Speechwriting blog king admits he doesn't know what message drivers are
At the Speechwriter's Conference I frequently heard two familiar terms that nevertheless rubbed on my brain like a cheese grater.
I'd like to talk about one of the terms today. I'll save the other one for Thursday.
"Message drivers." This term was used by ultra-strategic speechwriters with small glasses and nice nails.
When they talked about message drivers, they seemed less interested in talking about what the message drivers were than in discussing how many of the drivers they had. (Three to five seemed to be the acceptable range.)
At first when I heard the term, I nodded knowingly. Message drivers. Of course. Every communicator is born knowing what message drivers are, right? A "message driver" to a professional communicator is like a "bus driver" to a non-communicator. A familiar part of the everyday lexicon.
But then I tried to define message drivers. And I thought: Well, they're not messages; otherwise, I'd just call them "messages." And they're not communication strategies; because if so, I'd call them "strategies." They're not objectives
Message drivers: Anybody?
Help a blogger out.
Comments (1)
I've never heard of the term, but I would guess that they are the core message to be communicated before you know who your audience is. Once you know the audience, you need to 'spin' it to their specific needs.
I teach people how to communicate effectively. But I might describe this as 'how to handle the press' or 'getting support from the board'. Same underpinning message (the driver, I presume) but delivered differently.
Posted by David Tebbutt | March 2, 2005 2:07 AM
Posted on March 2, 2005 02:07