QnAs with Davis Masten and Peter Zandan

Abstract

The scientific community is often overshadowed by competing interests when it comes to gaining public attention. As a result, scientific findings are sometimes not given due prominence, hindering their ability to inform and shape public opinion and public policy, say Davis Masten and Peter Zandan, members of the Presidents’ Circle of the National Academies. Masten is a marketing research and branding expert and former chairman of Cheskin, a design consulting firm. Zandan is global vice chairman of Hill+Knowlton Strategies, a global communications and marketing firm. At the Arthur M. Sackler colloquium, “Science of Science Communication II” held in Washington, DC, September 23–25, 2013, the pair urged the scientific community to learn from how businesses communicate. Masten and Zandan share their views with PNAS. Davis Masten. Photo courtesy of Christopher Ireland. Peter Zandan. Photo courtesy of Kady Dunlap. > PNAS:In your talk you emphasized your concern that the scientific community is less effective than businesses at communicating with the public. Explain your concern. > Masten:Companies spend roughly a trillion dollars per year on communications worldwide, and marketers spent $9.5 billion last year just on market research; that is, on research whose primary purpose is to understand how to connect with targeted audiences. That last number is probably many times more than what the scientific community spends on all communications put together, excluding education. In short, businesses are spending billions of dollars just to understand how to get better and better at communicating, whereas for the scientific …