The Conservative party’s post budget ‘Bingo’ ad and the subsequent spoof versions have been a source of much amusement but also of incredulity, especially among PR and communication professionals. Why? Because the original ignores the most fundamental principle of all good communication. It fails to identify a clear target audience and therefore fails to deliver a message which is relevant and engaging. No doubt there have been ‘meetings without coffee’ to unpick what went wrong. For the rest of us, particularly for the people I help with presentation skills, it’s a reminder that the audience is the hero of your content. Before you set out what you want to say, you need to have absolute clarity on who you are speaking to and what they know/feel/want. Quite why these questions weren’t asked by the authors of the Bingo ad, we’ll never know. I bet they’re dying for a cup of coffee though.
March 23, 2014