Rome’s best lesson in bad messaging

While pointing at the Spanish Steps in Rome a couple weeks ago, our tour guide told us something that blew my mind.

This iconic staircase is so popular it seems like every tourist who visits Rome eventually ends up there. That night, it felt like we all arrived at once.

I thought I knew the place already. I’d been there before. I’ve watched Audrey Hepburn eat gelato on those steps and Tom Cruise drive down them. (To balance out my travel flex in this email, I confess I’ve also watched Vin Diesel drive down them.)

But this was the first time I learned that the Spanish Steps are barely Spanish at all. They’re actually French. Our guide explained that French diplomats funded their construction to connect the piazza at the base to the French church at the top. But, he said, Italians at the time didn’t like the French, so they started calling the 136 stairs the “Spanish Steps” because they are also near the Spanish embassy. Googling around later, I confirmed this French-Italian rivalry over the steps endures today.

My PR brain initially thought that such misdirection would be easy to overcome today. Nobody would keep calling French steps the “Spanish Steps” once the backstory was googleable and often explained on social media.

And then I realized I was wrong.

No matter how much we as PR pros like to think otherwise, communication at its core isn’t primarily about facts and sources. It’s mostly about emotion and what an audience wants to hear.

Eighteenth-century Romans were willing to accept and repeat “These are the Spanish Steps” for much the same reason twenty-first-century Americans right now are willing to accept and repeat “Data centers use too much water.”

AI reps can keep pointing out that California almond farms use 100 times more water than data centers, and golf courses use 31 times more. That won’t persuade people.

When residents cite concerns about water conservation, air quality and electricity bills, what they’re really saying is “I don’t want my job taken away by technology I don’t trust, built by Big Tech bros I trust even less, where the supposed benefits don’t flow to me.”

Effective communication speaks to the heart, not the head.

Until the AI communicators address people’s real concerns, their factual rebuttals will be as memorable as Rome’s “French Steps.”