Category: Articles

As part of its internship program, Navigator asks its interns to write a blog post about the intersection of communications and an area of personal interest. First up, resident sports fan Lewis Krashinksy.

The sport’s world is no stranger to scandal. From Kobe Bryant, to Tiger Woods, to the NFL’s frequent troubles, you would think every athlete would be prepared to handle a crisis. However, unlike politicians, celebrities and corporate leaders –who have issues managers, publicists and outside consultants on staff –it isn’t standard practice for the average professional athlete. It’s standard for your superstar athlete (like a Lance Armstrong) but for an average infielder or a promising draft pick in the NCAA, not so much.

On April 22, Major League Baseball shocked Toronto Blue Jays fans by announcing first basemen Chris Colabello’s 80-game suspension for using a banned performance-enhancing drug. Just six days later, ten minutes before the start of the 2016 NFL draft, a video of top-prospect Laremy Tunsil taking a bong hit surfaced online. The video of Tunsil went viral and questions of his character abounded. He was a consensus top-five projected pick before the draft, who ended up being picked thirteenth, despite the fact that his ability to play football has not changed. But, his slide from the fifth draft pick to the thirteenth cost him roughly $8 million.

If you look up the definition of crisis communications in a textbook, you’ll find it defined as the management of an individual or organization’s relations with, and approach to, the media during a time of intense attention, speculation and outrage. In the school of hard knocks, it’s defined as how you respond to a physical and virtual mob of journalists after you have done something to generate the public’s ire. The consequences can be rather painful. For example, it only took one week of intense media coverage for then Governor of New York Elliot Spitzer to resign after the New York Times reported his ties to a prostitution ring. For professional athletes, the consequences are different. With Colabello, it’s missing games, for Tunsil it’s plummeting in the draft rankings. Regardless of whether you’re a politician or an athlete, when crisis hits, you need a plan.

In general, professional athletes tend to have a bank of goodwill with the public. Colabello, in particular, had a heartwarming underdog story of working his way up after seven seasons in Independent League Baseball and an unimpressive turn with the Minnesota Twins, suddenly hitting his stride with the Blue Jays. However, Colabello only has one good partial season to bank on, so he has little insurance to withstand the consequences of this crisis.

Colabello and his advisors tried to make the best out of a challenging situation. After the story broke and media attention exploded, Colabello did not make himself available to the press immediately. He released a brief statement through the MLBPA explaining his side. This was a sound play. Media scrums can be intimidating and, if you’re not used to them, they can quickly spiral out of your control. It’s a journalist’s job to ask tough and direct questions; Colabello’s job is to hit baseballs. Had he faced the press in a scrum immediately, it would not have been a fair matchup.

Instead, several days later, he gave a lengthy, well-prepared interview with a single journalist from Sportsnet. This allowed him and his team to develop answers to the toughest questions, practice delivery, and let attention on the story abate, at least marginally. At minimum, Colabello was able to deliver a comprehensive and consistent response. He essentially denied that he knew he was taking drugs. The verdict? A hung jury. Opinion is split between those those who think Colabello is a cheater and others who think he’s just stupid. Not exactly a home run, but it could have been much worse.

Laremy Tunsil’s situation got worse after the NFL entry draft. His Instagram account was hacked with photos of an alleged text conversation between Tunsil and John Miller, Assistant Athletic Director at his alma mater, Ole Miss. The conversation involved Tunsil asking Miller to pay his family’s rent, which would violate NCAA rules.

However, unlike Colabello, Tunsil does not have to defend the ‘integrity of the game’ or face teammates and judgements of betrayal. Tunsil’s crisis has a more personal aspect, involving family, his private life, and ad hominem evaluations. But, Tunsil suffered by not having a thoughtful crisis response plan. On the night of the draft and in the immediate days after, Tunsil spoke to several reporters and answered questions without anything resembling a strategy. Unlike Colabello, Tunsil didn’t actively lie—or at least that’s the perception— and he even seems to be the victim of betrayal himself. But there remains a lingering smell of scandal. Thankfully for Tunsil, whether or not the scandal hangs around will probably hinge more on his performance with the Miami Dolphins than his response to the press.

