From Kristen Grimm, Spitfire President:

When I was younger, my sister would get caught sneaking out of our house. She’d get grounded. There were tears. I didn’t want to suffer the same fate but I did really want to meet a boy named Keith well after midnight one night. I knew from my lived experience what would happen if I snuck out. I decided to try something new. My father was fast asleep. I wrote a note detailing where I was and with whom, left it in the hallway, and walked out the front door. When I arrived home the following morning after a night of looking at stars, my father was pacing. “You snuck out!” he bellowed. “Au contraire,” I replied calmly. “I went out after bed, left a note with pertinent details and walked out the front door like any respectable person. I went out. I did not sneak out.” My father is a lawyer and prides himself on being a rational man. My counterargument was convincing. Despite my sister’s incredulousness that not only would I not be grounded, I would get complimented on my thoughtfulness for leaving a note, I was learning important messaging techniques that I would use later.

I have applied these same skills in my day job of messaging for important causes. And I have to say, it is actually getting harder. When I started out in communications, most messaging I did focused on facts and stats. Then came the idea of using frames and master narratives. So I enhanced my messaging to incorporate that. Then I ran into the weird phenomenon of people saying they really supported something but weren’t doing anything to support the cause. I wrote the Activation Point to give people ideas about how to approach messaging in that case. Many of those tenets still stand. But in the last eight years, we’ve learned a lot about the human brain. Behavioral economists like Dan Ariely made me think differently about incentives. Dr. Robert Cialdini gave much food for thought about what to do in pre-messaging so people are in the right frame of mind. Alexis McGill illuminated the impacts of implicit bias. Jonah Berger, the Heath brothers, Jonathan Haidt, Bobby Jones and Paul Slovic have written book after book that have left me with one clear conclusion: truly effective messaging speaks to your audience’s values, beliefs and identity.  

The brain is a bit like a pinball machine. Messages go in. Sometimes they hit the right places and trigger the preferred response (points!). Sometimes they hit the wrong spots and people are alienated and reject the messaging. Still other times, you lose the ball altogether and have to start all over again.

This is my attempt to offer advice for people who play people pinball. At Spitfire, we call this process Mindful Messaging. It helps us thoughtfully consider who we are trying to engage, anticipate how their brains might process messaging we use and keeps us from making predictable mistakes that set us back rather than propel us further. It helps facilitate two-way communication so messaging leads to useful dialogue about important issues rather than dead ends.

In this guide, I’ll walk through:

• Getting to know your audiences better by looking at six psychographic categories;
• Understanding what’s at play in people’s minds and anticipating responses to strengthen messaging efforts;
• Creating a game plan by deciding which audience insights to weave into messaging; and
• Getting inspired by others efforts to put Mindful Messaging into practice.

Keep in mind, this is a work in progress. I’d love to say I have all the answers. At this point, I mostly have good questions. Cultivating a sense of curiosity will serve you well when practicing Mindful Messaging.

To get started off right with Mindful Messaging, you need to get to know who you are engaging—not only who they are, but how they view the world and their place in it.

Anticipating responses for stronger messages

Now that you know more about who you are trying to engage, you need to figure out what is going on inside their brains that will make your message successful or a complete disaster (or somewhere in between).

I often run meetings. Inevitably, I have to give people breaks or they will die. So I do. Now, I know if I say, “Back in 15 minutes ready to roll,” I will easily be missing half the group in 15 minutes and we’ll get behind schedule. I need to understand how their brains will respond to my direction and what they are seeing their peers do. This is where understanding what is at play might help. Some people will not immediately go check email or use the restroom. They will start networking. That means when I call the room to order, they will then dash out to take care of business. Some people wait until most other people sit back down before they join. So the sooner I get the majority seated, the better my chances of restarting. And last, breaks are more fun than work. People naturally want to stay on them longer. Knowing all this background and what is likely to play out helps me think through my messaging. I could give them a shorter break—say 10 minutes instead of 15—knowing it will take me five minutes to corral everyone back for the reasons above. I might offer them an incentive that makes them want to be back in their seats at the right time and not miss something compelling. I could offer a disincentive like, “I am locking the doors at a certain time so we stay on track.” I could designate a few colleagues to round up the participants as I know people like to comply with polite requests from peers. I have many options. But I definitely need to employ one or more of these. Otherwise, when I send people on break, we are going to be late getting started again.

You need to do this level of analysis any time you want to ask people to do something. Anticipate responses in order to get the outcomes you want. Start with understanding what’s at play.

