A Sure-Fire Way of Engaging Readers… Literally

March 17, 2012 by

brain deadDo you know a sure-fire way of engaging readers? Yes, a way of literally causing more brain synapses to fire.

Use language that depicts movement or triggers the senses.

According to new brain research detailed in the New York Times, brains respond to written depictions of smells, textures, and movements as if they were the real thing. Unlike with bland language, they trigger additional neurological regions of the brain distinct from language-processing areas. Words like “lavender,” “cinnamon” and “soap,” for example, elicit a response from the parts of the brain devoted to dealing with smells, not just the “classical” language regions.

“A team of researchers from Emory University reported in Brain & Language that when subjects in their laboratory read a metaphor involving texture, the sensory cortex, responsible for perceiving texture through touch, became active. Metaphors like `The singer had a velvet voice’ and `He had leathery hands’ roused the sensory cortex, while phrases matched for meaning, like `The singer had a pleasing voice’ and `He had strong hands,’ did not.

Researchers have discovered that words describing motion also stimulate regions of the brain distinct from language-processing areas. In a study led by the cognitive scientist Véronique Boulenger, of the Laboratory of Language Dynamics in France, the brains of participants were scanned as they read sentences like `John grasped the object’ and `Pablo kicked the ball.’ The scans revealed activity in the motor cortex, which coordinates the body’s movements. What’s more, this activity was concentrated in one part of the motor cortex when the movement described was arm-related and in another part when the movement concerned the leg.”

As I wrote about last all, another benefit to vivid language is making you appear more credible. If people have to think too hard about what you say or write, they are less likely to believe you.

Detailed descriptions and evocative metaphor in plain language is the way to go. Need I say more.

Your turn! Do you think engaging writing is important?

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Video Clip of the Month: Precise Strategies Liberate

March 2, 2012 by

A sound communications strategy or creative brief is the most important part of a successful communications campaign or product. It is the firm foundation determining how your communications mix (i.e., public relations, advertising, promotion, and direct marketing) will work together to achieve your communications objectives. It is the genesis of every word you write, every product you produce, every conversation you start.

All too often, however, communicators skip or scrimp on development of a communications strategy or creative brief. Some simply fail to draw the distinction between developing strategy and copying tactics. Others, in a hurry to carry out individual tactics, end up wasting time and effort:

  • Skipping development of a sound communications strategy or creative brief leaves you vulnerable to creative teams becoming so enamored with an individual tactic, a potentially award-winning piece of copy, or a dramatic situation that they end up communicating just to communicate—not thinking through choosing a medium to target a specific group with a message carefully crafted to the target. They often end up creating nothing but noise.
  • Scrimping on development can result in rejection (weeks or months down the road) of products developed strictly in adherence to the strategy or creative brief. An analysis of the rejection can reveal the problem is strategic and not creative. In these cases, the strategy or creative brief should never have been approved.

Ogilvy Creative Director Norman Berry said it best: Vague strategies inhibit. Precise strategies liberate.”

For a breath-taking example of what this all means check out the Coca Cola Content 2020 Part One and Part Two videos, my pick for March 2012 video clip of the month. The videos detail Coca Cola’s brilliant strategy for making content the core of its marketing efforts (and no longer relying on traditional ad agencies for creative ideas). Coke’s vision is content that is liquid and linked to create contagious conversations that cannot be controlled… and more.

Vague and inhibiting? No. Tactical? No!

Precise and liberating? Yes!

Check the videos out below and enjoy!

What’s your plan to keep your communications strategic? Please share your ideas and experiences in the comments section.

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HOW TO: Ground VOA’s Global Ambitions in Reality

February 18, 2012 by

FlagJust after reading a fascinating post on Mobile Mahaal, an innovative experiment making radio more interactive in Afghanistan, I read another by Kim Andrew Elliott on proposed Voice of America (VOA) budget cuts and programs “under other names.” Kim wrote:

“Congress should not spend money on an international news service that the private sector can accomplish at no cost to the taxpayers.”

Kim’s comment was in reaction to a post on the Mountain Runner blog by David Jackson about the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) proposal to radically change the way VOA’s central operation does business. The proposal calls for VOA launching a global news network producing original content, rather than rehashing wire service stories, and producing programming “under other names.” David wrote:

“VOA is well known and trusted by its international audiences. Yet time and again Board members have tried to pressure VOA management to launch programs under other names, thinking that might avoid the assumed taint of being associated with the U.S. government. The fact is, that association is not necessarily bad. VOA’s reputation, which has been painstakingly built over seven decades, is of a broadcaster who tells the truth about everything, including the U.S., and even when the news is unflattering. When we try to hide the association with VOA (or the U.S. government), that only prompts conspiracy theories that the CIA is behind the broadcasts. And in the end, they always figure out it’s coming from us anyway.”

My thought, besides agreeing with Kim and David? What about combining mobile with audience-produced local content (a Web 2.0 rule of thumb is audience segmentation, not old school one-message-fits-all mass distribution). Why spend money on websites and Cold War-appropriate television and radio stations when you can tap mobile, a form of communication governments aren’t likely to jam, especially when there are technologically appropriate and user-friendly customizable programming options like Mobile Mahaal’s? Also, why not combine local audience-produced content (via crowdsourcing radio applications like FrontlineSMS:Radio) with rehashed wire stories? You could transparently fund VOA-curated and/or supported content at a low cost and potentially higher trust factor? You also would avoid flouting the Smith–Mundt Act with websites.

