Saturday, December 24, 2011

MOSQUITO VERSUS ELEPHANT: WHICH IS MOST DANGEROUS?


Depends on your point-of-view. Head to head, no one wants to face an angry elephant. Each year more than 500 people die from elephant attacks.

But a bigger risk is easier to ignore. In 2009, 780,000 people died from mosquito-borne malaria -- one child every 30 seconds. Other mosquito-borne diseases infect more than 700 million people each year.

As Joseph Stalin remarked while reviewing his tank forces before counter-attacking the Germans at the Battle of Kursk, "Quantity is a quality all its own."

Consider a disease/viral message analogy. Today more and more people are catching news and information from small sources on the web and through other digital communications. Fewer are getting it from the "elephants" -- the major TV networks, large newspapers, national magazines and radio.

Social media plus blogs, online news etc. are delivering more while the elephantine mainstream media are lumbering along attracting fewer prime viewers and impressions every year (excluding their online operations).

That's hardly news but it does pose a question: What makes a good "mosquito" messaging strategy?