Show & Tell
A partnership as classic as Peanut butter & Jelly, Cookies & Milk, or Fish & Chips?
The one thing I think I know about American schools is their love of Show & Tell (I’m perfectly willing to believe though that yet again TV is leading me astray and it’s actually just something that happens once every 3 years when teacher’s got a lot of marking to do).
Show & Tell. The two go together so perfectly, but is one more important than the other?
We all know the theories behind individual learning styles, but how I choose (or not) to study for an exam, is different to every day, real life ‘education’.
One of the things I’ve noticed here in NY is that in training new starters, there’s a lot more shadowing that goes on compared to back at home. Perhaps the idea of having someone sit next to you and watch your ever move is a little daunting — and maybe force you out of your 4pm Mailonline or Facebook break. Of course it has to be matched with a good dose of being thrown in the deep end, but I think we’re all too often guilty of giving someone a pile of process documents or decks to read and hoping they’ll stay out of our hair for the afternoon. Ultimately, an hour or two of shadowing will take less of your time, and raise the most relevant questions earlier on. So next time I have a new team member, that’s exactly what I’m going to do (you can quote me on that).
The real reason I’ve been thinking about Show & Tell though, is an Airbnb ad I saw on the way into the office yesterday. Now, I’m a massive fan of the site and its model, so I’m completely aware of the issues and law suits its having in New York in particular And, having been here for the New York Marathon (and felt even more in awe of runners than usual thanks to a week of, well, ‘fully experiencing’ the local cuisine) I saw their sponsorship of the event that was more than just a badging exercise.
So, considering this I was a little surprised to see the Subway poster telling commuters that their fellow New Yorkers agree that Airbnb is good for the city.
At Arena, when we begin planning campaigns, we collect our understanding and insight of the business, consumer and category and translate it into a single Platform Thought. A succinct throught that all our media plans are sense checked against.
In this case, where Airbnb needs to gain the support of the city, maybe the platform thought would be ‘Airbnb is good for New York’ — and our media activations would all in some way relate to that. Whilst we often have an element of ‘reach’ media to a plan, using both creative and the message integrally associated with a media to make sure that still plays through and conveys your platform.
I may not be seeing the whole picture here, but it did set me thinking — and, excuse the cliche, but Actions Speak Louder than Words. You can tell someone til you’re blue in the face that you’re good for the community/better for the environment/care about customer service, but unless you show it to, you’re wasting your time and money.
So, whether it’s through our client campaigns, training new starters, or sharing our global experience through a scheme like Lofts, we need to remember to Show as well as Tell — because Show’s definitely the dominant partner.
