Navigating comms and PR

Lenny Rachitsky interviews Lulu Cheng Meservey, former head of comms at Substack and comms leader at Activision Blizzard, about how ideas spread and how underdog companies can get attention. The conversation covers memorable messaging, risk-taking in comms, audience targeting through 'cultural erogenous zones,' concentric-circle stakeholder mapping, going direct through founders, and building an audience consistently.

01Key learnings

• Make ideas spread by making them memorable and giving people a reason to repeat them, such as humor, a vivid mental image, an analogy, or a story rather than adjectives.
• Test a catchphrase by asking whether a second-grader could understand it immediately; avoid inside jokes that only make sense with explanation.
• Treat making mistakes of commission rather than omission as the better bet, since visible errors can be learned from while inaction lets the status quo win.
• Find your audience's cultural erogenous zones and build a bridge from what they already care about to your offering, rather than trying to change their worldview.
• Map stakeholders in concentric circles starting from your own desk (team, then power users, then influencers and media), since each circle follows the one inside it.
• Narrow your target audience to a small group of diehards first, since concentrating limited effort increases impact and lets true fans spread the message themselves.
• Go direct by having a founder or executive speak in an authentic human voice, choosing the one channel where they communicate best, and building an audience before you need to defend yourself.
• Build a content pipeline before launching a channel and post with consistent cadence rather than chasing one-off viral moments that attract the wrong audience.

02Frameworks mentioned

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.