Controlling the Message
How to counteract what you can’t control.
Organizations, governments, and a great many public health and social change experts would love to be able to control everything. After all, if you have total control over content, what the public is seeing, and how people are acting, then the world would operate much more smoothly and there would be no problems. Right?
I think we call that level of control dictatorship and Declarations of Independence have been written by those opposed to the concept, yet we all seem to gravitate towards exerting that level of control, or at least wishing for it on occasion. When you are dealing with something as complex as social change it’s like trying to control a pit of snakes.
We are convinced there is one right message and spend too much of our time dissecting and criticizing the ‘unauthorized’ messages that are out there. We complaining about destructive efforts instead of focusing on how we can spin better ‘authorized’ messages more effectively so that the ‘right’ messages are seen and heard. Our focus needs to be on creating messages that go viral and stick in the public’s consciousness. Of course part of the problem is deciding what messages should be ‘authorized’, but that’s for another blog.
Humans are complex, but instead of addressing the complexity effectively and positively, we tend to react negatively. When something doesn’t match our world view, we spend our energy slamming the message, pulling it apart, and publicly refuting the information. The problem is, when humans see that level of disagreement, it’s more likely that the wrong message stay in their head. It’s like those Far Side cartoons about what we say vs. what dogs hear. Humans say ‘Ginger, stay out of the garbage! Did you hear me? I said stay out of the garbage, Ginger!’ vs. Dogs hear ‘Ginger, blah, blah, blah...Ginger’. Nothing about staying out of the garbage sticks, just like nothing in our criticism of of damaging or misleading information sticks, except the original message, which we’ve highlighted and reinforced.
We can only counteract misleading messages with stronger accurate messages.
Let’s take drowning prevention - the global epidemic very few people have heard about. If I mention drowning, there is one video that people consistently bring up to show that they understand the issue and know how to solve the problem. A baby in a sleepsuit floating in a pool, ‘saving’ itself. On various channels this video has over 10 million views. The first time I saw it my adrenalin shot through the roof. I wanted to reach into my computer and pull the child from the water. The technique being shown is greatly contested, with a large number of academics in firm opposition and a devoted number of practitioners convinced it is the holy grail of drowning prevention. Right or wrong, the reality is a large number of people have seen the video and been strongly influenced. The reason? Emotion. It’s the adrenalin rush and the use of a baby that most people are hard-wired to want to protect. The message is clear, there is a quick fix, a magic bullet to take away that imagined pain of losing a child to drowning. Like it or not, that is the message, the impression, that people take away, however over-simplistic and misleading it might be.
Lesson: Eliciting a strong emotion leaves a lasting impact.
As often as I push for positive messages, there is a place for the occasional jolt of adrenalin to redirect attention, to shock people out of their ‘not my problem’ state of mind. Negative, frightening messages about what could happen can play an important role in a communication strategy. There are ways of using emotion and facts to change perceptions and actions.
The Josh Project created two videos that showed on the big screen at the Daytona 500 several years ago. The videos were seen by over a million people. The first video is 45 seconds. Photos of children in all types of water are depicted. Between each photo is a quote, including, “I was just in the other room.” “I just grabbed the phone for a second.” “I didn’t hear any splashing.” The intent was to show where drowning occurs, and how quickly – to address the misconceptions while evoking the emotion, the contrast between the beautiful children in serene and seemingly safe situations and the statistics.
The second video is 35 seconds. A timer appears between slides, relentlessly ticking away the seconds while facts about the prevalence of drowning are posted, including, “It’s more dangerous than fire.” “More accessible than firearms.” There are photos showing where drowning can occur and ends “Help us stop this hidden epidemic.” Again, emotion, evoke a sense of urgency and of time ticking away, and emphasize the fact that drowning can happen more quickly than most people think.
Lesson: Emotion plus facts makes a strong impact. Making people think they have the power to change the outcome makes the strongest impact.
Another good video, shows the facts, just the facts, in 2 1/2 minutes. Nile Swimmers evokes emotion in another way, in the calm recitation of facts, but especially in the comparisons of death rates and spending to malaria. Nile Swimmers builds a story, supports it with simple facts and simple graphics. Editing down to the bare bones, finding your 1-3 key messages is hard, but it’s effective. Unfortunately, these days you should be aiming for under 30 seconds, but some information just can’t be minimized without losing something important.
Lesson: No more than 3 ideas, preferably one key point. Keep it short. Simple language. Use comparisons effectively. Simple graphics. Speak clearly and slowly.
What’s missing in every situation was the multi-media follow-up push - one that would require all of us to work together. For any one aspect of water safety, for maximum impact, the message has to be coming at people from every angle. For example, I’d have a full-court press on life jackets for one month to coincide with the annual May ‘Wear Your Lifejacket To Work’ event. I’d promote life jacket loaner programs, issue press releases, coordinate a social media drive using #lifejackets, encourage people to post their lifejacket selfies on Instagram, and partner with manufacturers of boats and life jackets to offer specials and improve product placement within stores - have the life jackets in front of people when they are thinking about it. Don’t just push information, provide a way for people to change their behavior positively. Make it easy to change and be safer.
We keep pushing the facts, but we forget that emotion sways people far more.