Monthly Archives: February 2010

Recovering from a negative first impression is a challenge. You would never walk into a job interview with jeans and expect to go very far.  It is more likely you would press your shirt, wear your suit and hope that at a minimum you convey that you are responsible and invested in yourself.

Why should a headline be any different?  It is the first thing a reader sees and the reason they decide to read further.

“On average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy,” says David Ogilvy in Ogilvy on Advertising.

A headline should convey the same qualities as a suit:  responsibility and investment.  It is certainly worth the time it takes to come up with something eye-catching, if it means your readership increases.

The Public Relations Society of America’s (PRSA) February Tactics issue offers the following headline advice to consider:

Do think about the benefit your content offers the reader.

“Your headline is a promise to prospective readers.  Its job is to clearly communicate the benefit that you will deliver to the reader in exchange for their valuable time.”

Don’t make your headlines esoteric or long winded.

“Readers value good information packaged concisely, delivered honestly and written in a familiar language.  Good headlines do all of these things.”

Do be concrete and specific.

Headlines are brief, only seven to ten words, and they contain clear subjects and active verbs in the present tense.

Don’t underestimate unexpected inspiration.

“Most of us glance at the tabloids when we’re in line at the supermarket and figure they’re written for — and by — morons. But the truth is, smart copywriters study them, because cheesy tabloids are the masters of the No.1 copywriting skill: the art of the headline.”

This advice, while often directed towards journalists, is also applicable to someone in PR.  Ten years ago, press releases were for the journalists: fact oriented and with little awareness of  “readership.”

Then the internet revolution:  most press releases are now published online and often serve as articles themselves.

With that in mind, it is a good exercise to think of news release titles as headlines.  Spend the time coming up with several ideas and ask a friend or colleague which ‘headline’ would lead them to read further.

Make that promise to your reader that they will be “more entertained, more informed, smarter or better off in some way than they were before they began to read.”

Thomas Friedman of The New York Times thinks so.

In his Feb. 17  op-ed piece, Friedman describes the challenges facing climate experts in their quest to convince the American public that climate change is the real deal.  Issue number one:  the “global warming” is not hot enough to stand up against a blizzard.  How can the earth be getting warmer if we just had record snowfall?

Let us first consider the origin of the phrase “global warming” – a description of the gradual increase of the average temperature of the earth’s near-surface air and oceans.  On average things are getting warmer, yes.

Now let us consider the audience who is ill equipped to understand this idea as a global phenomenon: a temperature change on average.  This audience will instead think locally, “are my immediate surroundings actually getting warmer?”  Context (global or local) in this case determines whether people buy into the idea of climate change.  And we’re back to the old adage: seeing is believing.

Friedman offers an alternative: “global weirding.”

“…because that is what actually happens as global temperatures rise and the climate changes.  The weather gets weird.”

Considering our audience again, it would seem that “global weirding” would not actually be inconsistent with record snowfall or extreme hurricanes.  While admittedly a bit comic, “global weirding” is substantially more effective at avoiding the primary pitfall of “global warming,” misunderstanding.

When considering a product or brand name, a tag-line or a messaging strategy, think about how it holds up in a global and local context.  Will even the most inexperienced audience member understand what you are trying to say?  In a media culture of tweets and sound-bites, we at Russo Partners recommend this key to successful brand communication: words and phrases that leave no room for misinterpretation.

In the Feb. 15 issue of Newsweek, Matthew Philips speaks with Gene Grabowski, head of crisis and litigation practice at Levick Strategic Communications, about Toyota’s “Tylenol Moment”: the fallout and PR management of the Prius recall.  He offers his commentary on Toyota’s PR choices, and his personal advice on recall communication:

Rip off the Band-Aid all at once

“There has been this slow drip of bad news, which is the worst thing that can happen,” says Grabowski.  Akin to the advice offered by this blog in regard to the CDC’s effective use of communication in the early days of the swine flu crisis, it is better to be first and as thorough as possible.  Try to instill trust even when the news isn’t good.

Actions count the most

Defining actions as “admitting mistakes and addressing them,” Grabowski suggests that trust is not about lip service but practice.  Be honest.  Then try as best you can to fix the problem.

The Internet is an opportunity to join the conversation

Grabowski suggests the most prudent use of social media to be an official recall page on Facebook where engineers can post the solutions they devise.  To control the flow of information on Google, a company must try to own negative words and phrases and use this to direct surfing to their Web site.  Additionally, blogs offer the ability to provide a more complete picture regarding what is safe and what is not.  These all serve to “undercut fear.”

If a recall happens, face it head on and demonstrate through your actions that you care about the customer.   Use the Internet to break down the divide between the corporation and the individual, and thus find a way to regain control.

