Inside Marketing with MarketSurge

Welcome to Inside Marketing
With Market Surge.

Your front row seat to the
boldest ideas and smartest

strategies in the marketing game.

Your host is Reed Hansen, chief
Growth Officer at Market Surge.

Valerie: Your Outie likes
constant one-upmanship.

Your Outie likes to use speakerphone
while waiting in long lines.

Your Outie likes honking at cars in front
of him the instant the light turns green.

Your Outie only washes
his hands, after he eats.

Hey friends.

Welcome back to Inside
Marketing with Market Surge.

Today I am diving into one of the
most brilliant, haunting and weirdly

relatable series I've watched
in a long time called Severance.

It's a visual masterpiece.

The acting is next level, and the themes
they hit a little too close to home.

When you start thinking about how
we work and live, it's on Apple tv.

Plus, for those who are interested,
this isn't just a fan breakdown.

I wanted to explore the real
business lessons baked into the

story, lessons about culture,
leadership, authenticity, and fit.

And yes, I'll share a couple
of my personal theories

because I can't help myself.

But I'll also be including insights
I've picked up from fan communities,

especially Reddit, where people are having
some really deep conversations about the

show's impact from branding to philosophy.

I absolutely love this show, the visual
storytelling, the color grading, the

haunting minimalism of the lumen office.

It's just so well done.

If you notice, most of the scenes in the
Lumen office are very symmetrical just

very clean and polished, just very unique.

And other worldly, every
frame feels intentional.

The sterile environment, that
fluorescent lighting, the uniformity,

it all suddenly reinforces this
sense of isolation and disconnection.

But what really got me was the acting Adam
Scott's portrayal of Mark is so vulnerable

and layered, both as and as Dylan Irv.

They're all fantastic.

Each character is believable
and tragic in their own way.

You believe their world,
even when it gets surreal.

Even the background elements, hallways
that go nowhere out of place, objects

like the dancing goats and those eerily
cheery team building rituals, feel like

inside jokes from a corporate culture
that's lost all sense of reality.

What it tells us about business and
work culture, the whole premise of

severance, the splitting of your work
self from your personal self is obviously

science fiction, but let's be real.

It's not that far off from what
many people experience every day,

at least Monday through Friday,
we speak more formally at work.

We use fake zoom backgrounds.

We leave our true personalities at
the door, and sometimes we even forget

who we are when we're in that space,
it raises a fundamental question,

why do we have so many environments
where we can't bring our full selves?

One of the biggest takeaways for me
is that bringing your whole self to

work is not just a nice sentiment.

It's essential because when you
can't, it slowly eats away at you.

You start feeling like a
cog, a number, not a person.

And that affects not just morale, but
performance, loyalty, and creativity.

Fit is really everything and it's mutual.

So another big lesson from severance is
that organizational fit matters, not just

whether someone can survive in a system,
but whether they can actually thrive.

And the responsibility isn't
just on the employee to adapt.

Companies should be adjusting
their systems and expectations

to the real capabilities and the
needs of the people they bring on.

We shouldn't force people to contort
themselves to fit into rigid molds.

That's how you lose great talent
or worse turn people into compliant

disengaged versions of themselves.

Encouraging a two-way
feedback loop is critical.

Employees need to feel safe
giving feedback upward.

That's how organizations evolve.

It shouldn't just be
town halls and surveys.

Feedback culture should be
alive in one-on-ones daily

interactions and decision making.

The show also made me think about
the whole work spouse phenomenon.

When someone at work becomes your
confidant, your partner in crime,

sometimes even more emotionally
available than the people in your

personal life, it's a peculiar byproduct
of environments where people feel

emotionally isolated in their roles.

Hopefully, as work culture
improves, we won't need a second

emotional life to survive.

There should be more carryover
between our work and personal selves.

We shouldn't need to build secret
connections just to feel human at work.

This theme also touches on the
fragility of trust in the workplace.

When you're severed from your other
self, you're basically forced to trust

strangers, people who know half of you.

And isn't that also how it feels
when we work in environments where

vulnerability isn't welcomed?

There's also the illusion of
control versus real empowerment.

So one of the most haunting aspects of
severance is the illusion of control.

The nies feel like they have
choices, but their lives are

defined by someone else's limits.

That's not empowerment.

That's an entrapment.

If you're a leader, it's worth
asking, are you actually empowering

your team or are you just giving
them the illusion of freedom?

While you control every outcome,
the healthiest companies trust

their people to think, speak, and
act like adults because they are.

