On-Air Pledge: Are You Seeding the Clouds for Flurries or Floods?

As a long-time producer of public radio pledge drives, I was always delighted to see the flurry of calls that would come in when we aired Ira Glass’ spots. There was something about the delivery, directness and rationale of the spots. They were entertaining and often elicited sheepish comments from listeners who’d come off the sidelines to help out.

There was a good deal of guilt and shame-inducing language in those spots. In the case of the “1 in 10” spots, which highlighted the long-held belief that only 1 in 10 people who listened to public radio give during pledge drives, he gave clever examples of how outrageous it was to ask to buy, for example, 10 cases of Vienna beef sausages but only pay for 1 case. If a hot dog guy couldn’t run his business that way, how could public radio?

That argument is still made by stations across the country during drives—that the reason to get involved is because public radio’s audience is mostly made up of loiterers when pledge drives come on the air. “90% of the people listening do not give, and you, dear listener, will be the exception.” There are a number of reasons using that stat on the air isn’t advisable, including the fact that the highest propensity for giving is among the 30% who comprise the core audience. That raises the likelihood of responses among the people most aligned with the station way above 10%. Plus, what is it saying about our product when 90% won’t support it?

But what may be the most damaging part of the argument is that it normalizes the act of not giving. By making the listener aware that 90% do not give (even though that may meet with disapproval of the 10% who do), the descriptive norms (behaviors that you observe) you are providing give the listener a reason to sit out the drive. The listener may not even realize why they’re not participating because, unconsciously, decision-making parts of their brains are saying, “Most people are also doing this undesirable thing.” 

In social psychology, the injunctive norms (things we approve/disapprove of), can also drive us to act—but the key is to make descriptive and injunctive norms work together toward the goal of having people take an action. 

Sure, those Ira Glass ‘1 in 10’ spots caused a flurry of calls. That’s mainly because the salience of his argument, in the moment, caused a temporarily higher response rate. But there’s only so many times you can air those kinds of spots and arguments before they become less effective. The use of guilt and shame has been retired by many pledge practitioners, which is a positive, because who wants a donor on their file who’s there only out of shame?

Perhaps a more effective way to make a call to action is to apply positive social pressure by showing that the act of participating is what the in-group is doing. The gift to the station is improving dialogue, democracy, arts and culture in the community, which makes the participant a community leader who models in-group morality. The public radio audience approves of station goals and community impact (descriptive norms). Acknowledging that being a supporter of the station to achieve those goals is injunctive behavior, inducing audience members to participate—for all the right reasons—and exhibit normative behavior at the same time.    

Reinforce those notions over time—in pledge drives, in daily spots, in emails and newsletters—and the ‘flurries’ you received before may well turn into a flood of support.