Monday Morning Media Minute

“Words. Just words. ‘We hold these truths to be self evident . . .’” You know the rest.

But I’m not going to write about plagiarism. I want to focus on messages.

I see a lot of confusion – even by PR professionals – about messaging.

When I ask people for their messages, all too often what I get is long list of stuff – facts, persuasion points, the kitchen sink.

That tells me they don’t really have a message.

Your message is the one or two things you want your audience to remember. To work, your message has to be:

• Simple enough to remember. My rule of thumb is you should be able to state your message in 15 seconds or less. It’s not about the 15 seconds. It’s about honing your message to its essence so it’ll be remembered. A common mistake is trying to say too much.

• Relevant to your audience. Everybody’s favorite subject is me. If your message isn’t relevant to me, I won’t remember it. I may not even hear it. Too many people make the mistake of talking to and about themselves.
• Meaningful to your audience. The higher the stakes for me, the more impact your message will have on me. People pay more attention to messages about conservation when prices are high or supplies are limited. They pay more attention to messages about the economy in tough times than in good ones. Find a way to raise the stakes for your audience and your message will have more impact.

Does that mean all those facts people include in their kitchen-sink lists don’t matter? Not at all. They can be important in providing the substance you need to make your message convincing. But they’re not your message. They’re support for your message. Focus on getting your audience to hear, understand and remember your message. The rest is backup.

A couple more things to keep in mind:

• Don’t speak in jargon your audience won’t understand. I didn’t say always skip the jargon. In fact, if your audience uses the same jargon you do then it’s the best language for communicating with them. But if your audience doesn’t regularly use your jargon, you’re speaking a language they won’t understand.

• Try to frame the argument to your advantage. Another common mistake is allowing yourself to have the wrong debate. If I ask you: “Was it a case of stupidity or incompetence,” it doesn’t matter what you say if you respond by talking about incompetence and stupidity. You audience will remember those two words. You lose, no matter what you say. Find a way to reframe the issue: “Neither. It was a case of dedicated people doing their best under difficult circumstances.” Now, you have a chance of winning the argument. Or at least keeping it from doing you damage.

That’s my two cents’ worth. What’s yours?

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The Monday Morning Media Minute is now available as an eBook. My new eStore features five eBooks based on the Media Minute. To check them out, visit my eStore and buy early and often. The eBooks come as PDF files. You don’t need special eBook software to read them.

Is Roger Clemens turning himself into another Pete Rose – a star athlete destroying his own reputation by breaking the rules and then denying the undeniable?

Or is he the victim of a no-win media mugging where he’s “guilty” no matter what he says or does and with no way to get his reputation back?

I have my answers to those questions. If you care about the Clemens saga, you probably have yours.

If Clemens is guilty of illegally using drugs to help his baseball career, then his strong denials are the worst possible strategy. The louder and longer he protests, the higher the cost and the bigger the loss of credibility if and when he’s proven guilty. In Clemens’ case, definitive proof of guilt could put him in prison because it would also be proof of perjury.

It’s easy to see why star athletes like Rose or Clemens (if guilty) get themselves into the position of defending the indefensible.

Their whole careers are based on being best. The financial and ego rewards that go with being the best are a big part of who they are. The stakes are extremely high for them.

But they’re not the only ones who wait too long to admit mistakes and do what they can to fix them.

Anyone familiar with Crisis Communication 101 knows better than to keep denying the undeniable. The trick is to step up to the challenge of doing the right thing – or getting your clients to step up to doing the right thing.

One more point. From where I sit, all the participants in last week’s congressional hearing on the Clemens saga come out of the hearing as losers.

Fairly or not, Clemens looked guilty. Trainer Brian McNamee may have hurt Clemens. But he certainly didn’t come across as a Boy Scout trying to do the right thing. He looks like someone trying to cash in on his notoriety.

And members of House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform who held the hearing? How did they manage to turn this hearing into a partisan fight? Did anyone who watched the hearing believe committee members had any legislative purpose for the hearing? Their agenda seemed pretty straightforward – election-year politics.

The moral of this part of the story for the rest of us?

Like it or not, what you say is only part of your message. The context in which you say it will be part of your message when you deliver it. So, crafting the right words is only part of your challenge. The right words won’t do you any good if the context in which you deliver them means they won’t be believed.

That’s my two cents’ worth. What’s yours?

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The Monday Morning Media Minute is now available as an eBook. My eStore features five eBooks based on the Media Minute. To check them out, visit my eStore and buy early and often. The eBooks come as PDF files. You don’t need special eBook software to read them.

“Controversy” and “negative” aren’t synonyms. And making the mistake of believing they are can get in the way of telling your story effectively. In fact, it often does.

Sometimes you can’t tell your story effectively without having an argument with people who disagree with what you have to say or what you want to do.

There’s some risk involved. If might lose the argument. But trying to avoid having an argument that’s inevitable rarely works.

Telling your story effectively means stepping up to telling the parts of it that are hard to tell. Unless you can do that clearly and convincingly, you won’t do a clear, convincing job of telling your story.

That’s my two cents’ worth. What’s yours?

“It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.”

That’s the punch line of Words That Work by Dr. Frank Luntz. He then goes on to write about how to craft your message so people hear it.

For those of you not familiar with his work, Luntz is a pollster who specializes in finding words and phrases that will help his clients sell their products or ideas. Luntz is best known for his work for Fox News and on behalf of Republican politicians. And he’s generated his share of controversy. There are many who disagree with the results of his work, although even his critics acknowledge he’s extremely effective.

I’ve had Words That Work on my reading list for a long time. It’s a fascinating book. I recommend it to anyone who makes their living with words and persuasion.

Here are Luntz’s 10 rules of successful communication:

1. Simplicity: Use small words. “The more simply and plainly an idea is presented, the more understandable it is – and therefore the more credible it will be.”
2. Brevity: Use short sentences. “The most memorable political language is rarely longer than a sentence.”
3. Credibility is as important as philosophy. “Tell people who you are or what you do. Then be that person and do what you have said you would do.”
4. Consistency matters. “Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Good language is like the Energizer Bunny. It keeps going . . . and going . . . and going.”
5. Novelty: Say something new. “There’s a simple test to determine whether or not your message has met this rule. If it generates an ‘I didn’t know that’ response, you have succeeded.”
6. Sound and texture matter. “The sounds and texture of language should be just as memorable as the words themselves. A string of words that have the same first letter, the same sound, or the same syllabic cadence is more memorable than a random collection of sounds.”
7. Speak aspirationally. “Messages need to say what people want to hear. This is the one area where politicians often have the edge over the corporate community.”
8. Visualize. “Paint a vivid picture. From M&M’s ‘Melts in your mouth not in your hand’ to Morton Salt’s ‘When it rains, it pours’ to NBC’s ‘Must See TV,’ the slogans we remember for a lifetime almost always have a strong visual component, something we can see and almost feel.”
9. Ask a question. “‘Is it live or is it Memorex?’ ‘Where do you want to go today?’ (Microsoft) ‘Can you hear me now?’ (Verizon Wireless). ‘Got milk?’ may be the most memorable print ad campaign of the past decade. The creator realized, whether intentionally or not, that it’s sometimes not what you say but what you ask that really matters.”
10. Provide context and explain relevance. “You have to give people the ‘why’ of a message before you tell them the ‘therefore’ and the ‘so what.’ Some people call this framing. I prefer the word context, because it better explains why a particular message matters.”

That’s my two cents’ worth. And, in this case, Frank Luntz’s. What’s yours?