Campaigning is all about communicating. You can be very well organised and have every detail taken care of, but if you don’t spread your story far and wide, people won’t know your campaign. (350.org)
For people who are new to this area of campaigning here is some of the basic terminology you are likely to come across:
This is the group or groups of people you want to reach. It could be a small collection of decision-makers or it could be a large cross-section of the national population. Refer to your influencer-mapping and power analysis in Step 3 to determine which audiences you should target, often this means taking one-step back from the key influencer and thinking about which groups of people are likely to have influence over their decisions.
This is the mode through which you deliver the messages of your campaign. information is carried to audiences through an increasing range of channels. Analogue channels including: newspapers, broadcast media, verbal speech, SMS, artwork. Whereas digital channels include: online news, social media, phone/tablet applications, email. The channels you use should depend on the audiences you want to reach and the campaign message you wish to deliver.
This is the way you talk about and establish your core campaign issues/themes with your audience – it is used to shape the ongoing dialogue with your audiences in a way that is most useful to your campaign. For instance, if you want to ‘paint a picture’ that links renewable energy to sustainable development because making this is key to your campaign, then you can put renewables in the frame with topics like energy access and food security.
This should be a concise expression of what you want to convey to your audience through any communications you deploy during your campaign. It is the essence of what you want your audience to understand, it underpins every intervention, and should be consistent across all channels. Your message will change and develop over time as needed depending on the stage of the campaign and will be informed by all the other items in this list.
This is the story you want to tell your audience about your campaign. We are all hard-wired to understand and be influenced by storylines: that connect a series of events, that contain characters, that face a changing set of circumstances, that have a beginning, middle and end – these are narratives. By situating your campaign within a narrative you can tell a compelling story about your campaign that increases the chances of impacting your audience.
Here are some guides to help get a grip on some basics for effective climate change communications:
There are lots of excellent guides out there that can help you to build a communication strategy that works for your campaign . There is no single definitive way to build a communications strategy but any approach should incorporate the following:
Here are some guides for building a communications strategy:
Well-identified and segmented core audiences can avoid wasted time and money on non-relevant groups (e.g. unconcerned, already convinced). You need to decide which group or groups of people you need to target and this should be defined by triangulating between your overall objectives (Step 4), influencer mapping (Step 3), and further research into public demographics and attitudes to your campaign issue. Remember that your target audience cannot be ‘everyone’ or ‘the public’ – it should be a clearly defined group or groups that can anchor support for your campaign and influence key decision-makers. One way to find your core audience(s) is to check-off the following:
Here are some guides to help you consider how to tackle certain audiences:
Yale Program on Climate Change Communication – Audiences (includes segmentation for the US and India)
Yale Program on Climate Change Communication – Beliefs and Attitudes
Know-How Non-Profit – Guide to Segmentation and Targeting
There are a number of different ways to reach your audience including via newspapers, broadcast media, verbal speech, SMS, artwork, online news, social media, phone/tablet applications and email. To decide on the mode(s) that you choose to employ you should consider:
If you have an authoritative medical representative, you want to connect with a rural population in Tanzania to deliver a message on the public health benefits of ditching fossil fuels for renewable energy you might want to consider channels like radio broadcast or regional/local newspaper outlets.
Let’s focus on two key channels you should try to employ in your campaign – traditional media and social media:
Traditional media:
It is useful to develop a basic understanding of the media landscape in the region or countries you are running your campaign. This means building an understanding of key news outlets (print and broadcast), you can ask questions like:
Getting answers to these questions can help you to build a media list of relevant contacts at a range of different types of outlet. It is useful to build a media list that covers a range of different types of outlet from national broadcasters, to international wires, to periodicals. Getting answers to these questions can also help you decide which outlet(s) to target in order to get your message to your desired audience.
There are a range of different ways to make a media intervention that include: issuing media advisories and press releases, arranging broadcast interviews, placing opinion editorials and placing advertisements. For a step by step guide to some of the basics check out 350’s media guide – developed for the Break Free mobilisation – which offers a range of practical tips for preparing for and carrying out campaign media interventions.
Social media:
There is a huge range of social media platforms and while Facebook and Twitter are global it is still worth checking your regional social media landscape to see if there are other, more popular digital tools for getting campaign messages to your audience.
Social media is a versatile, interactive communications channel for your campaign. You can use it for a range of interventions including:
It is a quickly changing information environment with shifting trends. At present, the majority of online news is reached via social media sites, so you should always consider a social media push to amplify anything you have published. At present, 8 billion videos are played daily on Facebook, so if this is a channel you are using then consider this format. This toolkit from 350.org is a good practical example of how you can utilise various social media channels to deliver your campaign.
Research shows that cultural values and identity is far more important for forming people’s attitudes than data and science. When people’s values are challenged or undermined – as often happens around climate change – they react with a defensive opposition or denial. Good messaging for a campaign, on 100% renewable energy for example, should therefore be tailored to the existing values of the audience. Key questions to ask when shaping your messaging include:
There are some golden rules to follow that will further help you to shape an effective message for key campaign moments.
Be inspiring but stay realistic – try to avoid sensational claims, particularly about what may happen in the future – a light touch is more likely to be respected.
Speak from moral principle – people respect campaigning organisations for their moral principles, but are less trusting of their authority on economics or business – use other voices for these messages.
Authenticity – People distrust slogans and slick messaging. Try not to needlessly repeat the keywords, and maintain a natural voice. Apply messages through stories, describe real people, and, in speeches and interviews tell stories from your own life and experience – speaking from the ‘I’ not the ‘We’. Try to always use case studies, show who is talking and avoid anonymous voice-overs in videos.
Values and identity – consider the key qualities that give people in your audience a sense of pride and identity. Incorporate these into your communications: validate and respect them and show how renewables build on their values.
Avoid “insider” language – environmental advocates consistently use language that is exclusive, or reinforces the prejudice that they do not understand or share common values.
There are some messaging tips for 100% renewable energy campaigning that might also be useful. First off, it helps to present fossil fuels and a world powered solely by renewables as two sides of the coin, as binary choices, which form a deep part of human thinking. You can do this using adjectives like:
| Fossil Fuels | Renewable Energy |
|---|---|
| Dirty | Clean, Fresh |
| Limited | Abundant, Plentiful |
| Past, outdated | New, future, renewal |
| Dangerous | Safe |
| Wasteful | Efficient |
It is best to situate your messaging for a single campaign moment within a broader narrative for the entire campaign (for a definition of narrative see the start of the communications section). Your messaging at any single time should be consistent with this narrative and can employ a range of different voices, deployed at different campaign moments. To help you develop a narrative for a 100% renewable energy campaign you can expand on the following arc:
If politics is the ‘art of the possible’, campaigning is the science and art of changing what is possible. Campaigning lowers the barriers and increases the incentives to take action.
Director International Development at Canadian Red Cross
Copyright CAN Toolkit 2024
