On 10/6/07, Jeandré du Toit <jackdt(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
I personally don't like the point pushing
that is marketing generally,
and mawkish ads specifically; preferring neutral, factual information.
Will this storytelling approach with symbolic media not put off the
people who previously responded to the simple, marketese free "If you
think Wikimedia's projects are worthwhile, please donate so we can buy
infrastructure to keep it going."? Will storytelling bring in more
donations, and if so what does it say about the NPOV educational
information provided?
This is a very typical, and very wrong, attitude in non-profits. Andy
Goodman examines that point at length in his lecture, which is really
worth watching:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-289257716014946841
The gist of it is that the story does not _replace_ the factual
information. It provides a hook for getting people who _aren't_ part
of your world to start caring about it. And once they care, they
should find out all the factual information they want
If you only do storytelling and don't provide key facts & figures,
you're failing just as much as if you're only providing the facts &
figures, but no lead that makes people care about them.
I agree some effort to pull in other people is worthwhile, but I agree
with Jeandré that we ought not to come off as excessively PR-ish. I know
I've stopped contributing to other nonprofits who've taken such a tone
with their advertising (and organizational style generally), and would
be turned off from contributing to Wikimedia were its communications to
start looking like they came from an ad agency rather than from normal
people.
-Mark