Both Colabello and Tunsil stand in stark contrast to a professional athlete who has managed the international spotlight her entire career and is in the midst of a scandal of her own. Maria Sharapova did something rare in sports: she admitted to doping. That alone was enough to set her response apart from the now routine denials that come from athletes caught up with PEDs. At the time, it seemed like she handled the situation with a perfect response plan. Coming forth herself rather than speaking through representatives, she accepted the allegations head-on and accepted the consequences. The drug (meldonium) wasn’t banned until Jan. 1, 2016, so Sharapova’s use of the drug wasn’t an issue until this year. She claims she began taking it as a teen at the advice of her physician, for health reasons unrelated to competition, and that she only recently became aware that it is a banned substance. Her management of the situation was praised, with competitors like Serena Williams stating it took ‘a lot of courage.’

But, as is the case with politicians and celebrities, some scandals have many lives. New details have come to light related to Sharapova’s case. The entire national under-18 Russian hockey team was pulled from the world championships for using the same drug and there are rumblings of state-sponsored doping. Consequently, some feel Sharapova lied and that her drug use was calculated. Others feel that the International Tennis Federation is using her as an example. In the past, tennis authorities have been criticized for lax or selective rules on doping. Sharapova’s age and declining tennis game make her an easier target to demonstrate that the sport takes doping seriously than a young athlete at the height of their career. Sharapova is the world’s highest-paid female athlete and her suspension is a high-profile case.

So where does this leave the superstar? For starters, tennis is not her only line of business. She has her own ‘Sugarpova’ line of candy, clothing and accessories. Following the doping scandal, her Nike, TAG Heuer and Porsche sponsors dropped her, but she is a brand in her own right. This month, she attended the MET Gala, a major event for fashion and celebrities. Despite increased media scrutiny from the drug scandal, she isn’t hiding. Instead she is putting herself front-and-centre in ways that can benefit her other ventures. She is taking charge of the narrative and changing the conversation. While Colabello and Tunsil don’t have their own brands they can fall back on, the tactic still applies.

Sharapova is giving the media other things to talk about besides her scandal and using the attention to highlight different parts of her image. Colabello and Tunsil could do the same, be it charitable events, community engagement or a winning season. Either way, both can take a lesson from the tennis star: no matter the scandal, with careful planning, there’s always a way forward.

2016 is already shaping up to be a milestone year for Canadian talent online. Drake’s new album Views sold a record 600,000 copies in the first 24 hours of its release. In March, Justin Bieber became the first (Canadian) artist ever to hit 10 billion views on YouTube. Even the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau received his own measure of viral YouTube fame when he surprised everyone with an explanation of quantum computing, garnering over 1.4 million views on the platform.

Not only are Canadians making their mark on the online realm, we also happen to be the most voracious and consummate users of digital content. The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) Factbook shows Canadians are more likely than Americans to watch online video and spend more time doing so. Seventy-four per cent of the Canadian population streams video, versus 63 per cent of people in the United States, plus we watch 43 per cent more minutes of video than our American counterparts. And when it comes to streaming our favourite tunes, more than half of Canadians claim they stream their music videos on YouTube, according to a 2015 CRTC report.

With a growing number of users ‘cutting the cord’ (or at least thinking about it) on cable services, Canada’s content providers and the Canadian government are starting to pay attention to what Canadians are watching online, and some with more trepidation than others. While Canadian users have welcomed the online world with open arms for many years, some critics would say Canada’s biggest broadcasters have been slow to embrace the digital age.

CanCon Review

On April 23, Heritage Minister Melanie Joly announced the government is undertaking a massive review of existing Canadian content (CanCon) rules. For industry watchers, this comes as an unprecedented and politically-driven process that could halt Canadian regulators’ ongoing efforts to deregulate the broadcasting and telecommunications industries in their tracks. A review of this size has not been undertaken since 1991, more than 25 years ago, before YouTube or Netflix ever existed. At the time, the lofty goal was to “encourage the development of Canadian expression by providing a wide range of programming that reflects Canadian attitudes, opinions, ideas, values and artistic creativity.”

The review will look at overhauling the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and the Broadcasting Act to include digital content under Heritage Canada’s purview. Current Canadian content rules mandate a certain percentage of all broadcasting content must include Canadian programming and broadcast companies must contribute financially to its production. For instance, 35% of the popular music played on commercial radio stations between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. must be Canadian content — which is why you probably hear Justin Bieber and Drake more often than not on these channels.

Internet experts and advocates have largely stayed silent in the wake of the big announcement, and not because it was announced on a lazy Saturday morning. The consultations are at such an early stage and there is so little information on what the new government’s approach will be that many are taking a ‘wait and see’ attitude. Even so, some of the questions on the pre-consultation public survey are a dead giveaway that the government may be seriously considering extending CanCon to the digital world.

