Relevance Archive - Page 10 of 20 - The Art of Communicating

Do funny ads work?

Remember that funny ad?

Well, can you also recall what it was advertising? Let alone did it make you buy the product?

You’re not alone, judging from a study by Ace Metrix which found that “funny ads were slightly less likely to increase desire or purchase intent than unfunny ones”.

But let’s look closer. Michael Curran, the study’s author explained that “humorous ads tend to be light on informative content, which in turn creates a lower desire for the advertised product”.

Which – to say it straight – is disrespectful to the audience. Essentially, funny ads fail when they favor the “wow effect” at the expense of the “aha effect”. When they go for the laugh without going all the way to the insight.

In other words: Make your communication fun and entertaining, but do it in a way that serves your message – rather than having it steal the show.

Humour is a great way to get people’s attention. But clarity about the message must come first: What’s the point? And why should I care?

PS: Essentially, what Ace Metrix found is that funny ads do work if implemented that way.

So you care for your cause …

Many people who deeply care for their cause fail to make change happen.

For a simple reason: It’s not enough to care for your cause. You need to care for the change, too.

This has a profound impact on your actions. If you care for the change, you’ll inevitably have to take the others into account. You can’t just care. You need to empathize: Who is affected? Why would they care? What would make them listen?

It’s when you switch to that perspective that you start looking at your communication differently. Suddenly, all the details that felt so near and dear to your heart loose some of their weight because you realize that people need to be curious for the facts before you can dig deep. Suddenly, it’s not even about the facts anymore but just as much about the values and beliefs that make us interpret the facts in this way or another.

But most importantly, when you care for the change it’s not about whether you feel uncomfortable to go on a stage and speak about your cause. When you care for the change it’s required to speak up. It needs to be done.

And so, you just do it. And when you do it, you’ll find the courage to turn your speech into a powerful speech because that’s what’s required to make change happen.

Justifying a meeting

If you want to be responsible with people’s times, you need to justify the need for a meeting from quite a number of angles, each of which can be summarized with a simple question:

Why do we need the meeting?

Including: Is it really required that we have that meeting? Or might there be more effective ways of dealing with the matter?

Who needs to be in the meeting?

Is the purpose of the meeting important enough to justify asking for these people’s presence? But also: Will their contribution be large enough to justify their presence at the meeting?

How long does the meeting need to be?

Can we ask this much time from the people who need to be there?

When do we need to have the meeting?

Is everyone who needs to be there available at the time of the meeting? And would it be the best use of their time?

Where do we need to have the meeting?

Is it required for everyone to be in the same room (adding to their time budget if it’s a physical space)?

Doings often make it much easier to find answers to these questions than meetings. When it’s clear what needs to be done, it’s much easier to identify the people who can and cannot contribute, whether we need to gather in the same physical space and whether the product of the doing is worth spending the time.

Electric clocks

In the 50s, Rolls Royce claimed that their cars are super quiet.

But how quiet were they? Here’s how Rolls Royce explained it:

“At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.”

Can you explain to me your promises in plain English in a way that I can make sense of them from my everyday experience?

When everything’s important, nothing’s important

This is the blueprint of most presentations, reports, pitches, websites, you name it.

Everything’s important. And therefore, nothing is important.

The thing is this: If you don’t pick what’s important you’re asking your audience to do it for you.

You might not be too happy with their choice.

Better to find the courage to do it yourself.

All successful marketing works the same

All successful marketing basically works the same.

It makes customers see a brighter future and leads them to the point of no return, a point where it becomes an unbearable thought for them to go back to normal so that the only possible resolution is to buy your product.

Successful marketing makes the customer want that brighter future.

The problem is: Sneaky marketers know that, too. Actually, they know it particularly well. All of the sneaky marketing schemes out there are built on that principle. Sneaky marketers are masterful at figuring out what customers desire and then making bold promises around these desires – without caring about whether they can keep these promises.

The challenge for honest marketers is that they do care for keeping their promises.

The challenge for the customer is to notice the difference: Does the marketer (only) care for their money or do they actually care for delivering on the promise?

If you’re an honest marketer, the lesson here is to understand these principles of successful marketing … and master them even better than the sneaky marketer. Here are three questions that might help you:

What is it that my customers truly desire?
What is the boldest promise that I can confidently make towards that desire and still be able to keep it?
How can I lead them to the point of no return so that it becomes an unbearable thought for them not to buy your product?

But our product is dry stuff

It’s not!

It solves a problem that businesses are willing to pay good money for.

It saves them a lot of hassle. Just imagine the trouble they would need to go through to solve the problem without you?

It’s a huge time saver form them. Knowing that they can rely on you provides them with peace of mind. Which in turn frees their mind to come up with better solutions for their customers.

It’s just not true that these things are dry. They are highly emotional. Because they are highly relevant.

It’s not the product that’s dry. It’s the story.

What makes a story dry is when the humans get written out of the story. When it’s only about features. And processes. Rather than what these features and processes enable the humans to do.

Businesses don’t lack sexy products.

They lack the courage to go beyond the features and see the humans who use their products. If it solves a real struggle, it’s almost guaranteed to be attractive (at least) or even sexy.

I’m not going to miss that

What outcome would make your next meeting so valuable that you wouldn’t want to miss it at any cost?

How about your co-workers? Do they feel that the outcome of your next meeting is so valuable that they wouldn’t want to miss it at any cost?

If yes, bravo! You’re a rare breed.

If not, what would make it so? What can you change to make it more valuable? (Maybe switch to a doing instead?)

Making a speech funny

It’s easy to make a speech funny. Hire some comedians, gather them in a room and they’ll make it funny.

What’s hard is to make it consistent with your story, fit your brand, match your personality – and most of all: to make it relevant. This is inherently your job. You need to provide the direction and you need to make the final call.

(But when you do, I’m all in for more entertaining speeches.)

You better pay attention

Andy Miller, who after he’d sold his company to Apple reported directly to Steve Jobs, explains what it was like when he wasn’t paying attention for a brief moment. Jobs pulled him out:

“You weren’t paying attention. If I’ll ever notice that again, you’ll never again sit in one of these meetings.”

It sounds harsh but it makes sense when you turn it into a bidirectional deal: You must pay attention. But at the same time you get the right to demand that the content is worth paying attention to.

Essentially, as the leader you not only demand attention but you also demand to make good use of the attention, e.g. you guarantee everyone the right to point out when someone (including you) speaks a lot without saying much.

When you demand that everyone pays attention it means that there’s an incentive for everyone to prepare their material in a way that makes it worth paying attention to. (That’s, basically, how Amazon’s study hall approach to meetings works.)

SEARCH

Explore

Work with me

Connect

SUBSCRIBE