Building, Construction News and the ICE offer their 10 great tips for lobbying campaigns

This week I was delighted to hand over the reins as Chair of CAPSIG to my successor, Phil Morgan, head of external and public affairs at the Civil Engineering Contractors Association.

CAPSIG is the construction and property special interest group of my professional institute, the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. It's a group of 250 or more bright minds in PR working in property, architecture, construction and related sectors, who meet four or five times a year to network and share ideas on best practice in PR. I have had the privilege of chairing the group for more than four years, so it was high time that someone else took over the role. I've no doubt Phil will do a great job... Although not too good, please Phil... ;-)

The official election of the new Chair for CAPSIG was also marked by an excellent event on lobbying campaigns in construction. (I shall put the link to the presentations from this event as soon as it's available).

We looked at three recent campaigns that have aimed to influence political support and policy for the construction industry and that are, to varying degrees, still active now:

• Nick Edwards, Editor of Construction News, talked about CN's Vote for Construction campaign *
• Sarah Richardson, Deputy Editor of Building, talked about Building's Charter 284 *
• Lionel Zetter, one of the PR industry's most distinguished consultants, talked about the campaign for a National Infrastructure Investment Bank (NIIB) run by the Institution of Civil Engineers.

(* sorry, the links to CN and Building may only be helpful if you are a subscriber to these publications - their websites now have paywalls).

Each campaign has clearly enjoyed some success so far, although I got the sense that (much like the rest of us) they are facing a much harder task now if they still want to lobby a coalition Government.

But it was particularly fascinating to hear how and why industry magazines choose to run their own campaigns. Like professional institutes and trade associations, these titles see themselves in much the same light as membership bodies - lobbying on behalf of their readers in order to build loyalty, to be seen to be 'giving something back', and to position themselves as leaders in the industry.

Phil asked each of the speakers for their views on what makes a successful campaign. Here are the 10 great tips they offered:

1. Have clear aims - this is where I think both Building and the ICE campaigns were particularly strong. CN had a broad message that could be adapted to different local needs, but the others had the edge simply because they had set out much more specific and measurable actions they wanted to see. Obviously, the more targeted and detailed you can be in your aims, the more focus, impact and success you are likely to achieve. 
   
   
2. Don't campaign against your own readers/members - cue an interesting discussion about whether CN would ever run a campaign on tackling health and safety failures in the industry... but that, as they say, is another story...
   
   
3. Commission research first - Building used the LEK report, the ICE commissioned its own research and discussion paper on the feasibility of the NIIB (see link above), and CN tapped into the political insights and resources offered by its sister company DeHavilland. This research gives a strong factual foundation to any lobbying or PR campaign and means it will be taken more seriously.
   
   
4. Make it memorable - via a catchy name, striking logo, publicity stunt etc. This is where Building made a huge impact. The agitprop graphics created by Group Production Editor David Rogers were awesome, and created a strong visual brand for the campaign that Building used over the six weeks on the run-up to the Election.
   
   
5. Aim to make a difference - and, if I may add something here, make sure you claim the success afterwards. There's no point going to all the effort of lobbying for change if no one knows about it. As Sarah said at the CAPSIG event: it pays to be "shouty and intelligent".
   
   
6. Offer solutions - this is particularly important in the current climate. A campaign cannot just be a whinge.
   
   
7. Align with Government - or, in other words, don't be stubborn and try to push water uphill. And forget any special pleading for the sector. Know what the Government's aims are, and propose a clever, low cost way they can meet those aims.
   
   
8. Forge alliances with others - something I believe is absolutely critical if you aim to achieve thought leadership (here's an earlier blog post on this). But there was no chance of Building and CN cuddling up together on a joint campaign, I was told - no matter how great the threat to the industry. This is where the ICE and other professional institutes can take the lead. Interestingly, Building pre-tested its campaign with several industry groups and then made many phone calls over a couple of weeks to ensure they could sign up key people and organisations to the cause. Even they knew it would not be enough to put the Charter on the front cover and expect everyone to respond - the team had to get out there, be proactive and work hard to recruit the campaign's supporters. One thing I particularly liked about CN's campaign was the way it provided readers with information on prospective parliamentary candidates in their area, plus other information that would allow supporters to localise the messages behind the campaign.
   
   
9. Be realistic about what you can achieve - all three campaigns demonstrated this modesty and realism, and this plays well with Government and readers/members alike.
   
   
10. Have patience - oh, how true! Campaigns may only run at full throttle for a short time, but the real success comes from sustained, long-term effort. Like the ICE's campaign, think in terms of several years and - assuming it's worth doing - make the commitment to see it through to the end.

