any means The Ancient Romans loved to scribble all over their bath houses and taverns. On the side of a well-heeled Roman house in Menander was scribbled the phrase, “At Nuceria, look for Novellia Primigenia near the Roman gate in the prostitute’s district”, which isn’t that different to what you find at a seedy bus stop today.
So what does this prove? Well, it proves that we’re all human – and we always have been. People across vast gulfs of time and space not only share similar experiences, but similar senses of humour.
Humour is a great leveller, and one of the best ways of forging a connection. But there’s more to it than that.
Furthermore, relating to common experiences seems like an excellent way to get people to remember your message – even after thousands of years.
One of the biggest problems people face when they’re trying to sell products or services is connecting with their audience.
We’ve seen it in cringeworthy youth-focused fizzy drink ads, outdated gender roles selling washing up liquid or car adverts that play like bad Transformers movies – noble efforts to appeal to people’s wants and needs, that just fall flat.
The Maes Howe runes remind us that whether you’re a thirsty skateboarder, billion-dollar CEO or just a dad who wants a nice lavender smell when he’s washing up, we’re all humans who have simple, basic wants, needs and likes, and we’ve been that way throughout history.
Connections are forged in humour, the common touch, and in taking pleasure in the little things.
So if you’re not sure how to relate to people in your market, start out by just treating them how you’d like to be treated. At the end of the day, people are people. You’ve got more in common with the CEO, the skateboarder and the dad than you might expect.
It’s unlikely the Romans or the Vikings ever thought scholars would be studying their ancient texts, arguments and boasts millennia after they were carved into rock with your neighbour’s axe.
But that just goes to show we should always put thought and care into what we write.
Or, failing that, at least make it funny.
