Summary

The FAA requires that a safety message is announced by a flight attendant on every flight before it takes off. It’s a tough audience – no one listens – but the flight attendant doesn’t care either; he or she just goes through the motions. Flight attendant Karen Wood was creative with the safety announcement. She made it humorous and everyone listened. She even drew applause afterwards. The first step of good communications is to get the other person’s attention. Karen used one of the tactics of doing so – she broke the expected pattern. The second step of good communications is keeping the person’s attention.

Compelling or “sticky” ideas are generated by two emotions of the target audience: surprise and interest. It’s a one-two punch – surprise gets our attention and interest keeps it. The Ad Council created a PSA that featured...