Is your content important? Yes. Is it complex? A bit. Also, somewhat dry? Unfortunate. Podcast, blog, speech, or product, how do you entice someone to listen to you when what you have to say is serious but not an instant attention grabber?
The folks at KUOW Public Radio and The Seattle Times in partnership with NPR faced that problem for a recent podcast on just that type of topic: The difficulties in treating serious mental illness. Their solution? A simple, but powerful, attention grabbing “imagine” metaphor that ultimately got people to register. See how they did it below.
The American healthcare system is a maze — by design.
Imagine a sprawling house in which every room, doorway and hall passage was designed by a different architect. Doorways don’t connect. Staircases lead to nowhere. Rooms are cut off from each other. That’s how reporter Will James describes our complicated system for 
treating people with severe mental illness — a system that, almost by design, loses patients with psychosis to an endless loop between the streets, jail, clinics, courts and a shrinking number of hospital beds.
Lost Patients is a deeply-reported, six-part docuseries examining the difficulties of treating serious mental illness through the lens of Seattle’s past, present and future. With real-life testimonials from patients, families and professionals on the front lines, Lost Patients provides a real, solutions-oriented look at how we got stuck here…and what we might do to break free.
Pretty compelling, isn’t it? Certainly more so than if they had just written, “The Complicated System for How We Treat People With Serious Mental Illness”
Take a Closer Look
When we break down their podcast promotion, what it does is pretty simple, but definitely reflects considerable forethought:
- They begin with a metaphor. [A maze] An image as metaphor that is easily and instantly understood as having blind paths and dead-ends, evoking feelings of frustration and angst, and–unbelievably–all done “by design.” (!)
- Next, they expand the metaphor [Sprawling house… rooms cut off from each other] to help us “see” how crazy that is, which makes us wonder who would ever build a house like that?
- Then, they link the metaphor to their topic [That’s how Will James…shrinking number of hospital beds] After “seeing” how impossibly complicated and outrageous the mental health system is, we are asking ourselves, again, who would ever create a system like that? How in the world did this happen and what can be done?
In short, the “imagine” maze metaphor hits our visual, emotional and logic buttons, piques our interest, and primes us to sign up for the podcast!
“Imagine” is a Magical Word
This “Imagine” metaphor technique can be used in any communication situation in business (and life). In your world
- What do you present/speak/blog about?
- What metaphor can you use, then expand, and finally link to your topic to grab and hold a listener’s or viewer’s attention, particularly when the topic is tough, serious, or dry?
Opening with a strong metaphor that begins “Imagine the following…” fires up the visual and emotional parts of your listener’s brain and you are pretty much guaranteed to hook their attention and interest to achieve the result you want.
Anne Miller
Make What You Say Pay! – with Metaphors
Photo by Alan Blatt via Pixabay
P.S.To listen to their podcast, click here
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