What we do know about the Liberal government’s digital policy is sparse. The election platform made a few token references to ‘open data’ and investing in Canada’s cultural and creative industries, but largely threw out Marc Garneau’s 2011 digital policy. The Liberal Party of Canada has traditionally been a virulent defender of CanCon rules, but in many ways, Joly has a blank slate to re-write Heritage Canada’s mandate over the CRTC.

In line with other department-wide reviews, Heritage Canada is hoping to go beyond special interests and industry players in this consultation to get at the heart of what Canadians actually expect from their digital content. In her statement, Joly pointed out: ‘We strongly believe in the importance of consulting Canadians across the country to help us shape this process.’ A grassroots approach to this review is perhaps the best way for the government to ensure average Canadians have a say on a tightly-regulated, top-down industry.

The Canadian Internet

There have been few technologies that have challenged national borders and identity the way the Internet has. After the Gutenberg press, no other system of communication has helped instigate everything from political revolutions to overnight viral cultural sensations.

Some countries have come to view the Internet with suspicion, even as a threat to political stability, or something meriting a base level of government oversight. Some have tried to put a fence around it and give it ‘national borders’, by either filtering or censoring the online content their citizens receive. All this to say, the Internet is not a uniform entity across countries. The Internet that North Americans see, or even Canadians for that matter, is very different than the one experienced in other parts of the world.

So is there a Canadian Internet?

If there was, we would need to assume it has adopted or would adopt many of the characteristics and principles we value as Canadians. For example, some would characterize the Canadian Internet as an open and equalizing tool, one that encourages innovation, creativity, and respect for diversity of identity and opinion. The Canadian Internet would not necessarily serve government or corporate interests, but those of civil society and the Canadian people writ large.

Other Internet advocates would expect fairness to be a key feature of Canada’s online landscape, where certain content would not be prioritized or blocked out over other content for political or business purposes. This principle is usually known by another name — net neutrality.

Finally, some experts would want the Canadian Internet to strike a balance between the intellectual property rights of creators and the ownership rights of consumers over the content they purchase — a nod to the fundamental tenets of the classical liberal tradition: respect for the rule of law and property rights.

A Canadian Digital Renaissance

Even if Canadians do have the power to reign in such a powerful tool and re-shape the way digital content is produced in this country, more thought must be given to the future than to the past where such regulations are concerned or merited. As they currently stand, are Canadian content rules the best way to encourage Canadian artists and innovators to flourish online in a new digital renaissance?

Looking to the experts, we can piece together some foundational answers. A 2011 joint study by the OECD, Internet Society, and UNESCO found that ‘there is a strong correlation between the development of network infrastructure and the growth of local content’. In short, countries with developed Internet infrastructure, and who reported competitive local prices for Internet access, had substantially more developed local content online. Clear laws and regulations on telecommunications and intellectual property were also important factors that could enhance local content, according to a 2014 Internet Governance Forum report, with the caveat that those same rights should not inhibit local content creation by imposing unreasonable and costly barriers to access.

What experts seem to be getting at is there is a middle ground where local content does not need to be shielded from foreign influence if there are base-level supports, such as competitively priced and developed Internet infrastructure, as well as balanced intellectual property rights. Moreover, Canadian content producers will need to focus on quality over quantity when becoming and remaining competitive online. In a world where five-second ads are symptomatic of the online user’s attention span, content creators can only succeed in a realm where they are given the tools to stand out to a wider audience, rather than have their audience narrowed for them through archaic broadcasting rules.

To some extent, the CRTC has already taken steps in de-regulating CanCon rules to help content producers find the resources to compete in the digital age. For instance, relaxing CanCon rules for daytime TV and ignoring digital content producers in the 2014 Let’s Talk TV discussions helped creators beef up their original content budgets. Even Canada’s entry into the Trans-Pacific Partnership promises to break down market access barriers not just for foreign-produced content, but also open up new doors for made-in-Canada online forays.

At the end of the day, tightening up digital content rules in the CanCon overhaul is the least helpful avenue for ensuring the survival of Canadian content ‘that reflects Canadian attitudes, opinions, ideas, values and artistic creativity.’ Like many other savvy online users, Canadians have demonstrated they will be resourceful in accessing the content they want. Efforts would be better directed towards perfecting online Canadian content through a competitive market rather than shutting out the universe of creative exchange online.

