How the art of influence will shift in a splintered future
In a 1980s debate, a Michigan state representative railed against a proposed law as “a pretty good lesson in mass hysteria created by a corporate-controlled media.”
The representative who introduced the legislation was trying to change a particularly dangerous behavior. But to do that, he had to change minds, which was going to be tricky.
The topic at hand was the incredibly divisive issue of seat belt usage. And this was Michigan, home of the biggest automakers on the planet and the people who assembled them. Only 14% of Americans were using seat belts then.
The tools of influence and persuasion
So how were we, as a nation that is now 90% seat-belt bucklers, convinced? All the tools of influence came into play:
- Marketing: “Click It or Ticket” campaigns are one example of widespread, public-opinion advertising over the generations.
- Facts: A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study found that between 1960 and 2012 seat belts saved 330,000 lives.
- Experience: How many stories have you heard of people who avoided serious injury by wearing seat belts or tragically didn’t because they didn’t?
- Policy: Every state (except New Hampshire) has seat belt laws, and the federal government has required their installation in cars since 1968.
Those tools are all still useful, but how they get used and where, and to what scale are all changing. And for whatever your organization is trying to persuade people on there’s another group out there trying to persuade them differently. So how can you influence people to move toward the future you hope to achieve?
Part of the challenge of marketing is that we’re living in what Ipsos Global Trends calls “Splintered Societies.” The U.S. just came out of a bruising election where one party seized somewhat complete power, but by razor-thin margins. Billions of dollars were funneled into the election in efforts to influence the undecided voters to join one side, and the decided voters to actually show up.
On commercial issues, we’re malleable. On social issues, less so. And on economic policy, we're in between, mostly open to new ideas. Younger people are generally less set in their ways.
Politics is just one realm of influence, but the lines between political communication and brand communication have blurred, and the tools they both use are increasingly similar.
Dating back to Obama’s reelection in 2012, political parties built large-scale data operations, conjoining voting data with data from social networks and other sources looking for levers to push with voting blocs, and ways to target advertising increasingly to specific people and their devices and screens. But these strategies were already in use by marketers with data from clearinghouses like Acxiom, MRI-Simmons and others.
For influence, go where your audience is
After that 2012 election, the Republican Party did a public postmortem. They realized they had a problem with younger voters among others. By 2024, President-elect Donald Trump’s son Baron reportedly steered his father to appear on Joe Rogan’s hugely popular podcast.
Meanwhile, famed Democratic pundit James Carville told the New Republic, “I’m 80. To me, the whole world is the Times, the Post, the nets, cable TV. … I just talked to a pretty active political consultant that did focus groups with Black voters in Milwaukee. They’re on TikTok. I don’t even know what TikTok is.”
That’s not saying Carville’s level of being out of touch fully represents the Democratic leadership, but Trump gained share with just about every demographic.
Facts matter: Information and disinformation
In our new AI-enabled world, we’re already seeing how information and disinformation can scale. There was no shortage of disinformation in the election, including from foreign powers. A new “think tank” has popped up in Washington that appears to be staffed by fake personas generating AI-written content about supporting the Pakistani military. In 2020, just 18% of Americans polled by Ipsos said they were willing to call out disinformation they see. Now it’s only 10%.
Connections matter, too
Ipsos’ Future of Influence survey shows about four in ten adults think they themselves are influential; it also reveals people tend to trust people they know more than almost any other information source. Trust is key to influence. That’s why it’s easier to persuade people about low-stakes issues or unfamiliar topics like brands or restaurant choices.
In the Ipsos Global Trustworthiness Index, few people say they trust social influencers, though younger folks are more trusting. Yet people buy billions of dollars’ worth of merchandise on social platforms. Social influencers don’t necessarily have specialized expertise in the topics they influence. But if they have built trust with their audience, those viewers will buy anything from fashion to health remedies that they recommend, which may or may not actually be healthy.
Persuasion through policy
Often, persuasion precedes policy, as was the case with seat belt safety. But sometimes it just takes a leader to do something. The smoking ban that New York City enacted in 2004 wasn’t popular, and there were predictions at the time that it would tank the restaurant and bar industry (it didn’t). Sometimes when things change (seat belts and smoking bans), we as a society just get over it. The passage of time can be persuasive, too. Sometimes, we fight against the change and try to reverse it.
Foresight helps. Spending time thinking about the future that is best for your organization can help you understand who you need to persuade and what you want them to think or do and plan for what happens if you wind up in a different scenario.
Here are some pressing questions:
- How do you make wins stick and reinforce the positive outcomes that came from change?
- How are the tools of influence and persuasion evolving?
- What are the specific audiences you need to persuade and where are they influenced on information and opinions?
- How do you influence for the future that is best for your organization, knowing rivals are persuading on the other side?
Given disinformation and splintering, it’s a hard time to be building trust, aligning values and persuading. So buckle up, and let’s drive on into this issue.
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