planning successful campaigns - nazarbayev university

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Planning Successful Campaigns

NU GRADUATE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY

EXECUTIVE PROGRAMME

NURSULTAN, 29 MARCH 2019

Strategies for Effective Public Communication

Break up this discussion in THREE parts

• Singapore Experience • Key Ingredients in Planning Successful Campaigns

• Can you market public policy the way you market soap?

• Book is on Marketing Complexity • Agenda setting, Framing and Priming

• Activism, Advocacy and Public Conversation

• New Media-Communicator’s Dilemma

• Random Thoughts on Application to Kazakhstan

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Strategies for Effective Public Communication

President Tokayev highlights importance of public communications

• The President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev held a meeting with Akims of Kazakhstan oblasts and Nur-Sultan, Almaty and Shymkent cities. Mr. Tokayev focused on importance of public communication.

• “Akims need to quickly respond to public inquiries… It is important to work actively via social media and messengers”, noted Mr. President. It was informed, that only four out of 17 region akimats have call-centers.


• Singapore Experience – • Moved from third world to first world

• Public policies were inclusive, meaning for the people at all levels

• The then PM Lee Kuan Yew was a communicator • Believed in communication at the grassroots level,

• Constant communication flow using all forms of media –radio, TV, newspapers and interpersonal channels..

• Now it would have strong social media strategies

• It was to help in NATION BUILDING

https://tengrinews.kz/kazakhstan_news/nenujnyie-tratyi-provokatsii-bezopasnost-chem-tokaev-akimami-365924/

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• People “live and work on a small part of the earth’s surface” and see “at best only a phase and an aspect …

• Even the best planned policies need to be marketed at targeted publics for effective and efficient implementation

The planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between government and its publics


• Campaigns change or modify behaviour, attitude or habits

• Have campaigns once it is deemed a public issue • Population Control

• Environment– clean and green, littering

• Transport related issues including traffic

• Racial Harmony, Language Issues

• Earlier campaigns were first information and education --and lots of repetition followed by legislation.

• OUTCOME—Singapore is not the result of natural process. It is the result of concerted EFFORT. And public campaigns have always been the centre of that effort

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Singapore is a campaign country Population Campaigns

Singapore is a campaign country Environmental Campaigns

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Singapore is a campaign country Smoking, Personal habits

Singapore is a campaign country Health Campaigns

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Singapore is a campaign country Racial Harmony and Language Issues

Singapore is a campaign country Transport, Save Water, Social Behaviour

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Planning Successful Campaigns--LESSONS

• It is a sustained campaign

• Every year different theme

• Different target organisers

• It has targeted appeal

• And mass appeal

• Courtesy month is July

• Strong grassroots support

• Messages Framed annually


• Then we ran campaigns that cannot legislate • Courtesy, Gracious Living, Volunteering, • Giving/ Charity work and Productivity

• People more sophisticated in their media habits

• Danger of Switch offs

• So we applied Social Marketing

• Social Marketing is the application of proven concepts and techniques drawn from the commercial sector to promote changes in diverse socially important behaviours

• TODAY –Facebook, Twitter and Instagram world

• WHAT ARE THE RELEVANT INGREDIENTS IN SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGNS

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• This cute lion is the Courtesy Lion… new element public communication ICONS

• This icon has now gone VIRAL, you will see this in parks and other public places

• Harbinger of future communication strategies—DON’T CONTROL,

• PEOPLE CENTRED COMMUNICATION

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What is the secret for successful campaigns? Basic Ingredients in all campaign strategies

• Core planning/working group

• Knowledge (by the group) of the predetermined corporate objectives

• Available resources such as funds, skills, facilities and so on

• Specified target dates

• Access to a range of media including interpersonal channels

What is the secret for successful campaigns?

Core planning/working group; • Steering Committee --Chairman and

representatives from relevant organisation based on knowledge

• Sub-committees—actionable, results and report to main committee

Knowledge (by the group) of the predetermined corporate objectives

• If Crime Issue– the police and related agencies

• If manpower, the labour ministry senior officials involved

Organisational Framework • Who should be on the committee? • Who decides on strategies and

tactics? • What is the division of work like? • Who are the decision makers?

Must their approval be sought later?

• Who will implement the decision? • Is the organising body temporary

or permanent in nature?

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What is the secret for the success?

Audience Analysis

• Who are they?

• Is there any attempt to find out the public's prior attitude towards the campaign issue?

• Is there any attempt to find out the socio-economic characteristics of the target and general audience?

• Can they be divided into sectors: workforce, management, grassroots organisations, service sector, school children and so on?

What is the secret for the success?

Campaign Resources

• What are the resources such as funds, skills, knowledge, and facilities available?

• Where do these resources come from?

