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Molding Public Opinion

Better Brainstorming

Message Development 
     An organization that communicates effectively has strategic, long-range plans for relaying information to a variety of audiences. When discussing communications strategies, people tend to want to immediately talk about communications vehicles. Many individuals, when developing a communications strategy, turn to 'media' as a primary vehicle. The media is only one vehicle for communications, it is often the most cost-effective tool, but is also the hardest to control. Brochures, written materials, community or grassroots outreach, public service announcements, presentations and advertising are other effective communications tools.  Before you can formulate an effective communications plan you must identify your message(s).  

What is a message?
     The messages you develop must answer the questions: Why? Why care? Why act?  A message must explain what's valued, and what's at risk, and it must align you with others who share your values and concerns.  A message must be short, simple, and repeated to be heard.  To be effective, a message must be included in every communication - written and oral - and used in all your free and paid media.  A message must clearly state the issue/organization/campaign's values and align itself with the concerns of the majority of Americans: for example, public health and food safety.

Effective Messages

• Messages come from organizational missions and goals.  Clearly define your goals and the audiences you want to engage.
• Messages are not spin.  They have a firm foundation in the institution, and require 'buy-in' from all levels of the organization.
• Your messages are a road map, but you must know where you want them to go.  Start messages where people are and then take them where you want them to go.
• Use your organizational messages as the foundation of all campaigns or projects.  They may have their own 'sub' messages, but should be arteries to your main road.
• Your messages should not always be delivered by you.  Credibility, persuasion, etc. may require different voices and different spokespeople. 

Developing Your Message: Rules of Thumb:   back to top

Rule 1: Have one main message with up to three underlying themes to support it.

Rule 2: All messages should support the organization's main goals.

Rule 3: Messages are not necessarily sound bites, they are the ideas you are trying to communicate to the public. (Messages are reinforced by sound bites, phrases, statistics, anecdotes.)

Rule 4: Messages don't change frequently.  For messages to have impact they have to be repeated over and over again.

Rule 5: Messages can be tailored for specific audiences, while still remaining constant.

Rule 6: Consistent messages should permeate all of your communications efforts, not just contact with the media.

Rule 7: Messages must be simple.  They are ideas that can be explained in a sentence or two - if it requires a paragraph or two, keep working.

Rule 8: Remember: messages take time to create.  Don't rush the process.

The Message Box   back to top
Keeping these rules in mind, here's a way to develop effective messages:

Draw a message box (see diagram). Put the organizations name or the campaign's name in the middle box.  Now you have four spaces to write your key messages.  You may choose to use only three of the spaces.

The message box is designed this way because messages don't need to be delivered in a vertical order.  In other words, if you wrote messages in the following way
1.
2.
3.
4.
...your spokespeople may think they always have to start with message number one.  This is not true.  For some audiences, you may find that message number one is the place to start, for others, message three is best.  To complete a message box, use the long lines to write in the main points.  Don't worry about exact wording at this point.  Make bullet points next to the messages and fill in anecdotes, statistics, phrases, and sound bites that reinforce this message.

Questions that may help you develop your message box

Space #1, top of the box: What do people need to know, believe and care about to become engaged with your organization or your issue?

Space #2, moving clockwise: What obstacles or misconceptions do you need to overcome to get people engaged?

Space #3, What needs to happen or what do people need to do to meet your organization's goals or have impact on your issue?

Space #4, If people did this, how would things be different?

To help lead your group through message development, copy the Message Development Box handouts that follow to distribute at your message development session.

Message Delivery   back to top

Telling Your Story
     The best way to communicate effectively with the public on environmental issues is to develop a simple and compelling story that's repeated over and over again in the media.  To be compelling, a story must have certain core elements: a problem or threat, a victim, a bad guy who's responsible and should be held accountable, a good guy and a successful, or potentially successful resolution (you've pointed to the problem, now what's your recommended solution?).
     The following paragraphs use a real-life example from the environmental movement.  Here, a coalition of groups was able to take a very complex issue - international trade - to the people of the United States.  Using a current event - an issue involving endangered sea turtles - that was much easier for the average US citizen to identify with, a successful effort was launched not only to help these endangered creatures, but to help push for reform of the international trade system.
     Actions individuals can take increases the likelihood they will act on behalf of the environment.  Keep in mind the distinction between public education activities and lobbying when developing your action menu.  Asking people to be informed shoppers, such as buying unbleached paper products or dolphin-safe tuna, is a public education, charitable purpose activity.  Asking people to contact members of Congress or the state legislature is lobbying.  This is an important distinction to make because of potential legal restrictions that may apply to your organization. 

Tell your story - starting with the facts

Do not assume that everyone understands. 
     Most Americans are not comfortable with basic science or are unfamiliar with technical issues.  When describing the 1998 international trade dispute over something called "Turtle Excluder Device" use, the following was used to explain this somewhat confusing issue: The US law in question requires that all shrimp sold in the United States be caught in nets with a Turtle Excluder Device, an "escape hatch" which lets shrimp pass into the net while guiding turtles out.

Keep it simple and specific
     "The final ruling is widely expected to uphold the earlier WTO ruling, which called the US turtle protection law an unfair restraint of trade.  Environmental groups strongly protested the ruling, asserting that it had no legal, scientific, or economic justification."

