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?

I spent a very interesting and enjoyable afternoon today with three fellow Fellows of CiB - a small but very effective association known as the British Association of Communicators in Business and soon to become the Institute of Internal Communications.

I was awarded Fellowship of CiB in 2007. So today it was my turn to give something back and help assess applications for this year's crop of Fellows. I hope they will all feel as pleased and honoured as I was to get this recognition.

But the reason for blogging tonight is because of a very brief conversation which took place over lunch.

We were reminiscing about early careers, and discussing how so many of CiB's members and Fellows came into the internal and business communications world via a stint in local newspapers. This is very much the heritage of CiB's membership - although it is changing a lot now, the association traditionally represented the interests of 'industrial editors', the people who write and edit organisations' own newspapers, company magazines, staff newsletters and the like, and most of these people have obviously had previous lives in journalism.

The question hung in the air: "So would we recommend such a career path to a young person today?"

Everyone went a bit quiet, while we muttered things about how many changes we had seen in local media and how worried we were for its future.

And tonight I read that MPs have started getting worried about this too.

Enders Analysis, a media consultancy, has warned that up to half of Britain's 1,300 regional titles could close within five years. Threats come in all shapes and sizes (quite a lot them web-related of course), but the big issue that caught my attention is the threat from council-run freesheets.

You'll know the sort of thing I mean - that glossy news magazine/tabloid that drops through your door and tells you what's going on and how wonderful life is in your neighbourhood.

I had not realised that these freesheets were causing so much damage to the local press, but the cross-party culture, media and sports committee of MPs has warned that such publications:

"pose as, and compete with, local commercial newspapers and are misleading to the public..."

You can download a copy of its 'Future for Local and Regional Media' report here (PDF).

The committee chairman is also quoted in the FT as saying:

"While it is important that local authorities communicate with their citizens, it is unacceptable that councils can set up publications in direct competition to local newspapers and that act as a vehicle for political propaganda".

Apparently the issue may get investigated by the OFT. It's something I shall watch more carefully in the coming months.

In the meantime, I didn't raise with my CiB colleagues today the obvious irony of the situation. How so many ex-newspaper reporters, now CiB members forging their careers as editors of pubic and private sector freesheets in the name of effective internal communications or PR, are potentially contributing to the destruction of the nursery slopes, the very best training ground they ever had... 

So I'm not sure we could even suggest such a career path to young communicators anymore. My guess is the industrial editing future belongs to those people who can bring journalism skills from a very different, largely digitally-led, background. They will be the CiB Fellows of the future.

Just back from the first day of Ecobuild 2010, and a fantastic day meeting old friends, colleagues, journalists and many clients past and present.

The show, billed as "the biggest event in the world for sustainable design, construction and the built environment", is definitely one of the highlights of our year, and a fruitful source of ideas for this blog.

There is much I could explore in terms of the exhibition this year (many more products, lots more greenwash), or the marketing strategies on display (including some interesting examples of how not to promote your organisation at an event like this), but for now let me just tell you about a short debate I sat in on this afternoon in the Arena, on the issue of the media's role in promoting sustainability.

The panel was Eve Pollard (former tabloid editor), Alastair McGowan (impressionist, TV star and environmental campaigner) and Peter Bazalgette (of Endemol/Big Brother fame). They were chaired by the ever-sceptical Andrew Neil who revelled in his role as devil's advocate.

The debate confirmed my suspicion that the last people on earth you should ask about communicating sustainability are a bunch of media celebs:

• Andrew Neil focused heavily on Climategate and other examples of eco mis-selling as justification for unlimited cynicism,
• Alastair McGowan sadly failed to counter any of this, instead complaining that the media don't get behind sustainability as much as they should because of "fear of facing our mortality",
• Eve Pollard launched her big idea that Ecobuild exhibitors should all be marketing their products to women via glossy consumer mags because "women are inherently sustainable",
• and Peter Bazalgette insisted that the media's role was to question and interrogate any use of the word 'sustainable' and we should not expect the media to 'promote' anything.

My view? Well, yes I did take the opportunity to rant back at the panel, I admit. 

They all had some interesting points, especially about the damage that is done by greenwash.

But my view was that we should all be a lot more positive. While they were sitting around debating whether green was good and whether the media should or could get involved, the rest of us were getting on with it.

