Can success be a four-letter word?
Here comes the science bit
Many a scientist has written about the cathartic value of swearing. It makes us feel better, relieves tension, helps us externalise our anger or frustration (which is a good thing). I agree with that. When someone’s standing on the left-hand side of the escalator down to the Tube in the morning, cursing under my breath definitely makes me feel better. Stephen Fry is also a big fan and defender of swearing, arguing “things not being necessary is what makes life interesting”.
There’s also the strong case for humour. That swearing is funny because of its ability to break convention – something that works especially well in situations where it’s deemed inappropriate, like the office, for example. Obviously agree. A brilliantly-timed F-bomb can, of course, be hilarious because often it verbalises what many of us are thinking, breaks the ice and takes us by surprise.
Surprise and delight?
This element of surprise, or shock, is where swearing worked wonders for Andy Murray’s partner Kim Sears earlier this year. Back in February, Kim swapped her usually demure outfits for a T-shirt emblazoned “Parental Advisory: Explicit Content” to watch the Australian Open final. The choice was a direct response to the Twitter-storm that followed her profanity-laced support for Murray’s semi-final victory days beforehand.
Like many, I applauded Kim’s swearing because it felt genuine – it resonated with me. I mean, come on – who watches sport (let alone a spouse playing sport) and politely claps when the opposition takes the lead or gestures disappointment by gently shaking their head and pursing their lips? She swore, we gasped (or laughed) and her popularity rocketed. Yes, it might have all just been a PR stunt, but it worked. So well played, Kim.
Action speaks louder
Looking back to last year, The Pilion Trust Charity released this video. It features a man walking the streets wearing a pretty offensive sandwich board. Unsurprisingly, passers by get a bit upset and start yelling at him, branding him “disgusting” and suchlike. It’s not until the video closes with the message: “We know you care. But do you care enough to give?” that we realise it’s deliberately highlighting how people often lament poverty but don’t actually donate. It’s a pretty powerful guilt trip.
The Pilion Trust is one of many charities and health organisations that employ shock tactics to challenge social ideals, break taboos and incite a response. In this video, the tactic the charity uses is swearing and the video has had nearly five million YouTube hits as a result. That’s got to be a good thing. Yes, it might cause offence to some but there’s no denying it provokes a strong reaction. Your attention is well and truly grabbed. You’re about to start a conversation.
Choose wisely
This is a case of a brand using expletives intelligently and executing the delivery well to create a powerful message. There are some cases where brands haven’t done it quite so well and the result makes you want to pull your jumper over your mouth and squirm in horror at their poor judgment. Like this:
While there is an argument that any reaction is better than no reaction, in cases like Pussy I’m not sure this holds true. But there’s no doubt that being a little risqué can work extremely well if there’s some genuine strategic thinking behind it or if it strikes the right balance of humour and shock. Like this:
The secret of striking the right balance between offensiveness and effectiveness is really no different from achieving success with any campaign: common sense and good judgment. So, my potty-mouthed chums – next time you’re tempted to pepper your work with some big fat expletives, think very carefully before the shit hits the fans.
Lucy has left The Frameworks.
A matter of facts: The EU referendum and the power of mistruths
“Any time you are interviewed, regardless of the line of questioning, you must, must, must say: ‘the UK sends £350 million a week to the EU’.’”
Diktat delivered, the martinet then added, conspiratorially sotto voce, behind a pantomime hand raised to the mouth: “Try to ignore the fact that we absolutely do not send that much and that every time you repeat this line you are lying.”
Some version of this scenario must have happened, at least. Because it seems that barely a day goes by without a prominent “Brexiteer” crowbarring the refrain into an opaque “let-me-be-clear” answer. It is the statistical hook on which their entire campaign has been based. It is the most prominent figure in Vote Leave’s “Get the Facts” PDF. It is so important to them and their hell-bent quest for headlines that the message shouts with bold-lettered brio from their scarlet campaign bus.
