We’ve recently been working on resource directory sections of mental health, public health, and human services websites for state government. In organizing the content for these sites, we’re often presented with a situation that I’ll call “Bunch Of Stuff Syndrome,” or BOSSy.

Let’s unpack that a bit: directories of public interest resources can be very useful. They collect program names and contact information. The goal is to present the user with a list: “Here is everything that could be helpful to your situation.” But many of these resource sites are equivalent to dumping the contents of your laundry basket all over the bed. Yes it’s all there, but seeing a bunch of stuff isn’t helpful — it’s overwhelming.

A list that shows one hundred options might as well show zero - the user needs to be directed to the single most useful place to accomplish their goal.

When displaying available resources, show only the minimum amount useful. The goal is for the user to arrive at the site, intuitively find what they need, and make the connection to complete the visit. If they have to sift through several results offered with no visual hierarchy indicating importance, the user is likely to get overwhelmed or give up. The site’s only successful when it’s helped the user make that connection.

The real work is organizing the information. Through visual design, ordering, etc., the user can be shown the most helpful information that best connects them to their desired action.

Categories are helpful, especially framed in vocabulary the end user already uses. Imagine a bridge: on one side is what the user knows and the opposite side is the resource that’ll help them. The right way to present the content is the clearest pathway that connects the user to their destination.

For me, search places a lot of responsibility on the user to craft a perfect query. Ask five people what they call something, and you’re likely to get five different answers. Search results often return results where a feature page is displayed between news articles. The feature page is more valuable to the user, but being mixed in with more fleeting news stories isn’t ultimately helpful. It’s BOSSy — a bunch of stuff.

It is possible through design & development to present weighted search results - a prominent visual indicator of a ‘main’ page about content, with subordinate pages for smaller pieces of content. This directs the user towards the more valuable result, and is an approach we favor.

Users need the shortest pathway to solve their problem, and that usually is unrelated to a public agency’s internal bureaucracy. We advocate as much as possible not letting your org chart become your site map.

When public agencies can offer human navigators to connect users with services, it is a much higher quality of service. It makes our advertising job easier, because it gives us a simple point of contact to promote, and we trust trained operators to take it from there. Operators can also help connect users to services they don’t know to ask for. Through empathetic listening, additional opportunities to help may emerge.

The reason we call ourselves Creative Distillery lies within our knack for sifting through a bunch of stuff and focusing on clarity. We understand public agencies’ missions and approach creative work with a goal to help. In short: Creative Distillery heals resource lists from Bunch of Stuff Syndrome, and makes them less BOSSy.

If you’re someone that manages resources that could help people, get in touch with us and let’s talk about how design can help present those resources in a way that’s less overwhelming and more helpful.

Make Public Resource Websites Less ‘BOSSy’

“Main Character Syndrome” isn’t in Webster’s dictionary, but it’s something with which we’re increasingly becoming familiar: the idea that we as individuals believe we are the main character of life, and that the universe is creating its plot based on how we are affected.

It’s something we might observe in others — or, in self-reflective modes, within ourselves. When we step back, we know that’s not true.

But it is hard sometimes to know the difference.

Organizations can fall into this trap as it relates to their brands. The idea that their brand is the main character in the life of someone in their audience. So if you simply make an audience aware that you exist or what you want them to do, they'll run with it from there.

The reality, though, is that it probably isn’t the main character. Given how rare it is to achieve main character status, is that even a worthy aspiration? I say no. People are busy, and their concerns (especially after the last few years) are much more immediate than your brand. And that’s ok!

Embracing that opens a new line of possibility of how your brand can benefit from your audience. Or, even better, 

It forces you to really think about your audience, and what the main characters are in their lives. It’s likely many of the same things in yours: how are the relationships in their lives? Is everyone healthy? How do they spend their time for fun? What’s causing them difficulty at the moment? What are their dreams? What does their community feel like?

It always comes back too empathy and authenticity.

Let’s say that you are a nonprofit and you know that your theory of change, if implemented, will absolutely change the world for the better. It’s not enough to just explain that 

 your audience. In some ways, if the change were easy or natural to make, they’d have made the change already. Many times, your audience just doesn’t have the knowledge base you have. Or they’re thinking about the situation from a completely different frame of reference.

It becomes your responsibility to listen and learn about the frames and experiences that audiences are bringing to your topic. You can listen and learn about what vocabulary audiences use, what questions they ask, what fears they have.

The more you modify your message and your offering to accommodate the audience, the more they recognize it.

If your offering isn’t the main character in your audience’s life, how can it support the main character? To use a reference from Avengers, your brand might not be Tony Stark, but your brand can be the Infinity Stones. Your brand can be the thing your audience (as their own main character) uses to accomplish something that they already recognize as meaningful.

Over time, you achieve a shift - from something on the periphery to something that is recognizable to your audience in the context of their lives. You become just the thing or idea they were looking for.

And once they’ve done that, they’ll share your story for you. Because it empowers them to be the main character - the one who shares a novel solution that creates value for them and the people they care about.

