Creating technically or medically accurate information is not enough. People rarely change their attitudes or behaviour simply because an institution instructs them what they should do.

Effective communication must begin somewhere else: with the people whose lives, beliefs, fears, hopes and choices I am trying to understand.

Over more than three decades, I have developed an approach to communication that has been applied across cultures, languages and subjects ranging from HIV/AIDS, malaria and Ebola to domestic violence, racism, refugees, gender equality, children’s rights and climate change.

The subjects change. The underlying principles do not.

1. Start with the human being, not the message

Many communication campaigns begin with an institution asking: What do we want people to know?

I begin with different questions: Who are the people I am trying to reach? What matters to them? What are they afraid of? What prevents them from changing? What would make them pay attention?

A message may be medically, scientifically or socially correct and still fail completely if it does not connect with the person receiving it.

My starting point is therefore not the institution, the policy or even the information. It is the human being.

That means deeply understanding the audience before deciding how to communicate with them. It also means respecting people rather than treating them as passive recipients of instructions.

The objective is not merely to transmit information. It is to create communication that people will choose to engage with. It means creating communications that have a chance of influencing what they think, feel or do.

2. Use universal human values as common ground

Cultures differ enormously. Languages, customs, religions, political systems and social norms vary from one community to another. I have developed a list of what I call “Influencers to Human Communications”. The list is 55 items long.

Human beings nevertheless share many fundamental values. My work could not exist if I did not believe in universal values.

We want our children to be safe.
We want to protect the people we love.
We want dignity.
We understand grief, fear, hope, humour, affection and loss.
We want to belong.
We want to be treated fairly.

These shared values create a powerful foundation for communication across cultures. Rather than beginning with what divides people, I try to identify what they already share. That makes it possible to create communication that can travel remarkably far while still feeling human and relevant.

The surface expression of a message may change from place to place. Its emotional foundation often does not.

3. Do not preach

People generally do not like being told what to think. They particularly resist messages that appear to judge them, lecture them or tell them that their culture, behaviour or beliefs are wrong.

For that reason, my work always deliberately avoids preaching.

I try instead to create a situation, story or conversation that gives viewers enough factual and emotional information to think about the issue and reach a conclusion for themselves.

That distinction matters a lot.

A conclusion imposed by an authority can be resisted. A conclusion people reach for themselves is much more powerful.

This is especially important when communicating about sensitive issues such as sexual behaviour, violence against women, racism, harmful traditions, disease prevention, stigma or discrimination.

I am not trying to win an argument with the audience. I am trying to help the audience think.

4. Use animation strategically

Animation is sometimes regarded simply as entertainment for children. For me, it has been one of the most powerful communications tools available.

Condoms that have faces and arms and talk. Blue people with no hair that talk about sexual violence. Penguins that get migraines. Mosquitoes in a café looking at menus while trying to infect the world. These are not random creative choices. Each uses animation to solve a communication problem.

An animated character does not have to belong to a particular race, nationality, religion or social class. That can allow audiences to identify with a situation without immediately deciding that the message is about someone else or feeling that they themselves are being attacked.

Animation can also create emotional distance from difficult subjects. A conversation about condoms, sexual violence, disease, prejudice or death can become vastly less threatening when the audience first encounters it through animated characters rather than through an authority figure delivering instructions. That distance can make it possible to address subjects that might otherwise be too uncomfortable, confrontational or taboo.

Animation also travels well. The same visual story can often be adapted into many languages while retaining its central characters, emotional structure and message. And animated characters can speak any language without an audience thinking that is unusual.

I do not use animation because it is decorative or because it is associated with children. I use it when it helps communication succeed with audiences of any age.

5. Use humour when it helps. Always use compassion

Humour can be extraordinarily effective. Laughter creates a shared human experience. It lowers defences. It attracts attention. It makes people willing to watch subjects they might otherwise avoid. It makes messages memorable. Some of my best-known work has deliberately used humour to communicate about extremely serious subjects.

