Getting the voter to the polls. The mystery face game "Guess Who?"

Do you remember when I said - only a week ago actually - that the person in the European Parliament, in charge of relations with the citizens had said that we needed to wait anxiously for the next video produced for the upcoming European elections?


Well, it turns out the wait is over. Here is one of the outstanding visual productions that will push the disgruntled potential voter to the polling booth in a jiffy.



You did not want to bother voting? I am sure you want to now! Your vote counts. Your opinion counts. And, if you click on the mystery face game 'Guess Who?' screenshot above, you can hear all sorts of insightful opinions from people that supposedly are just like you, but actually they are not, in a language that is not yours - but the subtitles are!- on issues you may know little about but should definitely have a view on. One in favour, one against.  A bit like the video on the nuclear energy debate. The difference is that the latter is visually beautiful and made me think, whereas this one made me want to cry. I guess it's all about sparking emotions.  

Deep down, I am still hoping this video was not the one Mr Clark was referring to - as it came out 3 weeks ago and was produced for the Commission's audiovisual department and not the Parliament. Because, as someone said, "we must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope". That, in a nutshell, is me and European communications. Thank you, MLK.

Digital is natural, aka Digital makes me feel old. (Little Red Riding Hood revisited)

On the whole, I consider myself rather digital-savvy. I use the computer, have an I-Pad, and am familiar with most social media and some of the coolest apps. I love and use new technologies even if I don't necessarily understand how they work. Of course I am a total Luddite compared to some friends who have made being digitally knowledgeable a priority, even a profession. And I am talking about people my age, or just a couple of years younger.




But if, in a moment of self-flagellation, I were to compare myself to the next generation (to be clear: this means only slightly older than my children) I feel a moron. And please tell me I am not the only one.

I know what I am saying is not earth-shattering. New generations are exponentially better at using and understanding new technologies. Right.

So how does one explain....Neelie Kroes? Is she for real?

Don't want to go into the speculations about her wanting to stay on as commissioner (although at 72???). Nor am I  interested in whether she is really into innovation and digital things as much as she is obliged to say. The fact is that you hear the phrase the 'digital agenda' more often than before. This is at least in part thanks to her, her team and their open and fresh communications strategy. It's true that the digital economy and all that is technology fascinates a wider section of the population than, say, agriculture. But there is more.

The video in this post is quite fun and people can relate to it. It is slightly worrying though: I do confess, I have tried increasing the font of a book with the thumb and index finger, or at least I wished it worked. - It's called a Kindle, Virginia!-

Commissioner Kroes has a huge following on Twitter; she is open to discussion and possible criticism; her spokesperson tweets in a fun and friendly fashion - as does the head of the spokesperson service of the Commission and a few others to be fair. (Interesting side-quiz: how many spokespersons actually have their Twitter names in their press contact details on the Commission's website? And is there a relation with the number of followers?)

Anyway, back to the digital agenda and the next generation. This week the Commission announced the winners of the 'Digital Woman and Digital Girl of the year' and when I read the press release (yes, despite my general aversion, I do read press releases sometimes; this is a post full of confessions!) I wanted to cry. Not because I was moved by the poetry of it, nor by the originality of its layout. No, I wanted to cry because I read that one of the two 'digital girls of the year', now 13, has started CODING. Did you read that? CODING...three years ago! Did you even know what coding was three years ago?? Ok, she wouldn't be digital girl of the year if she only knew how to find a comma on the keyboard, but still, coding at 10? Scary but fantastic.

And so here goes the new version of the 'Little Red Riding Hood' tale: once upon a time there was a grandmother with more than 86.000 followers and a 10 year old girl.. coding...and they all lived happily ever after...Amazing. Sorry, need to go and get my handkerchief!
   

Creativity for Space and space for Creativity

As you surely will have seen, Commander Chris Hadfield is back on Earth.

And if you don't know what on earth (ah ah, have not done it on purpose, I swear!) I am talking about, it means that you have obviously missed a great opportunity to see social and traditional media communications - at its best - in action! (Ok, insulting your readers may not be the best way to increase readership, but you know me!)

Anyway, Commander Chris Hadfield is a Canadian (as a Canadian friend proudly made me notice) astronaut. He has spent the last 5 months on the International Space Station. From up there (and with the help of teams of professionals back on Earth), he has been 'reporting' using tweets, videos and photos.

The videos covered quite trivial matters: very trivial actually, like how to brush your teeth, but being in space made it very entertaining indeed. They were done professionally, with humour but always informative.

