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?

About 10 years ago, at the height of the success of the big city PR agencies (one of whom I worked for at the time), almost every proposal document promised the potential new client the opportunity to gain a glistening new reputation and acres of media coverage for its ‘thought leadership’ on one issue or another. I can’t tell you how many new business pitches that won for us.

Thought leadership was all about being the undisputed clever clogs in your niche market. As commentators at the Henley Management College put it: "with intellectual capital at a premium, being recognised for the highest levels of knowledge and expertise is the holy grail of many professions."

Even since, whenever I came across something really exciting and new that I thought could reframe the way the media or industry looks on something, I still tended to use the phrase to explore with clients about what might be possible.

But my enthusiasm for standard 'thought leadership PR’ is definitely waning.

First, it’s awfully easy to over-promise. Don't get me wrong: we're fortunate to have no shortage of clients with original ideas and expertise by the bucket-load. But genuine thought leadership – genuine leadership, in fact – is not something easily created through the use of PR.

My suspicions were reinforced by an FT article I spotted late last year:

“The phrase ought to be banned, and anyone caught using it locked away and left to reflect on the stupidity of their actions. Not everyone can be a leader. It follows that not everyone can be a thought leader either. But that does not stop many professional services firms from claiming that they (alone) offer thought leadership on certain issues…”

And that may also explain why increasingly I think the standard thought leadership PR approach may actually not work very well.

The traditional view among many PR folk is that a thought leadership campaign requires:

• A thought (ideally a new one that can be branded)
• Clarity of communications (and lots of it, ie. big budgets)
• And authenticity (it’s got to ring true with the key stakeholders)

It is trumpeted using every tool in the PR toolkit with the aim of transforming an organisation's reputation, ensuring its expertise is well known and so attracting commercial reward and recognition galore.

Standard thought leadership PR is also usually focused on the personal - implemented through boosting the profile of one or two company spokespeople (preferably chairmen or CEOs) who take to the podium and claim credit for the Big Idea. Much of the media love this too, as it provides an entertaining source of strong personalities with strong views (or “any old fool in possession of an ego and a blog”, as Lucy Kellaway would say).

For some people this approach also links well with the ideas in Malcolm Gladwell's book 'The Tipping Point', and his 'Law of the Few' - the idea that a small group of influencers can spark a much bigger change or social phenomenon. In short, perceived thought leadership and high level influence leading to fundamental change in the business or social environment.

But the reality is that a lot of effort goes into thought leadership PR that actually achieves not very much at all - certainly not the sort of change that we would all like to claim. I suspect there are a lot of companies out there that are rather disappointed by the long-term impact of their so-called 'thought leadership' campaigns.

Obviously you cannot claim to be thought leaders simply by virtue of being the first, biggest or longest-established firm in your sector. (In my experience, the most original thought often comes from the sharp sightedness of the new kids on the block, or from the initial creative and often confrontational juxtaposition of teams that might not otherwise work together.)

Nor is it enough to offer an expert opinion on, say, water efficiency or waste management in construction, back it up with a survey among a client group and a White Paper to download from your website, hold an event and claim to be the thought leaders on this aspect of environmental sustainability.

It’s certainly not about coming up with a new piece of jargon, a nice logo or fancy graphic to package ideas differently.

Like the best leaders generally, genuine thought leaders do something beyond showing off their cleverness or marketing wizardry. They change the world by bringing others with them, forming collaborations and partnerships to bring their vision alive and to make it real. 

Corporate reputations are changed through having new ideas, yes, but not by concentrating it all around a couple of corporate celebrities. It is about a generosity of spirit, allowing those ideas to be tested in the real world, sharing the lessons learned and utilising a communications strategy that is much more open and devolved (ie. less centrally controlled by the boss).

My view is therefore growing that it's not just the intellectual capital that matters, but an organisation's overall connectedness.

Let's take a look at one aspect of this...

Remarkable research findings reported in the New Scientist last month show that our emotions and behaviours may be more heavily influenced by others than we previously thought – even by people we have never even met or heard of. To summarise, it suggests that:

"...we are beholden to the moods of friends of friends, and of friends of friends of friends - people three degrees of separation away from us whom we have never met, but whose disposition can pass through our social network like a virus."

The effects of 'empathetic mimicry' are thought to explain how happiness or depression can be 'caught' from others not in our immediate social circle. Looking at the ways social norms are spread is also helping scientists to understand how to change the behaviours of whole communities, such as tackling smoking or obesity (maybe even one day triggering a mass epiphany for one planet living?).

One part of the New Scientist article caught my eye in particular, quoting the controversial work of Duncan Watts at Columbia University. It shows that "seeding localised social groups with certain ideas or behaviours can lead to the ideas cascading across entire global networks."

As the article points out:

"This contradicts the notion - promoted by the author Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point and others - that social epidemics depend on a few key influential individuals from whom everyone else takes their cue. It doesn't ring true, argues Watts, because such 'influentials' typically interact with only a few people. The key for the spread of anything, he says... is a critical mass of interconnected individuals who influence one another."

If this is true, the role of Web 2.0 in an organisation's communications activities also becomes incredibly important.

Admittedly, the research has not yet been done into whether actions or feelings can spread via the digital world as powerfully as they do in physical communities. I suspect it would probably be much easier to measure this contagion in a consumer market than in a construction industry group.

But if it is possible to seed new ideas and achieve widespread attitudinal or behavioural change through social media, then it’s time to dust off that company policy on Facebook, Twitter and other social media tools and take a fresh look at what people are allowed and encouraged to do.

It may be that each of your people's individual relationships, social networks and their online conversations on Twitter, through blogs, discussion boards and the like could be a much more effective route for your organisation to achieve genuine thought leader status and tangible results than the old PR approach.