The claim is a hollow one, based on pretty muddy thinking. This is not the platform for a full rebuttal of the £350 million figure, but here are three pretty good reasons to question it:
- The Institute of Fiscal Studies has said that it’s a lie
- The chair of the UK Statistics Authority has said that it’s a lie, and issued a stern rebuke to Vote Leave campaigners who use it
- Former Brexiteer Sarah Wollaston has said that it’s a lie, even defecting from the campaign because she couldn’t – to malappropriate from A Few Good Men – handle the mistruth
So we can be fairly sure that the £350 million is sub-veracious. Even the de facto leader of Vote Leave, Boris Johnson, admitted in an ITV interview that “if you take out the abatement and the money that comes back via Brussels the figure is obviously lower”. Most authorities agree that the true per-week figure is appreciably lower than £350 million and probably somewhere nearer to £150 million.
But the real point is that whether it’s £350 million a week or £150 million a week, or somewhere in between, the true amount simply does not matter. What is true does not matter. Not one jot. This is worth restating. The authenticity of the most important stat in the agenda-setting campaign of the most important vote in generations does not matter.
The bottom-line, brass-tacks truth of a political claim pales in insignificance to how well that claim plays in the mind of the target audience. How much of an emotional connection it makes. How deep the pithy little stat-parasite burrows its way into the minds of the masses.
Polls show that the £350 million stat has performed well on these bases, that it has resonated well with the public at large. It is entrenched. It is there. And even if enough voices of authority persuade the majority of the public that the £350 million figure is wrong, the debate will have been won and lost. Because by the time the sums have been done, the parasite may be forced from the frontal lobe, but it will have left behind an indelible thought-scar: “We spend millions every week on EU membership”. The enduring message, the gist, the strapline is that our subscription to the club is costly – and it’s an outlay we could do with cutting from the family budget.
None of this is unique to the Leave campaign. The independent fact-checking charity Full Fact has criticised the “Remain” campaign’s bombast – particularly on the calculations used to describe the potential economic impact of a Brexit – almost as much as Vote Leave’s.
And since the dawn of the age of spin (one of the grand ironies is that the age of misinformation has coincided with the age of information), politicians of every creed have simply stopped caring if the figures they tweet and retweet are nonsense, if the claims and counterclaims they make are baseless, if the quotes and soundbites they pump out are false: if they can get a line, or a stat that sticks, one that, glory of glories, becomes a meme, then who cares if it’s wrong? They’ll keep saying it and hang the consequences. The former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, looked upon the statistical paint splatter of the 2015 general election campaign and described it as: “yah-boo with numerical knobs on”. The current campaign is even worse.
We now have a more connected world than ever. We have supercomputers that can crunch numbers and artificial intelligence that can simulate possibilities and predict likely eventualities. We have instruments and gauges that track every social and fiscal transaction. Through technology, we are able to scrutinise and investigate claims like never before.
Commercial brands need to be aware of this and tread carefully when using figures and claims as part of a marketing strategy. Every one must be watertight and backed by evidence, otherwise sanctions will follow. Skechers (whose "calorie-burning" shoes were proven to be no different from regular shoes), Listerine (whose claim that mouthwash was as effective as flossing in combating tooth decay was ruled by a judge to be misleading) and Naked Juice (whose “all-natural” tagline was undermined by the synthetic vitamins added to every bottle) are among three companies to have been stung by big-money lawsuits in the past.
But how much do these mistruths matter? Consumers still associate Skechers with calorie burning, they still think of Listerine as an effective mouthwash – and they’ll still turn to Naked Juice when they’re on a detox. But brands overlook trust, clarity and truthfulness at their peril. They must stand by – and stand up to – the claims they make and the communications they put out. And this is particularly important in sensitive and regulated industries like healthcare. The Frameworks is currently working on a B2B content project in this very industry – and when you’re dealing with people’s health, there’s no room for error. Stringent fact checking – and even legal approval – are required when creating healthcare communications. And it should be the same in any industry.
Somehow, however, politicians and political parties are immune to the pressures faced by brands. Despite all the fact-checks and balances we’ve created, many politicians do not defer to the authority of hard evidence. If they did, then we might enjoy a world where policies are designed based on how the evidence indicates the greater good might be achieved. Instead, it is the reverse: demagogic appeals and ideology come first, then stats and facts are sprayed on later for a bit of post-hoc PR burnish.
Whether we wake up on Friday “in” or “out” – don’t you think we deserve better?