Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear

by Frank Luntz

The language lesson: Focus on results, not process.

Americans vote based on short bursts of political communication that are typically seven to ten seconds in length and squeezed in between a car chase and the latest panda birth on the local news—not from marathon viewing sessions of Road to the White House on C-SPAN.

when it comes to communicating corporate citizenship or enhancing corporate reputation, again the “free market system” wins out. For example, in a poll I took for the pharmaceutical profession (notice I didn’t call it an “industry”) by a two to one ratio, Americans would rather receive their health care from a free market system than a private system. Just a simple shift in a single phrase can and does account for a huge shift in public perception.

The billions to billions strategy only works if you’re Bill Gates or Ross Perot, and while math majors or M.I.T. graduates may appreciate a discussion about percentages, no one else does. They’re too abstract. But by zooming in to the personal level, you encourage people to relate the numbers to their own lives and learn exactly what the benefit means to them. Numbers with the smallest denominators and applied per individual are therefore almost always the most effective. And by increasing people’s understanding of what government programs cost and what they pay

While crime and public safety may be integrally related and in some cases identical, there is an important distinction. “Fighting crime” is procedural and “getting tough on criminals” is punitive—and that’s certainly important. But “safety,” although somewhat abstract, is definitely personal, and most of all aspirational—the ultimate value and the desired result of an effort to fight crime. And so Rudy Giuliani adopted not just an anti-crime message but a pro–public-safety agenda—and his success in New York City led to the reframing of the way Americans think about crime, criminals, and a safe, civil society.