Here are a some of the most fun ones:







I should probably stop here, but I can't! Here is a couple more, food related:




Some of the photos he took of the Earth were amazing. But he also took interesting or funny pictures inside the station.

And just before coming back he sang David Bowie's 'Space Oddity'.



It went viral. How cool is that? (And even if he pre-recorded it on Earth and lip-synced it in space, as it is being pointed out, so what?)

So in these five months, Commander Hadfield has become a celebrity and space travel has become fascinating once again: he has now nearly a million followers on Twitter and his videos got thousands and thousands of views. NASA and the Canadian Space Agency could not have had a better promoter. And they - as my Canadian friend Bruce called them 'the naturally conservative people that run these things (they fear failure more than the astronauts do)'  - could not have done a better job allowing this to happen and helping to make it a success.

Granting your employees the space (oops! I did it again!) to express themselves in their own way is  often seen as too risky but in fact, as this brilliant example shows, in most cases it's a great way to get effective communication out. Of course, you can never be sure and you might have to accept the fact that things might go wrong sometimes, but it is definitely more human and hence successful than a restrictive approach to external and internal communications through social media.

Unfortunately big companies and organisation are very often risk-averse when it comes to communications and prefer to 'limit' the expressions of creativity to a few authorised people they can trust. Let me give you an example. The EU! A friend working for the European Commission sent me the paragraph that summarises the rules when it comes to communicating on the Commission's behalf:

"As a general rule, only Commissioners, Spokespersons, Heads of Representations and Press Officers in Representations are entitled to speak on behalf of the European Commission and to relay political messages. In response to the growing interest in social media, ‘mandated staff’ in every DG, working in close cooperation with the Spokespersons, have now been added to this."

In response to the growing interest in social media? Mandated staff? Oh dear. Naturally EU employees can have their personal Twitter and Facebook account but they need to make it clear they speak on a personal capacity. I understand you would want to be careful on specific stories and controversial subjects but in those cases it's quite likely that you will be - and have been actually - criticised no matter what you decide to say and who you decide to allow to say it! 

Imagine for a minute the Canadian Space Agency applying a similar rule:  a twelve o'clock press conference on Earth, in a boring room, with the official CSA spokesperson outlining what Commander Hadfield is doing inside the ISS and how! And that's it. And now tell me that you are not delighted that they have opted for a more individual and less institutional communication strategy!  

Italian elections 2: hearts and minds of two different people.

I needed a couple of days to reflect on the results of the Italian elections. What does this vote mean? And is it true that the good communicators (Berlusconi and Grillo) won and the weak ones (Bersani and Monti) lost? One the face of it, it would seem that way. But as usual things are slightly more complicated (if only because the big 'loser' actually still came on top, as the biggest party in the country). And this complexity appears in all its beauty when you look at the difference between the results in Italy and those of Italians living in the rest of the world. Here is a little comparative graph (If you cannot read it properly or you feel slightly sea sick looking at this graph, don't worry, it's my cutting and pasting, sorry!).  

 

 

 

What does it show? That the losers in Italy are actually the winners outside, with Monti's party nearly reaching 20%.  They almost look like two different people. And maybe they are. But has communications something to do with it? If the PD and Monti were such terrible communicators, how come they are the first two parties among voters abroad? And why has Grillo not received more votes outside Italy as some of his key complaints - outlined via his blog which is so accessible to all - could definitely be shared by everyone?

Here are my possible explanations that might also help understand better the result as a whole. 

1) For good and for bad  (but more recently mainly for bad!) Italians abroad have not and will not suffer directly the consequences of their own vote. They have not experienced the crisis in Italy in all its negative ramifications and will not really be affected (anyhow not more than any European citizen) by the political and economical implications of these elections. 

2) Italians living in other countries have been subjected to a variety of information coming out of different media in different languages: they have seen that the crisis is everywhere, that we are all in this together, that other countries are making sacrifices too; they have read different analyses, heard different solutions.
 

3) There is no doubt that the Partito Democratico has conducted a terrible campaign, was too sure of winning, and very bad in communicating with the electorate, hence losing gradually most of the lead it had in the polls.  Throughout it had no clear message: Grillo kept on saying 'Basta', Berlusconi repeated 'Less taxes' and what did Bersani say? 'A fair Italy', ok, in what way exactly? And then? 'Smacchiamo il giaguaro!' which literally means 'let's remove the dots or stains from the jaguar'. Right. What the hell does it mean? Having said all that, voters outside had probably made their minds up some time ago as to whom they wanted to elect and especially who they did NOT want to elect and the disastrous campaign has not shifted the opinion.

