© Alberto Alemanno
From the brand cycle model, it should be clear that a brand is more than a name, logo or graphic design used by a group or organisation. It is more than just a visual identity. A brand, as explained by Nathalie Kylander and Christopher Stone, is ‘a psychological construct held in the minds of all those aware of the branded action’.46 But why does citizen lobbying need to make psychological associations through branding?
While lobbying is first and foremost about influencing decision-makers to do (or oppose) something, it involves – like any other form of social interaction – catching people’s attention. The branding must be in line with the overall lobbying plan and, like any other form of communication, must take into account the various audiences you’re targeting. If you’re simply trying to collect signatures, you’ll need snappier and simpler branding than if you want to persuade decision-makers of the merits of a legislative amendment.
Framing your issue to appeal to the right section of the public is key. A good brand should cast your issue in a new light so it will grab the attention of people who would not normally notice it. A good brand galvanises support and conveys an aspiration, but it takes time and some effort to come up with good ones. Some brands do this beautifully.
Make Poverty History is the biggest ever anti-poverty movement, calling for the total cancellation of bad debts owed by poor countries. The phrase highlights its ambitions in an easy-to-understand way.
TckTckTck represents an unprecedented network of more than 400 NPOs led by the Global Campaign for Climate Action (GCCA), which was formed to influence the international climate change treaty at the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. The ‘tck tck tck’ brand evokes time ticking away, underlying their core message that we need to take immediate action on climate change.
#BlackLivesMatter had existed as a phrase for some time, but it was not until 2013 that it spread widely on social media, following reports of police brutality towards black people in Ferguson, Missouri and elsewhere, and subsequent civil unrest. It became a popular Twitter hashtag and turned into a movement after George Zimmerman was acquitted of murder, after shooting African-American teen Trayvon Martin. Black Lives Matter gained public salience through its street demonstrations before it became a fully-fledged organisation. The wider Black Lives Matter movement, however, is a decentralised network with no formal hierarchy. #BlackLivesMatter was tweeted more than 9 million times in 2016, and the hashtag has become a calling card for social justice and racial equality activists across the US.
TIP 16 – Branding for Coalition
Always think strategically about how to name and brand your campaign.
Branding in a coalition is tricky because there is a risk that the new name may overshadow NPOs’ or even corporations’ existing branding. More broadly, there can be tensions between brand protection and the risks inherent in advocacy. Avoid this by ensuring you have an open and inclusive debate with your coalition members when you pick the brand for the campaign. Never forget branding’s original aim: to help you devise a name, frame and package for your issue which will make it immediately recognisable and memorable to the public.
Storytelling
‘We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.’
J.K. Rowling
Storytelling is a powerful way of drawing attention to your issue. It is a vital tool for engaging supporters, donors and funders, and must be one of the key components of your communication plan. Everyone in your team needs to be able to tell a compelling story about why your issue matters and how it relates to people.
Once you have settled on a brand identity, storytelling is the next step of your communications plan.
A personal, compelling story adds life to a complex issue or a rather dry policy-based campaign. Often a good story can overcome prejudice, undermine preconceptions and shift attitudes towards an intractable issue or vulnerable group that is routinely dehumanised, stigmatised or ignored. When your story is a personal one that springs from your own experience, it has even greater potential to move people and encourage them to confront injustice. Finally, telling stories can empower somebody affected by the issue by giving them a voice and recognising their expertise.
Be careful to distinguish between storytelling and first-hand testimony, although there may be overlap between the two. Each has its own pros and cons. Storytelling can be done by anyone in your group; first-hand testimony means the speaker must have direct experience of the story, which gives your message more authenticity. Telling a story second-hand carries less emotional potential, but is easier to control.
Of course, you can extrapolate your storytelling from first-hand testimony. For instance, when we were lobbying for legislation to protect whistle-blowers in Europe, Antoine Deltour, possibly the most prominent European whistle-blower at that time, was invited to speak in front of the European Parliament to tell his story. The story he told combined his own experience (his first-hand testimony) with a persuasive case for establishing a legislation protecting whistle-blowers. That’s an example of the use of storytelling at public events and hearings. Usually, however, you will be telling a story through written and visual materials.
There are many ways to put together a story for your advocacy work, but these tips should help.
Pick your audience: ask yourself who will listen to your story. Only by understanding who you’re speaking to will you really connect with your audience. Don’t make the mistake of getting into storytelling without identifying clear goals and knowing how you will measure whether they have been met. You need some strategic guidelines to craft the right content. Design an engagement plan using appropriate platforms to reach the right people and mobilise them. This builds upon and enlarges the coalition members’ inventory you have previously devised.
