We had a blizzard up here the other day, the second biggest in our history. Yet a few days before that, the thermometer was pushing 60 degrees. This certainly feels like global weirding.

Although I’m generally concerned about climate change, I worry more about the fate of this planet on days when the temperatures don’t match the season. When it’s balmy in February, that’s troubling.

On the other hand, when the snowbanks tower over my head, warming doesn’t seem to be an issue. Doubts chip away at my climate change convictions, notwithstanding the statements of NASA, NOAA, the United Nations, 34 science academies and countless other credible agencies.

I’m not the only one who’s fickle on climate.

A University of British Columbia study found a strong connection between weather and climate attitudes over the past two decades “with skepticism about global warming increasing during cold snaps and concern about climate change growing during hot spells.”

The University of New Hampshire came up with similar findings, especially among independent voters in the state. “Interviewed on unseasonably warm days, independents tend to agree with the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change,” said researchers Lawrence Hamilton and Mary Stampone. “On unseasonably cool days, they tend not to.”

Why do our attitudes change like this? Because despite what we know, we just can’t deny what we see and feel. Yes, sensory experiences do play a big role in what’s relevant to us, maybe more than we think. You can see it in our new Conversational Relevance study. Although hotel guests value location and recreational facilities for the kids, these highly rational concerns are only part of the mix. Guests also chatter online about water pressure in the shower and the view from the room, and about abstractions like a hotel’s culture and cachet.

The bottom line? When it comes to decision-making, whether it’s a hotel room or the destiny of the human race, logic is overrated. Think about it. Rationally, if you can.

Over twenty years ago, an upstart phone company (MCI) launched its “Friends and Family” campaign. The program, which could contain up to 20 MCI names, gave customers a discounted rate for calling those “friends and family.” It was an immediate success.

We know because it was modeled by just about every other competitor, including AT&T, who implored us to “reach out … reach out and touch someone.” The someone that they invariably referred to was a grandmother, aunt, sibling or spouse. That is, reach out and touch a friend or a family member.

Tod ay it is hard to find any company that doesn’t have some “friends and family” promotion campaign. They take various forms, both online and offline, but the desire is always to be able to tap into someone’s “inner circle” and have them market your product or service to their “friends and family.”

Why were these campaigns so successful?

In part, because contrary to popular wisdom, we are not a “me” culture. We are a “family and friends” culture. Yes, the libraries and best selling lists may be lined with self-help books and advice on how to find personal meaning. But in a recent study, What Americans Value, we examined that element – finding personal meaning – and tested it against a battery of other things people found personally important in their lives. Those included money, meaning, love, health and recognition.

What towered over every element was friends and family. Not only that. What personally mattered most to people was “caring” for friends and family. That is, it wasn’t just the abstract notion of attachment to a clan or a group or a bloodline. It was the idea that we find personal meaning in nurturing and caring for those who matter most to us.

Our study suggests that while we may be a “me” culture on the outside – obsessed with our status, our looks and our oh-so-fragile egos – the more powerful driver of relevance is found in nurturing, specifically nurturing friends and family.

So the interesting question to ask is “who is family?” It could be mom and dad and the family you grew up with. It could be your “office” or “work” family. It could be that “family” that you see everytime you go to yoga class or play golf.

Indeed, the phrase “they’ve become part of the family” may be the most coveted phrase for anyone. It is a phrase that drives personal relevance. Because in becoming part of the ‘family,” one has the possibility of becoming more important than self – you become the object of affection and support for an entire group.

There are plenty of lessons here for marketers.

First, avoid the extremes of the completely introspective and self-indulgent. While they clearly strike a chord, it is a chord that is easily trumped. Our study shows the power not only of family but also of caring and compassion.

Second, avoid the other extreme of the global fantasy. While we may “like to teach the world to sing in simple harmony” – we’re much more focused on making sure the ones closest to us, our “family” or “clan,” is protected and cared for.

Finally, figure out how to make your brand, product or service part of an existing “family.” That family need not be the traditional nuclear family. It could be a social family, a work family, a sports family. This is why we have “official sponsors.” ”Official sponsors” have the opportunity, over time, to not only sponsor the family but become intrinsically identified with it. Perhaps ever more powerful, show how your brand, product or service enables someone to better care for their friends and family. How does it improve their lives, protect them from harm, expand their joy.

And there is where things begin to stick. Because that is where you get at the heart of being personally relevant.

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”

-The Dalai Lama

When I waited tables years ago, I learned you certainly could please a customer with a fine meal and attentive service. You could make a friend for life, however, if you righted a wrong. If the steak was overcooked and you apologized and showed the customer you really cared – expressed compassion for their plight – then returned with a fresh new meal, their experience was somehow even better.

When I was in the hospital following an accident a few years ago, there was some pain. But the more vivid memory is of the nurse who made sure I had everything I needed – and convinced me she really cared. There was also a doctor who jostled my jagged bones, then apologized in a way that convinced me he empathized with my searing pain. I liked that guy. I have only the vaguest, most neutral memories of the doctors who didn’t hurt me.

