Originally published in The Drum

This June on my birthday I completed my 100th Parkrun; that’s 100 Saturdays that I have run a timed 5km route as fast as I can, often with over 1000 others. 

My average time is about 21mins, some do it in an unfeasible 15 minutes, some with prams or dogs, some take well over 45 minutes.

Last week I did it with my 12 year old daughter, after we finished and on our way home she noticed 2 ladies who were still only half way round, her reaction, “good for them” was priceless. 

I asked her more about this and she spoke passionately of a video extolling the virtues of exercise a friend had shared on Instagram. She even talked about the benefits of running for your heart and said it was never too late to start up exercise.

Just over 50 years ago Marshall McLuhan the so called 'Media prophet of the 1960’s' wrote about the much misquoted concept of "The medium is the message”. In his essay he summed up the communication theory that the medium through which we choose to communicate holds as much, if not more, value than the message itself.

Fast forward to 2015 and as we all know that social now leads conversations -  it creates sharing and drives peer to peer communication and that necessitates the use of messages that are impactful and memorable. In the case of some charities that clearly now means using the shock factor.

The key however is not actually shock but rather emotional connection – the BHF ad connects with me (and indeed my daughter) because it pulls at the heartstrings and makes us think about the future.

Social is the place where we connect with our closest friends and family and, much like brands, if you can create emotional connection between your brand or cause and your audience the ‘message’ and the ‘medium’ are equally important. 

Of course shock tactics can work but so do many others, as long as charities focus on emotion then they can’t go too far wrong.