November 10, 2007

Pop Quiz

Great discussion from the Miami Book Fair with Frances Fitzgerald and others. One of the panelists gave the audience three combinations of two words each. I can't remember them exactly, but let's say they were "moon" and "ocean"....then "floor" and "hood"...and I can't at all remember the third combination.

Now...count backwards from 100 to 97.

OK....name the first laundry detergent that comes to mind.

Now name the first automobile that comes to mind.

More about this later.

The Million-Plus People March

In little more than a week after Stephen Colbert announced his "candidacy" for president, more than one million people had joined a group called "1,000,000 Strong for Stephen Colbert."

By contrast, Barack Obama's "million strong" group took more than eight months to get 380,000 members.

Then there's Ron Paul who raised more than $4 million on the Internet in one day. And he's not anywhere near the front runner in the polls.

It's a brand new world out there...thanks to new technologies and new ways of communicating.

Watch out for Mike Bloomberg early in '08.

The way we can reach people now...the way people can change, and change the dynamics of the marketplace...these are conditions that are filled with possibilities.

More On Pop Quiz

If you're in the majority, the detergent you named was Tide. And the automobile you named was Ford.

That's because those word associations set you up to make those choices.

What the panelists were discussing was a new book called What Orwell Didn't Know: Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics by Andras Szanto and Orville Schell.

They were pointing out how successful the Republicans are in using a vocabulary that carries with it a controlled message. Examples include Bush's constant linkage of Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. The two had no contact to speak of, and one had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11. But the constant linkage has caused Americans to infer that they are one and the same.

Similarly, the constant usage of the phrase "war on terror" fits right into the Bush vocabulary based on one single concept: fear.

Walk into an airport and you'll hear an announcement saying that the current threat advisory level is something like "orange." What does that mean? Who knows? But it contributes to the atmosphere of terror...an atmosphere that has kept the Bush administration in power.

The Republicans are geniuses at coming up with the vocabulary to lead people to the responses they [the Republicans] want....just as "moon" and "ocean" may very well have led you to Tide.

Reagan did it with his "comfort food" vocabulary...."Star Wars" was going to be a protective shield to prevent any invasions..."Morning in America" was a world of hope.

As communicators and as consumers, we can learn so much from these choices of words and phrases. They demonstrate the value and importance of wisely choosing an appropriate vocabulary, repeating it frequently, and making certain that it is evoking the responses and associations that you seek.