Compassion: it feels wonderful to get and wonderful to give. It’s no surprise, then, that 68 percent of Americans in our recent survey rate themselves in the 8 to 10 range on the compassion scale – the most popular of 10 labels we offered. It’s also a shining example of how logic is overrated in the formula of what makes a product, brand, candidate or cause relevant.

Compassion: it’s in us

It’s odd that the importance of compassion emerges during one of our bitterest times, as politicians spend billions to bash one another silly, a conversation so rancorous it made a little girl cry. At the same time, however, a devastating storm, Sandy, elicits the best in us as we reach out to help those who have lost their loved ones, their homes, their power and water.

It’s also odd that the image of the compassionate American flies in the face of our nation’s dominant mythology, individualism. Compassion generally involves comforting those who don’t have what they need – not celebrating the success of those who do.

The survey probably reflects our aspirations more than our true levels of compassion. Still, it’s clear: compassion is in us, and it’s a very powerful thing. The challenge for communicators is to tap into this rich vein of compassion. And that means honoring it.

Honoring compassion with sincerity

By that I mean making your compassion sincere. The only thing worse than lack of compassion is false compassion. Don’t fake it.

Domino’s compassion for customers sounded sincere when it confessed that its old pizza tasted like cardboard. Patagonia’s compassion for the planet sounded sincere when the company said it wants you to wear its clothes till they fall apart rather than waste resources buying new ones. BP did everything it could from a messaging perspective when it promised, in the wake of the Gulf oil spill, to “make this right.”

So if you are working with compassion in your communications program, be real.

What you should do

In a compassionate America, expect some consumers to choose the gadget made by the company that shows compassion for foreign laborers. Expect them to be cold toward the car that’s selling nothing but snob appeal. Expect them to like the restaurant that supports local farmers – not the one famous for its foie gras.

Expect business customers to lean toward the vendor that not only makes the best analytical business case but also makes their lives easier and their customers’ lives better. Of course we want our medical records systems to lower health care costs. Wouldn’t it be great if they also saved patients’ lives?

Expect voters to choose the candidate who… well, negative advertising isn’t going away anytime soon. Let’s hope politicians will at least see some wisdom in finessing it with compassion – “Joe Jones isn’t a bad guy; he just makes bad decisions.”

Expect activists to join the cause that gives them a way to directly exercise their compassion. While big checks may be the most effective means for feeding the hungry, causes will need ways to make supporters feel as good as if they were ladling out the soup themselves.

Ultimately, expect Americans to respond to people, ideas and things that help us prove that compassionate is more than a label we want, more than something we simply aspire to.

We want to be it.

What is compassion and why is it so popular?

You noticed it during crisis and most recently during the tragedy that was Hurricane Sandy. We hear stories, see pictures, watch videos of those in distress and we feel for them.  In some cases, we actually do something for them!

Put that in the long list of recent disasters –from Haiti to Katrina to 9/11.  We see, we hear, and we are drawn into action because we feel compassion for another.

But if you look closely you will see “compassion” playing out in almost every form of effective communication.  Sometimes, like in the case of emergencies, it is blatant.  Other times the tug on the compassion thread can be ever so subtle.

The recent presidential campaign is but one example.  Who cares more about all those “job creators”?  Democrats?  Republicans?

Do you pity the poor small business because it is burdened with regulation gone amok?  Or do you have compassion on them because they are just looking for the same low interest loan to ride out the current economic downturn that the big banks get?

Or what about young people?  Who cares for them?  Are you sad for the young because they’ve been saddled with debt by profligate government waste?  Or are you sad for them because instead of investing in education we’re sending all the tax breaks to wealthy businesses that would just as soon hire in Mombai, India, as they would in Mobile, Alabama?

In either case both campaigns are vying for the same thing:  your compassion.

We like to dress up in compassion

In our new study, we asked people to review a list and assign labels to themselves.  On that list were many admirable qualities some of which have defined American culture and history:  idealistic, leader, ambitious, risk-taker, optimistic.  There were ten in all.  But from that list the label that people thought most applied to them by far was “compassionate.”  Indeed, over two-thirds of Americans felt that this label not only applied to them but applied strongly applied to them.

Does this mean that these people are kind-hearted and caring?  Not really.  Rather it means that compassion is something that they like to associate themselves with.  That is, compassion is something that they either think they are or would like to be.

Why are we so fixated with compassion and being compassionate?  This question has long bedeviled the academy, from psychologists to neuroscientists.  Compassion is a curious thing because it does not fit neatly into the prevailing paradigms of current evolutionary theory (survival of the fittest) or economic theory (pursuit of self-interest).  A good testament to how hard compassion is to reconcile with the latter was President George Bush’s catchy notion of  “compassionate conservatism.”

