Download Communication in a Modern Media Environment

Communication in a Modern Media Environment:
What for? To whom? How?
Micky Denehy
January 25th 2012
DIET, PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND HEALTH A EUROPEAN PLATFORM FOR ACTION
WORKSHOP ON COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION
You are a “Platform for Action”
and action is urgently needed by many adults....
.....and more importantly by many children
My three offers to help
1.
Some thoughts on behavioural change
2.
The role of communication in change
3.
Creating a communications brief for “external” communication
Some thoughts on
Or more accurately some thoughts on
Legislation, regulation (and enforcement)
are highly effective at changing behaviour
It’s difficult to change
Change is complex
Foresight’s Obesity System Map
The impact of change interventions are unpredictable
The most effective initiative
for encouraging physical activity
?
Building More Cycle Trails
Better to enable people to take more exercise than tell people to do so
Danish Gym Club subscription
only pay if you do not come once a week
Sometimes desired behaviour can be achieved by
enlightened regulation
Percentage of adults by country who are organ donors
Percentage of adults by country who are organ donors
When it comes to driving speed enforcement people are
focused more on risk/loss aversion
Change is best served up like salami
– cut up into small manageable pieces
My three offers to help
1.
Some thoughts on behavioural change
2.
The role of communication in change
The role of communication in change
“Times, they are a changing“
The explosion of new media opportunities has fragmented the target audience
TV is dead? Long live TV.
“Advertising is not less important, its just that other communication tools are becoming more important” – John Dooner
Communications these days need
to say less but do more
SAY
DO
We are not machines, making logical decisions based on a
rational analysis of facts.
Research indicates that many decisions we take are unconsciously driven
by our emotions
Rational decision making is “hard wired” to our emotions. Emotions are
processed instantaneously.
Damasio 1994:
‘Left
brain’
logic
‘Right
brain’
emotions
“ The wiring of the brain favours emotion
the connections from the emotional systems
to the rational cognitive systems
are stronger than the connections that run the other way.”
Joseph LeDour
Professor of Neuroscience
New York University
Creating communication that encourages change
1. Help people to identify with the situation
2. Make communication ‘real’ to help people identify
3. Utilize the power of Storytelling to help them to identify with the
situation
4. Sometimes necessary to create dramatic shock and surprise to
help overcome inertia
5. Use powerful emotions that will lead to action
"One single Anne Frank moves us more than the countless
others who suffered just as she did, but whose faces
have remained in the shadows."
Primo Levi
New Zealand Telecom
My three offers to help
1.
Some thoughts on behavioural change
2.
How communication may help
3.
Creating a communications brief for “external” communication
The external communications brief
1.
Who is the client, what is the brand?
2.
What is the task we need to address and how do we know if we have achieved it?
3.
What do we want to say – single minded proposition?
4.
Who do we want to talk to – target audience?
5.
How do we reach them – media channels (including social media & word of mouth)?
6.
How do measure the effectiveness of the communication?
7.
How much money is available – budget?
1. Who is the client, what is the brand?
I don’t know who you are
I don’t know your company
I don’t know your company’s products
I don’t know what your company stands for
I don’t know your company’s customers
I don’t know your company’s record
I don’t know your company’s reputation
Now, what was it you wanted to sell me?
1. Who is the client, what is the brand?
2. What is the task we need to address and
how do we know if we have achieved it?
The health problem is clear
•
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European Union citizens are moving too little and consuming too
much: too much energy, too many calories, too much fat and sugar,
and salt.
The main consequence is a sustained, acute EU-wide increase in
overweight and obesity.
The increase is particularly severe for children and adolescents.
This trend is increasing ill health and shortening lives.
The human cost is unacceptable.
The budgetary and economic cost is also severe.
The solution and the communication task are less clear
•
The causes of this social disease are manifold.
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There are no simple solutions.
•
The EU Platform for Action on Diet, Physical Activity and Health
started in March 2005 with the purpose to create a forum for actors
at European level who can commit their membership to engage in
concrete actions designed to contain or reverse current trends.
2. What is the task we need to address and
how do we know if we have achieved it?
3. What do we want to say – single minded
proposition?
What do we want to say?
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The spirit of the Platform is to work under the leadership of the
European Commission and to provide an example, which others will
choose to follow across Europe, of coordinated but autonomous
actions by different parts of society to deal with the many aspects of
the problem.
It is not designed to pre-empt, but rather to stimulate, other
initiatives at national, regional or local level.
The present Platform hopes to become an example that others will
choose to follow, and to provide input into the ongoing European
Union policy debate.
3. What do we want to say – single minded
proposition?
4. Who do we want to talk to – target audience?
5. How do we reach them – media channels
(including social media & word of mouth)?
A thought on social media & storytelling
“The Rise of the Story ”
Richard Stacy
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Stories have always been a useful medium of communication – but the rise
of social media has just made them essential. If you haven’t got a good
one, you could be in trouble.
The philosophy of marketing is restrictive – one-word ‘brand equities’, single
key visuals etc. At its heart is the idea of the proposition – a tightly defined
statement of what the brand stands for. This was the cornerstone of a
marketing or communications strategy in the mass media age.
A story can drive conversation in the way a proposition cannot. People can
pick up a story and tell it in their own words, they can pluck bits out of it and
pass it on. It has mobility – the key attribute in the world of liberated media.
A single story can live and move in blog posts, tweets, Facebook pages or
conversations – anywhere and everywhere.
Social media & storytelling
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Stories have a further advantage in that they have an application
beyond how you project your organisation outwards, they can be a
strategic management tool in their own right.
Once you have an effective corporate story, this in itself is a strategy
and when your strategy is a story it is easy for it to spread through
the organisation.
One of the biggest management and communications challenges
any business faces is ‘aligning’ employees behind a corporate
strategy – but once that strategy is encoded as a story, that process
is much simpler.
5. How do we reach them – media channels
(including social media & word of mouth)?
6. How do measure the effectiveness of the
campaign?
7. How much money is available – budget?
The external communications brief
1.
Who is the client, what is the brand?
2.
What is the task we need to address and how do we know if we have achieved it?
3.
What do we want to say – single minded proposition?
4.
Who do we want to talk to – target audience?
5.
How do we reach them – media channels (including social media & word of mouth)?
6.
How do measure the effectiveness of the communication?
7.
How much money is available – budget?
Thank you and good luck