Smart is the new Sexy - A Lesson in Brilliant Social Media Messaging by a Movie Star

Last weekend at the Teen Choice Award Ashton Kutcher surprised a lot folks when instead of giving the usual award acceptance speech he took his allotted 4 minutes and used it to deliver an important and meaningful speech to the teen audience.  This speech was absolutely brilliant on so many levels.  It is a great example of how to make an impact in the new reality of social media.



(1) Content is king.
No one can deny the content of Ashton's speech was inspiring.  He delivered 3 key points that any teenager needs to know and any parent would want shared.  Ashton's message was:

• Opportunity looks a lot like hard work.  
• Smart, thoughtful and generous are sexy.  
• You have to build your own life.

The brilliance here is that you have two audiences (parents and teens) sharing Ashton's speech.  The consequences of that are that Ashton's speech, his image and references to his upcoming movie are being posted and talked about everywhere this week which coincidentally times extremely well with all the paid Jobs movie promos that are being splashed across screens great and small.

Content is the place where I see people and brands trip up most when using social media.  This is not a space for excessively rerunning of your commercial or repeating product attributes over and over.  People come online looking for something interesting and relevant to them.  A gentle touch of brand messaging works only when it weaved into a broader appealing or provoking message.

(2) Targeting - know your audience.
What makes this speech really work is that Ashton carefully targeted his audience in the delivery.  He isn't preaching from the pulpit but sharing something personal (starting with his really name).  By sharing a secret he brings his audience mentally closer to him.  He puts a hook in the opening by telling the teens he is going to talk about being sexy but then flips the talk around to deliver his points. He even makes himself seem more real by sharing his work experiences in less than glamourous jobs before he became the movie star we know today.

The same principle applies to companies and brands as they connect with their audiences online.  In general people prefer to connect with a real human rather than a brand or corporation.  Let your humanity and personality show through the messaging.

(3) Brevity is essential.
Ashton delivered a big message in a small amount of time.  Just goes to show you no matter how much time you are allotted on the agenda you have time to make an impact.  Use time and space wisely, because succinct is always more impactful than rambling.

(4) Advertising should be minimal.
Right as Ashton delivers the 3rd point he slips in a very quick reference to his new Jobs movie.  This  marketing message is less than 5 seconds in a speech that lasts just over 4 minutes.  It is absolutely brilliant.  If Ashton had spent his 4 minutes talking about his new movie then only the people in the audience would have heard him.  No one would have been inspired to share a promo speech for his movie the next day.  However because his speech was 97% really good content and 3% marketing it went viral.  He definitely maximized his exposure as much as possible by not putting the advertising message ahead of the relevant content.

So it turns out that Ashton Kutcher is more than a pretty face.  He is a very smart marketer who could teach many brand managers a thing or two about how to deliver an impactful message.  On top of that he might just be a really good guy too.