3.1 Introduction
- All public figures and orgs must have a message
- "Marrying policy ideas with public relations tactics"
3.2 The Message
- A succinct articulation of a vision designed to convey a broad theme or to motivate people to a specific action
- must be clear, concise, value-based image or statement that connects with a targeted audience in a meaningful way -- could be a slogan
- it's an umbrella of images, words, and actions that combine to define a person, agency, or organization in the minds of people
- an org or person without a coherent message appears weak, equivocal, and is unlikely to achieve their strategic goals
- Two categories: strategic messages and campaign messages
- Strategic Message: a broad theme, an overarching set of principles or ideas that guides and shapes all communication. Composed of general ideas --> similar to branding
- In PA - it is tied to the overall, long-term mission of the organization or principal
- Campaign message: a subset of a strategic message --> composed of specific ideas, has a time limit or particular practical result, such as the passage or legislation, has a measurable outcome
- Messages can be boiled down to slogans
- Plot your position in the target audience's mind
- All about positioning your principal for the audience's value systems, desires, interests, and priorities
- Can use Acronyms - ex MADD
- Strategic goals:
- What is our core mission?
- What are the values that underpin our organization's mission?
- Who are our stakeholders and what are their needs and interests?
- In previous outreach efforts, what has garnered the most attention from our stakeholders and the media?
3.5 Campaign Message Development
- It's a subset of the strategic message
- Agree on Goals - something clear and message goals everyone agrees on
- Identify Target Audience(s) - What are their needs, interests, aspirations? Who is the message intended for? What are the values and how do these values relate to our organization or principal? Narrowing the goals and audiences will greatly enhance the likelihood that a campaign message will be successful.
- Develop and Clarify Language - Language must be an inclusive process within the org and draw on all key personnel. The choice of words have policy implications; must have full buy-in.
- Get Creative - Your message must have a clear narrative with visuals. Help audiences feel their way to a decision.
- Useful in any communication setting where you will be competing against another group's or person's ideas and messages
- Helps prepare you for any potential attack
1. What we say about us
2. What opponents say about themselves
3. What we say about our opponents
4. What opponents say about us
3.7 The Limits of Message
- IT CANNOT MASK A BAD IDEA
- PR campaign in a PA environment must be connected in a meaningful way to the values of the audience
- Much more persuasive to connect with an audience member on an emotional level, as opposed to a practical one, and emotions are evoked by touching our values
3.8 Developing a Communication Plan
- development of a campaign message and a communication plan should overlap
- communication plans address these questions: what will be done, when it will be done, how it will be done, and who will do it
- ask yourself basic questions designed to evoke ideas that will capture the attention of the media and public:
- How does what we do affect people's lives?
- What is the average person interested in?
- What would make the front page of the paper or the top TV story?
- Steps:
- Identify and Clarify Objectives - objectives are different from goals, your goal may be to defeat proposed changes, and message may convey why, objectives would be how to achieve your goal and convey the message.
- Establish Milestones and Timelines - Creating milestones will help achieve goals
- Identify and Organize Allies - working with coalitions is one of the best ways to increase your resources, enhance your voice, and expand your political power; best allies are natural and consistent ones who have a long-standing relationship with your org
- Develop an Action Plan - must include: tasks to be performed, person or organization assigned on the task, and timeline or deadline for the assignment. Can also include details on resources or execution. Keep in mind the relation of your action plan with everything else happening in your environment and plan around.
- Conduct Contingency Planning - add-on's or back-up plans is good insurance. Have multiple methods to get there. Contingency planning helps provide some assurance in a PR world where there are very few sure things
- Statistics
- Example
- Demonstration
- Analogy
- Testimonials
- Experience
3.11 Taking Advantage of Opportunities
- A lot of PR work is more unpredictable and reactive
- the best PR professionals not only create great plans, they adapt them to fit changing circumstances
- best way to take advantage of opportunities is to prepare for them in advance
- must use good judgement in recognizing the parameters of your message and allow some opportunities to pass by
- recognizing which opportunities are worth pursuing is the mark of a good public relations specialist
- is this opportunity close to our mission? Does it warrant changing our plans to pursue it? What are the costs to the organization of pursuing the opportunity?
