Health and safety – how creative campaigns can backfire

Last week, in the Good Copy Bad Copy blog, David Pollack took the construction company Balfour Beatty to task for trumpeting their 100% safety record, or, as BB called it, ZERO HARM, on a large billboard at one of their sites.

In Writing for the wrong audience, Pollack said:

“I’m pleased Balfour Beatty are concerned with safety. But I just can’t help being a little suspicious when they have to advertise it with an enormous war headline that stretches forty feet down a busy south London street. Couldn’t they have spent the money on more safety measures?”

Commenting on the post, Richard Owsley said:

“...great examples of the worthless, meaningless, abstract management speak we have to deal with day in, day out” 

while Patrick Neylan said: 

“Such messages fail because they stress the negative aspect of their work and bring it to people’s attention, even while trying to tell a good ‘story’ about it.”

Bill McFarlan discusses this phenomenon in his book Drop the Pink Elephant, where classic examples of stressing the negative include: 

“I’m NOT eating my crayons, Mummy” 

“I did NOT have sexual relations with that woman”

Cynicism unbound

However, Kevin Mills, aka @bravenewmalden,  thought Pollack’s critique was cynical. He tweeted: 

“Cynicism unbound. Construction is one of UK’s deadliest jobs, and I’m glad BB is tackling it.”

Ouch, rapped knuckles. Construction accidents are not an issue to make light of.  I know - I helped the Health and Safety Executive prepare these pages: 

Health and Safety in the construction industry.

But badly targeted ad copy is fair game. Shouldn’t the money and creative talent be better spent on safety training and good instructional material?  And, if good health and safety practice is laid down in the law, why, I asked Kevin, should a company with Balfour Beatty’s reputation need to brag about it? He replied:

“… at the very least BB must have been observing basic H&S procedures, and in all likelihood doing a lot more. So, yes, I would tell the public about it. (Though the message wasn't aimed purely at the passer-by, as I'm sure we all understand.) Would I have ‘bragged’ about it in such big letters? Well, I don’t know what size of letter would be appropriate. The construction industry isn’t Innocent Smoothies; it’s not known for being fluffy and understated.

And I don’t think the cost issue is particularly relevant here. It’s not as if Balfour Beatty were paying Adshel or Titan for the ooh spots. 

We've all got our ways of approaching briefs, but one thing I’ve learned is that there are no absolutes. BB’s posters may be unpalatable for some but reassuring for others.”

I invited the original blogger David Pollack to reply - he said:

"Kevin is right. My post is cynical. The advertising copy in question gives me the impression that the motive of those responsible may be self-interest. If their motive is selfless, as I am sure it is, the copy does Balfour Beatty a disservice. My argument is with the copy writing not with Balfour Beatty’s safety standards. In fact, I can’t argue the relative merits of their safety standards if I wanted to because I don’t know what their safety standards are. The advertising doesn’t demonstrate any safety measures it simply tells me there are some. I’m sure there are some, and that they are of a very high standard. But, as I say in my post, if their aim is to allay the concerns of the public, then showing is more effective than telling.

Again, my argument is with what Richard Owsley calls 'worthless, meaningless, abstract management speak'. Besides its questionable aesthetic qualities, it is self-defeating. Its overuse of Latinate words, its attraction to concatenated noun clusters, its neologisms, its dodgy syntax and its use of the passive combine to make the job of discerning meaning far harder than it should be. This may be unintentional or it may not. 

If one’s wish is to impart meaning in the most direct and emphatic way, there is no substitute for well-written English. For example I refer you to any of Churchill’s wartime speeches. As Churchill said: ‘What if I had said, instead of “We shall fight them on the beaches”,  “Hostilities will be engaged with our adversary on the coastal perimeter”?’

The noose

One health and safety campaign that wasn’t reassuring was HSE’s Make the Promise, which tackles health and safety in the agriculture sector. I didn’t write this one. Great content, great case studies, but remembered mostly for the silly loop of string that farmers were meant to tie to their gate posts. 

My farmer friend Chris Conder takes up the story. 

“As a farmer I was totally disgusted to receive the HSE pack containing a noose.

Too many farmers have committed suicide round here. Not because of the hard work they do, and the awful price they get paid for their produce. Not because of the constant battle with the elements to harvest enough food for their animals to survive a winter. Not because of the rising price of the utility services they need to cool milk, drive tractors, etc. We have to comply with all the shit the government quangos throw at us and then they go and import cheaper stuff and knock down our prices. 

The reason farmers take a rope or a gun and end their existence is mainly because of red tape, twits in Defra and HSE crap. The last thing a farmer needs is a large envelope containing massive shiny posters, stupid advice and a noose.”

Be creative in health and safety campaigns, by all means. But make sure you assess the risks so that your campaigns don’t blow up in your face.