The Democratic Party has been relying on a largely outmoded approach to communicate with voters. The science of the mind has revealed much in recent years about how to achieve persuasion and mobilization. It’s time to use what’s actually been proven to move people to action.
[This story, originally posted in different form on the Medium page of Gretchen Poulos-Barton, September 18, 2020, was written by Kirk Cheyfitz, Gretchen Barton and James Forr. It was expanded and updated for post-election reading by Kirk in March 2021.]
Complete credits at the bottom of this post]
“The Science of Winning with Stories,” is a set of science-driven tips to help progressives and moderates create more effective, persuasive political communications by using storytelling.
Storytelling is so fundamental to human communications and meaning-making that the structure, impact, and uses of narrative are studied by virtually every scientific discipline. This includes hard neuroscience and the softer sciences of psychology, sociology, paleo-anthropology, narrative theory, and others. (Take a look at Walter R. Fisher’s “Human Communication as Narration.”)
Science finds that all experience is stored in the brain as stories. Our memories are stories that are connected to each other by a web of associations. These stories and associations live mostly in our unconscious and profoundly impact how we see the world, how we feel, how we receive and interpret the stories we take in, how we then make meaning, form beliefs, and tell stories ourselves. Most importantly, all this largely unconscious reasoning determines our feelings, decisions, and actions — from what we want to eat to how we vote (or don’t).
No Rational Decisions
Science has shown that the concept of a “rational decision” is an illusion. Our decisions, even the most rational-seeming ones, are made in the unconscious, based on stories that reside there, and driven by emotional reactions of which we usually are not consciously aware. (Harvard’s Gerald Zaltman wrote the definitive marketing book about how this works in practice: “How Customers Think.”)
This means the most impactful way to understand and connect with people is to access the unconscious mind. Scientific experiments have shown that stories, uniquely, have the power to re-write people’s memories. This is how persuasion and change work — a new story re-writes an old one and produces changed beliefs and different decisions.
Numerous studies have shown that mere facts — a white paper, a policy memo, an amazing statistic — do not touch the unconscious and have little or no persuasive power. (Elizabeth Kolbert wrote a classic New Yorker piece about this: “Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds.”)
Traditional research — polling and focus groups — does not penetrate below the conscious mind and cannot uncover an audience’s unconscious. Facts and traditional opinion research do not help much with persuasion because people’s decisions and beliefs are not rational. Deep psychological research and properly crafted stories work because they reveal and impact the unconscious.
Narrative change work defines a story as a journey that has a beginning, a middle, an end and relatable characters. For social change work, it’s a journey where obstacles are overcome, things happen and changes for the better take place. A story is much more than a “message” or a “frame” — the two elements of storytelling that are used in most traditional political communications and ads.
As the art and science of narrative work has steadily captured a bigger share of political and social justice campaigns, there has been understandable anxiety from some traditional communications and advertising firms who make their living in this space. They see a struggle between their traditional messaging and framing practices and the newer narrative approaches.
The struggle, however, is a mirage. Frames and messages are two of storytelling’s component parts. Storytelling demands choosing frames, metaphors, and messages. What’s different in narrative work is that the story leads the way since the story is what affects memory and produces change. With the story set, different frames and messages help deliver the best version of a core story to a particular audience.
Why Didn’t Biden Win Bigger?
Given the unnecessary pandemic deaths, economic distress, racial injustice, and anxiety across America, reason would have dictated a Democratic landslide in November. Yet, Joe Biden beat Trump by 4.5 points and the Democrats lost 13 House seats while ultimately picking up 4 Senate seats. It is concerning that the election remained so competitive when it shouldn’t have been. Looking ahead to 2022 is now another adventure in anxiety and existential dread.
Seeing this coming, we wrote and released “The Science of Winning with Stories” a couple of months before the 2020 election. In the week or so after publishing these tips, we (the authors) were asked to expand on what we had defined as “the three essential themes for progressive stories that win.” The themes are “Agency, Urgency, Community.”
We’re not talking about three kinds of stories. All three elements are required for any political story to do its job of engaging, organizing, and activating. The order in which Agency, Urgency, and Community are assembled doesn’t matter. The medium doesn’t matter. (What does matter, of course, is that the story has to be well told by a believable messenger, but that’s for another day.)
Here’s a little more information about each building block, plus a few examples of what we’re talking about:
Agency
Think about the last time you saw a homeless person on the street. What did you do? What did you feel? Maybe you reached into your wallet and pulled out a couple of bucks — perhaps you bought them a sandwich — maybe you even invited them into your home. But you probably didn’t.
If you’re like most, you saw the person in need, felt bad, didn’t know what to do, and walked on by. In many ways, this is the story of American voters. They see the bad thing — whether it’s Trump or COVID, climate change, kids in cages or any number of things; they cringe, they feel impotent, and they turn away. This is a problem in a democracy, and it is what is happening with voters as they view communications continually reminding them of how bad things are rather than how good they as voters can make them.
When we lose sight of what political communications need to achieve, there is a very real danger of being irrelevant to too many people. Political communications are not about a candidate, or “the problem.”
Political communications are about the heroic journey of the voter and his or her own pathway to power.
