Effective public communications hinge on personality type

Businesses and public relations professionals that are looking to communicate effectively with the public will often need to understand how individuals relate to a specific message. With people constantly encountering multiple media sources, being able to reach the right audience has become an essential skill for communications specialists. To bring further light to this issue,…

Businesses and public relations professionals that are looking to communicate effectively with the public will often need to understand how individuals relate to a specific message. With people constantly encountering multiple media sources, being able to reach the right audience has become an essential skill for communications specialists.

To bring further light to this issue, recent research from the University of Illinois’ Charles H Sandage Department of Advertising has analysed how different styles of interpreting information shape the effectiveness of corporate communications.

In order to measure this uptake, individuals were split into two groups based on whether they interpreted media sources holistically or analytically. The researchers then exposed the groups to an advertisement, either in isolation or alongside a task.

The result was that those who were classified as holistic viewers were more likely to remember the advertising. These individuals recorded no difference depending on whether an advertisement was shown in isolation or with a simple task that individuals were asked to complete simultaneously.

Analytic viewers, on the other hand, recorded much lower retention rates, only about half as much when asked to multitask.

What’s more, a follow-up study suggested that these different ways of viewing content could be further influenced by the mood of a viewer. Analytical viewing was more common among people in a bad mood, while those in a positive frame of mind where more likely to think holistically.

While advertising is unlikely to be a major concern for public relations specialists, this research does give some insight into how different individuals respond to a communicated message.

As competition for individuals attention spans increases and multi-screenings becomes commonplace, finding ways to effectively communicate around these distractions will become more valuable for businesses. With the range of distractions only likely to grow with time, finding a way to navigate these changes is an important skill for communications professionals.

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