The Power of Finding New Ways To Communicate The Same Important Message

The goal is to find new and relatable ways to continue to be fresh, relevant and impactful.

Finding a new, relatable way to communicate the same important message is a strong and intelligent communication strategy. I abide by this logic myself in speaking engagements, trainings and when I consult. The same thinking needs to be applied to your communications. Whether we’re talking about your marketing communications, your crisis prevention communications or your crisis management communications, this logic applies.

Why?

Because messages can grow stale and become redundant. When this happens, people stop listening. The message becomes a cliché and loses its impact. For this reason, it’s important to freshen up your communications and find new and impactful ways to get your message across.

Budweiser know’s what I’m talking about!

I recently came across the following new Budweiser commercial and I thought “well done, Budweiser!” What they’ve done here is found a new way to communicate an age-old, but still important message. The message is not to drink and drive.

Think about the different campaigns you’ve seen over the years, all with an emotionally impactful way to try to instil this message. From seeing gory footage of graphic accidents, to the devastation of losing a child, and the list goes on.

What Budweiser remembered while creating this new campaign is that 1) we’re all different, and 2) we’re all three dimensional. For example, for some people it takes gore to get through to them and for others the thought of losing – or taking the life of – a child will do it. But what about those who don’t fit into either category? Perhaps those who don’t have children so, though the thought of a child lost is sad, this type of emotion may not relate to them personally.

It’s import to always be looking for new ways to relate to your stakeholders. New ways to reach them on an emotional level, because that’s when you’ll really reach them.

Within this advertisement, Budweiser pulled on different heart strings than the ones we’re used to having pulled for this particular message. For that reason, it stood out (and melted my own heart) and will relate and speak to a different category of audiences (with some overlap, for sure) – maybe even preventing a few bad decisions as a result, which is the ultimate goal.

Take a look at what I mean and then get to thinking about your own communications. In what new way can you reshape a particularly important message as a fresh and relatable, emotionally compelling story?