At first, the role of the marketer should be pretty easy. Let’s say you represent a great product. You have a media-genic CEO who does well in interviews and doesn’t freeze on radio or TV. We all speak the same language, right?
Well, no. Different words have differing meanings to different audiences. There’s a whole “hidden language” that exists in most situations. Knowing what the hidden language is in any given situation is key to understanding how to communicate.
This is most easily understood in relationships. People rarely say “what’s on their minds,” because through frequent interaction they know what’s likely to fly and what isn’t. In relationships, the message must be tailored for an audience of one, and even then, there are times for certain kind of messages and times when it’s best to just leave it alone.
When someone’s getting ready to end a relationship, they might say “It’s not you, it’s me,” because as long as it doesn’t cost anything, a person looking to leave the relationship will even be willing to take the blame. Of course, it’s meaningless and most everyone over 16 has become sophisticated enough to know an insincere dump when they hear it.
A book or two could be written on “speech codes” in relationships, politics and business, but a marketer should have over developed ears to get a sense of what will fly depending on who is doing the listening.
Marketers do have an advantage, because much of what you’re doing is thought out in advance and should be vetted by all your constituents, and even then there’s a chance you won’t get it right.
In politics, marketers aren’t so lucky. Let’s say the President gets up one day and says, “The great thing about Americans is that we’re worldly and humble enough to know we always have to give thanks for the people that helped us out along the way.” No problem, right? This conjures up visions of Mom and Dad, or maybe that special teacher or mentor that knew more about your talents than you did.
Now let’s take that statement and change the wording to say, “You didn’t build that.” You can bet that statement wasn’t vetted in advance, because someone would have said, “That’s probably not going to fly.”
Marketers can avoid being caught in the “what I said isn’t what I meant” game by following these steps:
- Have an honest relationship if possible with your client. Talk about what is acceptable behind closed doors vs. what is acceptable for a public audience.
- Once a message is settled on, prevail upon the client not to stray too far from the message, and whatever you do, no ad libbing. This is an especially huge problem when working with CEOs or politicians who might consider themselves “masters of the universe.”
- Pre test the message in front of different audiences so you can figure out if anything you’re saying is potentially offensive to a group you haven’t thought about.
No doubt about it, mistakes will happen, but since there’s nothing worse than having to walk back a statement, any work done to avoid such a situation is well worth it.
