The intersection between creativity, human behaviour & effecting change – via Terry O’Reilly

I adore the CBC podcast by Terry O’Reilly called ‘under the influence.‘  It’s technically about marketing but really it’s about the intersections between creativity, human behaviour & effecting change.

Here’s a fantastic example.

In Israel, radio stations got together with the Israel Cancer Association and did something highly creative.

8am is the highest peak of listenership on morning radio. More people tune in at that hour than at any other hour of the day. And as a result, advertisers pay the highest rates in that time period.

On October 30th, at 8:05am, radio stations in Israel did something they had never done before.

All morning shows broadcasted out of the right speaker only.

They did that to convey the idea of what it is like to lose one breast, to lose one part of a whole.

And to achieve maximum reach of that message, every radio station in the entire country silenced their left speaker simultaneously at 8:05am:


Source: YouTube

Every station assured their listeners they weren’t hearing a malfunction, that the one-channel broadcast was intentional to bring awareness to breast cancer, and every station urged women to get tested.

The project was called “The Day Radio Went Mono.” It generated tremendous awareness, and press in all other mediums wrote hundreds of stories about it.

But here’s the important part: The amount of help-line calls increased by 98%. And mammography testing increased by 24%.

Extraordinary results – generated by the creative use of radio.

Now how cool is that?!

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