Important messages are best said through entertainment

Posted on by December 9, 2009 by emelie.fagelstedt

I have a theory that people are too tired to take in large pieces of information at the end of the day. If you’ve been working hard or studying since morning it is difficult to come home and be alert to news. What we often have energy for though, is entertainment. We dream of sitting down in front of the television and just relax- we want to be fed entertainment. With that knowledge at hand it should be safe to assume that it is possible to get important information across by presenting it in a more entertaining way.

An example I am thinking about is British Chanel 4 where the Simpsons family (Fox) are involved in a big health campaign to prevent obesity in Great Britain during this fall. By creating a television campaign where the characters from the popular television show strive to lose weight the British Health Department hopes to inspire children and adults to exercise and eat healthy. The British government has sponsored three months of episodes with £640,000. The campaign has already created headlines in the UK,  in the Telegraph and the Daily Mail to mention two news sites.

Another example is the Swedish food store ICA who have began a campaign called “We can do more” (“Vi kan mera”). The goal with the campaign is to challenge prejudices in society against people with Downs Syndrome and other disabilities by employing over 500 people with disabilities in stores across Sweden. The campaign marketed itself with a series of commercials where a man named Jerry, who had Down’s Syndrome, came to work in an ICA store. By presenting the prejudices almost like a joke in the commercial it won great attention in Sweden and even made the news. Most Swedish people, who watched television during the two weeks the commercial ran, suddenly new about the campaign. Read more on: http://www.ica.se/FrontServlet?s=butiker&state=butiker_dynamic&viewid=1611120 (in Swedish only).

I think that this could be the beginning of a trend. I think that in a world where information and media is all around us it is important to find a creative way of getting peoples’ attention. Entertainment might just be that creative way. I look forward to seeing the results of the Simpson’s health campaign and of ICA’s awarness campaign about people with disabilities.