• How will these resources be utilized?

Campaign Duration

• How long will the campaign last?

• What factors determine the length of the campaign?

• What is the schedule of the campaign?

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What is the secret for the success? Media Strategy

• Who is responsible for the dissemination of the message?

• What is the availability of media resources for the campaign?

• What channels are being used to disseminate the campaign messages and how are they being disseminated?

• In terms of interpersonal channels, have the following been used? • Panels of speakers; mass rally; public forum; talks and seminars;

MP's visits to community centres; fun-fairs; home visits; others such as individual counselling and group learning.

• What is the role of TV and radio advertising? Extent? Exposure


Campaign Evaluation

• What is the criteria for success?

• How are the campaign programmes evaluated?

• How is the evaluation utilised

• What kind of follow up will be done after the campaign?

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Marketing Complexity

• In Communication, the basic unit of analysis is an individual behavioral act—a response.

• Primary assumption is that events are more serial than hierarchical.

• Process in the communication model --View events and relationships as ever-changing without beginnings, ends, or any fixed sequence of events, and with all factors affecting one another

• Characteristics of Complex Policies ….


Characteristics of Complexity are:

• No definitive formulation of wicked problems

• Wicked problems have no stopping rule.

• There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem.

• Every solution to a wicked problem is a "one-shot operation"; because there is no opportunity to learn by trial-and-error, every attempt counts significantly.

• Wicked problems do not have an enumerable set of potential solutions,

• Every wicked problem is essentially unique.

• Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem.

• The choice of explanation (COMMUNICATION) determines the nature of the problem's resolution.

ObamaCare and Brexit

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Marketing Complexity: Strategies

In social marketing, the fundamental assumption is that complexity is built into the policy execution:

• Negative demand,

• Highly sensitive,

• Invisible benefits,

• Intangibles solutions are difficult to portray,

• culture conflict and public scrutiny,

• multiple publics are examples.

• High involvement of the target publics (customers) in policy issues.

The aim is to bring about behaviour and opinion change among the relevant publics affected by these complex public policies.

Strategies: Agenda Setting, Framing and Priming

India’s PM Narendra Modi—

• Root out corruption, broad based agenda

• Initiated several policies --most controversial was demonetisation of 500- and 1,000-rupee banknotes.

• Framed demonetisation as "a long-term structural transformation" to clean up the economy.

• PM Modi’s painful policy action resonated with the masses.

• In democratic societies, like India, solutions cannot be commanded by a hierarchical control system. Achieved by skilled assertion on the intrinsic merits of a given response to a policy problem.

• Solutions on implementation --exercise imagination, analysis, experiment

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Strategies: Agenda Setting, Framing and Priming

• President Xi Jinping guiding China’s growth and development a case example of effective agenda-framing–priming policy implementation.

• President Xi set the policy agendas • Anti-graft drive • Project power abroad. • Policy framed against backdrop of unique universal values namely after

centuries of humiliation by colonial powers, China is now a world power

• Financial Times correspondent, Tom Mitchell (2016), “Ask any man or woman on the street what they think of their president and the most common reply is that he is a strong leader who is fan fubai –opposed to corruption. He has been able to be successful in winning the hearts and minds of his people.”


• What should be remembered is this: the right answers on how to design a successful information effort to promote a product or politician or a policy are more likely to come when the right questions are asked.

• Policy makers or management tend to ask too few questions. They should ask more questions. For example, to induce people to exercise more, what messages should be given …

• Questions, questions, questions! Questions should be asked because they throw up alternatives.

• In this way, the communication planner can furnish useful information on which alternative to choose. It is his responsibility as a professional to help management communicate.

• Very often management want a bottom-line "this or that, yes or no" answer, while the answer really is "it all depends".

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Communicator’s Dilemma New Media Environment

• Welcome to the world of social media and its impact on public policy, political decision making and politics.

• When David Cameron became Britain’s PM he wanted a few tips from someone who tell him how it felt to be responsible for and accountable to millions of people who expected things from him. He turned not to a fellow head of government but to Mark Zuckerburg, the CEO of Facebook.


• Assigned to be Barack Obama’s campaign manager for the 2016 presidential elections, Jim Messina spoke to all the tech leaders at the time including Steve Job who told him that mobile technology has to be central to the campaign’s effort

• And that he has to programme content to a much wider variety of channels—Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube, Google—because people are segmented in a very different way than they were four years ago

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• CNN Political Director Sam Fiest said that “in a remarkably short period of time, Twitter has helped journalism move from the ‘24-hour’ news cycle to what I like to call the ‘1 minute’ news cycle.