Be strategic: when picking your story, ask yourself which is the best story to tell. Once you know who your target audience is, you need to start hunting for stories. Collect a few and run them by your friends and colleagues. The one you choose should not only be compelling, but also a good fit for your lobbying campaign. For instance, testimony from a woman who has actually suffered domestic violence will be more compelling than hearing a politician talk about their desk-based efforts to stop it, however relevant.
Build your story: once you have identified a set of potentially good stories, you need to fact-check them, frame them and transform them into narratives. If it isn’t possible to find a real story, you may want to think about writing a fictitious one. This will give you more flexibility and scope, but at the expense of authenticity. Should you opt for this path, make sure to make it clear the story is fictitious.
Choose your medium: once you have one or more stories to tell, identify the best way to tell them. You could write a blog post, record a video, run an interview, insert the story in your factsheet or a combination of these.
Search for a storyteller: regardless of whether your story is real or fictitious, you need someone capable of telling it. If you have found a first-hand testimony, reassure the person whose story it is that their efforts can make a real difference. Sometimes you find an exceptional story but the person involved is not willing to appear. In this case, try to save the story and find ways to anonymise the storyteller and/or the story itself. If the story is fictitious, your storyteller must be credible and ready to prepare for a video or public appearance. Make sure they are comfortable in the role. Always be aware of the ethical issues that may arise when you bring in someone to campaign for you.
Call to action: make sure you leverage the story’s emotional appeal with a final call to action. Tell the audience what they can do to get involved. As always, the KISS rule applies: keep it simple, stupid!47
Storytelling reminds you that your issue is about real people, not PowerPoint presentations and factsheets.
ACTIVITY 9 – Write Your Story
/> Put together a one-page storyline to support your issue.
Media Campaign
Unlike professional lobbying – which typically takes place behind closed doors – the vast majority of citizen lobbying avenues require some form of communication with the general public. We often call it media advocacy, and like any other form of lobbying it must be strategic. Companies may have something to lose (generally in terms of brand reputation) from speaking out about their issue. Citizens like you don’t. So you need to devise a media campaign as part of your broader communications plan. This is a planned series of media appearances. It may involve newspaper or website articles, TV interviews, press releases and social media.
Generally, the most immediate aim is to generate coverage for your issue and help define it. But you should always ask yourself what you are trying to accomplish. Sometimes the goal is simply to raise awareness (of domestic violence or teenage pregnancy, for example). Yet you probably want to nudge people towards specific action – signing a petition, joining a protest or taking public transport instead of the car, for example.
A good media campaign is vital for at least three reasons. Firstly, the more people know about your issue, the more likely you are to win their support. You can’t imagine how often I receive emails, tweets and LinkedIn messages expressing support after a blog post, op-ed piece or TV appearance covering an issue I’m working on. The people who write: ‘I read about this issue and feel that something must be done about it’ might even join your core team and become your closest lobbying allies. Some write to me saying: ‘I have been working for 20 years on this issue and would like to contribute to your campaign.’ Others might express private support, but can’t voice it in public. This might be because they work for one of your opponents (whether an industry or a political group), or they are elected representatives who can’t risk a public endorsement. Yet their unstated support might still be extremely influential as they work with your opponents. I try to foster links with my opponents’ aides, as they often sympathise with my cause. In one case, an aide managed to convince her boss not to resist our proposal. In another, my assistant Benjamin and I wrote several op-ed pieces in leading newspapers calling for action against ‘revolving door’ appointments. Virtually nobody got in touch afterwards. We were initially disappointed, but then noticed that our call for action had been taken up by a coalition of NGOs – who collected more than 60,000 signatures aimed at stopping the former EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso from joining Goldman Sachs as their Brexit advisor.
Secondly, the more media coverage you attract, the more likely policymakers are to heed your issue because they will spot an opportunity for bolstering their public support. Getting your story covered by the media has a disproportionate effect on the success of your campaign. Everyone, not only decision-makers, will take it much more seriously. It will look more credible and gain heft. Journalist Walter Lippmann famously defined the media as:
the beam of a searchlight that moves relentlessly about, bringing one episode and another out of the darkness and into vision. Men cannot do the work of the world by this light alone. They cannot govern society by episodes, incidents, and eruptions. It is only when they work by a steady light of their own, that the press, when it is turned upon them, reveals a situation intelligible enough for a popular decision.48
Thirdly, given your limited resources, you have more to gain than lose when people start talking about you. As George Monbiot writes in his activist’s guide to the media: ‘Exploit the media or the media will exploit you!’49
To be effective, any citizen lobbying campaign depends on well-disposed news media that can project their influence into the public and legislative agenda. But not all your stories are equally likely to be picked up in the mainstream media. Journalists and their editors may decide not to follow up on your pitch. Fortunately, you no longer need to rely entirely on mainstream coverage. Facebook and other social media platforms give you the ability to make an impact by promoting your branding, testing your storytelling and eventually circulating content in different media. This is often called transmedia activism.50 The beauty of it is that it offers your core groups and supporters the opportunity to co-create your message. This may then be taken up by various broadcast media – but even if it isn’t, you will have made a valuable contribution to your own issue by building an audience and promoting your cause.