Not everyone cares about pop culture or celebrities, which is fine. But when a particular celebrity supersedes what we think of as a celebrity, when she is a veritable brand master of the first degree ‘ perhaps it would serve us all well, whether pop culture devotees or not, to take note. Aside from the talent, the insane work ethic and the fact that she is considered by many to be one of the greatest entertainers of all time, Beyonc’ has a perfectly crafted and maintained public image. My Microsoft Word, my web spell-checker, and my iPhone all autocorrect regular no-accent-aigu-Beyonce to properly accented Beyonc’, and I never had to tell any of them to do it; her supremacy is so undeniable, she’s dictionary.

Over the weekend she dropped her latest album, Lemonade, on HBO and on TIDAL. We haven’t heard much from her in between this release and her previous album, which surprised everyone at the end of 2013. In a time of over-sharing on every platform imaginable, Beyonc’ has demonstrated a master class in restraint. While other celebrities throw out every photo and personal detail of their life, expound on their ‘everyday’ activities and attempt to seem ‘just like us’ to some extent ‘ Beyonc’ delights in setting herself apart and refusing to compromise her standard. Instead, she drops hints and clues. Nothing is given away that isn’t part of an overarching narrative and hasn’t been tailored to suit the moment in which she chooses to reveal whatever it is that she is revealing. Her silence is just as powerful and telling as her presence. She demands to be studied and analyzed.

The Business

The Beygency. The Illuminati. There are many names (and rumours) for the team that works to protect Beyonc’s image. No one knows for sure how they operate, but their influence is vast. Beyonc’ dabbled in ventures here and there ‘ she and her mother started the House of Dereon in 2006 ‘ but it wasn’t until she launched her online presence that Beyonc’ the business really became apparent.

It started with Tumblr. Tumblr is a blogging platform that has been around since 2007. In 2011, it was home to Barack Obama’s blog, and in 2012, it was home to Beyonc’s. Tumblr is a culture unto itself. Depending on the blogging topic, it is mainstream or incredibly insider, it is weird or deeply personal, it is spontaneous or highly curated. Tumblr bloggers can follow each other, so it’s also a social networking site. Unlike other blogging platforms, it allows for a lot ‘ both content-wise and format-wise. It is home to polished blogs and messes of images, gifs, and haphazard text, but mostly, it represents a lot of personality. Beyonc’s blog (beyonce.tumblr.com, which obviously outgrew the platform — you can still see what it looked like on iam.beyonce.com) was a revelation because it was unexpected.

And here Beyonc’ showed how one should partake in social media: engaging on the every person’s platform, but engaging in a way that only furthers her distinctiveness. Does your Tumblr look like Beyonc’s? Of course not. Does Beyonc’ use Tumblr the way you and your friends do? Don’t be ridiculous. So why is Beyonc’ on Tumblr? Ostensibly, to reveal a more intimate side of herself. In actuality, it’s to show you just how good (and therefore, how much better than you) she is at Tumblr. Now, obviously, being Beyonc’ is beyond aspirational, but being distinctive isn’t. The purpose of social media isn’t necessarily to be relatable, but to be somewhat personal, so capitalizing on what makes your particular organization or cause unique is exactly the point. For Beyonc’, that particular thing happens to be that everything is curated to the smallest detail of an exactness only she knows. For us mere mortals, it means how is what you are doing and how you’re doing it, different from what anyone else is doing. Basically, what about it is inimitable, and therefore, memorable.

Her husband didn’t do quite as a good of a job. Around the same time Beyonc’ went for Tumblr, Jay-Z created his website, Life + Times. Even then though, Beyonce’s site was better and Jay-Z’s considered a mess. Jay-Z’s site was referred to as the new GOOP (Gwyneth Paltrow’s site) because it seemed to be full of content that only other rich people would actually want to consume. It can be a fine line to draw, but it’s there. Inimitable is a quality, or a feeling, or a perspective. And it’s consistent, because it’s inherent to you, your issue, or your approach. In 2013, she took this to the next level and dropped a surprise album. The delivery and absolute secrecy surrounding the event were the exact opposite of what everyone else did or was doing with any new release. While others have followed, it has become her trademark.

The Big Picture

The Elevator ‘ if you are unaware ‘ is an infamous event in Beyonc’s otherwise immaculate public image. For years, there were low-level rumblings about her husband’s (Jay-Z, aka Sean Carter) infidelities, but they had been only rumours with nothing real to substantiate them. Then in May of 2014 after the MET Gala, elevator footage caught Solange Knowles, Beyonc’s younger sister, attacking Jay-Z in an elevator while Beyonc’ stood to the side. Word on the street was that the altercation had to do with how Jay-Z treated his wife.