In terms of the BBG’s new Strategic Plan, you might also have some hope of:

  • Achieving the goal of the BBG “to become the world’s leading international news agency by 2016”
  • Implementing the call for the BBG to “align how we deliver our content with how consumers now access it”
  • Living up to the BBG’s revised mission statement and “inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy”

Your turn! What am I missing? Can the BBG become the world’s leading international news agency by 2016—with a miniscule budget and mass distribution?

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Web 2.0 Suicide, Not Armageddon, Komen’s Problem

February 11, 2012 by

CyberlandGal's grandmother PaulineBreast cancer is personal for me. My own grandmother survived breast cancer. Three of my coworkers had breast cancer and one died, leaving two young children. Another friend of mine also survived breast cancer.

For that reason, when I received a direct message from Beth Kanter on Twitter asking me to post tweets with #takebackthepink and #supercure during the SuperBowl I did. I supported Beth’s efforts to make women’s health care accessible to everyone. Every child should have the opportunity to have a grandmother survive breast cancer. Low-income children shouldn’t have to watch their grandmothers suffer and die because they couldn’t afford a mammogram.

In case you’ve been hiding under a rock the last two weeks, Beth’s direct message was in response to Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s politically tinged decision to pull all funding from Planned Parenthood centers. The Komen grants, totaling in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, were mainly intended for free breast screenings for low-income women. None of the money was being used to fund abortions, so cutting off funding did nothing to stop them. The decision, which was reversed February 3, would have left countless of mothers and grandmothers without access to free mammograms.

The effort Beth was promoting ended up completely hijacking the #supercure hashtag during the SuperBowl. Tweets with #supercure and #takebackthepink completely drowned out Komen supporters who planned to promote their organization with #supercure during the sporting event (the NFL is one of Komen’s major sponsors). It (along with several other anti-Komen social media campaigns) helped make conversations about Komen on social media 40 percent negative when they usually are pretty flat.

I am writing this post because I read in the Daily Beast former Komen Vice President Karen Handel is calling Planned Parenthood a “gigantic bully” for launching a social-media firestorm:

“Planned Parenthood launched a vicious attack on a nonprofit organization that fights breast cancer,” she said. “Komen gave out $93 million in community grants last year. Planned Parenthood got $680,000—less than 1 percent of the total granting portfolio. They unleashed Armageddon on an organization for $680,000.”

Her comment reflects the lack of awareness many people in senior positions still have about social media and its power.  One individual and even a leaderless swarm can inspire seismic change in a Web 2.0 world. All you need is motivation, a good wireless connection, and an understanding of social media and psychological insights. Of course, you need luck and a great cause with emotional pull too.

Breast cancer is such a cause for many people like me. That is why I’ve given money to Komen on more than one occasion. But my loyalty is to fighting breast cancer, not an organization with questionable transparency. It’s beyond bad luck Komen apparently hadn’t bothered creating a crisis communications plan that included social media while Beth and other opponents to its Planned Parenthood decision did—even without the benefit Komen enjoyed of knowing about the decision weeks before it became public.

Many would more accurately call that suicide in a Web 2.0 world, not Armageddon.

Your turn! What do you think is the biggest lesson learned from the Komen-Planned Parenthood controversy?

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Conversation, not Context or Content, is King

February 10, 2012 by

PrivacyWhat do you think you would need most to harness the Internet to transform Facebook’s privacy policy in Europe?

Great storytelling (a.k.a. content)? Opinion leaders or household names driving traffic to your killer web presence and its top-notch user experience (a.k.a. context)? Or an easy way for people to act to support your efforts and spread the word to their friends? (a.k.a. conversation)?

Tough one!

What turned out to be the answer for Max Schrems, a 24-year-old Austrian law student, is both fascinating and surprising. Last summer, after finishing his thesis on Facebook’s violation of privacy law in Europe, Schrems:

His vocal campaign has been so successful Facebook’s European Director of Policy Richard Allan and another unidentified California-based Facebook executive flew to Vienna to meet with Schrems earlier this week to discuss his concerns.

Now the Web 2.0 cliché that “content is king” would have you believe great storytelling must be behind Schrems’ success. If you examine at least the English-language part of the Europe v. Facebook website, you see the content is outstanding … for a law student whose first language isn’t English. But I doubt it will be used as a case study for inbound marketing anytime soon.

The user experience on Europe v. Facebook is also fairly average, except content is offered in five languages, and the New York Times is reporting Schrems started with a one-person operation, not a bunch of celebrity endorsements. So his context isn’t case study material either.

What? Another Web 2.0 cliché doesn’t apply?

The key to Schrems’ success seems to be conversation. His website’s main menu gives people an easy way to “Get your Data” and the Europe v. Facebook Facebook page he set up allows them to join the conversation. An article in Forbes also suggests users of the social news site Reddit were crucial in Schrems’ message going viral.

Lesson learned? Content and context do not necessarily rule. Sometimes the most important thing you need besides a great cause is making it easy for people to act and share.

Do you think content, context, or conversation is the most important to Web 2.0 success? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

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