In any event, while media coverage is good for your issue, you have to ensure you remain in control of the message you want to convey. That’s why planning a proper media campaign – rather than leaving things in the hands of reporters – is so important. What you can offer to the media is often known as ‘information subsidy’. Although businesses and corporate actors tend to provide this subsidy more often than civil society, citizens can also play the game. By relying on your research (Step 2) and outside experts who can speak to the media on your behalf, you may become a source the media will turn to when they cover your issue.
A media campaign should be prepared in advance, and consist of the following major steps:
Map the media
Spot the journos
Build a relationship
Draft a press release
Prepare for an interview.
Map the Media
Before reaching out to media outlets with your content, you need to draw up an inventory. These might include national (and local) newspapers, radio, TV, online media and magazines. You should identify the news pages, columns, programmes and featured stories that would be a good fit for your story.
Spot the Journos
Once you have a list of the main media outlets, you need to find the journalists who actually run them. These are the people most likely to actually cover your story. Don’t pitch to a tech reporter about animal welfare. Look instead for reporters who are likely to be interested in your story because they have covered it before. Tell them why your issue matters by giving them the facts, and pitch yourself as someone with expertise in it. Always be polite to them, even when they don’t respond to your emails, don’t like your activity or don’t follow you on Twitter.
Build Relations
Once you have identified the right journalists, you need to build a relationship with them. They need to gain your trust. This takes time, so you should start cultivating a relationship with them well before you try to ‘sell’ them your story. You and your colleagues are well-placed to do so given the expertise you have accumulated in the issue. The journalist might want to tap into your expertise and remember you as someone to be quoted as an expert or authority on your issue.
Draft a Press Release
Writing a press release is the best way to ‘sell’ your story to the media while controlling the message. The document should speak journalists’ language, and its presentation should therefore mimic the format and style of a promising news story yet to be written. This will significantly increase your chances of being understood, and reduce the risk of misinterpretation.
The press release should strategically build on the factsheet. It is about reframing your initial research work – we call it repackaging – and selling it to the reporters so as to define the issue in the public’s mind.
Here are some tips on how to draft it:
Be concise: a single page document will suffice. If it’s any longer, it means you’re probably not getting it right;
Be clear: start with a punchy headline (just a few words to catch the journalist’s attention), followed by a one-sentence statement summing up the whole storyline;
Be fact-based: the rest of the text should provide the basic facts, evidence and figures underpinning the issue and the solution you put forward in language free of jargon;
Be newsworthy: don’t advertise the lobbying itself, but share something new of potentially general interest; don’t tell more than one story at the time, as it won’t be understood and you risk wasting future opportunities to tell other stories;
Sign it
: always provide a contact to whom enquiries should be directed (email and/or phone) and list your coalition members.
Once the press release is ready to go live, it is up to you to make sure it will be picked up. Do not get carried away and send it to all your contacts as soon as it’s ready. The temptation to do this is very strong – I’ve experienced it. Yet you must force yourself to be strategic about when, how and to whom to send it. Here a few golden rules on how to circulate a press release:
Announce it first: give a few days’ notice (generally a couple of days does the trick) before the scheduled release of a related event. Drawing on your inventory of media outlets and individual contacts, target your press release to specific individuals;
Embargo it: sometimes you may want to instruct the journalists not to release (publish or broadcast) the information in the press release before a certain time. This is generally called an ‘embargo’ and presents some important advantages: it creates a sense of event around your issue, it reassures journalists that they won’t be beaten to the story by others and you remain in control of the moment of the release and can act accordingly;
Target the right people: you should normally target multiple media at the same time – but make sure you choose wisely;
Send reminders: journalists’ attention varies and tends to be unpredictable. Don’t hesitate to send them the press release up to three or four times before the final release. You can also consider a follow-up email with some journalists you personally know;
Follow up: make sure you provide the media with a follow-up on how your announcement has been greeted by decision-makers, other media and the public.
Lobbying for Change Page 19