4) For the reason just mentioned, and because most of them have not been watching Italian television as much as people in Italy, voters abroad have not followed the Berlusconi performance of the last couple of months, his great comeback; they read about it perhaps, but were not really influenced by it. Plus, the long Berlusconi years have hit Italy's reputation so badly - especially in Europe - , that it would have been really difficult for his party to do well among expatriates. 

In sum, and this can probably also explain why Grillo's movement did not do so well abroad, you could say that the vote of Italians outside Italy was a more rational one, done with the head, while Italians in Italy voted with their heart, more emotionally. Grillo has been able to channel the anger, the disappointment and the frustration of Italians (all very strong emotions) into votes for his movement; this could not quite have the same success outside Italy.

The rational, 'realcommunication' (no huge empathy, no exaggerations, low key) won with 'rational' voters. The emotional, idealistic (or should I say unrealistic) communication won with the 'emotional' voters. The question is: will it ever be possible in Italy to have a good mix of the two? The sooner a party or parties understand that this is the only way to get enough votes to actually be able to govern the better, I say.

Italian Elections: dead men talking?

Ahead of the Italian elections, I hope you will allow me a short journey through the visual landscape of the political campaign in my home country.

To summarise the situation, voters can choose from five main... well what exactly? Actually, some are parties, some are movements, some are coalitions. Let's say there are five main symbols on which you can put a cross. I know that, in reality, there are many more but I will focus on the main ones. (Little disclaimer: I am not making any comments on the actual content of the programmes, only on their visual communications! I would not want to be misunderstood…)

Let me start with the centre-left coalition, currently ahead in the polls. The main party in the coalition, the Partito Democratico, has a Web TV channel, linked to a YouTube channel called YouDem.tv (I know, it does not sound great in English but, then again, these are the Italian elections!). There are many electoral ads, films of public events and speeches. But beware of the PD's YouTube homepage as it is pretty scary. The main featured video, at least when I checked it, is .... - are you ready for this? -  a feed of 4 HOURS and 41 MINUTES of a PD event in Milan's Piazza Duomo. I know there is much more on the channel and there are a couple of nice ads but, but why did they not put those on the homepage? Here is one that would have done just fine:

Let's move on to the media mogul, Silvio Berlusconi. You would expect his coalition to be the one most up to speed with visual technologies. So, I was looking forward – well, maybe that is excessive – let's say I was curious to check out his YouTube channel. Oh dear… Scroll through the videos on offer and you will see:

1) Every single video is an interview - at least for the last year.

2) Up to three month ago, Berlusconi was one of the people being interviewed. For the last three months, since Mario Monti's government fell,  he has become the only one being interviewed.

Which tells me two things:

A) The way in which Berlusconi and his party use communications tools is still incredibly old fashioned.

B) He is obviously convinced - I doubt someone would have advised him on this - that only he personally can bring votes. This is quite amazing if you think of just how much we have seen of him during the last 19 years! If you haven't seen enough, here he is:

Then there is the soon-to-be-ex-Prime Minister, Mario Monti. He has a video on his homepage and his YouTube channel is full of interviews and speeches plus a couple of short videos on his electoral programme. My feeling though is that his communications advisers have tried to make him who he is not and this shows in his video material as well. They must have said he needed to smile more, be more empathic to win the elections. Maybe. But this smiling Super Mario has something artificial about him; I am not sure whether people would like and trust this version better. Have a look yourself:

Next is the big revelation, another communications specialist and former comedian Beppe Grillo with his Movimento 5 Stelle. Since his arrival on the political scene some years ago, he has done most of his communication online or by going around Italian cities in person – but refusing to go on TV. He is a good talker, and he says what a lot of people think or want to hear. He shouts all the time. His videos are all talking heads... talking and talking and talking....Passionate? Yes! Original? No. Effective? We will see.

And despite trying desperately to have a variety of voices, there is no question that the Movimento is about one person and one person only. Here is the only video I could find that is not him talking or others talking about him:




And finally there is Rivoluzione Civile, headed by former (if he is elected) magistrate Antonio Ingroia. Putting aside the incredibly old fashioned logo and the problem, once again, that it is all centred around one man, the videos of this leftwing coalition are quite good. Their Youtube channel it's still full of Ingroia and others talking but there are a number of short clips and ads that are simple and well done and presumably produced with little money. Again, I am not judging the content here. Here is one against tactical voting:




So, key conclusions?

1) Too many videos but too few good ones.
2) Too much talk.
3) Too many men talking (i.e. too few women, with some exceptions)

All in all, very Italian indeed. Let's see what the electorate makes of all this.

