Dogs Can’t Read
Are your messages lost in translation? Or unable to be translated.
This message is lost.
You’re probably pretty smart. You probably know your industry and your business pretty well. You may even have lots of letters after your last name in your signature. Yet, all those things could be working against you and getting your message out.
Every sector I’ve worked in has its own lingo, its own shortcuts. There are abbreviations, legal terms, inside baseball talk. My favorites are “HIPAA” (often misspelled “HIPPA”) for Health Insurance Portability and Privacy Act and “ARF” for Acute Respiratory Failure. So dogs can’t read, but they can diagnose, evidently.
That’s not all. Brands often lose customers and clients because they fail to make information accessible to even key audience groups. Campaigns and policy issues lose votes when the candidate or the cause doesn’t resonate. For years, “Complete Streets” failed to gain favor with lawmakers with its mission to redesign neighborhoods so folks could walk or bike safely alongside cars and buses. It’s a measure to curb climate pollution, and it’s a gamechanger. Yet, reframed it’s a winner. For folks who aren’t concerned about the climate (and there’s still lots of those), the winning messages are that street designs will slow down traffic and make them safer (a winner for parents) or allow cities, not state transportation departments, to design streets (a winner for local governments, self-determinant champions). That’s what made it the law of the land in Minnesota.
Messages also fail to land when they’re in an unfriendly format. Ever gotten an email with a QR code to sign up? Pretty hard to scan those with your phone when you’re holding your phone to read the email (as 80% of people do).
Whatever the business objective or the ask is, accessibility is key. Language, delivery, and frame matter. Otherwise, it’s just another yard sign to poop on.
Be Bumper Sticker Simple
It all begins with an idea.
For years, environmentalists, climate advocates, and utility companies feared the word, “conserve.” They all said, “no, that’s an awful word. Don’t use it. It reminds people of Jimmy Carter forcing them to put on a sweater,” and what’s more, it reminded folks they were giving up what they like.
So for years, we used the term “energy efficient.” Be “efficient,” put in LED bulbs, carshare, use transit, use timers, etc. Same effect, but with a different framing. It still didn’t work, and US energy companies kept building coal plants to meet increasing demand. Oil companies ramped up drilling to meet driver’s needs.
Then as part of a campaign, we did focus groups in northern Wisconsin, where we threw out the same terms of “conservation” and “energy efficiency.” This was in the middle of $4/gallon gas and heating bills that were skyrocketing. And that’s where this one group shifted our thinking.
Instead of rejecting conservation, they embraced it. They said instead of your words, just ask people to “use less” (conservation) or “use better” (efficiency). They said either way, “I save, so I win.” It was bumper sticker simple, and all of us supposed geniuses behind the glass didn’t see it until then.
Brands need to embrace the simplicity of messaging. Don’t fall in love with terms, fall in love with accessibility. Ease of understanding. The escape from continuing to explain, especially in the elevator pitch. It’s about thinking like your audiences, not like the managers or VPs.
Campaigns, brands, issues are onions. Let them be multi-layered, and let folks open them when they’re ready— more than likely when they’re spiraling down the marketing funnel. Pique their curiousity, and they’ll be open to a deeper, more detailed message.
Be Mesmerizing.
It all begins with an idea.
It’s the cool factor, the “gee whiz” moment, the “if-they-forget-the-rest-they’ll-remember-this” element. It’s the sugar that makes the medicine go down. It could be a cool video location, charismatic character, or bit of CGI.
For example, in the below video, I was handed a branding concept behind the organization. All the execs had fallen in love with the term, but they floundered trying to explain it. We talked about using a video to explain it at the next fundraiser. So, we began shooting.
Then something became obvious. The video stunk. It was boring. Sure, we had a lot of people explaining the concept, the “secret sauce” recipe, but it wasn’t watchable to absorb the message. In short, there was no “gee whiz.”
After lots of ideation, we considered animating the video or using an artist. Then we settled on combining those two with a graphic meeting note-taker to illustrate the points and shoot him as he did his magic. The end result was magic, and it was a big hit at the fundraiser. Watch below.