Know what’s at play

To know how your messages might land, you need to know who your audience is and respect that (see above about psychographics). You also need to know what is at play in people’s minds and what obstacles you might trigger when you engage with them. As behavioral sciences evolve, the possibilities grow. Here are some likely responses you can plan for.

Let’s say you want to make a big change. Think Obamacare, massive education reform or banning fossil fuels. You can anticipate some of the reactions audiences you want to engage may have. For instance, it may start off positive. People often have optimism bias, which means they overestimate that something good will happen and underestimate that it won’t. This is why, despite the fact that a majority of restaurants close in the first year, people still open new ones. But people will also embrace the status quo. Research shows that people often make the leap from what is and equate it to what ought to be. This is how we still have child labor or child marriage in some places. People believe this is how it was meant to be. And before you start shaking your head since we don’t have child labor in the U.S., think about the shirt you are wearing. Chances are it is made by people, possibly children, who get paid pennies in dangerous factories. You know cheap labor has ethical problems but perhaps you rationalize that, “They wouldn’t get jobs otherwise” or “You can’t know where everything you buy comes from.” Whatever the excuse, you are rationalizing the status quo. When considering change, people will also see if it fits with their worldview, reinforces a badge they wear and if their tribe is following suit. Let’s take bike shares. This is a big change. We used to buy our own bikes or walk. Now there are communal bikes. For Millennials who are growing up in a sharing economy, this fits their worldview that we should have access to things when we need them without owning them, it reinforces some of their badge of being urbanistas and resisting car culture, and they see many people who are just like them coasting around town on bikes. With big change, you’ll also encounter loss aversion. Loss aversion happens because when there’s change, people worry too much about what they’ll lose instead of considering what they’ll gain. In the case of Obamacare, they worry more about possibly having to change doctors than the fact they might save a lot of money on their healthcare. Your benefits messaging may fall on deaf ears if you don’t mitigate the loss aversion a proposed change will trigger, as well as the biases your audience brings to the party including a tendency to embrace the status quo.

Let’s look at another one. Imagine you are working on a big, intractable problem like poverty, climate change or the refugee crisis. The first psychological force you may encounter is what Steven Pinker in his book Better Angels of Our Nature calls compassion fatigue. As a New York Times article exploring this says: “The public has a similar reaction to mass joblessness and starving countries alike: the problems sap the imagination in part simply because they are daunting and have not responded well to previous efforts. We have already pumped billions into each, with little visible effect. If only they would cancel their next emergency.” Paul Slovic studies a similar but different effect he calls “psychic numbing.” His studies show that when people see one child suffering, they are likely to care, donate and give money. Once you start showing lots of children, the interests and actions drop off because of psychic numbing. It is people’s response to seeing too much and feeling too much and is a survival instinct. Unwittingly, your messaging may lead to more fatigue or numbing which will make it harder to mobilize people.

You may also encounter short-termism. This is where people over-value that which they see as closer to them in time and space. When dealing with people and climate change, this is what happens when you use polar bears. For most people, polar bears are very far away. This makes the issue seem distant, less personal and less immediate. When you show a city similar to the one they live in that’s been devastated by a recent superstorm, they are much more likely to see the issue as close, personal and one they should pay attention to.

You can do this same state-of-play assessment on specific issues. Let’s say you want to stop over-incarceration. First, if you talk about numbers more than people, you may encounter a lack of empathy to the point that audiences dehumanize populations. When people start to dehumanize people, they can start “othering” them. When we make people “others,” we are willing to create different rules and accountability than we might for ourselves and the people we see as like us. We have seen this throughout history, from slavery to denying women the vote to blocking gay people’s rights. You see it in criminal justice, where many states prevent former felons from voting despite the fact that they’ve done their time and are re-integrated into society.

When you talk about reducing sentencing for non-violent criminals, people may accept that. But when you start talking about reducing sentences for violent offenders you may trigger moral panic. Moral panic happens when one person becomes a symbol for everything that you fear may happen. Case in point: In August 2016, basketball player Dwyane Wade’s cousin was shot and killed purportedly by two men who were out on parole, after having been imprisoned because of gun convictions. A story like this does not mean that the majority of those out on parole will commit crimes. But moral panic can set in and people wanting to stop sentence reduction efforts can use such stories to fan the flames in their effort to get the public to reject calls for reform.

You also need to carefully consider the timing of your messaging. When we combine messages with timing triggers, we make it more likely audiences will act. For example, if we ask people to register to vote when they are in the car driving, they are unlikely to pull over. However, if we ask them to visit an online site and register to vote for the people who will decide the city’s transit options while they are riding the bus, we are using a timing trigger to remind them how important transit decisions are to their life.

