Easy as Pie: Why You Should Use Comparisons in Your Messaging
WRITTEN BY KATIE TEST DAVIS
You’re stuck. Like, really stuck. You’ve got a complicated concept to explain to your community. You’re deep into research and statistics and can’t see your way out. You’ve had your colleague from the Operations Team explain it to you at least three times, but the shortest document you can write winds up at a minimum of six pages. How the heck are you going to make this into a Facebook post?!
Just like Sunday morning, we’re about to make it easy for you.
The answer is comparisons.
Can you imagine what 42 gallons of water looks like? What if I asked you to picture a bathtub instead? Our brains are wired to look for things we recognize and find patterns. So when you’re trying to make a complicated concept easy to explain, comparisons are your friend. It is our job as communicators to ensure our audience can mentally picture what we’re explaining and comparisons empower us to do that.
Metaphors simplify complex concepts.
Are you planning a bond campaign that involves lots of gritty financials? I’m going to challenge you to simplify it. If your $2M bond will cost the average household $11 per month, let’s make that number seem trivial by comparing it to something your community likely buys multiple times a week: coffee. The average price of a Starbucks drink in the U.S. is $2.75, so $11 is just four coffees a month.
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We’re constantly making comparisons to simplify concepts for our clients. Here are a few of our favorites:
Most school buses have either 22 or 24 seats
We use this stat when trying to contextualize what up to a few hundred students means - 100 students = four school buses
The largest arena in North Carolina (Bank of America Stadium) fits 73,778 people
We use this stat when trying to contextualize large groups of people. 100,000 people = more than can fit in Bank of America Stadium.
The average price of a gallon of whole milk is $3.27
We use this stat when trying to contextualize a small cost. $2 per pupil = less than a gallon of milk.
