One question that came up at the end of my talk at the NCVO last night was 'What are good and bad examples of campaigns from an EI point of view?' One thing I hope to do hear is talk about vaious campaigns and communications from an EI perspecctive, and this seems a good place to start.
The campaign that came to mind as example of a good use of EI was the 'Change for life' campaign, particularly the 'me size meals'. You can see the advert here (sorry, I can't embed it).
Why I think this is so positive is that it expresses a need for change without at any point coming across as critical. If you're trying to get someone to listen to you it's generally a bad idea if you call them stupid, thoughtless or selfish (and you'd be surprised by the number of campaigns that do do this). This advert starts very clearly with a positive "Because my Mum loves me…" That's a nice way to start – no one is going to be offended by the idea that they love their kid. But it follows up with a clear message – too much food is bad, and a better outcome is to have smaller portions.
It's a nice, clear, simple way of getting a message across without offending anyone – you love your kid, it's easy to feed them too much, but it might cause problems. It doesn't suggest you're bad for doing it, in fact it may come from love, but if you just think about it a little more you can realise that acting differently will get a better result.
This is good EI because it takes account of the emotional impact of the message – rather than using pure facts and figures, or trying to create fear or guilt, it gently conveys a clear message.
I'll have a go at what I think is an example of non-emotionally intelligent campaigning later…
