The Blind Man, The Poet, and Re-Framing How We Share News

There’s a famous story about the French poet Jacques Prévert encountering a blind beggar.

Standing on a busy street corner, the beggar held a sign saying “Blind Man Without a Pension.”

When Prévert asked the man how it was going, he shook his head with frustration and said…

“Oh, very badly. People pass by and drop nothing in my hat.”

Prévert took the sign and altered it before handing it back…

Several days later, he returned and again asked the beggar how it was going…

The report came back enthusiastically “fantastic! My hat fills up three times per day.”

He then asked the poet, “tell me, sir, what does my sign say now that you changed it?”

“Spring is coming, but I won’t see it,” replied Prévert.

Re-Framing The News

Why do our customers spend their precious time seeking out the news?

Because deep down, we are all searching for something to capture our interest, something that gives us context for our actions, something which breathes emotion into our everyday lives.

We are looking for a place to belong, not just data to sort…

We are constantly working through stories about where we fit in the world, why we act the way we do, and how we can overcome the challenges we face.

Robert Collier famously said, “tell a man something new, and you have his attention. Give it a personal twist or show its relation to his business, and you have his interest.”?

Unfortunately, many companies incorrectly assume that this desire for news interest means people want to hear more facts about us. We write press releases full of content like…

-??????“We just launched this new product; you have to see it…”

-??????“We are the leader in ‘x’”

-??????“We’re feeding the world with…”

These lines do not fail because they are inherently untrue but because we have failed to make them interesting to our audiences.

Our customers are predominantly focused on their own challenges, and they are absorbed by their internal discussions on how to overcome those challenges.

If we want to draw them out of those challenges and get them to pay attention to us long enough to know we exist, we must provide them with a hook that promises a good story.

Ultimately, producing news is not about you and your company. It is about anchoring your customer to something happening in the world and tying that thing back to your organizational value proposition.

Effectively Wielding News Value

To use leverage news effectively in your business, follow the example of Jacques Prévert and the blind beggar.

Don’t begin with information about you, don’t start with a regurgitation of your product roadmap.

Instead, begin by helping your customer identify their place in your story; why should they care? What is happening in their life that you can tie back to your business?

How can you help contextualize your value proposition to capture attention and move customers where you want them to go?

Start there.

Make something different. Make people care. Make fans, not followers.

Subscribe to more AgTech marketing insights?here.