Displaying items by tag: presidential election

Have you watched Michelle Obama’s recent speech on YouTube?  She’s taken to video once more to speak to a nation, and to encourage them to vote for Joe Biden.  But did her speech have the desired effect?  Did it have the impact needed?  Will it bring about change?  Sadly we think not and here’s why:

1. IT FORGOT THE POWER OF A CLEAR PURPOSE:  When writing a speech always think of what your purpose is, and have this as the driving force.  We feel Michelle’s purpose here was to discredit Trump – and therefore this speech should have focussed in on hard facts as to why Trump cannot be trusted as a leader, rather than emotional prose.  A different type of script here would have been more effective.
2. DURATION:  Social media is a great platform for video messaging.  It has no rules when it comes to duration, unlike TV.  Here Michelle spoke for 24 minutes.  24 minutes is a long time, and a big ask for a viewer.  We think she could have been more ‘creative’ in how she used the time.  Michelle needed this video to go viral, and its lack of brevity we feel will mean that her desired audience won’t watch.
3. THINK OF YOUR AUDIENCE:  When writing a speech you need to write it for your audience.  Who are they?  Who do you want it to appeal to?  How do they like to be communicated with?  How can you best engage them?  We feel Michelle’s speech probably appealed more to her existing audience – the loyal Obama supporters, of which we are one, rather than a new audience that she wanted and needed to engage with here if she was to be in with a chance of convincing the right type of person not to vote for Trump.
4. EMOTIONS VS FACTS:  Appealing to the emotions is a great way to draw your audience in.  But once they are indeed in we feel facts can prove to have the most impact.  The endless evidence that Trump is a liar and an unsuitable president that was available for Michelle to use got instead overshadowed by an appeal for emotional engagement from her viewer - and we feel this was a major oversight.
5. THE GOOD BIT – MICHELLE CONNECTS AND SHE CARES:  Michelle is a great public speaker.  This was a pre-scripted presentation – every word carefully written and analysed.  When delivering a script it’s important to connect with it – speaking from the heart and not from the head.  Michelle is great at this.  She connects with every word, she uses every word, and this is why she is such a good presenter.