• The incredible shrinking news cycle has forced governments and politicians to be on alert ever minute to respond to an opponent, respond to a news story, or simply respond to an errant tweet…The ‘1 minute’ news cycle is here to stay. This is one of the most important aspects of the social media confronting policy leadership

• AND THEN WE HAD DONALD TRUMP

Kazakhstan’s Complexity Issue Official Identity and Language Policies

• Kazakhization process –Begins with the collapse of the Soviet Union

• Many urban Kazakhs were trained in Russian schools, kindergartens and universities.

• Almost all the people spoke in Russian

• Kazakhs had to learn its own language after independence

• MASTER FRAME “It is the duty of every citizen of the Republic of Kazakhstan to master the state language.”

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What is the Kazakh Identity?

If this was a Singapore policy issue…..

Who we are as a nation:

Kazakh or Kazakhstani?

Trilingual education Latin

alphabet (2018)

Toponymics

(renaming from Russian to Kazakh)

International recognition – EXPO-2017

National Identity

Programme – Rukhani

Zhangyru

• Master Frame: ---“It is the duty of every citizen of the Republic of Kazakhstan to master the state language.”

• Steering Committee and Sub committees

• Sub Framing and core planning teams created example.. • Trilingualism • Latinization • Renaming • Rukhani Zhangyru

• Each one needs a detailed Execution strategy

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Who we are as a nation:

Kazakh or Kazakhstani?

Trilingual education Latin

alphabet (2018)

Toponymics



National Identity


Zhangyru

• It will be a sustained campaign

• Every year different theme

• Different target organisers

• It has targeted appeal

• And mass appeal

• Strong grassroots support

• Messages Reviewed and Framed annually to be relevant


It is the duty of every citizen of the Republic of Kazakhstan to

master the state language

Trilingual education

Latin alphabet (2018)

Toponymics



National Identity


Zhangyru

• Steering Committee with Subcommittee to address these different Issues addressing main Message Frame

• Each committee frames the issues and how to get it done

• Social marketing for the next 10-20 years to bring about a Kazakhstani identity

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Kazakhstan’s Complexity Issue Official Identity and Language Policies No …

planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between government and its publics

• No dedicated (Core) team to coordinate the campaign message

• Failure on framing issues, • No Priming strategies

• Top down approach but no effort at grassroots communication

• On the other hand –Arbitrarily --Initiate changing the town’s name by members of the Mazhilis (Parliament)

• Petropavlovsk vs. Kyzylzhar • Yellow and blue ribbons polarisation

Effective Public Communication

LESSONS SHARED….

• PUBLIC POLICIES -- result of concerted EFFORT. And public campaigns has always been the centre of that effort

• Harbinger of future communication strategies • DON’T CONTROL,

• PEOPLE CENTRED COMMUNICATION

• Don’t afraid to communicate with mainstream media—BE PROACTIVE

……some pointers..

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Handling Mainstream Media Queries

Situation: You know the answers

• You know the answers and you can give them freely;

• Then give the reporter the main facts. Let him ask questions to fill in the gaps.

• If it is a controversial issue, just explain the department's position and state it thoroughly and fairly if you have documents to support.

• Don't overload the reporter with documents unless he is writing a major article.

• Instead, do a summary or highlight important paragraphs.

• The strategy is to create positive exposure of the organisations.


Situation: Confidential Matters

• Tell the reporter frankly that the information he is asking is confidential, and if possible, tell him why it is confidential — that it might be misconstrued, that it might lead to public anxiety or whatever justifiable reason.

• Tell him if you can release the information later and make certain that you do. It is a sure way to gain respect and confidence.

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Situation: Off-the-Record

• You may decide that the information is off-the-record i.e. it is for background information only and should not be used yet.

• It could be of future use and if that is the case, let the reporter know when you are back "on-the-record".

• It is off-the-record in that it should not be attributed to you or your organisation. It may be run as a straight story. Usually editors don't like this kind of story. They want to quote a source


Situation: You don't have the information

• Say you don't know. But be helpful as well as you can.

• Call the relevant departments for aid. Make an effort to get the facts or put the reporter in touch with the best available source.

• Or tell the reporter you will get the information at a later time, even if it is several days later. Don't forget to call back.

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Managing New Media is like Crisis Communication

INTERNAL COMMS TEAM

• Never lock the gates on the press to avoid questions. Press will interview other people, speculate, conjecture and perpetuate rumour

• Get basic facts ..have a trained person who knows the policy issues very well to respond quickly

• Don't speculate; don't express opinions, stick to known facts

EXTERNAL COMMS SUPPORT

• Build up a body of influencers on many social platforms

• Give them the message(s) to be conveyed; and let them do the creative work—very much an advertising role but faster and sharper. With capacity for viral communication.

• Basically all the principles of GROUNDSWELL MEDIA MANAGEMENT


QUESTIONS

planning successful campaigns - nazarbayev university

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