Strategic Messaging

Keeping Intruders out of our Homes

Revising our Laws on Toxic Chemicals

December 9, 2010

Toxic chemicals

Why toxic chemicals, and why now?

Toxic chemicals

Good policy and good politics

Americans are anxious and angry, and they want to see their elected representative step up and solve problems

Regardless of party affiliation, people care about the safety of their kids

The major bipartisan legislation that just passed the Senate by 73-25 was the Food Safety Modernization Act

Toxic chemicals provide the President a perfect opportunity for a parallel effort with bipartisan support, with the same goal: protecting our families from hazards in our own homes

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The food safety law: A model for change

Toxic chemicals

Increase the FDA’s regulatory authority to prevent contamination and food-borne illness outbreaks

Give the FDA new authority to force recalls of food they believe to be contaminated

Require food producers to have plans to address safety risks

Increase inspections of “high risk” food facilities, and require importers to verify safety

Exemption for small businesses that gross less than $500,000 except where the FDA identified contamination

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Baseline polling (Lake Research, October 2009)

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Most people know very little about chemicals, but they think we need more regulations (over 60%)

Large majorities recognize the dangers of chemicals in children’s products and plastics

Voters think the government “has their back” on chemicals until they hear about the state of the law

Given a basic description of proposed changes to TSCA,, over 70% support it

These attitudes hold across the political spectrum The central question: How would this play out in the current

political atmosphere and with active opposition?

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Strategic Messaging

Message Research: What did we learn, and how did we learn it?

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Can Americans be moved to get tough on toxic chemicals?

We can beat a strong opposition message that emphasizes regulation, cost, and threats to innovation, etc. by 30-40 points

When people hear the dangers in concrete, visceral ways, their responses look like responses to messages on jobs

Effective messages are evocative and value-laden, drawing on a wide range of values (e.g., health and safety, common sense, populism, American innovation)

Effective messages use analogies to map an unfamiliar domain (toxic chemicals) onto a familiar one

Effective messages raise anxiety but resolve it with a clear statement that we can do something to fix the problem.

One message stood out across all demographics: an analogy between intruders in our homes and toxic intruders

What did we find?

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Words that resonate and words that don’t

What did we find?

Words you can’t say enough: cancer, the right to be safe in our own homes, toxic chemicals, substances known to cause cancer, asbestos, formaldehyde, protecting our children, threatening our safety

Focus on diseases people know are increasing or are worried about already, such as breast cancer, testicular cancer, reproductive abnormalities, birth defects, asthma, asbestos-related illnesses

Avoid jargon, too many numbers or percentages, unfamiliar chemicals

Avoid language that “hedges” on the meaning of the best available science, e.g., “implicated in,” “suspected to cause,” “the consensus of scientists” (which suggests majority rule; try “scientists agree that…”)

Avoid names of laws and the years they were passed

Avoid making people feel helpless

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The structure of an effective message

What did we find?

Step 1: Connect with voters with an aspirational, values-laden statement or compelling metaphor

Step 2: Describe the dangers of toxic chemicals in a way that is concrete, visual, and evocative

Emotion circuitry in the brain is closely connected with sensory experience

The most important senses that affect “gut reactions” to ingesting substances are taste and smell

Step 3: End with a hopeful solution or a return to the central metaphor, but don’t dwell on policy details

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Take the high ground on core values

What did we find?

Safety Health Science Common sense Protecting our children Populism Protection from

contamination

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Transparency Effective government Progress Innovation Not disrupting nature Jobs American leadership Corporate responsibility

Online dial-test survey of stratified random national sample of 900 registered voters selected to match the demographics of the voting population

Conducted August 24-27, 2010 Tested nine messages supporting tough new

legislation against a strong industry message (split sampled)

Tested brief messages (“talking points”)

Study design

Methodology

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sampleSample

Stratified random national sample of 900 registered voters weighted to match the demographics of the voting population

Gender: Male: 49% Female: 51% Partisan identification: Strong Dem Strong GOP Swing

18% 16% 66%

Age: 18-24 25-39 40-54 55+ 8% 20% 45% 26%

Ethnicity: White African American Hispanic Other 76% 13% 9% 2%

Education: HS or Less Tech/2yrUndergrad Post Grad 23% 43% 23% 10%

Region: Northeast Midwest South West20% 25% 36% 19%

Demographics

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Strategic Messaging

Messages that Work

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Bolded statements are strong as standalone statements (talking points, to which to return). Italicized words and phrases are strong language that led the dials to move sharply up, at least among persuadable (swing) and base voters.

How did the messages fare?