So what else would you say is essential for a successful lobbying campaign?

And what campaigns should UK construction be running now, faced as we are with many new political, economic, social and technological challenges? Participants at the CAPSIG event suggested campaigns on energy security, respect for people/employees, support for SMEs, recruiting new talent into the industry and improvements to the public procurement process. What would you add to that list?

Great news from the first phase of our 'Liberty to Deeplink' sort-of-campaign (see Tuesday's blog post).

Here's the message from Phil Clark, Editor-in-Chief Digital Communities at UBM Built Environment (publishers of Building, Building Design, Property Week and the fab new BSD magazine):

Hi Liz,
My thanks for raising this.
In a rare moment of swift decision making I've managed to dump this paragraph from all our sites - www.building.co.uk, www.bdonline.co.uk, www.propertyweek.com and www.bsdlive.co.uk - this should happen imminently. We want to encourage as many links to our site as possible.
No one here has a clue why that paragraph exists. From the fact that it occurs on so many sites in very similar form I detect the hand of a wildly cautious lawyer.
Phil

And from Myles Bourke, Online Editor at Construction News:

Hi Liz,
I'm happy for you to link to articles within the CNplus website. We want our stories out there, being found and read by people who are interested in them, so please feel free. I'll see if I can get our online T&C to reflect this.
Myles
 
Now we start on the national newspapers... wish us luck!

Well, gadzooks. Following on from my last post here, I went exploring and checking my compliance with the detail of the CIPR social media guidelines.

The guidelines have been substantially revised this year and now form part of my professional Code of Conduct. They point out to PR practitioners the need to bear in mind the potential legal issues surrounding the use of social media, including the laws on copyright and intellectual property.

And thus, on investigation, it looks like I'm breaking the law at every turn - and chances are, so is everyone else who is writing a blog, putting links on their website, tweeting about interesting stuff in the press, or even emailing each other links to something worth reading.

I'm talking about 'deep linking', the practice of creating hyperlinks that go direct to a site's interior pages rather than just the home page. We do this all the time - for example, if I tell you there's something fabulous you must read on Building's website, I am highly likely to post a link that takes you directly there, not just link you to www.building.co.uk and leave you to try and fish out the relevant page yourself.

As one of the leading authorities on the Internet, Jakob Neilson, has written: "Deep linking is good linking... A website is like a house with a million entrances: the front door is simply one among many ways to get in. A good website will accommodate visitors who choose alternative routes... Deep linking is your friend: it gets users to their preferred destination as quickly as possible."

But it also turns out to be contrary to the 'Terms of Use' of almost all the websites we checked out today: Here's just a very brief selection:

• www.architectsjournal.co.uk - "We welcome hot links to the home page of our website, but not 'deep linking' by which we mean that you may not include a link to any page of our website that is not the home page." (The same goes for cnplus, nceplus and the other sites operated by Emap).
• www.building.co.uk - "Any link to this website without our written permission is prohibited. Notwithstanding authorisation to link to this website, linking to any page other that the initial start page of www.building.co.uk is prohibited...." (The same goes for BD, BSD and the other sites operated by UBM).
• www.telegraph.co.uk - "You must not deeplink to... the site without our prior written permission."
• www.timesonline.co.uk - "...in accessing [our] websites, you agree not to... set up links to any microsite, except the home page of the website, without our express written permission..."

But wait...Hoorah, a solitary voice of sanity:

• www.ft.com: "A site or service that links to FT.com may link to the home page.. and on an ad hoc, non-systematic basis deeplink to other pages of FT.com..."

Both Contract Journal and the Guardian also seem marvellously free of convoluted T&Cs on linking too, unless I've missed something.

Unsurprisingly, it turns out that there is still a lot of legal debate on this issue. Reviewing case law is not my forte, but allegedly (a good legal term), linking to news items on a site owned by a newspaper or other news provider is particularly problematic, and this has been prone to litigation both in the EU and States.

So what to do? "Sue me, punk" is one thought that jumps to mind - the law's an ass, and in the right mood I'm always up for a good fight against nonsense like this. But for now, I think we shall probably have to contact all the key media we link to and ask permission to link to news stories rather than just the home page. I'll let you know how we get on - it will be an interesting exercise in its own right. In the meantime, expect to see more links than usual to FT.com until it's sorted.

Got any other advice? Please do let me know if you have been affected by the issues raised in this story, as the BBC might say.

High praise indeed. Today's Hansom column in Building magazine told everyone about our latest Christmas card - a new addendum to the, ahem, Building Regulations which we have christened Approved Document X (apologies, no industry consultation was conducted first).

If you'd like to see a copy, just click here.