So … there are many psychological and behavioral forces at play when we engage with audiences on meaningful social issues. The important thing is to figure out what those forces are so messaging can help navigate them. You don’t need to know their official name—just what the results are when they are present. If you must figure out what it means when someone can’t seem to get motivated, you can check out this mini glossary. It’s like diagnosing yourself on WebMD for communicators. There is also a handy chart below to give you food for thought.

Designed by John Manoogian III (jm3), 2016. Categorization by Buster Benson.

Here are some questions to explore to understand what might be at play:

1. What is your relationship to the group you are messaging to? Are you members of the same tribe or do you wear similar badges? Is this a “we” conversation? Or are you an outsider and what impact does that have on the communication dynamic?
2. In the past when you have engaged with these audiences on this topic, what were some of their reactions? What seems to interest them? What concerns them? Ask them: What do people not get about this issue?
3. What questions do they ask about the issue? Do the questions suggest they are looking to see who else is involved?
4. Do they connect the issue to their own life or does it seem distant? How relevant and salient is the issue to them?
5. Do they blame someone for the problem? Do they have empathy for the people who are most impacted or do they see them as others?

A reminder: When assessing what might be at play, seek out diverse viewpoints. Different people from different backgrounds and life experiences will offer different insights and intel. You’ll get a more thorough assessment by seeking multiple perspectives.

Take advantage of the forces working in your favor and minimize those that are problematic. Stop yourself if you ever find yourself saying about audiences you are trying to engage, “Why are they operating against their own self-interest?” Why are you assuming you know better what their best interest is than they do? You are missing something important. Listen. You need to figure out what you’re missing if you want to find ways to successfully engage and not get tuned out.

Once you know what is at play, you can catalog what your messaging needs to do. Let’s review the juvenile justice issue of life without parole again.

Messaging Needs:

• Advocates want to ban this practice.
• To get the changes they want on the state level, they’ll need conservative lawmakers to embrace the issue.
• These conservatives have a very strong “tough on crime” worldview that can’t be violated.
• Juvenile justice advocates will need to find a competing worldview or badge that they can work with to get the change they want.

The game plan juvenile justice advocates came up with was to communicate the messages that adolescents’ brains are not fully formed and that they don’t have the impulse control of adults. Even though the adolescents may have done a very bad thing, we should consider that they are still forming into the people they are going to be and not write them off prematurely. There is still a good chance they can be redeemed. This idea of redemption is a strong worldview among some of the audiences advocates want to engage. It gives their audience a reason to reconsider their tough on crime worldview and acknowledge that it shouldn’t be applied here. Keep in mind, they still hold that worldview. It is a question of whether it should be applied in these instances. The messaging approach suggests that it shouldn’t be by giving them an out: different ages = different brains and different levels of accountability.

For any issue you want to create messaging for, identify what’s at play and what is needed to deal with the circumstance. For example, if you know that the issue you are working on is going to trigger loss aversion, then note that the messaging will need to minimize losses and not just over-emphasize benefits. Once you have this assessment, you can make sure your messaging does what it needs to do.

Questions to help you explore what your game plan needs to account for:

1. When you did the state-of-play assessment, what were some of the positive reactions and responses you believe your audience has related to this cause that you can utilize?
2. What are some of the challenging reactions and responses that your audience may have—and why—that you’ll need to navigate so that you don’t lose them or alienate them?
3. Which reactions are most important for messaging to consider (knowing that your messaging may not be able to address them all)?

You can use message testing to help inform your game plan. For some of these, you can test in a traditional focus group. For others, you’d be better off doing A/B testing to see what people actually respond to, or doing offline experiments that show real-time reactions to messaging. Keep in mind that if you are testing how people will truly react, then you need to try testing when they are most likely to be their real selves and not their aspirational selves. If you test the latter, your messaging may fall short when people revert to implicit beliefs and biases, herd instincts and inherent behavioral responses.

We’ve covered how to understand your audiences better and how your messaging might play with them. Now you are ready to draft messaging that will account for people’s funny mental mind maps, heuristics and quirks. Here are some examples to show you Mindful Messaging in action and inspire you and your messaging efforts.

If people are looking for tribal signals, tap social currency. Social currency is what we share in order to look good to others. This might mean being in the know or part of a trend. The best-known recent example of this was the Ice Bucket Challenge. The organization charity: water also tapped this with their birthday parties campaign, where people use their birthdays to raise money for clean water in countries that need it.

