Laying the Foundation

Building Communication

Communications Strategy:
At the most basic level, this implies that you think logically - strategically - about your campaign and its message. Sure, the stuff everyone remembers is the great creative idea; in the world of advertising, what is often remembered is the catchy jingle or beautiful photo. What people forget is that many hours of thinking and careful planning went into producing that creative brilliance. What does it take to make a great campaign? Where do you start? Who do you target?

Thinking Strategically:
For the purpose of this exercise you are very concerned about labour conditions in developing countries. As a concerned young person you don't buy any clothing that you think may have been produced in a 'sweatshop', and you want others to follow your lead. The big question is: how do you convince the world that this is the right thing to do?

(www.adbusters.org)

The goal of communications:
So you have an issue, a cause, and a message you want to get out there. What is the basis of your message? To determine this, it helps to think about your ultimate goal. Is it to:

• make all your friends stop buying clothing made in sweatshops?
• raise massive awareness of the issue?
• change the social norm in your school environment… in other words, is it no longer cool to buy your products from company x?

These goals seem like the logical route to take. However, they are difficult to measure, and probably unlikely. People have heard this message over and over again, right? They are sick of hearing about sweatshops, and bored to death with hearing about how their Nike shoes were made by children. It's a tough message to convey because it almost seems like an issue of the past.

How do you overcome this?
Pick a goal that is measurable, something that resonates, and something people can feel proud to be a part of.

Ask yourself 'why are we doing this?' -- your ultimate goal will always be to create change. For example, your school is known as the biggest and best athletic school in the province. Every year they spend a large sum of money on new athletic equipment, which you know is produced by workers in substandard conditions. Does your school know this? Could this be a measurable goal that would have an impact?

Measurable Goals:
Stop your school from buying sweatshop produced athletic equipment.

Your core message:
What's the single most important thing we can say to achieve the objective? This should be a simple sentence expressing a specific idea. Avoid generalities because they result in ambiguous communications.

Using our scenario there are many options - we could say, "Our school has a social responsibility to not buy athletic products produced in sweatshops."

What is the rationale behind your message?
List the rational and emotional reasons for the target market to believe what you want them to believe, and do what you want them to do. In other words, why on earth should we stop buying athletic products produced in sweatshops?

Research:

At this point research is imperative - understand your issue and the all the arguments around it.

Be an informed activist. Be the expert in this field, and you will find that the more you know, and the more you can back up with credible sources, the more seriously you will be taken.

Who is your target?
This is where you revisit your goal. You need to do your research: who decides what suppliers your school's athletic department uses? Maybe it's the principal? Maybe it's the head of the athletic department, the parents association, or the student athletes. It's important to understand who you're really talking to.

Understand your target
Do your research, look for information on the Internet, and really understand what matters to your target audience.

What are these people like?
Why do they matter?
What would make them happy?
Do they know anything about the issue?

You may learn that it is very important for your principal to be liked by the community and among the different groups at school. Maybe there is not a lot of money in the athletic budget and the thought of non-sweatshop-made equipment only makes your principal think of the increased costs that he would incur.

These are very top-line overviews. Your research should be much more in-depth. Understand your audience. Understand what is at stake for them, and leverage this to create change. Taking Action:

At this point you have a goal, you understand the issues, you know whose behaviour you need to change, you understand what these people are like and what matters to them. We are going to assume that you've already spoken with your principal and have tried to raise your concerns in a very professional manner. You've already shown your principal all of your research, you've presented the data and yet nothing has changed. So now what?

Timing is everything
Timing is a key element to any successful campaign. Time your communication around a significant event that relates to your issue, a time where the elements of your issue are already on people's minds. Maybe it is the perfect time to launch your campaign because your school was just asked to host a national athletic competition, it's hockey playoff season, or the city football championship is coming up.

What have people done before?
In preparing this brief note I simply looked up other campaigns on the Internet and found an abundance of ideas. There is even a student organization whose mission is to help schools rid themselves of sweatshop-made items. Sometimes great campaigns succeed as a result of the lessons learned - this is an important consideration. Decide whether you can use someone else's campaign or whether you need to start from scratch.

Thinking Creatively:

Ok, you're ready to put something out into the world. You are about to develop a campaign!

