How do you deal with the challenge of combining your overall message (which, let’s be honest, may or may not be very exciting) with the need to make it entertaining enough to drive people there and hold their attention? Should it be all fun and games or should there be real meat to the content and clear purpose for the audience?
In the earliest planning stages of every wahi, we use an approach that we find very useful in answering this question. We begin each production by researching and determining a very deliberate balance of education (message delivery) and entertainment. We call this our edutainment ratio and it drives the scope and design of each wahi. Starting with this ratio provides a clear focus for scripting, graphic design, casting and every other piece of the project.
Many of our early productions began with an 80/20 or 70/30 education/entertainment ratio. In some cases, depending on client wishes, it may have been higher. In many of our recent productions we’ve had the opportunity to create a more balanced 60/40 or even 50/50 ratio. Most of these productions have been public awareness initiatives, in which there is typically a large amount of vital content to be delivered. Even so, the balance is key to ensuring the users remain engaged and retain the information.
Of course, the success of any ratio truly depends on the goals of the initiative, the content being delivered, the target audiences being addressed, among other variables. It’s always an exciting challenge to figure out the best approach for different target audiences, specifically when you’re dealing with sensitive information.
Here’s what we know:
1. Even when you have a large amount of vital information to be delivered (80/20 education to entertainment), you can still make it “feel” like the reverse. We’re working on a new production now in which content dominates (and it’s pretty sensitive, personal information). However, we’ve been able to design an approach that makes the content itself the entertainment. There are secrets shared by the cast members that users need to find out and remember. There are stories, filled with key information about the subject matter that audience members can use to continue into new areas of content.
2. You have more than 100% to deal with. The conversation can be fully entertainment and fully educational. Despite my use of ratios above, you really do have more than 100% to deal with in terms of education to entertainment. The way you deliver the content, the style, the language, the opportunities for audience participation, the cast you use; all can be designed for edutainment. Think outside the box.
3. Motivation is THE factor. Your approach to the edutainment ratio can be solely based on user motivations. If this is content that users are genuinely seeking without additional motivation, you have more flexibility to deliver your message directly and there is less need to entertain. However, if your audience is not seeking this information and may even be resistant to it, entertainment is not only needed, but required to have any impact.
In our case, we have the ability to use the wahi platform to design specific education to entertainment ratios depending on audience responses throughout the conversation. So, we can actually design a conversation to increase the entertainment factor for a given set of responses or be more direct about the information if responses indicate the audience is open to it. We can determine their acceptance or resistance to a topic and change the ratio. It’s all extremely exciting. So, as you are thinking through concepts and ideas, start with the motivation of the audience(s) and then set an edutainment ratio to shoot for. I think you’ll find it very helpful as a measurement to go by throughout the designing, building and implementing phase of any social marketing initiative.