Regardless of what did or did not go down in the elevator, it became The Elevator with a capital ‘T’ and ‘E’. There appeared to be a crack in the otherwise flawless surface of the Carters’ reputation. Whatever Beyonc’ posted on her site, on her Instagram, on her Tumblr, was all in service to the larger story that she wanted to tell about the incident. At times, Beyonc’s relentless curating of her self-image shows through ‘ such as when she forced outlets to pull down “unflattering” photos from her performances. But her selectiveness with her sharing has made her all the more enigmatic and her pull that much more powerful. With the knowledge that her weighing in would give credence to the speculation, she waited until she knew how she wanted to throw her full weight ‘ the weight of say, a full-length visual album ‘ into the situation.

Patience is a virtue. Beyonc’s patience has to do with quality ‘ and at no point does she sacrifice the quality of her messaging. Now, situations don’t always warrant patience, and not everyone has the luxury of time. But the fact that Beyonc’ always has the big picture in mind is important to understanding how to control the narrative. It’s 2016 and we’re still talking about The Elevator, but in no way is Beyonc’ a victim, and the volume on the discussion has just been turned to max with her latest album, and it’s the volume for her voice and her voice alone. It’s that kind of management that has taken her to where she is today: Beyonc’ has reached such a level that she no longer gives interviews. Her latest album is called Lemonade and she has been hinting at it for over a year – dropping images of lemons on social media with no explanation. Not only is every move part of a larger construction, when the final product is delivered, you appreciate just how constructed and meticulous that product is. She does not deny that it takes work, and planning, and that when done well, it all pays off.

The Beautiful

Visuals are important. Things that look bad do not get as much attention from people — especially not people online. But more importantly than that, the visuals don’t have to speak to everyone. If you’re representing high quality, if you’re representing elite, or if you’re representing a specific point-of-view, and you’ve created something that speaks to everyone, you have a problem.

It’s clich’, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and being beholden to the irrelevant has never been a concern for Beyonc’. With her first single of 2016 and her Super Bowl halftime performance, there were threats of boycotts, riots, and there was’confusion from people who did not understand her point ‘ and her point was, and is, that she is not aiming to please. There are stakes and there are messages and there are causes. Rubbing people the wrong way is to be expected, and in fact, desired, if you are picking a side.

If you watch her latest visual album, the images are certainly not for everyone. The album, and everything it’s saying, is multitudinous. The visuals and references tell a particular story and have a history — a history whose unpacking takes novels. Aiming to please the masses would detract from the power of her narrative and negate the point she is making. Her messages fly over the head of the uninitiated and they run smack up against the prejudices of others. They resonate deeply with their intended audience and she doesn’t care about the rest.

Bow Down

She has grown and grown her fan base with her. We know details about Beyonc’s life, but they have been communicated through her voice alone. There have been other voices along the way ‘ she’s had a group, she has family members who are active in the media, she has a husband who, at one point, was more respected within the music industry and more famous. But no one is waiting on bated breath for what any of them say. When she is involved there is one, and only one, person for which people are waiting, attempting to schedule free time around predicted release dates, and whose every appearance is scoured for the tiny clues and nods that all signal a crafted and calculated story being told.

As she says herself on her latest album: She worth every dollar and she worth every minute. And she’s the one who made it that way.

If you are a Facebook user, you have certainly become acquainted with its new ‘On This Day’ function, whereby Facebook shows your activity from that date from years previous. Aside from looking back at your questionable fashion choices and reliving vacations, the feature demonstrates how our use of the platform has dramatically shifted since we first logged on.

Much of the change in our Facebook use can be attributed to our familiarity with social media, upgrades in functionality and the wide adoption of the smartphone. When Facebook was first launched in 2004, we didn’t have the ability to snap a picture, post a video or host a live broadcast from our phones. This meant that the very nature of Facebook use was more deliberate; early users had to be sitting at a computer, not waiting for an elevator, to use the platform.

Along with technology, our personal networks on the channel have also evolved. For early adopters, our Facebook friends were classmates (in its infancy, Facebook was restricted to students with university email addresses), but now, they likely include your close and extended family, former coworkers, travel acquaintances and, maybe, your current boss.

