Editor’s note: WRAL TechWire’s growing list of regular contributors continues to grow – here’s the latest. In a column he calls The Hook, Billy Warden explores marketing, persuasion and leadership through the stories of pop culture. This is where the sizzle in our movies, music, books and behind-the-scenes lore connects with your work. Because, as he says, why shouldn’t what you do for a living be as compelling as what you consume for fun?
Billy is a writer, multimedia producer and marketing exec based in Raleigh, where he co-founded the p.r. firm GBW Strategies, which has repped major brands and personalities for more than a decade. And yes, he’s been on Hollywood red carpets – as an executive producer for E! Entertainment Networks.
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RALEIGH – The smash Netflix satire “Don’t Look Up” features a planet-pulverizing apocalypse and a beast from outer space feasting on a U.S. president, but one of the biggest jolts, at least to the movie’s protagonists, involves a marketing mainstay: media training.
Photo courtesy of Billy Warden
As the plot unfolds, two stroppy scientists scramble to warn the world of impending doom via a runaway asteroid. But various media gatekeepers take as much note of the pair’s prickly, stumbling style as of the dire news. This after the scientists have an on-air meltdown trying to navigate the smooth ‘happy talk’ of two morning show hosts.
The idea of needing special training to say something straightforward and highly relevant gobsmacks the scientists – who, as played by Leonard DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, spend most of the movie gobsmacked, befuddled and misunderstood.
But in C-suites, politics, big time sports and beyond, media training is as routine as a car inspection. “Don’t Look Up” casts it as a rite of passage into a plutocracy hooked, by the movie’s lights, on pablum and puffery; a one way ticket to all things slick and ick.
In reality, though, a sound media training wouldn’t bastardize or bowdlerize the substance of what our scientist heroes have to say, but sharpen it into a cohesive story. After all, media consumers, no matter how frivolous we seem, love a good story.
Here’s how my associates and I would have handled the ‘dreaded’ media training:
- Simplify
When it’s their time to shine, the scruffy scientists in “Don’t Look Up” dither where they should dart. Rather than come out with a strong message at the top, they hem, haw, spew confusing background, explode with nervous tics and generally frustrate the bejesus out of whoever is trying to hear them out.
In other words, they complicate where they should simplify. The first words out of a spokesperson’s mouth should make the key points in the strongest, clearest terms. Those first utterances establish the frame and set the tone for everything to come.
2. Organize
Not everything is simple. Complicated things require explanation – like dealing with an asteroid or, hmmm, a pandemic. During media training, people with a lot of ‘splaining to do break matters down to manageable sets of data points.
The process starts by anticipating questions, e.g. ‘Where does this world-crushing asteroid come from?,’ ‘Is there anything we can do to stop it??,’ ‘So you’re telling us we’re all going to DIE???’ To each question, no matter how frightful, the prep team distills clear and concise responses. And where a definitive answer isn’t possible, the team prepares the spokesperson to make nuances clear, too.
3. Focus
The scientists in “Don’t Look Up” are always getting distracted – whether by an army general charging for bottled water at the White House or the swoosh-and-swirl of a TV news set.
A good media training can help a spokesperson tune out the distractions – including off point lines of inquiry – by establishing goals for the interview. Better that our scientists stick with the fast-approaching asteroid than get sidetracked by, for example, questions about a failing marriage or eccentric fashion choices.
Focusing on your mission while in the hot seat will help bring down the temperature and increase the odds of landing your message.
4. Be human
In “Don’t Look Up,” the scientist played by Leo undergoes a media training off-screen and emerges with rough edges smoothed, confidently spouting slogans. He doesn’t fully recover his humanity until the very end when, as the world burns, he prays and then muses, “We really did have everything, didn’t we?”
In a bellicose film, it’s a beautiful moment. And, interestingly, it wasn’t in the script. Director Adam McCay has credited the character’s “gut punch” last line to on-set improv by Leo. Which makes the point that truly bringing a story to life requires humanity, realness, moments of from-the-heart authenticity.
The idea is not to turn an exec or public official or quarterback into a robot. Rather, a constructive media training weeds out confusion and clutter, and engenders confidence. It’s not ‘show and tell,’ but ‘know and tell’: know the audience, know the mission, know the facts. Because whether you’re telling a story about asteroids or apps, policy or product that’s how to make a (positive) impact.
Billy Warden is a writer, marketing exec and multimedia producer based in the Research Triangle, where he co-founded the p.r. agency GBW Strategies.
