How Universal is Your Message?

Superbowl Ad time means taking a look at how those messages resonate. This year there was an interesting one. Dodge put out an ad about farmers. If you haven't seen it, here it is -


And it has spawned praise and attacks from all around. However what struck me the most was a difference in reactions.

As I sat in a suburban home in Southern California, where farms are places we take kids for seasonal photographs with pumpkins and hay rides and not a daily life, the reaction was unanimous.

We hated it.

No sooner did that commentary cross our lips that the texts came in from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, South Carolina and other places that have a very different relationship with farms.

They loved it.

I'll leave it to Madison Avenue to decide how effective it was. But here were the basics of the message to consider -

1. It was 2 minutes long, 
2. It was very positive and family / faith centric 
3. It had a gritty powerful message?

Whether it was timing, tone, or message... it was clearly not universal.

• So what of your messages? 
• Are they universal? 
• Should they be? 
• Can you find ways to add in different messages? 
• What can you do differently to encourage outcomes across the board?