Danny Boyle was entrusted with directing the London (Summer) Olympics opening ceremony, titled Isles of Wonder (inspired by Caliban’s speech in Shakespeare’s The Tempest). The show was supposed to be a tribute to Britain through the ages.
The ceremony, on Friday, 27th July 2012, was watched by an estimated 900 million people around the world.
For a show of this scale, Boyle was working with over 10,000 volunteers and cast members for months. He also held a couple of dress rehearsals with about 60,000 people as spectators.
With so many people involved, the organizers worried that the details of this meticulously planned show would get leaked and play as spoilers for the actual launch ceremony.
Conventional wisdom says that the organizers should ask the actors, volunteers, and the rehearsal’s spectators to not spoil the secret by sharing videos and pictures on social media. In other words, “Please do not reveal the secret”.
Boyle did it (along with non-disclosure agreements to some of the key contributors), but he framed it differently. Instead of using the word ‘secret’ and ‘spoiler’, he framed it as “Please save the surprise” by putting the focus on the intended recipients of the secret!
‘Secret’, as a word, when combined with ‘reveal’, presumes that people will reveal them and asks them, preemptively, to not do it. Secrets, in general, are hard to keep, particularly with so many people being exposed to the show prior to the big day.
But with ‘surprise’, combined with ‘save’, offers people a chance to do something positive, unlike the negative action of ‘do not reveal the secret’. The ‘surprise’ framing also gives people an opportunity to be good to others and the effort needed is a simple, positive one too!
So, instead of asking them ‘not to do the wrong thing’, Boyle trusted them ‘to do the right thing’!
By and large, the show’s ‘secret’ was safe, though a few people did share videos and clips online that the organizers had to use copyright laws to take down.
This is an excellent lesson in the power of framing.
Earlier posts on framing:
INOX’s outburst and a lesson on framing in corporate communication
The importance of framing in communications
PS: I came to know about Danny Boyle’s framing via David Bodanis’ new book, “The Art of Fairness”.