It reminds me of a quote from Reddit.

I saw on a comment severance
isn't about forgetting, it's

about control through ignorance.

So that resonated with me.

And in business, ignorance is
not bliss, it's a liability.

Reddit's severance community has
offered some incredible insights.

One user pointed out how the severed
mind is a metaphor for the masks we wear.

In the business world, how
we disassociate to cope.

Another post that stuck with me
discussed how the break room scenes

echo cult indoctrination, showing how
HR systems can be manipulative under

the guise of care and correction.

There's also a lot of symbolism
around memory and truth.

Reddit commenters have noted how the
show plays with the idea of corporate

language, meaningless buzzwords
that sound profound, but are hollow.

That's something I think a
lot of us have experienced.

Think synergy alignment or work-life
harmony, work-life balance, et cetera.

Words that often disguise control
as benevolence or obedience.

Now one dimension of severance that I
really enjoy is design and branding.

It's led to a particular aesthetic that
many have called the severance aesthetic.

The show's brutalist meets
Mid-Century Modern Design has.

Had a surprising influence
on design and branding.

Designers on Twitter and other places
are referencing lumen, eerie, green

and white color palettes, analog
tech feel, and stark topography

and their inspiration boards.

Other brands are leaning into a kind
of nostalgic minimalism right now,

because it feels clean and orderly,
but partly because Severance

reminded us how aesthetics can
create powerful emotional context.

Lumen visual language isn't just a
set, it's also like a character in the

story, tells you are not in control.

There's definitely a branding lesson on
emotional storytelling through design.

Alright, let's talk a few theories.

This is always a fun part
of these, puzzle shows.

I used to do this with Lost and some
other smaller shows like Fringe.

But let's talk a little bit about
some of the theories that I had.

I've got a couple theories that I
wanted to share, especially after

watching the season two finale.

So my first theory is
that in the finale, Helle.

Appears inside of the
severed floor as her Outie.

So without telling Mark,
she has not severed herself.

She's put her own Glasgow block
in and when she's interacting with

Mark, she's actually her Outie.

Why do I think that?

I think the way that she seemed more
encouraging of Mark than usual, and

especially about the potential of
ending the any program if Mark took

certain actions and left the severed
floor, her tone just felt different.

She felt a little bit more eager.

I don't think this is a theory, but
her Outie is falling for Mark and maybe

already knows him outside of Lumen.

She wants him to break free and have a
relationship with her outside of Lumen.

Also in the preceding episode, Jamie
Egan, walked onto the severed floor

and told Helis in that, she was
the version of that he thought was

going to take over lumen one day.

And so an adjoining theory I have
is that Za, he's Outie watched this

conversation on tape and and made
the choice to reappear on the severed

floor as her Outie also Jane Egan.

Is having heli go through this exercise
to reprint her inni onto her Outie.

And have her outside physical
body be capable of the brashness

and attitude of her any.

Anyway, it gets really complicated
and I hope I'm not spoiling this

for anybody that has seen this.

Now the, my second big theory is
about a different character, Irv.

I believe that Irv has been trying
to reintegrate in a non-surgical

way through sleep deprivation.

There are some hints that as we've seen
as Outie, that he's been trying to keep

himself awake on purpose perhaps trying
to merge identities through dreams.

If you remember a few scenes in
season one where Irv was seeing

visions of dripping black goo.

Similar to the consistency of the
black paint that he's using, he's also

somehow fixated as an Outie on the
image of the hallway, which he would've

only gotten through some outside
tipster that wanted to convey this

imagery into his, somehow his inside
consciousness in the severed floor.

Anyway.

I just think that Irv is trying a
different approach than Mark and others

that we're trying to reintegrate.

So in, my final thoughts,
severance is fiction, but it's

also a mirror and a commentary.

Some ways it's a parody.

Other ways it's a critique.

It reflects what happens when businesses
treat people as tools and not as humans

when they ignore culture, authenticity,
and empathy and favor of control

of KPIs or metrics and illusion.

So let's hope that we're building
something better with our own businesses.

A workplace where your, any and
Outie aren't strangers, but allies

where showing up is your full self
isn't punished, it's welcomed.

It's where fit is flexible.

Feedback is free flowing, and
trust isn't just lip service.

It's real.

That was a mouthful.

Thanks for hanging with me on this one.

If you've got your own severance theories
or business takeaways, shoot me a message.

I'd love to hear them.

Until next time, stay bold, stay human,
and maybe don't go for the Lumen job

offer, no matter how good it sounds.

Inside marketing with market surge.

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