How to Make a Stat Work in Marketing

by Kivi Leroux Miller on January 25, 2012

in Media Relations,Messages and Tag Lines,Storytelling

Hating statistics and other cold hard facts, and loving stories instead, is very popular in our field right now. I’m mostly on that bandwagon too.

But what if you could use a good statistic to help tell your story?

I saw this Austim Speaks PSA with Toni Braxton on TV recently, and it caught my attention, even before I realized it was for a nonprofit.



The Toni Braxton ad is from 2009. Some newer versions feature NASCAR driver Jamie McMurray and fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger and they follow the same basic “the odds of . . .” script. While there is some criticism of the ads in the autism community, I think they do a good job of conveying how common autism is.

The basic stat in all of the ads is that the odds of having a child diagnosed with autism are 1 in 110.  In other words, this is really pretty common. But just saying, “Hey, autism is common, so you better learn about it” isn’t very compelling.

To drive home how common it is, the ads juxtapose the “1 in 110″  against much rarer events (the chance of being discovered, or winning a NASCAR race) as they tell a person’s life story. The life story and the odds of other events within that story are what put the autism statistic in a context that is now much more interesting and memorable. Of course, the star power of those featured in ads helps too, because that’s what really sucks us into the commercial — seeing how the life story of these people we already know is unfolding, and then landing on that much more common event of having a child with autism.

Now that we understand how common it is, Austim Speaks hopes we will want to learn about the early signs of autism, which is the call to action of each video.

Where have you seen statistics and other cold hard facts work in nonprofit marketing?

Tagged as: advertising, PSA, statistics

  • Bix

    Dear Kivi,

    We love stories too! We’re also fond of numbers in communications for nonprofits. But we especially love using numbers with stories — to give the stats context and resonance. We wrote about this on 11.11.11 :-) and included the marvelous Girl Effect video as an example of how combining numbers and a storyline can be effective. Just wanted to share with your readers:

    http://take2services.com/2011/11/11/11-11-11-the-numbers-game-broken-down/
    http://youtu.be/1e8xgF0JtVg

  • http://kpwriting.com/ writing jobs

    NICe advice!

  • Marc Sirkin

    The “odds” campaign has been a tremendous success simply for exactly the reasons you mention (nice blog post btw). It’s been interesting to see how other foundations and organizations have been using their own “odds” as well – there are lots of similar campaigns out there it seems! I have to say, the Ad Council has been beyond wonderful as well as other media partners in getting these commercials on TV and in print. Thanks again for highlighting our campaign!

    -Marc Sirkin/Autism Speaks

  • http://cherhale.com/ Cher

    This campaign was very well done. It literally gave me the chills which is rare for an ad that involves statistics to do. It’s very interesting how they intertwined a story with the statistics, and I think that’s something that all nonprofits can learn from. In my experience, I’ve found that people are in want of statistics, but only when they are portrayed in an appealing way. From your book, I’ve taken your advice with using social math and that has been extremely helpful in being unique and catching the attention of our community.

  • http://www.nonprofitmarketingguide.com/blog Kivi Leroux Miller

    It might be the 80-20 rule — 80% emotional and 20% rational. Glad you are finding the book and blog helpful!

  • Pingback: For a Stronger Marketing Plan, Add Stats to Your Stories - Nonprofit Hub

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