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Holtz Communications + Technology

Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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The relevance of relevance

The vast majority of the complaints about PR, marketing, and advertising boil down to a single communication failure: The message is not relevant to the recipient.

The late Ed Robertson, who ran employee communications at FedEx (reporting directly to CEO Fred Smith), developed a model for communication based on Abraham Maslow’s famous hierarchy of human needs. According to Maslow’s model, primitive requirements must be met before people are able to pursue more sophisticated needs. The more abstract the need, the higher up the pyramid the need is situated, with self-actualization at the top. Physiological needs represent the first hurdle to overcome. You gotta eat, after all. If you’re starving, you’re not too worried about group acceptance.

Ed’s model takes the same approach to communication, which ultimately is designed to exert influence. (If you’re not trying to reinforce or change opinions, attitudes, or behaviors, why are you communicating?) In business, too many leaders believe you can influence people simply by telling them what you want from them.

Ed believed people applied the same kind of hierarchy to messages, starting with logistics. If the message was in the wrong language or was illegible, logistics failed and people would go no further. If you ever received employee benefits information after the deadline for benefits enrollment, you’ve experienced a logistics failure.

Next, you had to grab attention. Attention is nearly as big a challenge as relevance, since what will grab the attention of a CEO may hold no interest to a front-line employee who spends his days on an assembly line. As slaves to mass communication techniques, we ignore the fact that different people pay attention to different things and crank out one-size-fits-all communications.

But even if you’re able to capture the attention of your target audience, you won’t keep it long if your message is not relevant. There are two distinct dimensions to relevance:

  • What does this have to do with me?
  • How will paying attention to what you have to say make my life better?

Consider the howls of protest from scores of bloggers sick of the horrible pitches they receive from clueless PR people. The most vitriolic of these bloggers would still be inclined to write a post about information sent by a PR practitioner if (a) the information was consistent with what he wrote about and (b) the information would reduce hassles or improve opportunities for the blogger and/or his readers.

imageMadison Avenue used to be adept at relevance. In the 1950s and 1960s, a typical TV commercial would begin with a housewife on her hands and knees in the kitchen, scrubbing the floor with a brush and a bucket of soapy water. As she wipes the sweat from her brow, Mr. Clean magically appears and asks, “Are you sick of that waxy yellow buildup?” The housewife replies, “I sure am.” Suddenly, a push-mop appears and the housewife simply and easily glides the push-mop across the floor, revealing the floor’s beautiful, long-hidden surface beneath the layers of muck that hours of scrubbing couldn’t get to.

This commercial—shown during soap operas in the middle of the day in order to reach the target audience—answered both questions:

  • What does it have to do with me? You spend too much time on your hands and knees in puddles of soapy water.
  • What’s in it for me to pay attention to you? I’ll get you off your hands and knees and get you through this chore in a fraction of the time you’re spending now and a fraction of the effort.

Madison Avenue has strayed far from this concept, sadly, as have far too many communicators.

When an executive ignores a direct question and instead blurts out the rehearsed sound bite that reinforces a key message, the problem isn’t that messaging doesn’t work. It’s that irrelevant messaging doesn’t work. If what you have to say—in an elevator, a newsletter, an email, a press release, a speech, over Twitter or on the phone—has something to do with my circumstances and paying attention will make my life better, I’m all ears. If it’s relevant enough, I might even start a conversation with my peers about your one-way, top-down message.

There will always be a market for relevant messages.

01/13/09 | 5 Comments | The relevance of relevance

Comments

  • 1.Shel:

    Great post. Ed was one of the best . . .this should be required reading for all communicators. And, for that matter, the executives that we serve.

    Steve C.

    Steve Crescenzo | January 2009 | Chicago, IL

  • 2.Shel,

    Love this post. So much of what we do in social media needs to have its roots in the basis of good communications principles. The sizzle won't sell, but a good steak sure will. The wrong messaging, even delivered to the "right" audiences, won't do anything except waste an organization's money.

    So many of today's "new" media skills have their roots in "old" media. I listened to and commented on FIR 411, specifically, John Bell's "The 13 Skills of the Public Relations Pro of the Future." I blogged about it as well, but this is an excellent post, but in order to do the first 14, one must go "back to the future" and have good, fundamental skills: my suggestions are writing and critical thinking.

    Thanks for another thought-provoking post.

    Mark

    Mark Story | January 2009 | Washington, DC

  • 3.Great post. I am PR professional and this holds true for this profession as well. Let's look at what we are asked to do on a daily basis: just get me a media hit on a top tier media outlet like USA Today or the GMA. What the client usually fails to realize and we as a profession fail to advocate is that PR is much, much more than just getting media hits and that even if you did get a hit this will not get you where you need or want to be. So what? You are in NYT but what if your target audience is not reading this publication?

    So your questions: What does this have to do with me?
    How will paying attention to what you have to say make my life better? are appropriate for our profession as well. In fact, I have always told my clients that if you asked me to get you a media hit and cannot answer the question "so what?" then maybe another tactic should be considered.

    Leslie Hawk | January 2009

  • 4.Thanks, Shel, for reminding me of what we need to be doing every day. Here's an excerpt of an e-mail I just sent my staff:

    Here?s a two-part test we should apply to everything we write and send out. From the audience?s perspective:
    1. What does it have to do with me?
    2. How will paying attention to what you have to say make my life better?

    That?s the test I?ll be using for what I write myself and what I edit that comes across my desk.

    Here?s to a passing grade for everybody!

    Steve Levine | January 2009 | Austin, TX

  • 5.Shel

    Shel. A few years ago, when I started delivering media and comms training, I created an acronym for delivering content. It ain't rocket science, but it is CURT. Clear, Understandable, Relevant, Timely. Having worked both sides of the media and PR field, it's amazing how many organisations still think that sending a release to a journalist who has vaguely mentioned something near the topic at some point 5 years ago is going to warrant a feature article. R also needs to stand for Research!!

    Peter Brill | January 2009

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