FUMBLE: TAMILS' TACTICS TRUMP MESSAGE

Set aside any feelings you may have about the situation in Sri Lanka or any other specific of the issues BEHIND last Sunday’s protest by Tamil-Canadians which saw the Gardiner Expressway shut down for hours and traffic snarled throughout downtown Toronto. In true TD&F style, let’s look at this purely from a communications standpoint. We often talk about the need to be innovative, edgy and downright bold when it comes to finding ways to get your message on the front burner of this busy, noisy world of information overload in which we live. But there is always a balance to be struck, between getting the attention you seek and going too far. Last Sunday, the Tamils went too far, because they violated a fundamental rule of communications strategy: they let their tactics trump their message. The story was no longer about the human tragedy in Sri Lanka and their call for action from the federal government. Instead, it shifted to one of illegal occupation of a critical transportation link and the ethics of placing children and elderly on the front lines of a confrontation with police – let alone the wisdom of placing them on the asphalt surface of a busy highway. When the tactic overwhelms the message, the opportunity is lost. And the manner in which the Tamil protesters went about it, they ultimately squandered any goodwill which they may have built up through their previous, well-organized tactics like the human chains which encircled the downtown core yet still let the rest of us go about our business.