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5 Tips To master the concept of relevance.

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RELEVANCE hoffand the

relevance is anticipating other

pEopLE’s NEEds If we are not in tune with our audiences’ needs, they become blind and deaf to us. So many messages are coming at them that they need relevance as a filter. It is the means by which people manage overload.

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RELEVANCE hoffand the

relevance is greaterthAN LoVE ANd tRust That may not work for marriage, but it certainly does for brands and celebrity. Trust and love are static measures, but relevance is dynamic. You may love and trust Disney, but it isn’t relevant in the same way as Vladimir Putin—even though you may neither love nor trust him one bit. But no brand would want to be relevant at the expense of trust or love. It needs all three.

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the first dimesion ofRELEVANCE is prevalence, or how many people find you relevant. The Hoff does pretty well on that. He’s well known around the world, and in Germany he’s a national hero. Everyone, it seems, remembers Baywatch and Knight Rider fondly. “Relevance,” The Hoff says, “ is about anticipating what people are looking for instead of telling them.” That attitude has helped David Hasselhoff become “The Hoff” and not “Scott Baio.”

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RELEVANCE hoffand the

the second dimension ofRELEVANCEis intensity, or to what degree people find you relevant. Despite his penchant for calling young attractive female audience members, “babe,” for suggesting to the same Peruvian woman that they have lunch together and drink out of skulls, and then leaning in for a not-entirely-welcome hug, The Hoff inspires a certain intensity of feeling. He’s in on the joke, which makes it much more fun. Proof? His stirring role in the SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.

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the third dimension ofRELEVANCE are the aspects of relevance. These are why exactly you are relevant. Golin Harris, the firm that brought The Hoff to Cannes, divides relevance into 11 different aspects. Engage, entertain, humanity, identify, mystique, nobel, novelty, prestige, quality, welcoming, classic. As you could gather from the bracelet The Hoff wears—“See it. Believe it. Live it.”—mystique is not among his dimensions of relevance. He’s more about classic and entertain…and, judging by his 2 minute monologue about money, cold hard cash. Brands can also be scored according to their relevance aspects. Dove, for example, scores highly for humanity, welcoming, noble, classic, and engaging. Nivea, on the other hand, racks up high marks for mystique, prestige, and quality.

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