Why should anyone care?

It’s a question that should be at the top of the list for any organization trying to get its point or story across.

In my two decades in news, one of the most powerful concepts I ever learned was taught to me by a gentleman named Al Tompkins at The Poynter Institute. The concept involves tying your story to a “motivator” for engaging an audience with your story. What will “motivate” someone to care?

The five great motivators are:

• Money
• Family
• Safety
• Health
• Community

For example, if you’re trying to get a message out about a regulatory change, you need to frame the story so the average audience member can understand the issue through one of the motivators above, and what it would mean to them.

It sounds like a simple concept, but it can actually be a pretty tough thing to do consistently. Under the pressure of deadlines, workloads, and heaps of conflicting information, I’d often see folks struggle to attach a clear motivator to a story, or simply overlook it, as they aimed to deliver their work on time. I suspect it’s a common challenge for anyone trying to communicate a message or tell a story.

One of the best ways of overcoming the challenge was taking a pause and coming up with a simple focus phrase for each story centred around “who did what”. For example, “a patient’s relief at getting a family doctor”, “investors lose after business fails”, or “neighbours fear coyotes”. The phrase focused on putting the audience in a situation they could relate to, and therefore care about.

There was one other motivator that Mr. Tompkins mentioned, but was usually best avoided – Innate Curiosity. This was usually the motivator that would get used when someone was struggling to attach their story to one of the initial five motivators. You’d often hear “but it’s just really interesting!” or “this is really important!” as the reason for wanting to use innate curiosity as a motivator and do a particular story. But what’s “really interesting” or “really important” to one person is often of no interest or importance to another person. The solution was always to go back to the drawing board and find a way to attach the “interesting” or “important” story to one of the original five motivators to ensure it resonated.