Yououtubers Mcfly and Carlito will make a prevention video on barrier gestures at the request of Emmanuel Macron -

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  • This Friday, yououtubers Mcfly and Carlito announced that Emmanuel Macron had given them a challenge: to make a video on barrier gestures.

  • One of the objectives of this video, to try a lighter and more funny communication around the coronavirus for young people, target audience of videographers.

  • Can this form of communication work?

This Friday evening, the duo of YouTubers Mcfly and Carlito, who have more than six million subscribers, announced that Emmanuel Macron had asked them to make a video around the barrier gestures against the coronavirus.

If the video reaches ten million views, the two guys will be able to run with the president (an anecdote competition is notably planned).

The choice of the Elysée for these two videographers owes nothing to chance.

The executive seeks to communicate better with young people, and Mcfly and Carlito are known for their young, predominantly teenage community.

If the choice of communicators therefore seems good, is the manner?

Wanting to treat the coronavirus with lightness and humor, at a time when it kills on average 300 people per day, seems a risky bet.

The communicative virtues of humor

However, using humor to take care of one's communication is a well-known resource, as Ilaria Montagni, postdoctoral fellow in communication and author of a thesis "Communication, Internet and translational research applied to mental health" recalls.

The expert praises the various benefits: “Humor helps to memorize and retain certain messages.

We even talk about humor marketing as the method works.

"

Not to mention a greater contagiousness through humor.

Just look at the resumes of Emmanuel Macron's previous communication messages on Republigram (Internet users imitated the font of the messages to write anything), which flooded Twitter for several days.

Where even this Friday evening, multiple diversions of this future collaboration between the President and the youtubers were made, making fun of this funny featuring.

However, it is well known, in communication, as long as one speaks about you, you succeeded.

Axel Assouline, communication advisor and speaker at the Sorbonne, explains: “Even if this is mocked, it allows the initial message to be taken up and therefore to be much more integrated than a traditional message.

"

Can we laugh at everything?

Despite this display of good points, the announcement of this video also sparked indignant messages, with some regretting such communication at the time of student queues for food aid or the large number of deaths from Covid- 19 in France.

“Humor allows a message to be much more effective, but in return generates many negative reactions.

From mockery, from people who think it is not appropriate… The whole balance is there.

Is it worth it?

“Asks Axel Assouline, who nonetheless recalls that negative reactions remain ways of getting the message to talk and bringing it to life.

For Ilaria Montagni, young people will understand the purpose of this light tone, de facto excusing it.

It is not gratuitous humor, it has a role and a function.

Not to trivialize or make fun of the pandemic, but to make more accessible certain information which eludes young people or whose communication goes badly.

For the expert, perhaps more than doing light messages, there is a need to deviate from the current type of message, considered by young people to be too classic and dark.

She indicates: “Young people reject authoritative and frightening communication around the coronavirus made by health authorities.

It doesn't work on them, they're looking for something a little more quirky.

Obviously, humor needs to be measured and mastered, but it's a good thing to try.

"

Weariness with the current message

Impermeability to government communication accentuated by the fact that it has lasted for over a year without really being renewed.

Axel Assouline: “By force, traditional messages are no longer integrated, so much are they part of the ambient noise.

Changing the way, form and senders of messages a bit can help breathe new life into them and avoid normal weariness.

"

The same goes for Ilaria Montagni, who reminds us that you should never install a routine or monotony in communication and, on the contrary, always try to reinvent yourself in order to renew information.

"Of course we understood after a year that you had to wash your hands and wear a mask, but yet another prevention spot will have no effect as long as it has been rehashed", breaths- she.

More than making us laugh, it is up to government communication to surprise us.

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  • Emmanuel Macron

  • Humor

  • Covid 19

  • Coronavirus

  • Communication

  • Health

  • Media

  • Youtube