If there were a campaign bible, would you ignore it, and walk on by?
Most people do.
Since moving to sunny Brussels in 1997, I’ve run and won policy and political campaigns for NGOs and clients. I’ve you used campaigns to change policy or get new laws on the book.
I’ve played a lot of defense for corporate clients who have been under attack from NGO campaigns. For reasons I don’t understand, there is a mental blockage for most corporate to embark on ‘campaigns’. Maybe, one day, that will change.
As I have written before, campaigns are different from PR, lobbying, and plain defence. It’s not running running some ads in the opinion forming press with no obviousbroader end game.
For me, a campaign is about moulding opinion to support your position. The target audience can be the public (or at least the perception of interest), and more narrowly, to influence opinion formers and decision makers to support you. At the end of the day, for many EU policy areas, the target audience is around 500 people.
Often, the object is to bring to to the forefront ‘an idea whose time has come’, and that the idea must be acted on.
When asked about running campaigns, I have in my middle age, taken to throwing a copy of ‘How to Win Campaigns’ and ‘What Makes People Tick’ by Chris Rose. It’s useful to listen to the man who led the Brent Spar campaign and influenced the campaign thinking of Greenpeace, WWF and others.
I realise that 500 pages of wisdom are too many for most. So, over the next few months, when time permits, I’ll chunk it down, and add examples. A concise summary of the campaign bible, for believers and agnostics.