3.12 Connecting the Message to the Meaningful
- Message must be connected to a tangible goal that excites the audience and is framed in such a way that gives that goal meaning
- The message pulls together the routine activities of an org and gives them broader meaning through an association with the audience's values and beliefs
The Practice of Government Public Relations
Ch 5: Public Information Campaigns
- Used to create social change and to benefit society by disseminating information intended to enhance the well-being of the audience1. To provide individuals with resources to reach valuable information
2. For individuals to be more educated and engaged in public decision making
3. Cause a heightened demand for information and expectation for government information and transparency
4. Encourage public support and participation for effective change
** Used to inform, persuade, or motivate behavior change amongst the audience members
- It establishes a dialogue between the sender and receiver of the information
- Can range from personal to societal issues
Building the Campaign Foundation
Stage #1: Planning - the strategic development and foundation of campaign efforts
- Conducting formative research
- Setting objectives
- Identifying target audience
- Developing campaign strategies and tactics
- Establishing timeline & budget
Stage #2: Implementation - message development and presentation
- Using specific communication sources and media
- Message appeals
- Frequency and timing of message dissemination
- Consideration for increased campaign credibility
Stage #3: Evaluation - measuring the success of the campaign
- Collecting data specific to the achievement of campaign goals and objectives
Developing a Campaign Plan - RACE
Research - assess the situation through primary and secondary research methods (Situation Analysis)
- Primary research: focus groups, web surveys, etc
- Secondary research: collect data from sources already available
- Research provides credibility, accountability, insight, and a strong foundation for planning the campaign
**Identify theoretical foundation to guide the campaign
The input process of campaign development involves:
1. the source of the message
2. the communication of the message
3. the channel that delivers the message
4. the receiver of the message
Five stages of change (outlined on pg 82):
1. pre-contemplation
2. contemplation
3. preparation
4. action
5. maintenance
Action - formulate a practical strategic plan through six stages
1. Setting of campaign goals and objectives
- Goals - intangible, abstract, and often cannot be measured
- Objectives - narrow, precise, tangible, and can be measured through evaluation efforts
*ex) Goal for public info campaign is to educate individuals about the consequences of a negative behavior, and objective is to reduce the number of individuals participating in the negative behavior through education efforts within a designed time frame
2. Creation of the audience profile
- Understand the cognitive and behavioral attributes of the target audience
- Research audience's demographics and psychographics - age, gender, education level, socioeconomic status, attitudes, opinions, experiences
- The audience's value system, knowledge about the issue, major barriers in adopting desired behaviors, preferred media channels/use, sources audience trusts and finds credible, behavioral determinants
3. Formation of campaign strategy
- Establishes the campaign's direction and thematic application
- Strategies answer how the campaign objectives are to be achieved through big picture, themes, feelings, and ideas that the campaign should embody
*ex action strategies: audience participation, sponsorship, or organizational performance
*ex communication strategies: media endorsement, paid placement (ad), transparent communication
*ex message strategies: emotional appeals, slogans, power words
*ex distribution strategies: repetition, use of multiple channels, timing in association w calendar year
4. Development of campaign tactics
*ex: websites, billboards, town hall meetings, media kits, online contest, brochures, social media, television/radio PSA, events
- These are specific mediums that will distribute the campaign strategy, exact events that will encourage audience participation, and detailed documents that will pitch the story to media outlets
- Important that it relates to the big picture of the campaign
5. Construction of the campaign timeline
- Establish scheduling patterns and message frequency
*ex: seasonal approach, pulsing, etc
- Roadblocking: the placement of campaign messages in al major television networks, radio stations, or print publications in the same period of time so there is an opportunity for message exposure regardless of media choice
- Gantt Chart: common bar chat format to illustrate the important dates and deadlines through project completion (see pg 89 for chart)
6. Compilation of the campaign budget
- Five categories to a campaign budget:
1. personal costs
2. materials costs
3. media costs
4. equipment and facility costs
5. administrative costs
