A believer is someone who accepts something as true. Watch this quick video and see if you’re engaging your believers, wooing agnostics, or trying to convert atheists.
Who are your believers? Are you showing them the love?
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/34043171[/vimeo]
Earlier this week, we looked at how a name can frame an issue or idea. So can color.
The AIDS movement brought “color for a cause” into the mainstream with the red ribbon. Susan G. Komen took it to new heights with pink. They successfully made pink synonymous with breast cancer. From travel mugs to cupcake baking cups, you could pinkify your life and help erase breast cancer. Seemed like a win-win.
At some point, pink fatigue set in. Terms like “pink-washing” and “pink think” popped up. Organizations like Think Before You Pink were created to counter the proliferation of pink products flooding the market.
When the news hit that Komen would no longer fund Planned Parenthood, the pump was primed for some pink bashing. And heads they did a-roll.
Now that the crisis has passed, the question is: what will become of pink?
Here are two options:
#1 Carry on with business as usual
#2 Give pink a second lease on life
Pink is currently framed as the color of breast cancer. Perhaps it should be re-framed more broadly as the color of women’s health.
Breast cancer is a women’s health issue. So are heart disease, depression, and osteoporosis. In North America, women out-live men by up to 10 years and on average 3.1 of those years are reduced quality. We’ve gotta get serious about getting women healthy. Maybe pink can help us do it.
Heck, if red can be the color of choice for both AIDS and heart disease and Valentine’s Day can become Generosity Day, the door’s wide open for pink’s next job to be raising awareness about women’s health so that loads more women can lead happier, healthier lives.
Mind you re-framing wouldn’t be a piece of pink cake. Re-framing takes work. Allison Fine, Beth Kanter, Stephanie Rudat, Amy Sample Ward, Lucy Bernholz, Tom Watson, Lisa Colton, and others kicked things off on Super Bowl Sunday with Take Back the Pink (#takebackthepink). This effort was focused on making pink about breast cancer as a cause, rather than Komen as an organization. It got the ball rolling.
What do you think? What should pink’s next job be? Should pink take on women’s health or stick with breast cancer?
The name you choose matters a whole awful lot when it comes to framing your issue or cause. Take, for instance, Valentine’s Day.
Valentine’s Day’s reputation has taken a dip in recent years as it has become largely synonymous with schtuff–chocolates, roses, teddy bears, teddies. Schtuff.
Sasha Dichter, the man behind the Generosity Experiment, is on a mission to, in his words, “reboot” Valentine’s Day–to make it about generosity instead of schtuff. If he is successful, Valentine’s Day will become Generosity Day, “one day about sharing love with everyone, of being generous to everyone, and to see how it feels and to practice saying ‘Yes’.”
Both Valentine’s Day and Generosity Day are about love. However, the name you use to refer to February 14 reflects your belief about love.
By re-naming the day, Sasha has re-framed what it stands for.
More than 2500 people have taken the Generosity Day pledge. If you believe Valentine’s Day should be about sharing love far and wide, help Sasha re-name and re-frame. Say ‘yes’ to the Generosity Day pledge.
How are you framing your organization, your mission, your cause? Are you good or is it time for a re-frame?
This is the first in a new series called Word of the Week. Each week, we’ll take a different word or expression and look at how it can help you create better messaging, punchier copy, and more engaging content.
This week’s word is FRAMING.
“Framing” refers to how you structure or present your cause or issue.
We frame things largely through word choices. For instance, “drilling for oil” sounds pretty different than “exploring energy options”. Whether we’re spending “government funds” or the “taxpayers’ money” makes us think about those dollars differently. “Pro-life” and “pro-choice” are two different frames on abortion.
Why should you care about framing? Your frame reflects your beliefs. It communicates where you stand on an issue and that, in turn, lets people decide whether they want to stand with you.
Framing is a strategic choice about where you want people to focus. For instance, in 1996, the Canadian government decided to get rid of “unemployment insurance” and usher in “employment insurance”. The goal was to shift the focus from unemployment to finding employment. (It took awhile for people to embrace “EI” instead of “UI” but change is hard, eh?)
Is your organization framed in a way that clearly communicates what you stand for and what you believe?
Tomorrow, we’ll look at how Valentine’s Day is being re-framed. Bring on the generosity, people! (Yes, that was a hint.)
Kivi Leroux Miller is one of the leading voices in DIY nonprofit marketing. Her blog, Kivi’s Nonprofit Communications Blog, is full of practical, do-now tips for do-gooders.
Two weeks ago on her main site, Kivi wrote a piece on the pitfalls of wordiness in messaging and how to fix lengthy writing habits. I got down in the word weeds with a guest post outlining the top five words to avoid in your messaging.
