Energy Strategy
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INTRODUCTION
On March 11, 2011 the Headquarters of the United States Marine Corps Public Affairs introduced the Expeditionary Energy Strategy as a new plan to incorporate renewable energy into the Marine Corps. Marine Corps Public Affairs successfully produced and delivered a “sticky” video message. This paper examines the elements responsible for the communications accomplishment. In addition to outlining the six stickiness principles, the analysis assesses effective communication, schema, and discourse community concepts, which contributed to the overall effectiveness of Headquarters Marine Corps Public Affairs Expeditionary Energy Strategy video message.
Due to the smallest advertising budget of the uniformed armed services, Headquarters Marine Corps Public Affairs chose delivering the Expeditionary Energy Strategy through social media, predominately web video. The three and a half minute video message can be viewed at the following internet address
BACKGROUND
On August 13, 2009, the Commandant of the Marine Corps declared energy a top priority, and within six weeks time the USMC Expeditionary Energy Office (E2O) was created. Its mission is to “analyze, develop, and direct the Marine Corps energy strategy in order to optimize expeditionary capabilities across all War fighting functions.” The 35th Commandant of the Marine Corps Planning Guidance 2010 directed the E2O to “develop a plan to decrease the Marine Corps dependence on fossil fuel in a deployed environment.”
The Marine Corps Expeditionary office subsequently determined that energy is a critical combat enabler and an ever-growing vulnerability. The office notes, “At the core of the USMC Expeditionary strategy is a change in ethos-embedding in the Marine Corps culture that energy is a critical combat enabler, and efficient use of energy increases combat effectiveness.” Effectually incorporating stickiness principles within the message was vital to acceptance and adoption of the Commandants vision, mission, goals, and objectives for expeditionary energy proposed within the Expeditionary Energy Strategy.
The video message effectively:
Garnered support and acceptance of the strategy.
Embedded the idea how the strategy will save Marine lives in combat.
Delivered the message to key stakeholders (end users, legislatures and civilians).
Overcame a culture adverse to change.
Utilized web based media to reach all stakeholders.
STICKINESS
Explanation
In essence, delivering a sticky message encompasses the ability to effectively communicate a memorable idea. Achieving stickiness requires the message be understood, remembered, persuasive, and have an impact over time. These sticky message characteristics are achieved through incorporating six traits or principles of sticky ideas: simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotion, and story.
Principle One: Simplicity
Crafting a simple message resonating with an audience composed from a wide disparity of socioeconomic, demographic, political and religious views was essential to achieve stickiness. Headquarters Marine Corps Public Affairs delivered a complex energy strategy with a brilliantly simplistic message structure of “reducing the need for liquid logistics will increase combat effectiveness”.
The continual linking back to combat effectiveness through the Expeditionary Energy Strategy captured what is of value, importance, and interest to the whole audience. The purpose of any change within the Marine Corps is to gain combat effectiveness. No Marine, general to private, is interested in undertaking any endeavor which does not contribute towards combat effectiveness. The reputation of the Marine Corps is grounded in combat effectiveness and possesses significant importance and interest to Marines, legislators, and civilians. Headquarters Marine Corps Public Affairs identified this and crafted a decisive message to relate how the Expeditionary Energy Strategy will improve the cherished core idea of Marine Corps combat effectiveness.
Principle Two: Unexpectedness
Impacting message stickiness through an unexpected delivery necessitates relating the core message to the audience, capturing their attention, creating a gap in their knowledge, and subsequently filling in that gap. Within the first thirty seconds the video message describes the requirement for 200,000 gallons of fuel per day to sustain Marine operations within Afghanistan, which must be delivered via convoys. The Director of the Marine Corps Expeditionary Office, Colonel Bob Charette, then quickly explains that every 50 supply convoys result in one Marine being killed or wounded in action. He concisely explains how fossil fuel reduction via the Expeditionary Energy Strategy will contribute to saving lives and increasing combat effectiveness. Headquarters Marine Corps Public Affairs delivered an unexpected message facilitating stickiness by surprisingly linking liquid fuel dependency to the cost of human life involved in maintaining the current requirements, as well as outlining how the Expeditionary Energy Strategy will mitigate the human toll.
Principle Three: Concrete
Sticky messages possess concrete images: specific people doing specific things that are often communicated in a specific language community. Concrete messaging requires proper schema. Schema is the appropriate background knowledge to understand the spoken message facilitating effective communication . We define effective communication as a process that creates the required degree of shared understanding to enable coordinated organized action . If we integrate shared understanding and schema concepts, then clear language which triggers similar schema will impact stakeholders. However, discourse communities (specific language communities with evolved complex language standards that govern members decisions i.e. Marine Corps and Congress/Senate) define their own unique standards of clarity.
In order to achieve message concreteness the video message required overcoming separate audience discourse communities and a lack of shared schema by incorporating images and language creating