Re: The Power of Persuasion

This is a fascinating topic.

There are two things I think make a persuasive campaign work:

1. Empathy

This is something I harp on all the time, but it might be because it's one of my top strengths (according to StrengthsQuest...kind of like a more modern-day Myers-Briggs).

What makes good designers great is empathy.

If you can relate to your audience, put yourself in their shoes, you're going to develop an effective campaign.

A recent campaign in particular comes to mind, even thought it's kind of strange.

MGH, a local advertising company, undertook a campaign for Ocean City that resonated with me and, I suspect, with other working professionals.

The campaign was told from the perspective of "the scorned vacation day".

This is a small summary of the campaign, from MGH's website:

All across America, people are increasingly using their vacation days for everything but vacation. This tv campaign brings these misused ‘vacation days’ to life to encourage people to put their vacation days to better use in Ocean City, MD.

This is empathy at its best. Everyone knows what it feels like to use their vacation days for mundane tasks—it sucks!

Even thought this is a small scale project, I think it was pretty effective. You can see the full campaign on website, linked above.

2.Trustworthiness/Sincerity

Empathy can only go so far if people can tell you're being manipulative. That's why eventually we become desensitized to—or even annoyed with—commercials that ask us to support a tragic cause with disgustingly sad music in the background (or maybe I'm the only one who feels that way and now you all know I'm a bad person...).

Anyway, if you're appealing to people's emotions on a superficial level, without a real understanding of how to relate to them, they're going to feel manipulated and the campaign will lose its effectiveness. They might not feel that way at first, but eventually, they will.

Growing up in a conservative, evangelical Christian household, I have too many examples of this to share here. Basically, every evangelical Christian video is an example of manipulation. I know that's harsh, but it's true.

I think the best way to stay empathetic and sincere in your work is to choose a topic you have interest in and excitement about—helps with the empathy—but not too much invested in—helps you stay away from becoming manipulative.