If you want to counter dehumanization, give people an authentic experience to build empathy, like the real-life refugee camp exhibit at the Washington Monument does. Giving people a lived experience makes it memorable and, more important, makes them emotional about an issue. Next time they read the stats about refugees they’ll remember this experience and those stats will likely take on increased meaning. Another good example is Islamic Relief. This story shows how Islamic Relief USA is countering harmful stereotypes by showing up where help is needed and making sure people know who is providing the help. More than a myth vs. fact sheet, this gives audiences an accurate picture of who Muslims living in the U.S. are.

If you want to decrease the chances of triggering the fear of stigma, do what this group did. They changed how they ask for information from people who want waivers for fees they can’t afford for children’s sports. Instead of making families air their life story and talk about their personal struggles, this group accepts their assessment about their ability to pay without a lot of background. This change in messaging strategy worked and enrollment in children’s sports skyrocketed.

If you want to get more women to ask for raises, instead of going over the stat about how much women earn compared to men—which only reinforces the social norm that most women make less—role model the conversation for them. In this example, the messaging tacitly acknowledges that this is a really hard conversation, but also that others in your tribe are cheering for you.

If the issue is too big, resulting in compassion fatigue or psychic numbing, use telescoping, which is focusing on a person or place to break through the fugue and get attention. Groups did this with the photo of the injured Syrian boy Omran Daqneesh in the back of an ambulance. This picture was seen around the world and groups raised funds and called for more decisive action based on the outrage experienced by those who saw the picture.

If self-doubt is sabotaging action and results, embrace what Robert Cialdini calls “pre-suasion” and get audiences in the right mindset before asking them to do something. Pre-suasion is central in this article by David Kirp. He offers messaging interventions that help improve math scores, and these same interventions can be used to increase performance and motivation in other instances. He walks through three experiments. The first reminds students that they’ll get better the harder they work. This gets them to embrace that this is hard and to persevere rather than quit. It does what Cialdini says is important and puts them in the right mindset to do what needs doing. The second has a trusted person saying the students can do better, setting an expectation that students are motivated to strive for. The third asks students to connect what they are doing to something they value—and this reminder of their own self-worth is the most motivational.

If people are dug into their beliefs—perhaps they hate big government and don’t want to expand Medicaid, or they are climate deniers or homophobes—you need to give them an “exit ramp.” Because at the end of the day, you may need them. In this Harvard Business Review piece, Deepak Malhotra warns of the devastating effects of letting hate sink in after the bruising presidential election between Clinton and Trump. He asks, “How can you convince someone to abandon a course of action to which they are emotionally, ideologically, or publically committed?” He then details how to create an exit ramp. Of the seven ideas he has, three stick out: help them save face by creating a safe space for them to change course, give them cover or a reason as to why they changed their mind, and make changing their mind a punishment-free zone, which means no charges of being a flip-flopper or cries of “I told you so.”

Let’s take a look at how many of these strategies are playing out in a campaign for a state park. The Rocky Mountain National Park had visitor problems and they engaged in some Mindful Messaging to motivate people to do the right thing. People were doing all sorts of crazy stuff. The park needed to prompt better behavior. They decided to take a “friends don’t let friends …” approach as a way to do two important things. One is building off the identity of “good friend,” which most people aspire to be. Second, tapping the desire to be a good friend serves as the motivator to act when a person’s inclination may be to mind their own business.

Here’s how they messaged around one of the behaviors they were trying to change. They tapped into the friends don’t let friends philosophy, as well as playing into people’s desire to be seen as “in the know” when it comes to how to do the right thing:

When your very close friend indicates they need to potty, first and foremost suggest an established restroom facility. If you are on a trail and a restroom facility is not nearby then leave no trace of your activity or “business.” Do not step off the trail and leave your “business” for others to see, including the park’s trail and wilderness crews as well as other visitors. If peeing, recommend to your friend to “drip-dry” or if toilet paper is necessary then take the toilet paper out in a baggy, backpack or pocket. If your friend is a frequent pooper, suggest taking care of that before hiking. If nature calls, plan ahead – bring a waste bag, or research tips on how to poop in the woods. Friends don’t let friends go to the bathroom near water sources. Just think, you might be drinking from that water source the next day!