This is where you are allowed to be creative. Make your message big, make it funny, and make it serious. Your issue and your target determine how you go about talking to people. Here are some key elements to consider:

What is the best way to reach your target?
There are thousands of ways to bring a message to life and it can be as simple or complicated as:

• Writing an article
• Passing around petitions
• Running a poster campaign
• Street theater
• Having a peaceful protest
• Lobbying (writing letters to the school council, athletic council, student council etc)
• Passing out leaflets
• Presenting yourself as an authority on the subject, having done a major research project, and offering to do a presentation in a class.

An important component of your campaign is determining your medium.

Does your piece of communication resonate with your target?
Maybe your principal would really see the value in a school wide petition! Perhaps it is important to him that he be seen as someone who listens to his students. Even better, maybe the impact would be larger if you wrote up a petition and passed it around to all the athletic students who actually use the equipment.

But would they sign it? Maybe it is important to inform all the athletic students about the type of equipment they are using. Informing them about the equipment might make them feel less hesitant about signing the petition. So how do you go about making them informed about the equipment they are using? Maybe street theater or a peaceful protest is not the most ideal way to reach this crowd, so maybe instead you decide on a poster and leaflet campaign.

Keep your communication consistent:

Keep the message consistent. Keep the look and feel of your campaign consistent. If you design posters and leaflets make sure they look the same, use the same font, same style pictures, same colour paper etc.

Design your materials for your audience: It is very different talking to adults than it is talking to teenagers or children. Look at ads on TV and you will see what I am talking about. Take note of your parents' raised eyebrows during commercials for products that you are interested in.

Think about YOUR TARGET
This is not a campaign that YOU identify with, it's a campaign your TARGET identifies with - this is the key to strategic campaigns.

Design your communication to fit placement:
It's one thing to have a great creative idea, but what is important is to make sure people see it. Few things are as important as where you place your communications. In theory it's quite simple. You place your communication where it is sure to be seen by your target. In our case you may want to put up lots of posters outside of the gyms. You also place lots of posters outside the principal's office to make sure he knows about your campaign.

The medium determines your message:

The tools you use to get your message out often determine what you say.

Have you ever driven by a big billboard on the highway? Imagine if it was littered with text, you'd have to stop and read it if you wanted to catch everything. The same idea goes for every tool you use. If you put up a poster in a hallway it may be unlikely that someone stops to read all the fine print. A leaflet, heavy on information, handed out to students on their way to a calculus class has a much better chance of being read - maybe several times.

Speak from Authority
A great way to reach your target is to make them see themselves in your communication. Look at ads on television. You can often tell who they are targeting just by focusing on who is acting in the commercial. Athletes are willing to listen to other athletes, musicians to other musicians, and moms to other moms; we listen to people we trust--doctors, pharmacists, teachers, and the list goes on.

An important part of your campaign will be finding your authority or expert. Maybe it's a prominent community leader that is willing to sign his name to your campaign or write a letter on your behalf, or maybe you know a well-liked member of the senior girls basketball team who is willing to help by handing out posters and being a spokesperson for your cause.

Engage - don't Disengage!

Speak positively. If you want to alienate your target the fastest way of doing so is by blaming them, labeling them as being the cause of the problem. Instead, try to engage people.

Make your target part of the solution, not the cause of the problem.

Promise your highschool principal that you will hold a press conference once the school has publicly declared that they will no longer buy any items produced in sweatshops. The press conference acts as a way to showcase your principal's help in making this happen.

If you have started a petition campaign in your school, put up posters thanking those that have signed it. Make sure people know their contribution is meaningful and that they feel like a part of the solution. Give people an opportunity to showcase what they stand for. In our example, you could produce a sticker that students could put on their backpacks identifying themselves as part of a non-sweatshop movement.

Think before you do!
Ok, so communicating with the mass public comes with a very real responsibility. YOU will be judged on your message and so will the people associated with you. Are there any rules? Remember, you may be held legally responsible for anything you do, so keep it clean. The best rule to work by is that your message is probably fine as long as it is something you (and your parents) are proud of, it's not illegal, and it does not hurt any individual or group. Think before you act! Smart communication is more effective in the long run. Take your cause seriously, and you will be taken seriously as well.

Nils is currently working with War Child Canada as Director of Strategic Development, engaged in corporate and community development initiatives, as well as marketing related to domestic and international projects. Prior to joining War Child Canada, Nils worked as an account executive with a Toronto based social issue and cause marketing agency. Nils is a graduate of the University of Toronto where he studied international relations. Contact him at nils@warchild.ca