Lobbying and communications in the Brussels bubble: the missing link

It all started once, while I was making myself a coffee in the kitchen of my old office, when a colleague asked me: 'How come, Virginia, that your clients are always the most difficult?'  Before then, I had never really thought about it. When a client was being difficult, I typically blamed myself and my relative inexperience in Public Relations. But her question got me thinking; the agency I was working for was, and still is, predominantly a public affairs agency (which is a rather confusing way, I find, of saying lobbying firm). She had been working with me on a couple of projects to develop communications tools for a lobbying objective. For these kinds of projects the client was generally the communications director of the company rather than the director responsible for public affairs. Conversations were often challenging, to say the least. So, was the conclusion that comms directors are, to put it nicely, more exacting? I was not convinced.

Then I got it. The big difference between communications and public affairs is that, when dealing with the former, everybody and his dog has an opinion. Everybody thinks they know enough about it; they think they know how to do it effectively i.e. they know what works and what does not. The only reason to hire an agency is to use the agency's wo/men power. They want someone to implement their communications strategy rather than someone who might propose a different one, which is why they may become 'difficult' if you dare to make even the smallest suggestion or criticism.

Public affairs is a different story: senior consultants in public affairs agencies in Brussels have got not only the know-how but also the contacts. They can open doors, or certainly they claim they can, that for many corporate clients - especially non Europeans- are closed. But to open these doors for you, the agencies need to develop their own strategy - based on an expertise they assertively say is unique - and help you implement it. Maybe lobbyists are better at...lobbying for themselves!

But I actually think it is more than that. This idea that everyone knows about communications is probably at the heart of a key problem in this city and it has permeated everything. I remember a very senior colleague in my office, when asked why there wasn't more time - which obviously meant more money - spent on learning about digital communications saying: 'We all know about digital communications: we all Tweet!' No further questions, Your Honour.

The reasoning, following almost an Aristotelian logic, goes like this:

"I know how to communicate, hence I do not need any help. If I know, everyone else knows as well, which means that in the end communications is not that important or rewarding".
The consequences are pretty obvious: in agencies, the communications teams are squeezed, overworked - as their budgets tend to be smaller- and very often demotivated; in the corporate world, companies that cannot or will not afford an agency, will use their communications people mostly as press officers; and in the institutions, as communications is totally undervalued, when there is the need to get rid of someone that is not that good, he or she will be 'promoted' to a post in communications.

The results are painfully clear: the material coming out of public affairs agencies is often mediocre, not to talk about the material coming out of the institutions. And wouldn't some Commissioners - not to name names - have benefitted from investing more time in developing a communications strategy and then sticking to it? I remember asking this exact question to a senior member of Cabinet and was told that the Commissioner in question had to deal with too many things and had to prioritise! There you go!

I understand that Brussels is, to most agencies, quintessentially a lobbying town. But what I find striking is the inability to see that lobbying and communications are two different aspects of the same thing: what else is lobbying (in the good sense of the word) if not communicating your point of view in such a convincing way that it will influence the legislation you are concerned about? Using ALL the tools at your disposal, not only increases your effectiveness but also makes you more transparent hence less subject to criticism. And even talking about the institutions one could use a similar argument: the positive effects of all that the EU does or claims to do are lost on the majority of people because nobody has bothered communicating it in a decent way.

To be fair, some consultants and some EU officials have understood this a long time ago. They attach a central importance to communications and try to do what they can, to spread the word. But in my conversations with them, I have sensed a deep frustration every time I mention this issue which shows that there is still a long way to go.

In the end, it is difficult to change the shape of a bubble without bursting it, which is why for many in Brussels it is probably better if things stay this way.                

Europe, or making an offer we don't understand. (Updated)

An African diplomat, that will remain anonymous, once said: 'Some countries make us offers we can't refuse, Europe makes us offers we do not understand'.
There. I think it says it all. Why everything coming out of the institutions needs to be so complicated, unfathomable - used difficult word on purpose!- and ultimately...boring? Read the acronyms, the press releases, the titles of legislation, and watch the websites and the videos. I realise that is a big generalisation but pretty close to the truth....Why, I ask?

A couple of possible answers:

IGNORANCE. The European institutions do not care much about communications and do not know how to do it, because many of the people working in communications do not have the expertise. (Ah, as you have been so effective as an expert on competition policy, how about working in communications for a while?)

ARROGANCE. The European institutions actually do not want to be understood; a 'keep them guessing' or 'it's complicated' attitude. The idea is that making things simpler and understandable means diminishing their importance, devaluing the serious work being carried out by its officials.

