Trump and Sanders are grabbing all the attention.
Bush and Clinton continue to protest that they have more reasoned and pragmatic strategies.
Many informed commentators like the Washington Post’s Kathleen Parker agree with them:
“His (Trump’s) plans and policies are amateurish to pretendish, certainly as compared with those of someone such as Jeb Bush, who has offered detailed plans for tackling complicated issues. Not that voters are going to read them.”
And therein lies the problem. Strategies don’t grab people’s attention. Stories do.
As Bob Hoffman writes on The Ad Contrarian:
“The public never sees the strategy document. All they see are the spots. If the spots suck, the whole thing sucks.”
Just as nothing kills a bad product like great advertising, the best strategies are worthless without creative content that demands attention and inspires action.
More from Hoffman:
“It doesn't matter how brilliant or noble your strategy is. If your ad is just a re-stating of the strategy and does not communicate something interesting and memorable you will have wasted your money -- regardless of your intent.”
The same is true in business communications.
Very few people are inspired by a strategy.
People are inspired by stories that bring a strategy to life.
Trump and Sanders are inspiring action by telling better stories.
