Today, I’ve broken code number six.
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| Photo courtesy of David Schauer |
Imagine watching your favorite prime time drama on television. The plot twists. The music changes. You lean toward your TV. You know the guest star should not enter that warehouse. She does anyway. Her steps echo off the concrete floor. “Take off your shoes!” you yell at the TV. She keeps going until she’s in the center of the empty warehouse. Without warning, a spotlight shines down on her and a microphone stand rises out of the ground. She grabs the mic and starts… a comedy routine… with a pre-recorded laugh track.
How would you feel? The story doesn’t pay off. The director, writers, producers, camera operators, actors, and even the grips let you down.
That transition point disrupted you.
Too often, our communications make the same errors. How can we avoid derailing the emotional impact of our messages? Our goal is to move others to spend money on our service, idea, or product (SIP). Interrupting the life of a reader, listener, or viewer (RLV) can get their attention. But disrupting a RLV in the middle of you communication will turn her away.
There are four key transitions in every message where matching emotion for emotion is essential. Not every message you produce will have all four and they will not always be presented in the same order. As communicators, it’s our job to listen, watch, and/or carefully examine these transitions before we release our message.
If in that transition, you don’t match my emotion to the emotion of the moment, you disrupt the RLV and she may move on to another message.
If it’s a high energy or funny moment and in that transition you become a “straight man,” you consider the RLV a stranger. You have disrupted the moment and will be labeled a wet blanket.
- Embrace the power of pause – nothing is more powerful than a beat, a selah, a proverbial deep breath.
- Ease into the new pace – if you’re running out of time and have content to get in quickly, don’t punch the gas; increase your speed in increments so that the listener doesn’t know you’re going faster
- Careful with your dynamics – like pacing, dynamics need a ramp-up or ramp-down; no sudden changes
- Appropriate use of music – The Bible says, “Love covers a multitude of sins.” Using music to bridge across the transition can cover a multitude of transition sins.
Needs Improvement: Every year, I produce a series of commercials for a retail chain of stores. The first 45 seconds of the spot deliver price-point and time-sensitive sales information. We leave a “donut hole” for local location information then close with the branding tag line. Some stations do a great job of matching the upbeat approach. Others sound flat and disinterested. I wonder if listeners are motivated to shop in these stores or not when the guy sounds like he’s calling roll in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Other stations cram multiple sites into the hole. They time-compress 15 seconds of audio into 10. It hurts my ears like rubbing wet fingers over a cheese grater. We can’t control the local station.
- Remember – audio in video can be smoothed using the same techniques as above
- Avoid sudden camera cuts – moving from “on location” to “studio” or other such similar cuts can be disruptive. Put yourself on the viewer’s couch to come up with ideas. Which is better in this situation? Dissolve? Voice over before seeing the speaker?
- Respect the viewer – I once read about a film director who believed some scenes needed their privacy. For example, if a doctor is telling a husband and wife that their daughter won’t recover from her injuries sustained in the car accident, the audience needs to give the scene some space. This director always zooms out while trucking back from the action. The same technique can be effective in transition. It signals to the viewer that you’re moving away from that part of the message.
Best Example: Allstate’s “Mayhem” ads are careful to manage their transitions. While the after-effects of the punchline play out, the voice of “Mayhem” delivers the brand promise as a voice-over. Dennis Haysbert then tags the spot with the call to action on the screen. His voice-over is seamless to the mood of the spot.
Needs Improvement: Several years ago, I worked with a church that aired their Sunday services live on the local CBS affiliate. The service opened with an exterior picture of the church with the name, address, telephone number, and service times superimposed over the grass. The picture was the same—glorious Spring—no matter what time of year. The voice over was the same recording—probably from when the church started broadcasting in 1962. He ended with “We join the service already in progress.” That single line saved them because the music behind his voice was cut off as they cut to the choir mid-song. The pastor had a penchant for going long. When it was time to end the telecast, they would switch from the pastor—mid-thought—to a closing slide of the same picture of the same church with the same super.
- Text spacing – Don’t write your sales copy with a shoehorn [blog post]. A larger font size properly spaced is always easier to read and digest.
- White space – What a well timed pause is to audio, white space is to print/online. Let the copy breathe. Lead the eye to the call to action.
- Color and font management – Don’t let your call to action be like wearing black socks with bermuda shorts.
Best Example: BMW runs a series of billboards here in Nashville. They call the passersby to get off at the next exit to visit the dealership. The photos make my eyes open a little wider, the copy makes me smile, and the call to action is placed in the direction of the exit. No arrows or flashing neon. The ads are created in such a way they are not needed.
Needs Improvement: I worked on a full-page, direct-response magazine ad depicting a husband leaning across a diner table to whisper in his wife’s ear. They were holding hands. Her face was lit up by whatever he had said. The moment was tender… the type of moment that makes you smile when you spot it across a restaurant. The photo dominated the ad. There was light copy at the bottom urging the reader to call or go online to buy the book. A photo of the product rested in the bottom right hand corner. When the ad was passed around for approval, I received a note back asking me to put a yellow starburst in the upper right hand corner announcing “25% off for a limited time! Use promo code MAG!” The ad failed. Was it because of the ad, the product, or the starburst. I have my opinion.
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