Further, veteran users know what sort of posts are likely to receive positive engagement from their networks. You may have been very keen on promoting a band you discovered, but if your friends didn’t share your enthusiasm with likes and comments, human nature dictates that you are less likely to share something about that band or your taste in music again. In contrast, phenomenons like the Ice Bucket Challenge of 2013 would not have taken off if user networks did not pick up the challenge as a fun, shareable, and popular endeavour.

As Facebook matures and an individual user’s network includes many years’ worth of acquaintances, the social channel invariably becomes less intimate. Social media is certainly less social if you are deterred from sharing an article on oil prices because you are concerned someone in your network will bomb the comments with conspiracy theories. And it is certainly less social if you are wary of posting photos of a late Wednesday night at a Blue Jays’ game with beer in hand. Unsurprisingly, Facebook just isn’t as fun when you know your mother-in-law or boss could be watching and your news feed is dominated by the same loud people.

Further, early adopters of Facebook are now in their late 20s and 30s and are perhaps now too busy with their careers or young families to endlessly indulge in the medium. This is worsened by the fact that younger millennials are taking to Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat to share their personal moments away from parents’ prying eyes. Regardless of the motive, from 2014 to 2015, ‘original broadcast sharing’, posts with a user’s own words or images fell by 21 per cent, while overall sharing dropped 5.5 per cent.

Facebook is aware of this fact, with insiders dubbing the decline in user sharing as ‘content collapse.’ To combat this, Facebook tweaked its news feed algorithm (how it decides what to display to its users) to favour user-generated content over posts from brands. This pushes marketers to use paid advertising to reach users, while ensuring that a post from your university roommate is not weighted the same as an organic one from a local pizzeria you might like.

Despite these operational updates, Facebook understands the days of users dumping 30 pictures from their vacation are over and personal moments are migrating to Snapchat, Instagram (owned by Facebook) and messaging services (Facebook owns WhatsApp). That is why the company is rolling out prominent notifications on Mother’s Day or Siblings Day (apparently that’s now a thing) to encourage user participation. Together with its ‘Memories’ function Facebook is trying to have users associate the platform with warm feelings of family, friends and nostalgia.

In addition to these engagement initiatives, Facebook is launching new features, like virtual reality and chatbots, to stay competitive and keep users from clicking off the site. These changes will better position Facebook for the long term, with the clear aim of transitioning Messenger into an ecommerce platform. At its F8 Conference this month, Facebook touted the ability to order flowers or clothing all within Messenger. If successful, developers may abandon their own apps and instead latch onto Facebook as the primarily tool for transactions, much to the chagrin of PayPal, Amazon and others.

Combined with Instant Articles (third-party articles that load instantly without leaving the Facebook app), these efforts all act to prevent users from clicking off Facebook in the moment, curtailing usage, or deleting their accounts all together. As Facebook moves towards publishing and ecommerce, users will become more dependent and hard-pressed to write off the platform as frivolous social media.

The ‘Hotel California’ effect of being able to check in but not being able to leave will certainly be good for Facebook’s bottom line and reinforce the need for marketers to stay at the edge of the platform’s features and best practices. Buzzfeed’s live Facebook broadcast of an exploding watermelon attracted more than 800,000 viewers, demonstrating that although user sharing is in decline, it is still possible to engage at a large scale. No matter the medium, audiences will always have a taste for entertaining or emotive content; smart campaigns will just have to keep up.

 

Photo credit: Rodion Kutsaev

Any good marketer worth their salt will develop a campaign that gives you mind-blowing conversions. In our line of work, most of the campaigns involve building online armies of activists. To assemble that army, we need to compel people to join the cause—we need them to convert. That’s why our conversion rate and the cost of those conversions is one of the most important metrics I look at when we’re running campaigns. The proof is in the pudding: if our conversion rates suck, our campaign sucks. It’s that simple. And if conversion costs are too high, we’re not running the most effective campaign possible. We also pay attention to conversion rates because in reality, conversion rates are a measure of persuasion. It’s a measure of influence.

How the brain works

So, what does it take to run a persuasive campaign? It takes a bit of psychology. To persuade someone, we need to know how the brain works—how people think and feel. Thankfully for us, there is a huge library of academic research to pull from to analyze the science of persuasion. Here’s what we know.

1. We’re naturally cynical

Our cynicism starts at a young age. We learn as early as the age of 4 that we cannot take what someone says at face value and we need to analyze the speaker’s own interests to evaluate the validity of their claims. In fact, young children are less likely than adults to give people the benefit of the doubt. Despite conventional thinking, we actually get less cynical as we age. Imagine what grumpy old men were like as kids!

