How to Do Government, Public Service and General Well-fare Storytelling
- Kralingen
- Aug 10
- 5 min read
In the tumultuous world of today, more and more hinges on governments doing an good job in governing. As all things, this starts with the story they convey. Yet, a lot of general welfare messaging is still not up to par, even in a world that has been perfecting its branding and marketing messages. Today we use a simple example to demonstrate how best to communicate to the public as a public body: fireworks. As it all comes down to personal relevance.
Sender Function and Receiver Emotion
In all communications, there is a sender and a receiver of a message. The sender has the tendency to communicate functional benefits of its product, service or concept because they understand what it does. Yet, the receiver of these messages processes them in their own mind through emotions. We won't get in depth on those workings here, but it's worth covering the basics quickly (a list of tricks is here).
All human communications started from one single source: emotions. Our emotions are physical signals from the body that jump start processes in our neurons and hormones - the most famous of them being fight, flight or freeze responses - in order to raise our chances of surviving and thriving. These emotions function as signals within ourselves, yet since we are a social species they are also communicated outwards to others in order to help them survive and thrive as well. Hence, the hundreds of different emotions we communicate through our body stances, our eyes, gestures and even our mouths and eyebrows.
To convey these emotions even better, we started using specific grunts and noises, which we later translated into more elaborate signals and symbols in drawings and writings, developing languages and dialects to better spread out useful information to each other. Down the line we started using music, dance and numbers, all the way to the different media we use today such as paintings, photography, film and even street art. The gist however, remains the same: we communicate messages to receivers, so they understand what we as senders are trying to say. And the best way to do that is to add emotion to the message, so our core understanding from when we were cave-dwellers is triggered.
Personal Relevance and Fireworks
In communication theory we refer to these messages as having personal relevance: a good story or message needs something that the receiver relates to in their feelings on a personal level. As a result this is also the right approach in general welfare communication or messages from a government authority that try to stimulate good behavior from the masses.
The example we use today to get a better understanding of this is communication surrounding the use of fireworks. The Netherlands is famous for shooting millions of Euros in fireworks up into the air during New Year’s Eve. It’s a great tradition. But those fireworks can be dangerous. Therefore, the government feels obliged to issue a general welfare warning.
What we’ve seen over the decades is that different campaign angles have different results, depending on just how personally relevant the messages were. If the government campaign has a general message – fireworks are dangerous - the campaign does not work well. If the government shows what fireworks can do to you personally, the campaign works very well in reducing accidents.
The Cognitive Dissonance at the Heart of General Welfare Communications
In general welfare communications there is an irony at work: everyone agrees that fireworks are dangerous. Yet we tend to dismiss the danger to ourselves. We apply something that is called ‘cognitive dissonance’. We basically tell ourselves that while generally speaking it might be dangerous, it doesn’t apply to us personally, because we feel we know how to handle danger.
Cognitive dissonance is the equivalent of jaywalking. A red light sends the same signal to all of us – a generally accepted message - telling us not to cross the street. Yet almost all cultures jaywalk (except maybe the Japanese). We all agree the general rule is good. But to apply it to our personal behavior is a different thing all together. We create a distance or dissonance from it, thinking we can handle it, and walk through the red light.
Therefore, the campaign that brought a significant drop in accidents in my country surrounding fireworks was a tv-commercial with people who had severed limbs. Their message? “I too thought I’d never be in danger” or "I thought I could handle fireworks", just before they would show people with injuries. It hits home because that message allows our minds to build the imaginary construct of ourselves losing a limb with fireworks. Hence, it becomes personally relevant.
As a social animal we can empathize with that message because it is exactly what we thought too: "Others are in danger, not me, I can handle myself". In other words, the message is deconstructed in our receiver minds as something that we already thought about ourselves... before it adds the injuries. In essence, it confronts us with the fact that we thought the same as those who do have injuries. As a result, most people change their behavior and become more cautious with fireworks.
The Paradox of Global Warming Messaging
General welfare messaging only works when it’s personally relevant. It’s a cool paradox: the more personal you get, the more you reach large masses.
Personal relevance comes from personal choice. This harks back to the principle of telling the whole or entire story: telling only the solution, or the function, is never enough. The irony is that people will probably believe that you have a good product, service, or message. They might even trust the sender. They just won’t respond or change their behavior without that personal relevance.
This applies to bigger issues as well. Let's take a hot issue right now, quite literally, and pick global warming. If people don’t feel the heat due to Global Warming for instance, they are much less likely to respond to calls of being environmentally conscious. If, however, their crops start to suffer from the heat, they will join the cause, as we now see many farmers in the world do. Many farmers I might add, who first vehemently resisted even the idea of global warming.
Now, if you wish to put people in that right frame of mind who did not have personal experience with global warming, you have to make sure that you understand their thoughts and emotions. in this case understanding that - however counterintuitive it may seem to you as the sender - that the receiver may not care for, or understand or even believe in global warming. Yet, if you put them in the shoes of those who have suffered from it, they apply empathy, whatever their political color or outlook on life, since that is the natural thing for an empathetic social species to do.
If One Person Gets It, Everyone Gets It
You must make your message tangible enough for one person to have everyone understand. Even (or especially!) when you have global messages concerning things like the environment or a pandemic or natural disaster. Relate to one person, and you will reach many.
And you also don't have to fear adding the conflict, the challenge, the negative. As long as you make it personally relevant, with a personal fear or a personal joy or a personal benefit, you can go all the way into the heart. And that, ultimately, is the key to all government and public service storytelling.
Luv, as always,
Rogier
(This blog has used parts of The Whole Story book)