**Could include all or just a few of the listed costs above
- Campaign budget must accurately reflect the resources needed to implement the campaign
Communication - execution and placement of messages based on existing communication theories
- Main goal is to develop a message that resonates with the audience
A. Message Goal of the campaign
1. Awareness - to make the audience aware of the issue/information/topic so they seek out additional information
2. Instruction - to educate the audience so they have knowledge about what to do and how to do it
3. Persuasion - to change the attitudes or behavior of the audience by convincing them of the validity of the argument
B. Credibility
- Must be credible by the target audience
- Three primary dimensions:
1. the message needs to be competent to show expertise
2. the message needs to be perceived as trustworthy
3. the message needs to demonstrate goodwill rather than self interest
- use your research to determine what types of campaigns will be credible to your audience
C. Attractiveness and Relevance
- What the audience sees as well as the text they read
- Should be interesting, appealing, or pleasant
- Audience should see how the message can be applied to their own situation and needs, making it personally involving
- Central or systematic processing: People who pay attention to the words of the message/ tend to do "issue-relevant thinking" where they compare and relate the new information to similar information they already know --> results in longer lasting behavior change
- Peripheral or heuristic processing: People who pay more attention to the visual images, likely to be using simple decision rules to make choices related to the message
D. Emotional Appeals
*ex) fear appeal
- What emotional appeal is appropriate for the audience and the campaign message?
- Four steps to produce effective fear appeal message
1. the message must contain a clear threat -- the consequences of not following the message recommendations must be obvious and fearful
2. audience members must perceive themselves as vulnerable to this threat -- if they don't think it could happen to them, they won't be convinced
3. the message must show the audience that there is an action they can take to prevent the negative consequences from happening
4. the audience members must perceive that they are capable of performing the desired behavior
- Let the message resonate with the audience
E. One-sided of Two-sided messages
- One-sided only presents the case favoring the desired behavior, without mentioning the opposing side or any of the drawbacks associated with the desired behavior
- Two-sided strategically raises the opposing side's arguments then refutes these arguments to show why the desired behavior is preferred --> more persuasive and credible
- Only exception is when research shows that the audience is already in favor towards the recommended behavior
Evaluation - Measuring Campaign Effectiveness
Some questions to consider:
- Was the campaign adequately planned?
- Were the communication messages received and understood?
- Did efforts remain within the initial budgetary constraints?
- How can future campaign efforts be improved?
Three main findings from this phase:
1. To what degree did the campaign reach its objectives?
2. How or why did the campaign work?
3. What lessons can be learned for future public information campaigns?
- Process Research: collect data on when, where, and for how long the campaign is broadcast
- Outcome Research: collecting data to measure program's impact
**It is IMPORTANT to include both people who have been exposed to the campaign and those who have not been exposed to the campaign in the evaluation research
Critical variables that should be assessed:
1. Campaign exposure -- has the audience seen, can recall, and/or can recognize the campaign materials?
2. Interpersonal Communication -- what has the word-of-mouth impact been like? Is there a lot of it going on?
3. Campaign impact -- assess the variables such as audience's new knowledge, attitude, and behavior
Ch 8: Strategic Communication Planning
Three major government PR purposes:
1. The mandatory - media relations, public reporting, and citizen responsiveness
2. The pragmatic - customer and client responsiveness and outreach activities
3. The political - increasing public support
Symmetrical communication - a dialogue is fostered between the unit and its constituents
Issues management - involves active environmental scanning, media monitoring, legislative monitoring, and active listening across the constituent groups to help seize opportunities and prevent crises before they happen
Customer needs and wants - recognition of the total costs of offering particular products or services to customers, citizens, society
Convenience - options for accessing or purchasing these products or services
Dominant coalition - must it have the buy-in of top-level administrations within a government agency
SWOT - strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
PEST - political, economic, societal, and technological environments
Strategic Communication plan outline -- see pg 152 - 155
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