The Power of the Sound Bite
The Sound Bite gets a bad rap. In recent years, the Sound Bite has become synonymous with shallowness, whether it’s associated with the mass media playing to shrinking attention spans or with politicians underestimating the intelligence of the electorate. We often think of the Sound Bite as an insulting short-cut, when, in fact, the Sound Bite has been a powerful communications tool for generations. “The Power of the Sound Bite” puts the Sound Bite into perspective – what it is, why it can be valuable, how to use it, and where. |
The Sound Bite needs some good PR, and I’m waging a campaign on its behalf!
For a while now, the Sound Bite has been right up there with Spin in terms of its public image, but even Spin is unfairly maligned. Former Clinton White House spokesperson Mike McCurry called Spin “a self-interested selection of facts.” What’s wrong with that? We all make use of spin, don’t we? The Sound Bite is just as convenient and also quite straightforward. Just like its name says, it is basically a bite of sound – or a few digestible words. As communicators, we do not need to be defensive or apologetic about either one, Spin or the Sound Bite. Rather, it’s our challenge and, in fact, our jobs to promote them and use them well!
As a first step in my PR campaign on behalf of the Sound Bite, I am encouraging communicators to consider a new way of looking at the Sound Bite as a deliberate tool for, rather than as a by-product of, good communications.
Historical Perspective: Think about it . . . Sound Bites have been used in all forms and all venues of communicating, whether in slogans, taglines, summaries, epithets, or famous quotations, for a long time. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations is chock full of Sound Bites that date back hundreds of years. And whether for promotional or informational or motivational purposes, Sound Bites have been part of our oral histories.
In more recent times, advertising slogans, such as AT&T’s “Reach out and touch someone” or The Shane Company’s “You’ve got a friend in the diamond business,” are Sound Bites. Sound Bites are used in entertainment promotion, such as The Terminator’s “I’ll be back.” Political campaigns have been waged around Sound Bites: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” was a rallying cry from Ronald Reagan in 1980, yet we’ve heard its echo in subsequent presidential campaigns. Campaigns for public awareness and public safety, such as “Just say no,” “No child left behind,” and “Stop, drop and roll,” are built around very few, but very digestible, words. Pulpit preachers use repetition around Sound Bites that contain key words or phrases; Martin Luther King Jr. utilized the repetition of “I have a dream” for emphasis and impact. Sound Bites even mark historical events: “We hold these truths to be self-evident” recalls the Declaration of Independence; “Four score and seven years ago,” the Gettysburg Address; and “This is the place,” Brigham Young’s entry into the Salt Lake Valley.
What do all of these distinctly different types of Sound Bites have in common? They are a few digestible words . . . but they are also meaningful, memorable, repeatable, and identifiable.
What and Why? Sound Bites are verbal branding, they are verbal takeaways. Good communications – whether for informational or promotional or persuasive purposes – seek to have a lasting impact. When people want you to remember something, or to make an impression, or to change minds, they often use a Sound Bite, because it can be powerful and impactful. Does the Sound Bite say everything that needs to be said? No, Sound Bites are not thorough or comprehensive at all, but they are chalk full of potential. They have plenty of room for growth and expansion; what they are is meaningful, memorable, repeatable, and identifiable.
And, meaningful, memorable, repeatable, and identifiable are the key ingredients of impact.
Some Sound Bites are planned, and some are lucky. Some are just captured after the fact and re-used because they resonated well. “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” was probably just a line or a theme from a stump speech, and it stuck.
So, what about when the Sound Bite happens to you, when it is inadvertently assigned to you? This happens, especially in the media, and it makes an even more compelling case for coming up with your own Sound Bites as a pre-emptive strike.
How? I’m making the case for planning! How often do you prepare yourself or your executives or spokespeople with a Sound Bite before an important meeting with the media, employees, the board of directors, customers, communities, or any other audience? Not usually, right?
You spend time developing sets of core messages. You might even outline talking points. But how many of your messages or talking points would make a good sound bite? How many are meaningful, memorable, and repeatable? How many are brief yet substantive? How many are identifiable, or attributable to you or your organization?
A Sound Bite is a verbal takeaway . . . I’ll answer the ‘how?’ question – how can you employ Sound Bites? – more specifically by giving examples for three different occasions:
Speeches or Presentations: Think about your audience and the impact you need or want to have. Dispense with the usual time-filling openers, and open with a powerful Sound Bite, a statement that tells the audience what you want them to take away. Don’t leave their takeaway to chance, if at all possible. Then remember to reinforce your main point at the end by closing with your strong, powerful Sound Bite.
Media Interviews : If you were to think about answering reporters’ questions using the same framework they use to put a story together, you would answer each question with a headline first. And what is a headline if not a Sound Bite? So, to prepare for an interview, know what you would want your headlines to be, and then know what kind of detail or background information you are willing to offer to support those headlines if time and interest allow. When giving an interview for broadcast media, give your background information off-camera and save your pithy Sound Bites for when the microphone goes on.
Meetings: Think about how much more effective it would be to lead off and close a staff meeting with a relevant and succinct Sound Bite that lets folks know why they’re in the room. A meeting Sound Bite can state the purpose, drive the agenda, and help you stay on task when people start to stray. It can be as simple as offering a lead-off sentence about the status of a project – e.g. “We are on time and on budget” and then proceeding through an agenda that addresses and/or tracks the issues related to time and money.
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Conclusion: Webster’s Dictionary says that to communicate is to impart, to convey, or to transmit something intangible. That’s a tall order when you think about it. With a little forethought and preparation, though, creating and using Sound Bites – or building your important communications around Sound Bites – can be a powerful and effective way to reach any audience.
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