When we lose sight of what political communications need to achieve, there is a very real danger of being irrelevant…
When we say Agency, we’re talking about the power to make change — to make a difference. Sharing authentic stories of people rising up, coming together in their own community, and succeeding in making a difference in their own lives is both inspiring and effective.
Giving voters a sense of agency is critical at a time when they are experiencing a deep sense of impotence around creating change. Individuals need to feel and know that what they do matters and matters hugely to themselves and the people they care about — family, friends, neighbors, and, by extension, other people much further removed.
This brings us to the next essential component of effective political communications.
Urgency.
Urgency like the other elements, is a feeling, not a fact.
Every writer who’s ever worked on an advertising or political campaign knows that “now” is a vastly overused word. It’s demanded by clients and bosses who incorrectly believe it invokes urgency. It doesn’t. It usually fails to motivate because it’s just a fact — literally the designator of the present time or date. What it lacks is the emotional experience of Urgency.
The golden key to Urgency in political storytelling: People must be shown what they can do to help win something important to improve the lives of themselves and others.
Not everyone knows what to do or is able to do something when confronted with a problem or a political message. Psychology tells us about the Bystander Effect — individuals in a crowd are less likely to act because of a diffusion of responsibility. But they jump into action when called out individually for a specific task. The impact of a communication should be to “call out” people. This requires tailoring communications to meet people where they are — dealing with struggles to earn a living, care for families, keep their loved ones safe — and doing the work to ensure that everyone can do something, whether it’s running for office, marching, striking, voting, making calls, making cookies or all the above.
People must be shown what they can do to help win …
When a clear role combines with feeling the power to achieve a victory (Agency) and the existence of a diverse team dedicated to the same goals (Community), the combination reliably produces the emotional impulse to do something immediately. This is the Urgency that we’re looking to arouse when we tell stories to activate people for social justice and their own betterment.
Last, but not least, we come to the notion of community.
Community
We all share a need for connection with others. The ability to unite people in a common cause characterizes America’s most memorable and influential leaders. They make us feel that as supporters of the cause, we are all in it together — part of a team or community with a great mission.
Franklin Roosevelt collected us all around a virtual hearth for his fireside chats during the depths of the Depression. John F. Kennedy urged us to ask not what the country can do for us, but what we can do for our country. Barack Obama made us all believe in hope. Martin Luther King, Jr., helped us envision a nation where we could all join hands around a common table.
People want to see themselves in your story as heroes working together with other heroes…
A movement has room for many voices. Every Martin Luther King, Jr. needs a Malcolm X. Those strident, more polarizing voices keep us honest, stoke the enthusiasm of our core supporters, and help us think more expansively about how things can be. However, persuading people outside of our base requires messaging that is inclusive. Lecturing voters or attempting to elicit feelings of guilt is unlikely to work and may backfire.
People want to see themselves in your story as heroes working together with other heroes — not as antagonists or mere witnesses to history.
Providing opportunities for community and connection within the Democratic party is essential to its success. Although much is made of the myth of rugged individualism, progressive communicators must speak to our longing for community and the desire to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. The hero of the progressive story is not just a particular movement or candidate — the hero is the collective known as “the people.”
There are many examples of effective, persuasive communications that incorporate these ideas….here are three. Enjoy!
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez campaign ad, 2020
Dear New York, ad from Northwell Health
NY Gov. Cuomo—ultimately forced from office under a cloud of allegations involving sexual abuse and bullying — once brilliantly demonstrated a narrative of "Agency, Urgency and Community" that doubled his approval rating and helped beat America's COVID-19 outbreak in 2020.
Some Questions to Ask Yourself
As you work to create your political communications, here are a series of questions inspired by the principles of agency, urgency, and community that can help you think through whether you’re hitting the mark:
Is the story one in which voters want to play a role?
Do voters even have a role?
Do the language and the imagery reinforce the presence of a seat at the table?
Is your messaging clear to someone not politically engaged? Or does it only speak to those “in the know?”
Would they know what to do, be able to do it, and want to do it upon seeing your communication? Sooner than later?
How does this ad make voters feel? (If angry/guilty, you’re probably not speaking to anyone beyond your base.)
Does the message create a sense of power for its audience? A sense of belonging or desire to belong?
How am I showing community in my messaging? What reason are you providing to justify their seeking membership?
Who is the star of the ad? Is it my candidate? The opponent? If so, it’s too narrow and self-serving. The star must be the country or the voter and preferably both.
This post and the guide titled “The Science of Winning with Stories” were written by:
Olson Zaltman, a pioneer in the use of brain science for market research and consulting
James Forr, Head of Insights
Dr. Gerald Zaltman, The Joseph C. Wilson Professor of Business Administration Emeritus, Harvard Business School, and Partner, Olson Zaltman Associates
Gretchen Barton, a research expert with a special interest in the psychology underpinning behavior change, worked on this project while at Olson Zaltman. She now heads her own firm, Worthy Strategy Group.
Kirk Cheyfitz/POLITICAL NARRATIVE, providing path-breaking strategy and storytelling for progressive causes and candidates
Kirk Cheyfitz, writer, and Founder & Principal of Kirk Cheyfitz/POLITICAL NARRATIVE