As an epilogue to the previous post, the video is a great example of mainstream (social) media increasing awareness for science.  The Symphony of Science created by John Boswell (and featured in The Scientist) is a synthesis of video footage from Carl Sagan’s television show, The Cosmos, and the voices of speaking scientists auto-tuned to produce a melody.  From this collision of visual art, music, science, and social media emerges a fascinating and engaging manner of communication.

Consider the strategy of blending media to achieve a more powerful message, and to expose that message to a broader audience.

When one’s target audience is made up of investors, policy makers or healthcare providers, it can be safe to assume a degree of scientific literacy not always apparent in society at large.  In markets that are more controversial than others, like stem cells, nanotechnology and obesity, public opinion actually factors dramatically into the ultimate success of new innovation.  Consider science research policy and the voters behind it, voters who cannot claim the same scientific knowledge as the small group of industry specialists.  These individuals continue to operate in the marketplace, but are often left behind when it comes to outreach.

An opinion piece in The Scientist by Elizabeth A. Corley and Dietram A. Scheufele uses the gulf of nanotechnology awareness that has emerged in recent years , between the most educated citizens and the least, to discuss where science communication is failing.  In their study regarding nanotechnology exposure, the authors offer this conclusion, “…those respondents with at least a college degree displayed an increase in knowledge levels between 2004 and 2007 while respondents with education levels of less than a high school diploma had a significant decrease in nanotechnology knowledge levels.”  One reason for this difference, they argue, is the “limited coverage in mainstream media.”

As science audiences move online, there is the opportunity to engage the audience left behind and to explain important technology and innovation to those who are not naturally exposed to scientific breakthroughs.  Like DNA before it, nanotechnology holds promise for those who understand it, while often engendering doubt (and fear) in those who don’t really know what it means.  Mainstream media outreach, particularly online, is the next frontier for producing a science educated citizenry.  As health care reform and budget talks keep Washington’s attention, it is an advantage to the science communicator to remember the “information poor” and to include them in their outreach strategy.

For lesser known and potentially controversial industries, online mainstream media exposure is an investment in the science literacy of the future.

The prescription drug label:  a collection of words and symbols incredibly important to the health and safety of a patient.

According to a study done by the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, exchanging the abstract technical jargon of prescription drug warning labels for “simple, concise language,” led to a 10 percent increase in patient understanding.  When patient compliance may be a matter of life or death, this is a case where clarity matters.

Considering the prescription label as analogous to any form of strategic communication, we can apply the findings of this study to the world of healthcare PR:

Say what you mean

Michael Wolf, associate professor of medicine and of learning sciences at Feinberg and lead author of the study explains, “The study shows the value of a clear message.  A lot of the current warnings were phrased very abstractly and were confusing.  For example, we changed ‘For external use only’ to ‘Use only on your skin.’  We moved from the intangible to the concise.”

Graphics matter

Whether a brand logo or a presentation pie chart, the visual representation of your message must be obvious.  Gone are the days of laundry care symbols that everyone understands.  Wolf describes this  in terms of prescription warnings, “A current and widely used icon of a  pregnant woman resembles an olive.  For most people that probably doesn’t convey pregnancy.  The new design of a silhouette of a pregnant woman with a bump on her stomach was more easily recognizable to patients.”

Be selective

The modern attention span cannot handle too many words or ideas at once.  Pick the right messages for your target audience.  Limit yourself to two or three “must air points”.  In terms of prescription warning labels, the study suggests a limit of two, “Those should include the most important few, and these should have evidence confirming their necessity.”

We recommend that you consider these lessons as they relate to your messaging goals.  And take them once a day with a glass of water.

So suggests Michael Kinsley in his piece “Cut This Story!” in the January/Febuary 2010 edition of the Atlantic. In an interesting twist of meta-analysis, this (not particularly short) article offers a compelling argument for rethinking the lengthy conventions of traditional newspaper reporting.  He provides an alternative theory for why digital media is replacing print among news seekers: the internet gets to the point.

Without the dull, verbose quotes (often those of unfamiliar characters) responsible for turning an editorial into a true piece of reporting, and “context” repeated so often most readers would say, “duh!”, a good newspaper story may actually be straightforward and concise.  These remnants of “legacy code” unfortunately continue to push the instant gratification generation closer towards the brevity of 140 character updates.

Poets can say a lot in a few words, but newspaper reporting shouldn’t have to.  There is, however, something to be said for the reinvention of the conventions.  Keep the research and writing strong, but remember to consider your audience.  The most obvious mistake a communicator can make is forgetting who your audience really is.  The answer may change, and with it should your writing.  We encourage clients to consider their audience, and we as advisers develop our strategy to reach that target.