Sometime ago I was listening to a conversation on Newstalk ZB about people’s attitudes to vaccinations in New Zealand (always be listening to the news and current events for story ideas).
A caller, who I think was in her late 20s, called up to answer the question about why young mothers were increasingly choosing not to vaccinate their children, despite the science. The caller blamed Google: “They get all their information from Google,” she said.
When I Googled vaccinations, one of the first things I saw was a doctor sticking a large needle into a frightened child’s arm. Dominating page one of Google were headlines like, Dr Kurt: Why I will NEVER choose to vaccinate my own son… and Six reasons to say NO to vaccination | The Health Home…
Counter information from health authorities was sparse, and where it existed it was boring, condescending, commercial and hard to understand. Clearly health authorities in New Zealand are failing the public because they have ignored the need to produce high quality engaging content, and unyielding attitudes to vaccinations are evidence of that.
Contrast these two examples:
Example A: From an official government health site:
Headline: What are the reasons to vaccinate my baby?
“Protecting your child’s health is very important to you. That’s why most parents choose immunisation. Nothing protects babies better from 14 serious childhood diseases. Choose immunisation. It’s the powerful defence that’s safe, proven and effective…”
Example B: From an opposing blogger:
Headline: Herd Immunity: Three reasons why I don’t vaccinate my children…
“Parents who choose not to vaccinate their children and protect them with vaccine exemption forms are often chastised and stereotyped for putting their own kids at risk. But what is even stranger than this assault on individual freedom and informed choice, is that these concerned parents are attacked for putting vaccinated children at risk. These attacks are based on the theory of ‘herd immunity’. This hypothesis was plucked out of an old college textbook.”
What makes the one piece work better than the other?
Note the conversational tone of the anti-vaccination content, and its use of emotion and metaphor… It’s not hard to see that it’s more convincing than the first piece put out by the United States Centre for Disease Control. Most importantly, note the passion in the second piece. Clearly the blogger has a cause; a stake in the message.
Your organisation faces the same risks that health authorities are currently having to deal with. If you do not provide content, enough content and engaging content, your competitor’s – including a fair number of flakes and nutbars – will happily fill that vacuum for you.
Hot Tip: How to use metaphor and description in your content
Using emotional, descriptive language that contains metaphor (whether in an article or video or podcast) will help you paint a picture in the minds of your audience, and is more powerful than the dry, corporate tone that dominates company communications in New Zealand.
Take a look at this health message put out by the United States Centre for Science in the Public Interest’s (CSPI) in 1994, which resulted in a drop in sales of movie theatre popcorn by more than 50 per cent.
“A medium-sized ‘butter’ popcorn at a typical neighbourhood movie theatre contains more artery-clogging fat than a bacon and eggs breakfast, a Big Mac and fries for lunch, and a steak dinner with all the trimmings – combined!”
Next Page… Chapter 3: How to create content that is unique to you