Posted 10 January 2007 - 02:50 AM
I just downloaded and printed two copies of the "Fight Aging" flyer that John posted. IMO that is the best of the available flyers, but it is still far from impressive.
I have been thinking about flyers because I think they are easily our best approach to attracting more interest in this field. They are free advertising, they can potentially reach a great number of people (particularly if more do it, we get more people, they do it etc), and there is no discomfort involved. no 'Selling' or confrontation.
So flyers need to be used, but they need to actually work too. 'Radical Life Extension' in big letters sounds ...well..crazy. We have to appeal to the average person who has never in their life even considered what we all think of on a daily basis!
So we need a flyer which has large grab your attention letters with a grab your attention phrase which doesn't also scare you off. For instance, just quickly off the top of my head, I'm thinking:
*Getting older?
*Scientists can double the lifespan of (organism x)
*Medical Research Is Changing our Lives
*Would you like to live longer?
*Would you like more time with your kids?
*Not enough hours in the day?
-Most people are retired before they find those missing hours. but what fun is retirement when you are old?
These are jsut quick ideas off the top of my head, and each of them obviously needs to lead onto an equally punchy sub heading, which in turn leads on to attention drawing paragraphs or dot point summaries of what is happening or could happen with support.
These flyers need to
1. Catch the eye of the passer-by (large heading)
2. Draw them into reading further (Subheading)
3. Incite them to read more, look further, question their beliefs, and/or talk to someone else about this.
The 'Fight Aging' flyer is acceptable, but it divides the information which is 'confusing' for someones subconscious mind which isn't interested in reading in the first place. There is no incentive to read further... So they see fight aging!, a bunch of text, and various website links to sites they don't care about.
We need to restructure it into a narrative which drags the attention of the passerby THROUGH each step (not overlooking bits and pieces). Heading, Sub Heading, facts about scientifi progress in aging research, list of websites with brief (yet more thorough than what is currently on it) descriptions of why the reader SHOULD go there. Simply knowing that mprize is the rejuvenation research prize is irrelevent. Who cares? Knowing that research into agigin is being greatly incentivized and there is greater interest in this field than ever before IS important.
I'll see what i can put together myself, but if a few of us work on a range of flyers, I think we could try to put together a collaborative effort and a large range of options.
Shane