What's Missing From This Message? Mask Up America
Tamsen Webster breaks down mask-wearing PSAs from a New York State contest, explaining why the winner succeeded by appealing to New York identity and shared goals instead of fear or obligation. She identifies what made some ads unclear and why showing behavior matters more than just telling people what to do.
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How do you convince someone to do something that they may not want to do? You better make sure that there's not much missing from your message. These winners of a recent New York State contest about wearing a mask in the pandemic show you exactly what you can do to make your message stronger. Let's start with the ad that I don't think worked very well, and we'll talk about what was missing from this message as we go along. All right, let's watch. Okay, we see a guy on a platform. He's got a shirt on that says "That Guy," and he's breathing easy. He's kind of looking like a bro. I don't know. And there's people around him walking around. He's looking for the train, kind of what's going on. And then it says, "Don't be that guy." And I gotta say, right at this point, unless you knew this was an ad about wearing a mask, it's not really clear that this is about an ad to tell you to wear a mask, right? It's not until this next part where it goes, "Oh, okay, cover your nose, cover your mouth," that we understand what that guy actually means. The other thing is that this hashtag #NewYorkTough wasn't really tied into the message of the ad at all. Okay, so what was missing from this message? Biggest thing I would say is audience perspective. First of all, the audience perspective of what context they already had. Now, in the context of watching these ads knowing it's a contest to figure out which one will become an ad to help people wear masks, you can look at that through that lens and go, "Oh, I know this is an ad about wearing masks." But if you saw this without any of that context, I think it would be very confusing. And so I don't think we would really know. So how you can make that message stronger, because it's an important message, is to make sure that it's clear earlier what it is that the issue is. What is that guy doing? Make it much more concrete what the problem is. The second thing is, and this is a little bit more subtle, but the kind of messaging that says, "Don't do this. Don't be that guy," sometimes can have the opposite effect because it triggers something that's called psychological reactance. So it's what happens whenever somebody tells you to do something and you're like, "Heck no!" Well, that's actually a known thing. It happens when you're a little kid, but you never really grow out of it. And that psychological reactance can help you or keep you from doing things that you actually want to do or even think is important. So that second piece of the audience perspective that I would say would make this particular message stronger is flipping around that kind of negative accusatory language into something that's a little bit more supportive. And you'll notice that the ads that not only won, but I think were the most effective, actually do that. This next ad was the one that was my favorite. So let's watch and see what I thought was strong and what I didn't think was missing from this message. And we'll take a look at how it compares to the winner. The first thing is I love they've included this, we are tough, and New York tough, thing right in the way, right out of the gate. Second thing is I like that it's demonstrating the behavior. I also like that it's kind of got this, let's prove it together, which is this kind of attitude that I think is pretty clear in New York. So we've got this kind of #NewYorkTough, and to me, I think that really, really works well. It is It's very specific to what the message is. It's very clear what they're talking about. It's very clear about what the expected behavior is. And I just thought it all worked really, really well together. Now, wasn't in your face, wasn't pretty dominant, none of that, but I actually thought it was just from a messaging perspective, the one that was most likely to be effective because it was clear. It was the message tied into the overall message that they wanted and it was presented in a way was most likely to be heard. But I can absolutely see why the winning message won because the winning message has just the right amount of New York attitude, and that's important too. So let's take a look at that one. Now this winning one, you can just even see from the splash screen, is gonna speak to New Yorkers specifically, and I think that's probably what ticked this one over the top and made it the winner. But let's watch. I love New York. We love New York. We've been stuck inside our homes. While our everyday heroes have been working overtime. All right, so one thing that I love already, and this was something that Rick pointed out too, was that there's a variety of voices, also very clearly New York voices right out of the gate. So while My Favorite really focused on a single interaction, this ad really captures kind of the spirit of New York and the diversity of New York. A lot of people would recognize themselves in this ad, and that makes it really, really strong. For New York to reopen and stay open, we all need to do our part. So I love this one because it actually leads with a goal that people have. So we all want New York to reopen. In order to do that, this is what has to happen. We have to play our part. So it's, here's the thing that you want, here's a way to get it. And show that we care. Look, man. I wear a mask to protect you. You wear a mask to protect me. Let's all wear a mask to stop the spread of coronavirus and save lives. So I want to pause here because the only part of this I think, and this is the reason why I had this one second, it wasn't my first choice, but it was my second choice, was that one little piece in there is really relying on this shared belief that I'm going to protect you and you're going to protect me. And I think as we've seen in the whole reason why these masks— mask— the question about why we need a mask ad in the first place is there, is that not everybody feels feels that. And I'm not sure this ad makes the case that protection is important. If you already believe it, it's gonna resonate with you. But if you don't, I'm not sure it makes that case. It's the reason why I like the other ad better because it was really just saying, "Hey, this is the right thing to do just because like we're about helping other people, not because I have a shared value of protecting you." You show up in the mask. We're showing up for each other. Show your love for New York. Because New York loves you. Thank you. See, I think it would be stronger if they dialed up the aspect of show your love for New York, where rather than, hey, show your love for protecting your fellow person, if you basically said, hey, when you wear a mask, it shows that you love New York. That's a thing that I think more people can buy into and why ultimately I think the combination of elements in this ad made it successful. Still my second favorite, but it's still super strong. So what was missing from that third message? I think what was missing from that one was just the, again, some level of the audience perspective and an awareness that not everyone's gonna start with that shared belief that protection is important. And so in a little way, this was actually preaching to the converted. At the same time, the elements were there to make this just absolutely perfect, I think, by A, by having so many different voices and showing people different, different images and different accents so people could see and hear themselves in the ad, so they would recognize themselves and say, "Oh, I see that." By tying into the fact that we want New York to reopen, which is a shared goal, by tying into the fact that people love New York, by potentially making even more of the point that by wearing a mask, you show your love for New York, I think that would have been the way to really, really anchor this message overall. That said, it's a super strong ad, and I see absolutely why it won this contest. But I'm super curious, if you were to go and watch all 5, which one would you have chosen and why? I'd love to hear more from you and your own messages. You can send those to me at redthreadme@tamsenwebster.com. Thanks so much for watching this episode of What's Missing from This Message. I'm Tamsen Webster of TamsenWebster.com.