Hardly a day goes by without me seeing a new 'green living', 'green building' or 'green business' column in a paper, feature in a magazine or programme on TV or radio. Most parts of the media are very interested in examples of environmental sustainability, especially when it touches our day-to-day lives.

Journalists are often just as excited as we are by the sorts of innovations we saw at Ecobuild. They are not tuning out to ponder their mortality. They are not dismissing genuine news stories out of world-weary cynicism. They are open to ideas and examples of sustainability in practice - and I for one was very proud of the efforts and achievements of the many people I saw at Ecobuild who were marketing and promoting their work to the media with real flair and enthusiasm.

This was the title of my 10 minute slot at last week's B2Camp event at the Working Buildings expo at Olympia.

It won't surprise many of you to know that we are using social media tools, particularly Twitter, as part of our PR and media relations work for clients as well as building awareness of the consultancy itself.

So I thought it might be of interest to post my slides here, with a commentary (as the slides themselves won't give you the detail of what was discussed). You can also see copies of the other presentations on the B2Camp ning site.

In a later post, I will also let you have a list of our top 10 journalists that we think you should follow if you're interested in architecture, construction, building, engineering and sustainability in the built environment.

My first point was that Twitter can be seen as a huge, packed party. Full of people you probably don't know, but who are friendly, happy to chat and will happily introduce you to others you'd like to meet. The noise is almost deafening and like all good parties, a lot of tripe is being spoken...

But in this party you will find lots of journalists, many of whom are interested in what you're interested in.

Research due to be launched in the States next month suggests that 70% of US journalists use social media networks to help them with their reporting, up from 41% last year. About half of all the respondents said they use Twitter. (Read the full report on the Journalistics blog here).

Although the figures are not so high in the UK yet (see this interesting research on Twitter use in UK national newspapers), the trend seems to be towards greater use of Twitter by the media when they want to find sources, research stories and post feature requests.

In fact, at first glance Twitter seems to be a party with an A-list of media celebrities in attendance: the editors of Building magazine, The Architect's Journal, Building Design, New Civil Engineer and Construction News... they're all here!

Of course, not all these journalists and editors use Twitter to its full extent. Some don't even like it.

But thanks to those that do, there's an interesting opportunity opening up which allows companies, their PR professionals and journalists to share information, help each other and build closer working relationships.

How it works

Here's a quick snapshot of how it can work at its simplest level.

First, you need to know where to find journalists on Twitter.

There are several generic directories which might be of use:

• Twellow
• WeFollow
• JustTweetIt

There are also some useful wikis collecting information on the media on Twitter:

• MediaOnTwitter
• Muckrack
• JournalistTweets

But as you can see above, our main recommendations are to check out media websites, delve into the list of people a few journalists are following (you can bet they're following other reporters too), and also your PR company's contacts.

My proposal to the B2Campers was that we should set up our own wiki for media contacts relevant to our sector. (Want to help? Please contact me or Paul Wilkinson).

You should choose a few relevant journalists to follow on Twitter, but don't necessaily expect them to follow you back straight away. You will need need to prove your worth as a source first - and that may be best done offline in the first instance. (More about that in a later blog post).

Listening in on a journalist's Twitter feed can tell you much more about what they're interested in, and the things they like/dislike. You can also spot any requests for information - responding to these opportunities has created coverage for our clients in the Times newspaper and many online channels in the last month alone.

Keep an eye out too for the hashtag #journorequest - this is increasingly used by freelance journalists to tag tweets when they're looking for help and information.

If there are journalists following you on Twitter, you may find it useful to post updates with links direct to your press releases (created as pages on your website, full of links to useful information, images etc. rather than a downloaded PDF - see some examples above). There are different ways to do this, but my best advice is to make the tweet itself interesting rather than posting an update that says "Just uploaded an interesting press release http://blahblah". Do not bombard the journalists with messages telling them to click on your stories!

Because: HERE'S THE WORD OF WARNING!

A quick search on the hashtag #PRFAIL reveals a litany of complaints from beleaguered journalists who have received poor service from companies and their PR representatives. Any bad practice will be broadcast on Twitter, you can count on it.

Our advice? Be professional, know what you're doing, and follow the CIPR guidelines on social media.