What is compassion and why do people want to associate themselves with it?  For people of faith that answer draws back to their worldview of the divine and the inherent sanctity of life.  Virtually every religious faith has a version of the “golden rule”.

But recently there has been a flurry of efforts by secular thinkers to explain compassion in an evolutionary sense, including theories by Sam Harris (“The Moral Landscape”) and Jonathan Haidt (“The Righteous Mind”).  Their explanations suggest that compassion is indeed a “survival” skill not just for individuals but more importantly for communities, societies and nations.  Within a group, compassion makes that group stronger.

Whatever side you may come down on, what is clear is that compassion is a driving force in how with think, believe, support, and attach ourselves to individuals, ideas, and organizations.

Some advice to marketers

We typically associate communications campaigns that pull on the thread of compassion with highlighting people at risk – preferably the innocent (aka Christian Children’s Fund, St. Jude’s Hospital).

But if you look very closely, you’ll find product purveyors embedding the idea of compassion in all sorts of messages.

• Our products are “kinder” to the environment.
• Buy these diapers because they are gentler to your baby.
• If you care for your family’s safety, you’ll buy this car.
• If you care about your family’s education, you’ll buy this technology.
• If you really love your cat, you’ll buy our cat food.

So our advice to marketers:  follow the compassion.

Unless you are marketing to sociopaths, compassion has to be a critical element of any brand, marketing and sales strategy.  Identify how it is that what you do helps others.  And then make it simple, easy and fun to bring other people along for that ride.

And don’t forget that genuine external communications begins from within your organization.  That is, don’t forget to practice internally the compassion that you encourage externally.

Because everyone wants to think they are compassionate.  We just need to help them get there.

You may have noticed there’s a presidential election underway. It is a contest between two candidates and two political parties, to be sure. But it’s more than that; a contest between two “frames” of how we view the current political and economic landscape.

The frame that Governor Romney and his campaign would like you to see through goes something like this:

The current presidential policies have failed. They have not produced the employment and economic growth that was promised and that we need. Worse, they continue the nation and society down an unsustainable path of big government and even bigger government deficits. The reason the President’s policies have failed is because they don’t follow the principles that historically have made our country and society strong – capitalism and free enterprise.

The campaign slogan for the Romney campaign is “Believe in America” but – arguably – the frame is “failure”. President Obama promised renewed growth, reduced unemployment, and reducing the deficit. That hasn’t happened. If you look at the presidency and politics from this vantage point, the bet is that you’ll vote for Governor Romney.

The frame President Obama and his campaign would like you to see through goes something like this:

We are slowly rebuilding from one of the worst economic crises in recent history – a crisis brought about by policies that favor the few at the cost of the working middle class. Now is not the time to go back to the policies that got us into this mess in the first place. We built our nation based on the principles of fairness and equal opportunity. That means moving forward with policies that invest in people.

The campaign slogan for the Obama campaign is “Forward.” This is also – arguably – the frame. Tax reductions for the rich only increased the gap between rich and poor. Indiscriminate deregulation led to the corporate hijinks that taxpayers ended up paying for. Given the struggles of the middle class and precarious state of the economy, now is not the time to slash investments in things like infrastructure, education and the environment. If that’s your frame, the Obama campaign is betting you’ll vote to re-elect the president.

Framing is not unique to politics. It is intrinsic to being human. It is how our brain organizes or “fits” what is going on around us in a manner that allows us to make sense of the world. The concept was made popular by cognitive linguist George Lakoff in his book Metaphors We Live By (later amplified for political communication in Moral Politics). The latest in neuroscience and behavioral research confirms this basic theory – that people are pattern seekers. We look for patterns and frames that help us make sense of both ourselves and those around us. Science writer Michael Shermer, in his book The Believing Brain, puts it this way:

The brain is a belief engine. From sensory data flowing in through the senses, the brain naturally begins to look for patterns, and then infuses those patterns with meaning.

Great communications is the perfect balance between tapping into existing people’s patterns and frames while identifying and introducing new ways of looking at things. Key to that is identifying personally relevant factors that can “change the frame.”

Sometimes it can be as simple as marrying two seemingly disparate elements that get people to rethink an old way of looking at things. A good example is the current American Cancer Society campaign (which Brodeur is part of) that frames the organization not around the disease of cancer but the ultimate goal of the organization – giving people more birthdays. Another example is a campaign recently launched by Pfizer with the surprising tagline “Get Old.” Together with nearly a dozen advocacy organizations, it is reframing the whole notion of aging and what it means to be “old.”

Most times, framing focuses on identifying an underlying feeling or emotion that can trigger or crystallize an action that you may already be predisposed to do. Rather than confront, the frame nudges you towards a desired behavior. In the case of the two presidential campaigns, the ultimate behavior is a vote on November 6th.

The winner will be more than just one of the two candidates. Beyond the candidates, the contest is between two different frameworks for political and economic action.

It will be a plebiscite on which frame is the most relevant and meaningful to voters.