Learn why these words should be booted from your messaging vocabulary:
Pick the one you use too much and then take the One Less Word Challenge. How will you replace it?
The general public is not a target audience! Learn how to avoid this pitfall and focus your message to the people who matter most to your cause.
Believers, Agnostics & Atheists from Claxon Marketing on Vimeo.
Just like the Information Diet challenges us to become more conscious consumers of info, I’d like to challenge us to become more conscious users of words.
I mean, let’s get real: We’re awash in words. The question is are we using the very best words to connect and engage? Hmmmm…probably not.
That’s why I am cordially inviting you to join me in the One Less Word Challenge (#onelessword). I did this challenge last year with the word ‘non-profit’. It’s hard. It’s also extremely effective.
Here’s what you do:
Ah the elusive balance between informing and inspiring. How do you compellingly speak to the features of your work and the benefits while keeping it short n’ sweet?
If you’re wrestling with this, the approach we used for this Microsoft cause campaign might be really handy.
Quick background: To celebrate their first 20 years of certification, Microsoft Learning decided they’d rather create a year-long campaign to create better careers and better lives for aspiring IT pros around the world than blow out 20 candles on a big ol’ cake. For the campaign, there are 20 different ways for established IT pros to pay it forward. The ways will be revealed throughout the year. Three are currently active.
Now for the handy tip: Here are the first three Calls to Action (CTAs). Note that each one follows the same pattern: Feature. Benefit.
The advantage of this approach is that you can inform and inspire. You can inform them of the action you want them to take while inspiring them by showing the difference their action will make.
No single approach works in every instance, but if your audience responds well to the inform/inspire approach, give this one a whirl.
Bonus: Saw this ad while out and about earlier this week. (I was stopped when I took the picture, for the record. ) Washington State Lottery used it on their current bus campaign: “When you play, students win.” Same approach: Feature, benefit. (The picture is lousy but you get the point!)
How do you balance features and benefits?
Earlier this week, news got out that Susan G. Komen had decided to stop funding Planned Parenthood, leaving more than 870,000 women without access to breast cancer screenings. These screenings save lives.
This post isn’t a blow by blow of how this all went down. This post is about silence.
After two days of “no comment”, Nancy G. Brinker, Founder & CEO of Susan G. Komen, released a video. In the video, she never mentions Planned Parenthood. Not once. She talks about the grant review process they initiated in 2010 and how it will affect many of their partners. But no mention of the frenzy swirling around their decision to de-fund one specific partner–Planned Parenthood. Kinda weird. Kinda too bad.
By not addressing the real issue, Brinker’s attempt to “set the record straight” backfires. There were many natural opportunities to mention Planned Parenthood. It didn’t need to be the whole story, but it’s clearly a big piece of the story. Not mentioning it only makes that part of the story a bigger deal.
In today’s world of YouTube, social media and immediate access, you’ve got to be real. Using tactics–like a scripted video–fall flat. They come across as inauthentic, especially when you’ve got an 800 pound gorilla in your video that you don’t so much as bat an eye at!
You can come up with all the great messaging and talking points you want. In a case like this, it doesn’t matter one lick. Why? Because it’s not what you say that matters, it’s what people hear and it’s what they feel. When all you do is put out a tightly controlled speech that is almost completely void of emotion, what people hear is that you don’t really want to set the record straight or, taking it one step further, make it right. You just want the PR craziness to go away.
The only way to truly set the record straight is to engage. Give interviews. Do live webcasts. Blog and respond to comments. Put yourself out there!
The lesson: Silence is not always golden. (Komen should’ve learned this with the Pink Bucket Debacle.) When you do talk, be real. There’s a time and place for speeches and scripts. Now’s not that time. Now’s the time to be real. A lot of women are depending on it.
NOTE: If you’re interested in great coverage on this story, check out Kivi Leroux Miller’s post. She’s become a one-woman Komen-Planned Parenthood news channel and is doing an exceptional job. I’m grateful for all her tireless work on this.
Eye-catching adjectives (and adverbs) can enliven an otherwise ho-hum hunk of copy. But you have to be careful how you use them. If you overuse them, you risk irritating or boring your reader. They are, after all, extra words and each word takes time to read, so you have to make each word worth their while.
To help you avoid adjective awkwardness, here are three Rules of Thumb for effectively using adjectives in mission-driven messaging.
This is a mash-up from a variety of sources. If you want to dig deeper, I recommend Roger Dooley’s Neuromarketing blog and Jason Cohen’s post 10 Secrets to More Magnetic Copy on Copyblogger.