Who you feature in your content can have a MASSIVE impact on whether or not it will be a success.
We know this instinctively yet we pay very little attention to this in the actual delivery.
Often this is because of a long established framework that governs content and that has never been challenged. In local government when I workled there it was a) quote the cabinet member and b) quote the officer when the cabinet member isn’t around or doesn’t want to.
The impact of this is to have someone wholly unsuited fronting your communications.
I do remember listening to the local radio phone-in hearing an officer with the charisma of mud massacre what was a council reasonable position.
One way to give better advice is to site data.
The Edelman Trust Barometer has been published and it is the UK data that I turn to.
We trust ‘someone like me’ far more than the chief exec, government leaders or journalists
The screen shot from the Edelman Trust Barometer UK version shows 73 per cent trust scientists, 71 per cent someone like me, 59 per cent the company technical expert, 45 per cent non-hovernmental organisation representatives, 33 per cet the chief exec and government leaders and 31 per cent journalists.
In other words, we trust people who look like us.
So, if you are looking to reach new parents, use a new parent. If you are after members of the Polish community use a Pole.
It’ll take longer but it may just work.