Mean Rating

Percent preferring progressive

Percent preferring opposition Margin

Opposition message 61.6      

Intruders 74.0 62 22 +40

Populist 72.7 60 24 +36

Leads the world 72.0 60 24 +36

Safety in our homes 74.1 61 26 +35

Scientists and lobbyists 75.1 60 27 +33

1st tier messages

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Opposition message

Chemical safety laws need to protect our families, our jobs, and our freedoms. Based on spotty and conflicting science, environmental activists and Members of Congress want to legislate the use of certain chemicals and ban others, doing nothing but creating confusion for businesses that are trying to keep Americans employed and to produce the quality products we all expect—and that made America the industrial capitol of the world. Chemistry is the driving force of industrial innovation. American-made clothes, automobiles, and computers all rely on the safe use of chemicals in manufacturing. Of course we need to update the laws that have protected Americans for generations from the unsafe use of chemicals, but any changes to those laws should reflect the most accurate and consistent information from the world’s best doctors and scientists, not the agendas of environmental activists. We need balanced laws that protect American jobs and preserve American innovation. The last thing we need is government bureaucrats telling manufacturers which chemical they can or cannot use. Responsible chemical reform isn’t just about protecting our health. It’s about protecting American innovation and our place in the global economy.

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Series1

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

33

0

24

0

Message Rating 1-100% Rating 80-100%Rating 60-79

57

Dial-test results

Note: As evident in both overall ratings and the dial-tests, this message, drawn from industry language, was convincing when heard before genuine reform messages, precisely because it pretends reform. Strong GOPs resonated with the anti-regulation themes from start to finish, and even swing voters found the language persuasive at first blush, although they are no longer interested in attacks on regulation or government bureaucrats, which they perceive as code for letting corporations write their own rules.

Opposition message

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Top tier messagesIntruders

If we can have laws against people breaking into our homes and threatening our safety, we can have laws against chemical intruders that enter our homes without our knowledge, causing birth defects, breast and testicular cancer, or damage to our developing children. It’s been 35 years since Congress passed a law designed to protect our families from toxic chemicals, but the law grandfathered in over 60,000 substances already in use without any evidence of their safety. Since then, over 20,000 more chemicals have entered our homes, which companies aren’t required to test or even disclose. Just this summer, Kellogg recalled 28 million boxes of cereals like Froot Loops and Apple Jacks because consumers reported a strange taste and foul odor, and many were getting sick. It turned out that the foil liners were full of a toxic chemical found in crude oil that’s similar to a substance used in mothballs. The foil had accidentally been heated at too high a temperature in the factory. But if it hadn’t been for that mistake, we’d have had no idea that chemical was lining our kids’ cereal boxes. We deserve to know that what we feed our kids is safe.

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Total Swing

62 65

22 18

Voter Preference

Pro-Reform Conservative

75Se-ries1

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

57

0

18

Message Rating 1-100

% Rating 80-100

%Rating 60-79

Note: Best-practice message: revised after testing based on dial-test results.

Dial-test resultsIntruders

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Note: This message was strong with every demographic group and across the political spectrum, as can be seen by the minimally divergent lines among self-identified strong Democrats, strong Republicans, and especially swing voters. The message also showed minimal gender or regional differences.

Top tier messagesSafety in our homes

We have the right to be safe in our homes. But you can’t protect your family against chemicals you can’t see. Breast cancer used to strike primarily older women. But now it’s killing young mothers, and it strikes one in eight women during their lifetime. Scientists now know that exposure to chemicals in our homes and communities has played a substantial role in the skyrocketing rates of not only breast cancer but diseases like testicular cancer, asthma, and birth defects. The same is true of childhood cancers, which have increased by an alarming 20%. We could substantially reduce the incidence of all of these diseases by taking common-sense steps, like updating a decades-old law regulating toxic chemicals, requiring chemical manufacturers to test chemicals for safety before putting them on the market, and giving the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to step in quickly to protect public safety. Our own homes shouldn’t be hazardous to our health.

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Total Swing

61 61

26 27

Voter Preference

Pro-Reform Conservative

75Se-ries1

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

56

0

19

0

Message Rating 1-100

% Rating 80-100

%Rating 60-79

Dial-test resultsSafety in our homes

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Note: As can be seen from the converging lines, this message appealed extremely well to swing voters and across all party lines

Top tier messagesLeads the world

America leads the world in scientific research. Scientists have made extraordinary advances in their understanding of diseases like cancer and developmental disorders like learning disabilities and hyperactivity. Yet the laws regulating chemicals associated with the dramatically increased rates of these disorders haven’t even been updated in decades. Today we know that exposure to pesticides like DDT in childhood can unleash the most deadly, aggressive form of breast cancer in women years later. We now know that chemicals commonly found in our homes—and in the umbilical cord blood of most babies born in American cities—can lead not only to learning problems and hyperactivity in children but to Alzheimer’s and cognitive decline years later. Over 80,000 unregulated chemicals can end up in our food, dishwashing detergents, and water. It’s time we lived up to our generational responsibility to our kids and our seniors, and stopped letting chemical companies write their own rules.

