Safety briefings and Christmas greetings
On emergency evacuations, unmotivated audiences, and the challenge of teaching people what they think they already know (and might)
In a delightful long-form takedown essay reviewing an over-the-top airline safety video from 2013, humorist Daniel O'Brien asks a question that is more serious than not: "[G]iven that no lives were provably saved, at least one of the performers sued the production and it potentially made passengers less safe all in an attempt to help a now-dead airline GO VIRAL on a now-mostly-dead social media website [...] Who was this for?"
■ Airline safety briefings unexpectedly share something in common with Christmas church services, and it's a matter that applies in several important areas of life: How do you communicate a high-value message to an audience that is highly variegated and whose motivation to pay attention ranges from "extremely alert" to "potentially already napping"? The same factors apply to issues of public health, weather awareness, cybersecurity, and no small number of other topics.
■ It's a tough and surprisingly under-studied field. As O'Brien notes, when certain stylistic and production techniques are put to work, it's entirely possible that the end result can actually leave the audience less informed than before they sat down. From what little we do know, there are three big points to keep in mind.
■ The first is to ensure the audience knows what's in it for them -- and is given fresh motivation at least every five to seven minutes. (Minds wander quickly.) The second is to connect new information to old knowledge: Starting from scratch takes a lot more active thought than having a familiar point for jumping off. (This is why metaphors are so often helpful.)
■ The last point is to keep the whole affair simple. An audience that has heard the same fundamental message at least a dozen times before won't take well to condescension, and it's likely to bore easily. Yet, at least for some of those messages, when people don't listen, very bad things can happen. But when the message gets through, lives can be saved.
