The Golden Circle

When we talked in class about the layered circles of the What, How, and Why messages are sent, I knew that it instantly sounded familiar, only I couldn't remember from where. I did a little sleuthing around the internet, and I stumbled back on a video that introduced the idea to me about two years ago. A man by the name of Simon Sinek spoke about the very same model at a TED conference in September of 2009. Watch it below, and join the audience of over 2 million hits it has amassed.




Any message that is sent has to be received and acted upon by other humans. That means, to be received effectively, you have to code your message to the way we humans are programmed. Following the circle model from the inside out, rather than the outside in, allows messages to resonate with a viewer's powerful emotional core. This model, called the "golden circle," affects not only marketing messages and advertising, but really all communication in general. What makes Pixar the unstoppable storytelling force it is? What makes almost every corporate training video boring beyond reason? In all honesty, the answer depends on an endless number of variables. Still, a great deal of it comes from the golden circle model.



Underneath of every message communicated, there are whats, hows, and whys. It is up to us as filmmakers to make sure our messages start at the center. With a solid "why," messages break through the noise, and into our consciousness. Without a "why," our messages just become noise themselves.