While there is something to be said for both answers, especially the first one, I think that there is another, more subtle one, that is probably at the root of the problem:

GENETICS. The European Union's DNA does not allow directness and simplicity: the history of the EU is full of grey compromises that cannot be totally clear; a careful desire not to offend anybody and a lowest common denominator way of making decisions and communicating them.

There are countless examples of this make-up, if you have the strength to go through the material.

Some time ago I had a look at the webcasts portal of the European Commission to check out the latest podcast. On the left here, the screen shot I took then: would it make any sense to anyone that does not work here in Brussels? Gosh, I am really upset to have missed the.. CALL FP7-SME-2012 - Evaluators' one! You will say, it is not fair to go and pick only on the difficult acronyms, incomprehensible wordings and so on. And maybe you are right. There has been some improvement: for starters, those webcast titles seem to have gone - maybe they read my post? - and the whole of the European Union website (.europa.eu) has been trimmed and it looks much better than it used to; the words and sections are easy enough to understand; but it is SO full of words and only words that after 2 minutes one switches off.

And ask anybody who has actually been trying to find something specific, well, good luck, you probably won't be able to talk to them as they are still busy looking! And I am told that EU officials themselves use Google to find EU documents in the Europa website. If you enter the main newsroom site of the EU and you want to have a look at the latest videos, the first one appearing is called: "Adoption of the A items, Education, Youth, Culture and Sport, (audio) 999999999999 - Council of the EU and European Council": not a great title, you will agree, but then again, we are not in the entertainment business; you decide nonetheless to click on it, what pictures will you see? Well, one: a still picture (the title did say it was an audio piece - but then why under the 'Videos' section?); and what will you hear, if you are still keen to continue? You will hear - for roughly 8 minutes - the voice of a translator starting to talk about phosphates and household detergents (sorry, is it just me not understanding the connection with the beautiful title?). Of course, maybe one needs to hear the whole thing and something will start making sense...but will anyone have the will to do it? Need I say more? Sometimes I despair.

A Compelling story

Now, the tricky bit: quality. There is a general assumption that quality means expensive. Just look at the big advertising video campaigns: surely they must have cost millions! That is why people are so impressed with viral videos: they are mostly home-made, hence cheap, and yet they can reach the same amount of people of a costly TV ad. Well, while of course I would not say that it is cheap to produce a good video, it doesn't need to be super expensive either.

In my opinion, a good quality video can be described in one simple sentence:

A COMPELLING STORY, WELL TOLD, PREFERABLY IN A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME.

I say preferably (and I will come back to the rest of the sentence later) but not necessarily. One example: TED (www.ted.com). The reason TED is so successfull is because you are listening to great story tellers that inspire you or at least make you think. Some of the most viewed talks on TED are around 20 minutes long and that is a LONG time for an online video. But frankly who cares? On top of this, you are actually watching a video of someone talking, that is it, no visual effects. But still, a compelling story, well told in as many minutes it takes!

Let me give you a couple of my favourites:










So, well told, compelling stories. The question now is to decide what is a story, way before assessing whether it is compelling. When I was working in a PR agency, we were often asked by clients to generate media coverage. Reasonable enough request. So, the obvious question: what is your story? You would be surprised to hear some of the answers (never mind the fact that to generate media you need to have a story that is NEWS, but that is a whole other problem!). There was also the assumption that we, as a PR agency, would have to be the ones 'creating' the story for the client. Well, no. You see, my idea is that you tell me your story and we can make it compelling and well told, pitch it - and generate coverage. If you don't know the story you want to tell, maybe there is no story to tell...then forget a good video.
What compelling and well told mean for a video....coming up next!

Why the blog?

New Year, new resolutions....

Sharing and expand my love, interest and -why not?- expertise in visual communications.

Everyone is so busy these days; the attention span - especially of young people - is becoming shorter; yet we all spend hours and hours behind a computer screen. What does this mean? It means that visual online communications has become the most powerful and effective way of shaping the way people think, feel and act.

As a European living in Brussels, I also want to give a European feel to this blog: why most of the fun, viral, effective videos come out of the US? Why can't we have good quality videos coming out of the, wait to hear this, European institutions? You hear constantly here in Brussels: why do Europeans citizens not understand the amazing things we do for them? Have a look at this:



Are you surprised that only 441 people watched it so far, and who knows how many of those 441 watched it until the end? And this is actually not the worse video of the lot...and it tackles a really important subject....

And why are so many private companies shy - to say the least - of using such an effective tool?

Trying to answer and address these questions is not going to be easy but ...as I said, New Year, new (and tough) resolutions....

And just to leave you with a graphic video that I really like (because graphics don't need to be tedious!). More than 900.000 views, by the way...