Build on what Americans know and believe
     Americans recognize the importance of protecting endangered species: "Sea turtles are the real losers in this ruling," said Tim Eichenberg of the Center for Marine Conservation.  "Hundreds of thousands may unnecessarily die in shrimp nets due to the politics of a trade dispute that ignored the very real danger of their extinction and dismissed an effective, inexpensive solution."  You can also link your issue to a similar issue that has caused a great political and grassroots 'stir':  "Given that the President lost a major battle on trade when 'fast track' authority was not reauthorized by Congress, the implications of eroding American support for trade for future free trade agreements - like the renegotiation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade that will begin soon are important."

Be accurate. Cite sources.
     Use credible third-part verifiers (doctors, scientists, etc.) to document your points.  Cite scientific studies.  Revealing that we have coalitions and alliances with other kinds of groups - in the case of international trade, with labor or human rights organizations, for example - can expand believability and audience.

Avoid jargon, technical mumbo-jumbo and lots of numbers
     Make the facts accessible by putting them on a human scale.  Don't lead with: "Properly installed TEDs exclude about 97 percent of the sea turtles from shrimp trawl nets while losing only about 1-3 percent of the shrimp.  The use of TEDs is recognized by countless scientists and the National Academy of Sciences as the single most important action necessary for sea turtle recovery."  A fact such as: "It is estimated that 155,000 sea turtles drown in shrimp nets every year," creates more sympathy with the media and average Americans. 

Be consistent and repetitive
     Decide on the set and wording of facts that make your best case and then make it a mantra that's included in all of your public written and verbal communications: "There is no legal, scientific or economic justification for this ruling." (Over and over)

Tell your story - make a personal connection

Define what is at stake.
     Lay out the consequences.  People are more likely to care and act if they already have an emotional and vested stake in the issue, such as their concern for an endangered species, food safety or their rights to choose.  "Environmental leaders see the latest shrimp-turtle trade ruling as the latest in a string of arbitrary and environmentally destructive WTO decisions that threaten both environment and public support for international free trade."

Make it local
     Reference local places, people, history and hopes for the future.  The closer we bring it geographically, the more likely we are to get a response.  Stories on the local news are much more likely to be seen and remembered by your neighbors than anything on the national news.  In the shrimp-turtle case, a series of references to how US shrimpers have been using TEDs for years, prompted several local stories.  For example, check out this excerpt from the New Orleans Times-Picayune:  "In an unusual alliance, both environmentalists and shrimpers want the federal government to appeal the panel's decision.  Both groups said they will lobby Congress and the Clinton administration.  'I don't want this body telling us which (laws) they like and which ones they don't," said Tim Eichenberg, an attorney for the Washington-based Center for Marine Conservation.  Eichenberg said the WTO ruling could undermine domestic environmental laws because Congress will be under pressure from American shrimpers who think foreign competitors have an unfair advantage.  The unfair advantage, the American shrimpers say, is that their foreign counterparts no longer have to abide by the US rules, while they do.  'The shrimp (industry) is getting battered real bad,' said Jeffery Scott, owner of a Dulac (Louisiana) processing plant."

Define the enemy
     Characterize it as a fight between good guys and bad guys.  Tell them who's wearing the black hat, who's dumping what in the local river or in the air.  It helps to fight a known foe: "This World Trade Organization decision exposes the failure of current international trade rules to adequately balance trade and environmental priorities.  The WTO ignored its own charter with twisted legal reasoning that would never stand up in US court of law.  The WTO is broken and needs to be fixed."

Show and tell
     Use visuals to help tell the story.  This makes for better TV.  In the fight to protect endangered sea turtles, the environmental groups used B-roll and large pictures for television news.

Tell your story - provide solutions and specific actions to take

Couple problems with solutions
     Advocacy efforts work best when problems and solutions are linked together, when we explain the problem and tell the audience how they can help solve it.  Be specific about the actions people can take.

Provide an action "menu."
     People believe they can help in a variety of ways - as consumers, as community members, as voters.  An action menu that lists actions individuals can take increases the likelihood they will act on behalf of the environment.  Keep in mind the distinction between public education activities and lobbying when developing your action menu.  Asking people to be informed shoppers, such as buying unbleached paper products or dolphin-safe tuna, is a public education, charitable purpose activity.  Asking people to contact members of Congress or the state legislature is lobbying.  This is an important distinction to make because of potential legal restrictions that may apply to your organization. 

Manage your message
     Once you have carefully developed your message, 'message development' helps ensure that everything your organization and its staff does or says reflects that message.  This can be something as essential as the fact that an organization that promotes 'livable spaces' (alternative transportation and less urban sprawl) offers incentives to its staff to take public transportation, walk to work, or other activities.  However, it also means that events, interviews, written materials, etc. should all somehow convey and reinforce the group's message. 
     Proper message management means that you will never be led 'off message' - when you do or say something that does not support the themes that your message set up.  This often happens in the media when an issue that is similar to your's is more popular.  To the extent that this gets you in the door with the media, it can be useful, but be careful not to be led completely off-topic. 
     For example, an organization that works on the issue of curbing urban sprawl would like to keep transportation tax money from being used to fix existing roads, yet the interviewer wants to talk about how potholes cause damage to cars and the rising costs of repairs due to...Well, you get the idea.  It may be best to simply say, "I can't speak about how to fix cars, but I do know our study shows fixing the potholes instead of building new roads can save drivers a lot of money in car repairs."  Don't let anyone lead you away from your message.

*prepared from materials produced by Resource Media*