Driving along a freeway recently I was struck by two billboards advertising university places.
Have a look at Jock’s versions of these calls for students to identify with their prospective ‘alma mater’ and explore the Thoughtware behind them.
The first is pretty straight forward in that it requires the reader to appreciate that there is a new form of thinking that might appeal and excite them.
It doesn’t matter that the reader knows what that ‘new’ thinking is - just that it is not the same as they are used to.
Perhaps the message is just as appealing to the rebellious nature of youth – it doesn’t matter what the new thinking is – just that it is ‘new’ – which, by the way, it unfortunately probably isn’t.
Now let’s take the second billboard – have you worked it out?
Is it possible that if you haven’t worked it out then you wouldn’t be a candidate for this university at all.
(Excuse my perverseness but if you haven’t worked it out you may have to wait until the end of this post for the answer)
The Nature of Thoughtware
The billboard experience made me think further into the nature of interactivity and its role in digital marketing and communication.
Thinking Pharma has previously shown you a cartoon set derived from the eminent work of Scott Mcleod.
Scott, all those years ago, introduced me and subsequently every digital team I have ever worked with, to the notion of the ‘gutter’.
The gutter being the space between media where the creator of that media expects the user to exercise their brain and fill in the gap – reach a conclusion – have a thought – perform some type of mental gymnastics – to get ‘cognitively’ engaged.
I then learned from Professor Michael Allen how to express my understanding of interactivity by drawing upon one of Knowles’s andragogical principles – Learning by Doing.
Action learning, where adults comprehend and remember because they do something with the content presented seemed to marry well with the notion of the gutter.
If you could stimulate someone’s thinking and then get them to do something, preferably physical, with that thinking, then the chances that they will have engaged with the ideas you are trying to convey greatly increases.
Marketing Relevance
Billboards, TV and Print Media can only go so far along a Thoughtware based marketing initiative.
They can stimulate the thought but the creation of a supporting and reinforcing physical action becomes challenging – not impossible – but more challenging.
More challenging, that is, than what is available to us in the interactive world of Web’s 1.0 and 2.0.
If these communication mediums are in the hands of interactive architects, unfortunately not graphic artists, copy writers or interface designers, then the full might of interactive marketing can be realised.
The Pharma Opportunity
Consider the Pharma communication targets:
- Physicians
- Payers
- Regulators
- Health Professionals
- Patients
- Health Consumers
Think of the myriad of marketing communication agendas that Pharma has with these targets.
Isn’t the Interactive Thoughtware tool perfect for communicating and engaging with these targets?
The communication issues are often complex; require engagement; involve information transference and translation into knowledge; demand ‘stickiness’ of thought; stimulate actions that are favourable to the communicator; benefit from a catalytic two-way dialogue.
If Interactive Thoughtware is so relevant to a Pharma communications agenda why do we not see it utilised more frequently?
The Answer?
When you think about it - the reason for the poor use of Interactive Thoughtware in Pharma marketing communication could be the same as why some people will still not have worked out the messaging in that university billboard.
Have You?
(Tomorrow’s Post: “Mind like a Steel Trap.”)
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