United Telemedia

“Bait your hook with empathy and reel them in.”

It is my belief that to deliver a message effectively, any presentation requires one key element. That element is empathy. Without it there is no meaningful connection between the audience and the presentation. The delivery medium doesn’t matter. What does matter is the immediate “I & You” connection (otherwise known as intersubjectivity). I’ve been preaching this a lot lately. As a producer of video, and multimedia, I feel very strongly about this.

Over the course of a day, and from all forms of modern media, we are swamped by an endless stream of messages. How many of these messages grab, motivate, or inspire us? Probably, only a very few do. Why are any successful? The answer is simple: in some way they create an empathic connection with us.

Most of us are familiar with the concept of “the hook.” It is how we grab a viewer’s attention and keep it. In my work, words, images and sounds, are the elements I use to “reach out and grab my audience.” If you Google “Capturing Hearts and Minds” you will quickly realize that it is highly overused cliché; however, it summarizes exactly what must be done. If you want to set your hook, you have to bait it with empathy to capture those illusive “hearts and minds.”

I learned about “the hook” concept back in my days as a commercial/spot editor. The ad agency copy writers agonized over what to say and show in :30 seconds that would grab a viewer’s attention. A frequent criticism was: “where’s the hook? I’m not feeling it!” If they didn’t “bait” their hook with empathy, making a connection with the viewer would be difficult. No connection meant extinction (and still does) via the remote control, a trip to the kitchen, or the most horrible put down of all, a trip to the bathroom. Today, on the internet, a simple mouse click happens…and you’re done.

I read in Fortune Small Business Magazine, Feb 08: “Experts say about 35% of the message in a conversation is conveyed with speech, while 65% comes from facial expression and body language.” Within a video, this combination, along with careful art direction, can create a powerful visual experience for the viewer. Obvious? Yes! Yet think about how much “blah blah” we are subjected to that doesn’t even come close to delivering its message? No connection, no buy in, no result. A lot of money, and effort, can be wasted if empathy isn’t created and leveraged.

In the rush to create copy, produce the video and then post it, broadcast it, or show it, the importance of the “I & you” relationship may be overlooked. The subtle combination of words, images and music can be leveraged to create a powerful empathic connection between your message and your audience. It takes a little planning, and forethought, but it can be the difference between a video that works or one that is simply more noise to the viewer’s already overloaded senses.