PRinHR

I wish I were an Oscar Meyer Wiener

The dignified and lovely @RLSherman mentioned in a Tweet earlier this week one word that sent me on a trip down memory lane.  The word was Rainier, a majestic mountain hogging some of the skyline of Seattle, Washington, Richard’s home town, and close to where I lived for 10 years as a smaller person. 

The mountain is beautiful, yet my audio memory kicked in for, all things, a beer called Rainier, a local brand which had an advertisement based on the sound of a motorcycle revving along a road near the mountain.  The sound of Raai-niiee-rrr Bee-eerrr changed with the revs of the motorbike, subtle but obvious all in one, and it stuck in my head as a child and hasn’t removed itself.

Other adverts which have (sadly) stayed with me, and probably will do for time-immemorial, are ones for Oscar Meyer Wieners (hot dogs) and a McDonald’s Big Mac poem. Let me know if you’d like me to recite them. I can, far too easily.  Obviously, food and drink were as much a part of my youth as they are my adulthood (although, I hasten to add, that I’m a tiny bit healthier these days). 

My point is that these forms of communication stuck.  They are quite useless to me now, but they still make me smile. Hell, my kids even know the Oscar Meyer Wiener song, having only heard it laughingly through me. 

So my thought is that if we – and by we, I mean HR people and HR providers – can make communications tap in to our audiences – employees or buyers – then that information can stick – and work to support goals. 

Messages need to be concise, repeated and most importantly resonate (that obviously means I had a deep love of hot dogs and McDonalds; I’m not sure why the beer advert stuck, still don’t like the stuff) then employees or buyers can start understanding why you’re doing what you do.

For HR to know its actions are understood can help acceptance, take-up or engagement, it can support recruitment and retention, as well as help the organisation understand HR’s remit.

For HR providers, messages can help HR teams and organisations take note.  Messages must hit home, taking in any situation from their point of view. Naval-gazing is definitely out.

It starts with listening, of course.  No communication message is going to resonate if the writer doesn’t understand their audience first.  We need to know the issues, the problems, the what-keeps-someone-awake-at-night.  By understanding more, communications can solve problems and make a difference.  At the end of the day, people are people and we need to treat them with respect.

I’d love to know the things that stuck with you.  (I know for one, that Gary Davies, the old BBC Radio DJ resonates with @MartinCouzins.)

Can’t wait to hear.