The art behind the sound byte

There’s too much to read, watch and see in the world these days. So the sound byte, what we public relations professionals define as a short, eye opening point, has become more important than ever as an attention grabber with media, bloggers and our end user audiences.

My favorite type of sound byte has always been the use of statistics. I don’t mean just any stat or number, but the art behind packaging a key number for maximum effectiveness and awareness. Take this recent survey headline that I just found on the blog MarketingVox– “Stressed Americans Leave 460 Million Vacation Days Unused.” That’s one powerful line. It certainly caught my eye and after doing a quick search I found countless stories about the findings on national media sites and other blogs. So, obviously this story has news value.

Now, read the fine print which highlights the details and you’ll see that, on average, Americans leave three vacation days on the table each year (for whatever reason). As an employer, I believe that all employees should use each and every vacation day to have fun and detox from work. But, the alarm bells that went off in my head as I read the headline have also stopped because, well…three days just isn’t that big of a deal. Those crafty public relations executives behind this initiative understood that a very big statistic (like 460 million) is going to produce a lot more ink than the alternative. By the way, I’m not claiming this headline is inaccurate. My guess is that the 460 million figure was strategically created based on multiplying the average days not taken against some national employment statistic that exists. It’s just a question of what’s the real bottom line here.

Many times, studies or campaigns which package statistical sound bytes like this achieve real longevity as well. They are also remembered and retold over and over again. A few that have stayed fresh in my mind (even though none are recent) include:

-$37 billion is wasted every year on poorly run meetings. The gist of this poll finding was that most business executives spend 15 minutes longer in meetings than they actually need to.

-Americans routinely lose over 100 million hours of sleep each year. This referred to the amount of time consumers toss and turn at night versus sleeping soundly. I always felt this was more of a guesstimate than a scientific number and it boiled down to each person losing upwards of 90 minutes of sleep.

-U.S. small businesses can save over $100 billion by printing on both sides of paper. This statistic obviously has an important secondary benefit for the environment. But, if I remember correctly, the actual average savings to each individual company was something like $700 per year.

I’m off to a meeting, where I surely will do my part to raise the $37 billion level of waste even more…

Comments

[Michael Moed]

Lies, damned lies, and statistics (I think this is a Disraeli quote).

Clearly, there is some sort of distribution curve (perhaps a bell curve) that describes the use of vacation days vs. # of people. This article is only addressing one side of the curve - the side that represents people that did not take all their vacation days. What's missing is the other side of the curve - those people that took more than their alloted vacation days (i.e. unpaid time) to deal with issues which forced them to sacrifice pay.

So it is likely that when both sides of the curve are examined, we see that the balance is restored (i.e the average amount is to use all vacation days, no more, no less). Perhaps we might see that the balance is shifted more towards unpaid time. Who knows? (Unless you have the data to back up the headline grabbing statistics.)

[ed]

You raise a good point. Sound bytes like this are used by organizations to push out their agenda (whether it be to increase sales, influence public policy, or anything else).

So, you are right. Anytime this headline grabber sound byte is used, one has to think about the other side of the story that is never told.