What it means

Lead with motive and be completely transparent about it. It’s pretty tough to BS people these days, so don’t bother. Our messaging needs to be as raw and as honest as possible. We must acknowledge why people might be cynical with us and our motives head on. By doing so, we may even get the benefit of the doubt.

2. We coalesce in tribes

We all live in our own bubbles to some degree, and embrace the echo chamber, exposing us to the false-consensus effect. We selectively expose ourselves to opinions that align with ours. We start to assume everyone else shares the same opinion, and with time, we begin to think that the collective opinion of our tribe matches that of the larger population. With time, It’s tough for us to respond positively to a dissenting view. When we see it, we assume the person disagreeing with us is defective, if not a complete idiot.

What it means

Realistically, our campaign can’t reach every tribe, but we can certainly speak each tribe’s language and use it to get our message across in a persuasive manner. We wouldn’t use Parisien French when trying to persuade people who have spent their entire life in Saguenay, for instance. We wouldn’t talk about carbon taxes when speaking to oil workers in Alberta. We need to mind our tribes.

3. We can distort reality

Whether people are emotional or logical thinkers makes a difference. The Amplification Hypothesis states that displaying certainty about an opinion will harden that opinion and have a stronger chance of persuading. If we express uncertainty, we achieve the opposite effect. The type of message we use also plays a role in how we harden or soften an attitude. Using a logical (cognitive) argument on someone who is emotional (emotive) will have little impact. The reverse also holds true. If you want to impact an emotional person, use emotive arguments. If the person is a logical thinker, use a cognitive attack.

What it means

In practical terms, this means that if we want to persuade someone, we need to align our projected attitude with theirs. If we’re not aligned, we’ll only cause friction and fail to persuade. That’s why no one message fits all. When communicating to our target audiences, we need to use the most precise and affirmative message, targeted specifically to the right group. If we miss the mark, we’ll only create resistance.

4. We can move the masses even if we’re in the minority

It might be tough to admit it, but humans easily go along to get along. According to Conversion Theory, ‘in groups, the minority can have a disproportionate effect, converting many ‘majority’ members to their own cause.’ Majority members may be going along because it’s just easier, or they don’t see a legitimate alternative. There are at least four factors that give the minority its power:

• Consistency: never wavering from your message.
• Confidence: knowing you’re right.
• Unbiased: being fair and reasonable.
• Resistance: holding true to your convictions in the face of opposing social pressure.

What it means

We have no chance of winning if we’re not fair and reasonable. Even if we’re in the minority (the losing side of the campaign), we need to develop clear messaging that positions our side as the voice of reason. It might not win the day instantly, but a methodic and measured execution of this strategy will undermine the opposition. When we’re the target of minority attacks, we need to mobilize with lightning speed to expose the minority’s methods and verbalize their message.

5. We can temporarily speed up the persuasion process

Academics call this ‘priming.’ Priming involves putting out a stimulus that influences in the immediate-term. With this method, we introduce new thoughts or bring old ones to the surface as a reminder, offering a poignant argument that drowns out other arguments, even if for a limited window of time. For example, researchers Bargh and Pietromonaco showed some people neutral words and hostile words to others, briefly on a computer screen. Both groups were then asked to assess a character with ‘ambiguous’ behaviour. The group primed with hostile words interpreted this character’s behaviour as being more hostile. It’s the same effect that has us noticing other cars just like the one we bought.

What it means

Used ethically, we can subtly influence a desired outcome. Subtlety is critical—obvious priming will cause the adverse reaction. But if we have a relevant story or anecdote to point to when making our case, it may open up the mind to our argument. We have to remember, however, that priming is a temporary device. To persuade for the long-term, we need to use the other methods I’ve outlined in this post.

As campaigners, we need to provide people with value. We can ask, ask, ask without giving something in return. Some of the Internet’s top solopreneurs have mastered this skill, always providing a free download or content upgrade before asking for someone’s email address. While that’s just one practical implementation, the opportunities are endless. We need to pause and think about what we can give our supporters or consumers in return for their favour.

6. We feel a duty to return favours

Except for that one self-absorbed individual in your life (and if you don’t have one, it might be time to look in the mirror), we all live and die by this social norm. If someone gives something to me, or helps me out in any way, I feel obligated to return the favour. The Reciprocity Norm is so powerful that the initial giver can ask for something in return without waiting for me to offer it voluntarily, or ask for more than was given. How deep is this compulsion? Researchers Kunz and Woolcott sent Christmas cards to a random list of people they pulled from a phone book. All strangers. Most recipients sent a card back! Many continued to send cards years after the fact.