We work with subject matter expert brands to help them untangle the blind spots and speak more meaningfully to their audience. 

Contact us and tell us what you’ve got going on. 

Creative Distillery is a marketing firm that helps clients achieve brand alignment converted into marketing action.

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About

Your Brand Has Main Character Syndrome

Did you know that it takes 17 years from the development of new knowledge until it’s translated into popular practice?

That’s 17 years of missed opportunities in untold numbers of applications in scores of sectors.

Morris ZS, Wooding S, Grant J J R Soc Med. 2011 Dec; 104(12):510-20.

We’re on a mission to connect the most powerful, innovative expert ideas with the audiences that can use them faster, more effectively, and with less resistance to behavior change. Collaboratively with our client partners, we want knowledge to start benefiting our world now, instead of in another 17 years.

We’re constantly fascinated by the conversations we have with subject matter experts who are doing deep research and development on interventions and ideas that solve problems. In areas like public health, reproductive justice, education, economic development, and so many more, the amount of knowledge is rarely the problem. The challenge is convincing audiences to do the behaviors that will create the impact you want to see. 

That’s where the toolbox provided by smart creative marketing comes in.

“Specialists in domains such as health, environment, or altruism aren’t always conscious of the fact that they differ substantially from their knowledges in topical knowledge, values, priorities, and level of involvement, so they lack the perspective of the ‘average’ person.”

Atkin, Charles K., Freimuth, Vicki (2013). Guidelines for Formative Evaluation Research in Campaign Design. In Atkin, Charles K., Rice, Ronald E. Public Communication Campaigns. (2013). United Kingdom: SAGE Publications.

In our experience, subject matter experts basically know so much that it’s difficult to conceive of an audience that doesn’t understand. That’s a challenge if any part of your work is dedicated to changing the behavior of an audience. People bring a variety of experiences to their current thought processes, and often do things based more on their identities than they do because of facts. That means that messages have to be filtered through an identity to be relevant to your audience. Do you have different audiences? You may need different messages, customized to each.

Though your audience is likely not involved in the research leading to a campaign, thinking like your audience is a hugely important part of the process. It helps to expose hidden assumptions or blind spots.

“Arrange the conditions of policy contingencies so that it is fun, easy, and popular for people to make the right decision.”

Smith, Bill (2010). Behavioral economics and social marketing: new allies in the war on absent behavior. Social Marketing Quarterly. 16(2), 137-141.

Assuming a ‘rational actor’ is often more theory than reality. Emotions like affinity and anger can drive behavior in powerful ways. Even business and political leaders are not immune to leading emotion. But it does underscore that facts alone can’t drive positive change. That’s how a public interest campaign on reducing littering becomes 

To drive the real change that you know is needed, you have to speak to your audience’s emotions. Fire them up! The ingredients for that aren’t found in a lab—they come from the world of creative marketing. And marketing on its own without inspirational clients is rudderless. Blending the two is the perfect mixture that I’ve spent my career pursuing.

“Through the haze of time, it is difficult to understand that the proponents of public communications campaigns—whatever their backgrounds—did not conceptualize a time when informational expertise would be contested or indeed that well-meaning expert elites would be challenged.”

Dervin, Brenda, Foreman-Wernet, Lois. Sense-making methodology as an approach to understanding and designing for campaign audiences. In Atkin, Charles K., Rice, Ronald E. Public Communication Campaigns. (2013). United Kingdom: SAGE Publications.

We know that we’re in a challenging time for facts. Audiences’ trust has been tested like never before. If you are an academic center designing a new program, or selling consulting services to the private sector, why should they trust you? Credentials alone don’t cut it—especially if you’re suddenly thrust into talking to the public. Your brand is the interplay and relationship that’s built between you and how your audience feels when they think about you. These are the building blocks towards creating change and landing your message with your audience. If you’ve never considered that your center or program needs a brand, we urge you to think again — you do.

Investing in your brand is the step you can take to bring your center, research, and resulting programs into alignment with the needs of your audience. We call our process Alignment + Action and we’ve got it down to an artful science.

“Consider how those in the commercial marketing sector look at marketing budgets—it’s all about the return on investment.”

Kotler, P., Lee, N. R. (2011). Social Marketing: Influencing Behaviors for Good. India: SAGE Publications.

Our belief is that you’re not doing your work so that knowledge sits on a shelf somewhere—you want it out in the world making positive change. We do, too. We think constantly about those 17 years that knowledge was created but not implemented in real world settings for the public good.

We’ve designed our team and our operations to effectively interpret the spirit of subject matter expert material into social marketing and knowledge translation campaigns. In our conversations with philanthropic funders, they know how important capacity building is for change work. We’re always dismayed when we learn that grantees who have been funded often have unspent marketing line items, simply because they didn’t know where to start! We want your work to connect with your audiences.

Contact us at info@creativedistillery.com and tell us what ideas you want to put into practice.

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