I was consulting on a magazine design and layout several years ago in a central London publisher’s open plan office and had a query with an ad so walked across to discuss it with the sales guy who contacted and sold the page to the advertiser. He was finishing a call so I pulled up a seat and waited as he finished his call. It was mostly him confirming ABC figures and publication dates. My mind was wandering around the sales room until I heard him state “… as long as your target customer sees your ad or presence seven times you become a consideration in their decision making. Seven hits and you’re it!…” He finished the call with pleasantries. I clarified the query I had and asked him where the “seven hits … you’re it” theory came from. He couldn’t cite anything but dismissed it with “Everybody knows that”. I didn’t, so I investigated.
The truth is that it’s a theory. There is no data to either confirm or deny it. There are plenty of thesis and essays on the subject but none that can confirm a precise number of hits. None of the research papers denied, however, that mutiple hits worked at varying levels. Telling someone a million times that unicorns roam the glens around Loch Lomond will be unlikely to convince, indeed, as Bill Bernach1 the founder of DDB in New York once stated “A great ad campaign will make a bad product fail faster. It will get more people to know it’s bad.” However if you tell someone that a snack bar tastes of chocolate covered coconut ten times there is a fair chance it will be considered when they next fancy a wee treat. If it could be true they could be interested.
It is enough for the spin doctors to make statements that could be true. The veracity is not the issue. The communication is the key. People read headlines. If the headline resonates and is easily repeatable they will repeat it regardless of the article’s content, comments section or the Twitter replies. The lid of the box is opened and Pandora is off and out there. In 1710 Jonathon Swift wrote in “The Examiner” on the subject of communicated falsehoods:
“Besides, as the vilest Writer has his Readers, so the greatest Liar has his Believers; and it often happens, that if a Lie be believ’d only for an Hour, it has done its Work, and there is no farther occasion for it. Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect…”
If the starting pistol fires after the lie has already started running then the truth will have little chance of winning the short chase and in today’s multimedia chaos all the chases are short even in seemingly interminable Scottish Independence or Brexit debates. The Red Bus was a lie but it mattered not. It did its job. “A lie is halfway around the world before the truth has laced his boots” – Unknown2.
In the run up to the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum many groups formed. While political parties, in general, need to abide by specific rules and guidelines governing spending and answerability the peripheral activists were under no such restraint. ‘Better Together’ was one such organisation. Together with ‘Scotland in Union’ they were always that one step ahead because they would meet, organise, decide upon communication strategies and the message to be hammered home. They had a plan and they had a common integral mission. The pro independence supporters were always there with counter arguments but the arguments were seen mainly by the arguers. There were and are many great and compelling reasons for an independent Scotland but if those reasons are diluted by lack of cohesion, lack of uniformity, lack of strategy, lack of precision and, more importantly, not widespread, then they are always destined to be tying their bootlaces while the track is halfway lapped already. To win this race you need to be running first, you need to be aware of where you are heading and you need a common widespread voice. I look at social media and I see misquotes, name-calling, badly designed memes and some cringe-worthy FREEDUM cries. We are often seen as a parody of the Scotsmen they want us to be. We are on the back foot when we should be on the front foot. Unless we have an integrated scheduled message which goes viral on Social Media before being challenged we are always bobbing in the wake of their unionist ship.
Almost daily the Scottish Conservatives post on social media with a theme. They have people with the same shared message pumping it out to everyone. “SNP attacked for….(insert anything here)”. Journalist takes a theme, gets an opposition party member to comment on it and labels it as more than just a solicited quote. The structure of the sentences and the repetition is blatant as are the lies. No one cares. If they get a headline that says “Sturgeon eats old lady’s pension” no amount of rebuttal and exposure of actual truth will stop that headline being discussed in the homes and workplaces of Scotland, deflecting from the unanswered “who provided Dark Money?” – “Why are we paying for the DUP to support Tories in Westminster?” – ” Why are Scottish taxpayers funding pro-Brexit propaganda?”. If independence supporters cannot organise sufficiently to battle that process there is a very good chance they will fail again. Simply screaming “Independence is normal” is not working. Dressing up like latter day William Wallace, while entertaining, is of no value in convincing observers that we are more than a parody of the imagery foisted upon us.
We scots even turn up at football and rugby matches wearing Jimmy Hats which were designed specifically by an unfunny second rate English comedian Russ Abbott to parody the worst kind of Scotsman, the illiterate, indecipherable, grunting, reckless, feckless, unthinking and exceptionalist nationalistic pleb. There is no place for that image in our inclusive culture or we are doomed to self imprisonment within that narrow narrative. Rab C Nesbit was a familiar and occassionally funny character in a TV show. While similar characters exist in our – or any – society they are a dying breed. We have jobs, cars, mortgages, kids at university, art, music, and a resourceful land full of resourceful people. We are not Rab C. Nesbit. We are more Charles Rennie Mackintosh, John Logie Baird, Alxander Fleming, Alexander Graham Bell, Jock Stein, Robet Burns, James Watt, Adam Smith, Alex Ferguson, Arthur Conan Doyle, J K Rowling3, Andy Murray, Peter Howson, Joseph Lister, Annie Lennox, Hugh McIlvanney and all the other great scots who have stepped up and excelled in their field. Let’s re-assess what we are.
There are pro independence groups forming in preparation for an imminent referendum. Supporters must hope this time there is more authority. Hope there is more dignity. Hope there are more shared communication strategies. Hope they will not stand back and let the other fellow slap their face and run away. Hope they are not simply reactive.
Another great Bill Bernach quote pertinent to this subject:
“In this very real world, good doesn’t drive out evil. Evil doesn’t drive out good. But the energetic displaces the passive.”
There are many great voices out there rooting for Scotland but all too often they are not proactive. They are followed by equally thoughtful and logical supporters but still unorganised and way behind the pack who are posting the headlines on social media, writing to newspapers, pulling favours with media chums and landing the first punch. Will the precise truth be sacrificed in that process or will it go down as another glorious failure of fair play making a brave but impotent stance against heavily financed media control? That has yet to be seen.
Boswell had a better grip on it. When Samuel Johnson stated “The scots survive on oats. A grain we feed our horses” Boswell’s timely retort was “That is why in England you breed fine horses whereas in Scotland we breed fine people”
Footnote:
1 The character of Don Draper in MadMen was loosely based onBill Bernach
2 Not Winston Churchill as many claim.
3 J K Rowling, along with others, may have spoken against independence but she undoubtedly mad a mark globally.
Moving Along Nicely 
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