7. We want want few have

We really want to keep up with the Jones’. It’s that simple. It’s part of a convoluted process we use to ‘control our world.’ Choice is freedom, and if what we desire becomes scarce, we’ll regret not acquiring it, which only makes us desire it even more. And if we know others desire the same thing, our own desires increase. It’s a vicious cycle. So, the next time you’re browsing through your favourite retail store and it’s advertising a big sale that ‘ends today,’ you know it’s making use of the Scarcity Principle. How deep is this instinct? Researcher Stephen Worcel offered subjects cookies in a jar. One jar had ten cookies; the other had two. Guess which one subjects preferred? Yep, the cookies from the jar with only two cookies in it, even though they were the same cookies. We just can’t help ourselves.

What it means

This is another tactic some of the Internet’s top marketers have mastered. They’ll often sell a webinar, offering customers a very limited amount of time to join (e.g. 48 hours). It’s a play on the ‘you don’t want to miss this opportunity of a lifetime’ principle. This approach might not be appropriate in all circumstances, but when appropriate, it can be a powerful way to yield influence.

8. We can be influenced by low-credibility sources

This is a media relations tactic that Ryan Holiday mastered and outlined in great detail in his must-read book, Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator. The basic approach is this: get a story placed in a blog that doesn’t have the same journalistic standards as the major news outlets. The key is to target blogs that these same news outlets get their story ideas from. The news outlets then pick up and build on the story, resulting in your story running in news outlets with reputable names and large readerships. It’s a play on the Sleeper Effect. When the message gets separated from its low-credibility source, the message may gain more credibility.

What it means

The message is the medium. Where and when appropriate, we need to make the message more impactful—even more dramatic—than the vehicle being used to deliver that message. A good story is a good story, regardless of where it gets reported first. Our campaign needs a compelling story; with it, our campaign will resonate.

9. We have a lot to learn from politicians

Yale University conducted multi-year, multi-project research into persuasive communications and found that the source of the communication (the speaker) should be credible and attractive to the audience. The message should not appear to be designed to persuade and should in fact present two-sided arguments (refuting the ‘wrong’ argument).

What it means

You might shudder at the thought, but we can learn a lot by watching how politicians communicate. The good ones look good, talk through their opponents’ arguments, even acknowledging that their opponents’ arguments may seem reasonable before poking holes in their arguments. It’s a fight to present oneself as the most common-sense candidate of the lot. I know it’s convenient for me to argue this as a former political staffer, working at a firm comprised mostly of former political staffers (of all stripes), but when you’re in the business of building a brand in the space of months, or at most a couple years, you need to be persuasive in everything you do and say. You may not like politics, or politicians for that matter, but don’t be so quick to dismiss the value this industry has in teaching us how to run persuasion campaigns.

10. And yes, sadly, humans can persuade with manipulation and deceit

This is one of the worst ways to run a campaign, but it’s worth talking about because it is one instinctual method used by humans since the beginning of time. It seems to be the method used by those who have nefarious motives. And even though they always get caught, it doesn’t seem to stop them. Someone using this method to persuade is deliberately breaking at least one of these four conversational maxims:

• Quantity: The information presented will be full and free of omission.
• Quality: The information will be correct (i.e. the truth).
• Relation: The information will be relevant to the debate at hand.
• Manner: The information will be presented in a clear and easily understandable fashion.

Yikes. It’s no wonder people are naturally cynical about government. How many governments are guilty of violating the above maxims? Ugh, let’s not answer that question. Moving on!

What it means

Let’s remember our first point – we’re all naturally cynical. I’d wager we’re more cynical than ever before. It’s in our blood to question what we’re told, especially if what we’re being told is causing us to change our mind. We want to corroborate evidence. We can detect manipulation in body language. The lesson here is pretty obvious: under no circumstances should we ever use this method to shift public opinion. Sure, we can try, and we might experience success with it, but eventually, it will blow up in our face. There are so many different ways to persuade people in a transparent and ethical manner. Stick to those, and avoid this method altogether.

Getting Conversions

So we know how the brain works. But how does this affect our conversion rates? Well, to pull from Roger Dooley of Neuromarketing, we can look to the playground to help us understand how to increase our conversions. Roger developed the concept of the Persuasion Slide.