A few weeks ago, I asked on RW Online if part of the problem with lack of insight impact in many major organizations had to do with data illiteracy among stakeholders and decision-making management. That started quite an interesting conversation!
However… whether or not lack of data literacy is indeed an issue in modern enterprises, it still remains true that it is our responsibility – the responsibility of insights professionals – not only to determine the story that the data is telling us but also to communicate it so effectively that it results in impact. After all, as I have said so often, if an insight does not result in action it is not an insight. It is merely nice to know. Insight communication or story-telling is therefore core to our professional competence, to our own impact. So how come we are still using Word and PowerPoint as our main communication tools? How come, when we try and disseminate insights across the organisation, people don’t pick them up or pay attention to them? Spoiler alert: I am now going to stereotype and insult.
How come? Because we are boring. Because we have always done it this way. Because the last major change in insights communication was when we all learned PowerPoint. Because we refuse to acknowledge that human beings do not learn through words and numbers alone. We drone our way through data instead of telling a compelling story.
We drone our way through data instead of telling a compelling story.
Even though the numbers attached to the Dale Cone of Communication (conceived in the 1940s for the American military) have been subsequently debunked, the truth remains that people learn and retain knowledge through the combination of a variety of means. Some of us like to read, some like to trawl through numbers. But the majority learn best when they are immersed in the subject matter either through imagery or through hands on experience. And even if Dale has been slightly tarnished, Albert Mehradian came to our rescue over 40 years ago when he opined that humans respond to communication only 7% through words but 38% through music and 55% through dance. What did he mean by this? That we respond to the cadence with which words are delivered, the emotion that is expressed through them and the imagery that we bring to illustrate them. In other words, we are human beings, not computers.
The principles
Mehradian’s principles are embodied in every form of story-telling, even if novels or great works of non-fiction that we read. Indeed, the basics of story-telling are rooted in them. Great stories use emotion; great stories build and then release tension; great stories almost always start on the dark side. How can we build these principles into the stories we tell to management?
Great stories use emotion; great stories build and then release tension; great stories almost always start on the dark side.
To begin with, we can start by asking ourselves two questions of every story:
- What is the one impression that I want the audience to take away?
- What is the one thing I want to happen as a result of creating and telling this story?
If we concentrate like a laser on what we want the take-away to be and what we want the result to be, we will create a compelling story. That means stripping away deadwood data that does not contribute to the story and it means finding a medium that tells the story best.
Modern technology has gifted us with so many media that sometimes it is difficult to know which one to choose. Often, this depends on who the audience is. Is it the CEO? Someone who is super time-pressured and just needs to know viscerally what the story is so that she can act? Or the brand manager, who needs to be able to justify a course of action in terms of return delivered? Or non-related parts of the organisation for whom the insights might have strategic relevance?
Some winners
The great news is that we can learn how to deploy technology and modern-day story-telling to huge effect to address all of these audiences – and that many organisations, whether internal consumer insights functions or research agencies are doing precisely that. RTI Research, a full service agency out of Connecticut, has a Chief Meaning Officer whose job it is to find, construct and deliver stories with impact. They produce some of the most beautiful and impactful videos in the industry, all designed to instigate action at Board level. One such video turned around the fortunes of a food brand within a year.
Northstar Research and their clients at Jaguar Land Rover, struggling to derive real meaning and impact from a segmentation study, pulled together groups of respondents into a reality TV version of The Apprentice. Professionally filmed and produced, the groups competed to design a vehicle that met their specific needs. The results were shown as episodes to management, engineering, product, marketing and, indeed, across the whole company, embedding the results into the very DNA of the company. The design of the resulting vehicle changed significantly.
But you don’t even need to use technology to achieve such results. At NOP, we regularly immersed the most senior management of a huge automotive client in the lives of their customers. These were not just “drive-alongs” but days spent in the homes of their customers. Afterwards (and with a modicum of training) we would have them moderate groups of customers and then present the results of their experiences to their colleagues. I guarantee that they learned more than any survey report taught them.
“The presentation should last ten minutes. The conversation should go on for hours”.
Go further
But what if your audience is not actually directly connected to the study in question? What if you come across compelling insights that are relevant not only for your direct clients but also others in the organisation who may not even be aware of the study’s existence? At last year’s ESOMAR Congress, Lucy Davison (Keen as Mustard) and Begonia Fafian (Coca-Cola) presented a brilliant experiment on engaging tangential audiences in the relevance of studies in which they had no stake, looking at all forms of email-borne communication from PowerPoint attachments to newsletters, animated and talking heads videos, to infographics to determine which had the most impact. They found that, although video resulted in the most click-through to the actual results, embedded infographics actually resulted in greater information retention.
Even in the confines of a traditional presentation, the “music” is often more important than the words. One of the UK industry’s greatest mathematicians and story tellers, Julian Bond, demonstrated vividly to the Board of Scott Paper why an early form of moist toilet paper would not achieve repeat purchase by mimicking its unpleasant after-effects through mime as he presented. They got the idea!
Whether it’s video, gamification, mime, immersion, role play or any other form of communication, we have the ability to tell great, impactful stories that can change the fortunes of our clients and employers. All we have to do is have the confidence in ourselves as story tellers and as insights professionals to be able to do so. We have to be able to free ourselves from the confines of needing to present all the data and remember the very wise words of an erstwhile CMO of Meredith Publishing who said,
“The presentation should last ten minutes. The conversation should go on for hours”.
1 comment
Hi Simon. Jeff Hunter. We haven’t chatted in a while. A slightly different perspective on the question at hand, delivered via anecdote …
Some years ago, working at a fortune 100 CPG, I postponed the presentation for a segmentation study. The marketing senior VP asked me why and I explained that I didn’t think the presentation was as polished as it needed to be, and would not have the impact we desired. She decided it was a learning opportunity for me, and explained her 3 C’s; content, clarity, and cosmetics.
Content is about the business idea. Do you really have a business idea that will positively impact the business? She went on to say that the vast majority of market research she had experienced over the years had not delivered that.
Clarity is about understanding the business idea. As you rightly point out, an insight needs to be acted upon. In this case, from this decision-makers perspective, it was critical to make sure that everyone on the team understood the insight, the potential implementation, and the potential for positive outcome.
Cosmetics were about making it pretty. She acknowledged that junior members of her staff were often energized by well choreographed presentations – and then calmly informed me that if I spent more than 5% of my time on cosmetics my tenure on her staff would be of short duration.
The anecdote is not an argument against impactful presentation, which would be a silly argument. However, as I read through the various conference papers and blogs, it seems we assume that there is a leverageable business idea, and all that is required is more compelling presentation. I question the initial assumption. Most B2C, and especially CPG, firms are desperate for growth. If someone had a real business idea, I’m sure it would be welcomed regardless the form of delivery.
The anecdote also suggests that different organizations can have different cultures and different information assimilation styles. In this case, the senior executive was astute, and preferred one-on-one or small group conversations. She processed information quickly, and you knew you might have something when she paused, and then asked you to walk through the material again. She would not have, of her own volition, taken the time to view a movie.