How not to do messaging: A lesson from Tory HQ

Conservative HQ: Hello MPs, here’s the messaging we’d like you to share with the British public:

Constituents who have contacted you regarding Dominic Cummings can rest assured that you’ve conveyed the strength of local feeling to relevant colleagues. Your personal replies will follow in due course. You remain focussed on helping those needing help & wanting change in [insert constituency name].

Tory MPs: Right you are…

Labour Party HQ: OK lads, here’s the response : It’s one rule for Boris Johnson’s closest adviser, another for everyone else.

Labour MPs: Got it!

Good Lord above, messaging fail. Well, total fail – but we’re only going to talk about the communications side of it, because there is a good lesson in here for all organisations.

What is messaging?

Businesses and other organisations need to communicate to be able to raise awareness of what they do – and persuade you to buy into it. And in crisis situations, they have to communicate to keep their audiences informed and reassured.

Messaging is a way of making sure that everyone in an organisation says similar things – or keeps “on message”.

That way, you don’t have one person saying that the best thing about ACME Wonderstuff is its magic formula for keeping dandruff at bay,  another saying the best thing is its ability to remove stains and another saying the best thing is that it kills germs. This is important, because if you want to become known for something, you first have to agree what that something is.

And in a crisis situation, you all absolutely have to keep on message. You can’t have one senior executive saying: “Oh my God, we did what?!” while another says: “We didn’t do that, it’s all made up by conspiracy theorists,” and another says: “We were all on holiday that day.” If you don’t all say – broadly – the same thing, then you sound like a leaderless bunch of headless chickens who can’t communicate with one another – let alone their key audiences. It’s far from reassuring.

So together – and quickly, in the case of crisis communications – you agree what the messaging should be, and you stick to it until the messaging needs to change.

How do you use messaging?

So while it’s sensible for everyone in an organisation to broadly be saying the same thing, “messages” should never, ever be used as copy-paste items. Why? Because if you all say exactly the same thing at exactly the same time, you’ll end up sounding at best like robots and at worst, like a bunch of lying toads.

Messages should be seen – and used as – sentiments. In other words, they’re the ideas that should inform the way you talk about something. They are not – we repeat, not – a Lego brick kit for building communications. They frame the way you communicate. They are not constituent parts of the communication itself.

Here’s how it should work:

Messaging for technology company

Message 1People first – all our products are about the needs of people and helping people to connect
Message 2Innovation – we create new technologies and new applications for existing technologies
Message 3Seamless integration – we are IoT specialists

This very basic messaging framework could result in any number of communications. Here are a couple of examples:

The beginning of a job ad:

Messaging working wellMessaging hell
Can you put people first?  
ACME Tech plc is looking for a brilliant people person to join their tech support team. We’ll need you to be able to be patient, clear and able to think on your feet. You’ll be helping our customers to get the most from our innovative products – and making sure their experience of using ACME Tech plc is easy and disruption-free.  
Tech support executive  
ACME Tech plc puts people first – all our products are about the needs of people and helping people to connect. We are innovative, creating new technologies and new applications for existing technologies. Offering seamless integration, we are IoT specialists.   Applicants must demonstrate:  
– Patience
– Clarity of expression
– Ability to think on feet
– Customer-centricity  

A case study:

Messaging working wellMessaging hell
Helping teams to collaborate worldwide  
XYZ plc’s teams work from 80+ sites worldwide. They speak 20 different languages – and they celebrate different holidays and keep different working weeks. But what unites them is a passion for sharing ideas and working together. So we were delighted to take XYZ’s teams to a whole new level of collaboration.  

We introduced XYZ to a new approach that reduced barriers to sharing both thinking and resources…  
Case study:  XYZ plc
ACME Tech plc puts people first – all our products are about the needs of people and helping people to connect. We are innovative, creating new technologies and new applications for existing technologies. Offering seamless integration, we are IoT specialists. 

We were therefore delighted to implement an innovative new system for XYZ plc.  

When does messaging fail?

Messaging fails for two different, but related, reasons:

  • If it sounds phony
  • If it is phony

If you all trot out exactly the same words over and over again, your message will sound false, even if it isn’t. So you need to keep the message the same, but vary the wording that conveys it.

However, even really well worded messaging can fail if it’s pure baloney. Audiences tend to be smart (or at least a lot smarter than the people communicating with them often think). They know BS when they hear it – and they scorn it.

Note, though, that we’re only saying “can” fail. This is because false propaganda can work if it feels human and plausible. We don’t want to get into that because we always advise truth and treating audiences with respect. But it’s worth remembering that the opposite is true: A genuine offer can sound like it came out of the mouth of a slithery politician if you think messaging means copy-pasting.

How do you get people to be informed by – rather than copy-paste – messaging?

This is probably a bigger question than it sounds. First, you need to prioritise communications skills in your organisation – and this means a lot more than insisting everyone has a GCSE in English. It means allocating resource for training, so that your teams understand how to communicate in a commercial environment.

Second, you have to trust your teams. Don’t hem them in by mandating word-for-word, copy-pasted versions of your organisation’s truth. If they’re responding to a complaint letter, writing a policy, talking to camera or creating a job ad, allow them to express the messaging in their own way. If you don’t, your organisation will feel dictatorial and robotic – and your teams like parrots.

Is there ever a time to abandon prescribed messaging?

Yes of course. Like when you’re trying to use messaging to defend the indefensible. And when you know it’s phony. Because do you trust a politician/authority figure who simply trots out the party line? Or one who says what needs to be said when it matters most?

Need help?

We’re always happy to talk about messaging. Drop us a line or give us a call.

UPDATE:

And a week on, they’re still at it…

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