Letting others do the work…

Within the social media/ non-traditional communications age we live, it is easy to find brands that are spreading their message by initiating the conversation and then letting others do the work by expanding on those conversations.  I have talked about this role brands have taken before, and I applaud the strategies companies and creative agencies are developing. The digital arena is where successful brands need to be.

However, I think it is important we sometimes look back at smart traditional communication strategies that, believe it or not, still happen, so we can evaluate how they too can initiate a conversation and then provide others the opportunity to do the work by spreading the word.

Recently, our agency did a campaign for the Missouri Department of Health and Safety that encouraged sexually active young adults to get tested for HIV and STDs.

Yes, we used digital space to communicate our message to our intended audience – to many that is what started the conversation – but we did not overlook the power of traditional word- of- mouth strategies. 

Through research, we discovered that when young adults have issues dealing with their sex life, they turned to their close friends for advice and support.  Therefore, our objective was to place those that had already taken control of their health by getting tested at the center of our strategies.  We wanted them to spread the word to friends that were uneasy about visiting a local testing center, so we had to give them a conversation starter.

That conversation starter was business cards that provided contact information to local testing centers.  These business cards broke the ice on a very sensitive topic and enabled others to do the work for the brand.  Smart idea…