But humour is not appropriate for everything. There are circumstances in which the only responsible approach is empathy. Death, grief, trauma and suffering require different emotional tools.

My Ebola film about safe funerals, for example, addresses a devastating dilemma: how can people honour someone they love while also protecting the living from infection? The communication on funerals must begin with love, grief and respect.

The principle is to find the emotion that allows people to receive and internalize the message. Sometimes that emotion is laughter. Sometimes it is compassion.

The emotional choice should serve a human need.

6. Speak locally

A global message does not have to sound global.

Whenever possible, my productions speak to people in their own languages and through voices that sound familiar to them. That is why my work exists in hundreds of language versions. That involves much more than literal translation and takes a lot of work.

I insist that no one should be left out of life-saving messages because they cannot understand the communication. In many countries, elites may speak English or French, while many communities rely primarily on local languages that international organizations and outsiders may not speak.

Words that work perfectly in one language may sound unnatural, offensive or meaningless in another. Humour may not translate. Idioms change. Cultural references differ. Even speakers of the same language may respond differently to accents, vocabulary or tone. Even English is not the same in Canada, India, South Africa and Singapore.

For that reason, I think in terms of adaptation, not simply translation. I think of local languages. Local speakers and collaborators help determine how an idea should be expressed.

The goal is not to produce a grammatically accurate foreign-language version. The goal is to make the audience feel: this is speaking directly to me.

That is why language, accent, voice performance, music and cultural sensitivity are integral parts of the communication process rather than afterthoughts added at the end.

7. Keep it short, clear and memorable

People are surrounded by information. Most will not sit through a lecture simply because an issue is important. My work therefore often distils complex subjects to their essential human idea.

A short production can sometimes accomplish more than a long explanation if the audience understands the message, remembers it and repeats it. This requires discipline.

What is the single most important thing the audience needs to understand? What should not be said? What image, phrase, character or moment will remain in someone’s mind after the production has ended? What should be left out?

Simplicity does not mean making an issue simplistic. It means doing the difficult creative work required to make complexity understandable.

The objective is not to put everything I know into a film. It is to leave something useful in the mind of the viewer.

8. Remove barriers between the message and the people who need it

A powerful communication product has little value if people cannot access or use it. Distribution is therefore part of the creative strategy from the beginning.

I make my humanitarian media freely available to view, download, broadcast and share. There has never been a cost to see or use my humanitarian media. I do not require people to register or provide an e-mail address before accessing it, and I impose no unnecessary restrictions or barriers to its use.

Productions have been designed for many different environments and platforms: national television, community television, radio, schools, clinics, community meetings, websites, social media, mobile phones, messaging platforms, even jumbotrons in stadiums.

In some places, high-speed Internet is readily available. In others, it is not. A communication strategy designed only for people with modern devices and fast connections will exclude many of the people who may need the information most.

That is why the same communication I create needs to exist as video, audio, broadcast material, downloadable files or material that can be carried into communities where Internet access, or even electricity, is unreliable or absent.

The objective is simple: do not make people overcome unnecessary barriers to receive information that could improve or save their lives.

The method stays the same

I have worked on many different subjects and with many different partners, cultures and audiences. There is no single formula for solving a communication problem.

A humorous film about condoms cannot simply be replicated for Ebola funerals. A campaign addressing domestic violence requires different emotional choices from one teaching children about tolerance. Communication intended for national television may need to function differently from material circulating by mobile phone in a remote community.

But the underlying philosophy remains remarkably consistent.

Understand the human being.
Find the shared value.
Respect the audience.
Do not preach.
Use creativity to reduce barriers rather than create them.
Speak in voices people recognize.
Make the message memorable.
Then make it as easy as possible for people to use and share it.

My approach is fundamentally human-centered. Each life is equal. Each life is worthy. Each life matters.

Technology will evolve. Platforms will change. The tools of communication will advance. But the essential task will not: understand people deeply enough to reach them with respect, clarity and humanity.

That is how I work.