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Total Swing

60 65

24 19

Voter Preference

Pro-Reform Conservative

Se-ries1

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

51

0

22

0

Message Rating 1-100

% Rating 80-100

%Rating 60-79

73

Dial-test resultsLeads the world

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Note: This message was particularly strong with swing voters, who preferred it by 46 points over the opposition message. It was also one of the strongest messages with strong Democrats but did not particularly move strong Republicans. It was, however, equally powerful wit men and women and across regions, and particularly strong with Latinos and African-Americans, perhaps because of their implicit or explicit knowledge of large disparities in exposure to toxic chemicals that lead ethnic minorities to suffer even more than whites.

Top tier messagesScientists and lobbyists

We’ve led the world in scientific innovation for a century. If we can develop chemicals to convert silicon into computer chips or sunlight into electricity, we can lead the world in developing safer, more effective chemicals to use in our clothing, buildings, and household products. The American Cancer Society just placed styrene, which is used in Styrofoam cups, on its top five list—and styrene is found in the urine of 90% of us. How could something so common be potentially so dangerous? Because we have no laws requiring chemical companies to test their products for safety. It’s time we changed that. If a chemical is detected at dangerous levels in newborn babies or mother’s milk, it shouldn’t be on the market. If a chemical builds up in our bloodstreams and causes diseases like breast or testicular cancer, it shouldn’t be on the market. And if a chemical builds up in the food chain, it shouldn’t be on the market. We should encourage innovation by giving incentives to businesses that develop safer alternatives and require companies to pay for research on their products rather than lobbyists to block prevent research that keeps us safe.

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Total Swing

60 60

27 28

Voter Preference

Pro-Reform Conservative

75Se-ries

1

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

58

0

17

0

Message Rating 1-100

% Rating 80-100

%Rating 60-79

Dial-test resultsScientists and lobbyists

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Note: This message is extremely strong with swing voters and equally strong among men and women, with its mix of populism and themes of safety. It appeals particularly strongly to Southerners and Westerners.

Strong additional language

There are tens of thousands of chemicals used in products in this country, and less than 10 have ever been regulated.

If materials that contain asbestos become old and flake, the fibers get into the air and our lungs, which can lead to chronic lung disease and deadly forms of cancer.

Pregnant women, developing fetuses, and children are especially vulnerable to toxic chemicals.

Substances known to cause cancer are even common in nursing pillows.

No one ever had to conduct a safety study on the plastic in baby bottles and sippy cups or the dishwashing detergent we use to clean our plates.

Words that move the dials up

Note: Bolded statements are strong as standalone statements. Italicized words and phrases are strong language that led the dials to shoot up, at least among persuadable and base voters. 24

Strategic Messaging

Brief Statements (If you only have 6 seconds…)

Sound bites

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How did these brief messages fare?

Mean Rating

% prefer progressive

% prefer opposition Margin

Opposition message: Based on spotty and conflicting science, environmental activists want to legislate the use of certain chemicals and ban others, doing nothing but creating confusion for businesses that are trying to keep Americans employed and to produce the quality products we all expect.

57.8      

It's time we put the interests of our families' health above the special interests of chemical companies and their lobbyists.

80.8 64 15 +49

It's time we had common sense laws to protect us from toxic chemicals the way virtually every other industrialized country does, requiring that chemicals be tested rather than waiting until the evidence accumulates that they're accumulating at toxic levels in our bodies and the bodies of our children.

78.1 61 16 +45

1st tier messages

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How did these brief messages fare?

Mean Rating

% prefer progressive

% prefer opposition Margin

We've led the world in scientific innovation for a century. If we can develop chemicals to convert silicon into computer chips or sunlight into electricity, we can lead the world in developing safer, more effective chemicals to use in our clothing, buildings, and household products.

78.3 60 16 +44

Our homes should be our havens. We should have tough safety standards for our workplaces, and we should have equally tough standards for our kitchens and family rooms.

76.6 61 18 +43

If we can have occupational safety laws designed to protect workers from exposure to dangerous chemicals in the workplace, we ought to have laws to protect our families from exposure to toxic chemicals in our homes.

76.8 60 18 +42

1st tier messages

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Strategic Messaging

Conclusions

The bottom line

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Conclusions

Taking on toxic chemicals is a natural follow-up to taking on food safety Language that moves people stays close to experience and far from

abstractions (e.g., specific chemicals they already know are toxic, such as asbestos or “cancer-causing chemicals”

Effective messages begin aspirational or with a metaphor that makes both the dangers and the solutions obvious and tangible

Messages that offer one or at most two specific examples, making the threats concrete and sensory, are extremely powerful, but only if they end with a hopeful statement about what can be done

“Going on the attack” too relentlessly (for too long) or too early in a message tends to weaken its appeal

Messages that offer one or at most two specific solutions or a general approach (e.g., testing before marketing chemicals) are most effective

Americans, particularly in the center, are not moved by anti-regulatory messages, and explicitly endorse regulation for the sake of safety

Key findings

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Strategic Messaging

Keeping Intruders out of our Homes

Revising our Laws on Toxic Chemicals

Research conducted by Westen Strategies for the NRDC

September 1, 2010, Contact: dwesten@westenstrategies.com

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