To change another behavior, they used Cialdini’s pre-suasion concept, by getting them to ask a different question that leads to a different, better answer:

When your friends ask, “How close can I get to that elk, deer, bobcat, coyote, badger, bear, marmot …?” suggest they ask a different question, such as “How far should I stay back?” Let wildlife be wild and observe from a distance. Your friends might get closer to wildlife, until the wildlife reacts to their presence. When that happens, it’s too late, they have reached the threshold. The elk, deer, bobcat … might leave the area because of them, affecting wildlife viewing opportunities for others. Let your friends know that approaching wildlife is illegal in Rocky Mountain National Park and it doesn’t matter if they are doing it to take a photograph. There are no exceptions. Recommend investing in a good telephoto lens. Do they feel it’s only a good photograph if they are in the photo with the wildlife? Suggest they take a photo of Rocky Mountain National Park’s entrance sign, followed by great distant photos of wildlife. Their friends on social media will realize that they are having an adventure in a national park: being eight feet from an elk is dangerous, illegal and not necessary to demonstrate an adventuresome spirit.

Here is the full messaging and it is brilliant.

So there you have it

Messaging. There’s a lot to think about and every day we learn more that can impact messaging efforts. While I am sure you might want to close your eyes and shut your ears, you can’t. This brain science and social science stuff is compelling. It unravels mysteries about how people are motivated—and most causes need motivated people in order to create change. Think of this as a gift. People are complicated. Getting them to act is hard. If you pay attention to emerging science and apply it to your messaging you’ll be more successful. Perhaps if my sister had thought about this more, she’d have spent less time being grounded. One thing is sure: Friends don’t let friends do Mindless Messaging. Consider these words to the wise from your good friend Kristen and the team at Spitfire.

Learn more…

• Shankar Vedantam, Hidden Brain, http://www.hiddenbrain.org/
• Frank http://frank.jou.ufl.edu/learn/frankology/
• Charles Duhigg: @cduhigg – New York Times reporter, author The Power of Habit (http://bit.ly/pggrIH), about science of habit formation
• Dan Ariely: @danariely – Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics
• Dan Kahan: @cult_cognition – How group commitments shape perceptions of risk & related facts
• David DiSalvo: @Neuronarrative – Writes about science, psychology and all things Mind for Forbes, Psychology Today and a few other pubs. Author of three books on the brain and cognitive psychology.
• David Eaglemen: @davideaglman – Neuroscientist, New York Times bestselling author, and Guggenheim Fellow.
• Jonathan Haidt: @JonHaidt – Professor of business ethics, NYU-Stern. Focuses on the intuitive foundations of morality, and how to improve ethical behavior in complex systems
• Matt Lieberman: @social_brains – UCLA Neuroscientist, Author of Social
• Robert Cialdini: @RobertCialdini
• Sendhil Mullainathan: @m_sendhil – Behavioral economics, poverty, machine learning co-author, Scarcity, http://bit.ly/1g7pwZl
• Shankar Vedantam: @ShankarVedantam and @HiddenBrain – @NPR science correspondent; Author, The Hidden Brain, a book about unconscious bias.
• Dr. Sunwolf: @TheSocialBrain – A university professor, lawyer, author, studying neuroscience, social behaviors, and the science of happiness.
• Brain Science Ville: @headville – The best brain science reads from around the web about | augmented, brain, reality, science, research all picked by humans
• Neuroscience: @Neuroscience – Neuroscience | Latest news, research, books and journal articles in neuroscience, neurology, psychology and alzheimer’s disease.
• Angela Duckworth: @angeladuckw Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and founder and scientific director of the Character Lab. Author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.
• Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., leading researcher in the field of motivation Professor of Psychology at Stanford University.
• Amy J. C. Cuddy: @amyjccuddy Associate Professor at Harvard Business School with a Ph.D. in Psychology. Author of Presence: Bringing your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges. ILR School – Columbia University
• Keith Maddox, Ph.D.: @MaddBlackProf Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of the Tufts University Social Cognition Lab. Experimental Social Psychologist. Associate Professor of Psychology – Tufts University
• Vanessa Bohns: @profbohns Social Psychologist and Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at Columbia University. Examines the extent to which people recognize the influence they have over others across a variety of situations.
• Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D.
• Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges by Amy Cuddy
• Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah  Berger
• Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change by George Marshall
• Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ by Daniel Goleman
• Immunity to Change: How to Overcome it and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization by Robert Kegan
• Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman
• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion  and Pre-suasion by Robert Cialdini
• Made to Stick and Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
• Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir
• Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect by Matthew D. Lieberman
• The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives by Shankar Vedantam
• The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg
• The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic by Dan Ariely
• The Winner Effect: The Neuroscience of Success and Failure by Ian H. Robertson
• Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
• What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite by David DiSalvo

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