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July 25, 2006
His Master's Voice Turns Real
The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) used a cute black and white dog sitting next to a speaker to promote its new true to life music recordings beginning in the 1930s. The dog, Nipper, is drawn to his master's voice, faithfully projected from the new fangled audio system and the LP, or long playing record (yes folks, I am old enough to have a record collection courtesy of my wife and we still play Grateful Dead albums). Reading Jonathan Alter's new book, The Defining Moment; FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope over the weekend, I found an insight that might help executives address the current dispersed media environment.
Alter describes President Franklin Roosevelt's "fireside chats," his nationwide radio broadcasts, as "talk(ing) to people as individuals instead of as crowds, a revolutionary change in mass communications..." Roosevelt was sitting in the Oval Office in 1933 working on his first radio address, on the intense banking crisis that had forced the closure of all financial institutions for a bank holiday to stop runs on the bank at the height of the Depression. He saw a workman disassembling the scaffolding from his Inauguration and "decided to make a speech that this workman could understand...I really made the speech to him."
Alter goes on to say, "It is hard to exaggerate the power of this impression of public intimacy that Roosevelt pioneered. For thousands of years, political leaders delivered orations; the need to project one's speaking voice to the back of the audience made public addresses formal...the effect was usually that of a harangue...these speeches used emotion to control, not reason to communicate...Roosevelt used the microphone for a new softer connection to the hearts of his listeners.
Alter reports that Will Rogers, the cowboy comedian, said of Roosevelt's first fireside chat, "He made everyone understand it, even the bankers. He is the first Harvard man to know enough to drop three syllables when he has something to say. Why compared to me, he is almost illiterate."
What's the lesson for those of us in business? When we communicate at present, we are often more concerned about avoiding a mistake than about clarity and simplicity. We utilize language that only lawyers can love. We opt for formal and infrequent addresses instead of a genuine discussion. What we need instead is to project our real voice, our human foibles and the agonizing process by which we reach decisions. Faceless and facile did not work for FDR and it does not work for corporations today.
The globalization of business is diminishing the opportunity for face to face interaction that overcomes suspicion. At the same time, we have an ever more complex set of products and business structures that require a degree of trust on the part of stakeholders. Straight talk is at the core of building a successful relationship. Let's take FDR's example and use a real voice for business, by developing bloggers at all levels of a corporation, from CEO to product developer to marketing executive. In doing so, we would be opting for credibility over control; we would be positioned to listen and learn.
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Posted by Edelman at July 25, 2006 10:40 AM |
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Comments
Excellent points and our own Pontus Nystrom(Edelman Sweden) said it in an even simpler way: "my job is to get corporates to talk like people".
Posted by: david brain at July 25, 2006 12:17 PM
I enjoyed the FDR reference. I recall being struck by Mario Cuomo and his use of a similar conversational style when he addressed the 1984 Democratic National Covention. In contrast to Kennedy's thunderous 1980 address, Cuomo's low key delivery also proved very powerful.
Regarding corporate bloggers, I think it's similar in some ways to trying to convince some executives, even today, to participate in television news interviews. Assuming they have something to say, some have figured out that instead of taking a beating on a 90 second news segment, they can fill some of that time delivering their own message and actually communicating even much more than that. They're apprehensive because they don't trust the medium, and many never will. Of course, what it really looks like is they don't trust the viewers (their customers).
Blogging takes it a step further because not only are execs uncertain of the medium, but also they're scared to death about what all the messengers will say. As you well know, the conversation is taking place and will continue take place with or without them. The number of people influenced by those conversations is growing every day.
I wonder if FDR were alive today, if he'd be sitting by that fire with his laptop - having another kind of fireside chat.
Posted by: Leo Bottary at July 25, 2006 1:22 PM
Leo's comments make me think of something which has been tried in Europe in the last years. Some Members of the European Commission have held online Q&A sessions on their policies concerning Europe, thus tried to make the conversation real with anyone interested in joining through internet.
There are also blogs by politicians holding office, such as http://weblog.jrc.ec.europa.eu/page/wallstrom which is held by the V-P of the Commission. Yet, most of her colleagues would never want to do this - some of them cannot even type on a pc.
One other example is the Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs, who also is now the holding the Presidency of the European Union. Mr Tuomioja has his minimalist blog at http://formin.finland.fi/public/default.aspx?nodeid=34772&contentlan=2&culture=en-US
These are small steps, but slowly, slowly, democracy and politics will return closer to the citizen. If only the citizens were interested - but that's another story.
Posted by: teemu at July 26, 2006 9:13 AM
Richard -- I think your point is well taken. All marketing is a conversation between consumers and, in theory, the product. Whether that marketing is the 'Just do it' Nike ads -- or press releases and articles talking about Ipods in shoes -- the conversation is the point.
I often think that communication professionals spend too much time trying to out do their own mind. Nike's slogan is direct and to the point -- and that is the real truth behind winning in advertising. You don't need to explain 'Just do it' -- it explains itself in numerous ways.
If we can just limit our press releases and pitches to a few words, or a few lines, we might have better luck.
My thought is that a press release is the bait -- yet day after day I see term papers sent out to the media. As PR professionals we need to be as concise as possible -- and provide a conversation rather than a dissertation.
Posted by: Chris McTague at July 28, 2006 6:09 PM
We had one client who insisted that the press kit for Comdex each year was larger than the year before. This size issue is serious and very counterproductive. Thanks for reading my blog
Posted by: Richard Edelman at July 31, 2006 10:22 AM