So in conclusion...

My final thoughts at the Olympia event are summed up in these last two slides.

This one was a tweet I stumbled upon from @Ahaley, someone I don't know or follow, but someone who has summed it all up perfectly:

Yep, that's it in a 140-character nutshell.

It doesn't matter what media you are using, the usual rules of PR still apply - PR is not about broadcasting your news at anyone in the near vicinity, it's all about relationships.

And good, strong, loving relationships are built upon some age-old rules...

I think those bullet points are probably pretty self-explanatory, but if you have any questions please just ask!

There was an interesting discussion following my presentation into the whole issue of how we can evaluate 'social media coverage' (if there is such a thing) in our PR evaluation for clients. I do believe that it should be included as evidence of the value we can add, but the evaluation tools available today are pretty poor.

Although, as I pointed out last week, the whole Web 2.0 environment is changing and developing in sophistication so fast... maybe I shall have lots to present on at the next B2Camp.

A recent phone call to my office prompted me to do some digging for Footings.

The style of the call might be familiar to you if you work for a trade association or membership organisation of any sort, and particularly if you're part of the construction industry. We get these calls about once a month:

"Hi, how are you?! [Gushing enthusiasm from stranger on phone].

"I've been talking to your colleague Jim and he really wanted me to give you a call. We publish a very high quality journal that goes to all the key decision makers in the construction industry and my editor really wants to run a big feature on your Association. What issues are of most concern to you at the moment? Zero carbon agenda? Building Regulations? Health and safety must be a big one.... [Blah, blah]

"Well, we can offer you a full page/two pages/six pages of free editorial.... No cost to your Association, but great coverage in a glossy quarterly that's read by 40,000 senior decision makers - all the top specifiers, housebuilders, RSLs, housing associations, local authorities, major contractors, special sub-contractors, architects, QSs, surveyors, structural, mechanical and civil engineers, government agencies, public utilities, materials manufacturers...." [Blah, blah]

If you're anything like me, major alarm bells are ringing by now.

• I've never heard of this publication before (it has one of those generic titles like UK Construction World, Building National, Property Now etc).
• I've never heard of the publisher either.
• It's claiming a circulation well in excess of what we'd expect, covering pretty much the WHOLE industry and all its diverse disciplines.
• It's not got an ABC certificate of course.
• Oh, and guess what, they want to promote the fact that you're "collaborating" with them on this "exciting feature" to all the Association's members in order to invite them to advertise. They may even want a list of your members in exchange for this "great opportunity".

Welcome to the trade mag version of vanity publishing, and its close cousin 'support advertising' features.

Fed up with these calls and curious about what was going on with this particular rogue publication (which has recently changed its title again), last week I had a really helpful chat with a bone fide publisher who knew the set-up. He explained that these tactics tend to cluster around three types of features:

1. Project features about a particular building project, where the developer writes some blurb about the project and all the companies, contractors and suppliers involved on the project are invited to place advertising saying how pleased they are to be associated with Building X and its developer.
2. Event features about a major exhibition like Interbuild, Ecobuild or a conference, where the event organiser writes the blurb and all the exhibitors are approached to advertise in support.
3. Trade association/membership organisation features, where the Association writes some blurb and all the members are encouraged to advertise in support.

You get the picture.

As a publishing model, it can occasionally work well for all parties, he told me. Sometimes.

BUT there are major dangers:

• If the sales team can't sell enough advertising around the feature, it won't get published at all, so you've wasted your time.
• There is usually very little information about who receives these publications, and readership numbers are not the same as actual copies distributed (assume a standard multiplier of x 4).
• The quality of the content can be shockingly bad.
• The ad sales techniques can get very pushy, which is also bad news if the Association then receives complaints from its members. They may feel obligated or bullied into advertising in a magazine where they would or should not spend their money.
• And there are (allegedly) cases where a publisher has simply taken the advertising revenue, published enough copies of the magazine to give one to each of the advertisers, and pocketed the rest of the cash. Illegal, immoral and pretty much invisible fraud.

I'm afraid our sector has its fair share of these sorts of publishers. If you call me, I'll give you the names of our prime suspects.

So here's the bottom line: No up-to-date ABC certificate, no editorial and certainly no list of our clients' members. Sorry.