FIVE top tips for kick ass communications
Woop Woop! It’s time to celebrate. Last week Forum for the Future won the Best Campaign plaudit in the inaugural Climate Week Awards, making it a hat trick for our Farming Futures team.
Farming Futures, which encourages farmers and land managers to take practical action on climate change, recently won a Global Green Award and was also voted the best website for climate change and agriculture information by Farmers Weekly.
We’re absolutely chuffed to be recognised by these awards organisations as we’ve always strived to make Farming Futures stand out from the crowd whilst still delivering on its behaviour change goals.
In the five years Forum for the Future has been managing the project we’ve seen it grow from three partners and a one-year delivery plan, to a four-year behaviour change strategy with seven key partner organisations who are the major movers and shakers in the agricultural world. We have 47% brand recognition amongst farmers and 68% of those who attend our events say they have taken action to adapt to climate change because of them.*
So, we’re obviously doing something right. But what is it?
We thought we’d set out our five top tips for creating memorable and effective change communications campaigns.
1. Show me the money
You’ve got to know your audience and find their key motivating factors. For farmers, as savvy business people, it’s all about cash. We have to demonstrate the business case for change – it’s the most powerful argument.
For example, sustainable or climate change focussed farming is also efficient farming. Renewable energy generation not only creates a new income stream but also mitigates climate change, precision farming cuts both fuel and fertiliser bills and water harvesting saves money as well as our precious resources.
2. Patience is a virtue
Evolution takes time, so don’t expect instant change. Many great initiatives have failed because they’ve expected a huge shift in behaviour in an unrealistic time frame. Many marketeers cite the fact that consumers need to be exposed to a brand or message seven times before they’ll feel comfortable about them. So take heart, keep plugging on!
Use as many different interventions as you can – everyone sees and hears things differently. We’ve used social media, interactive events, web, film, animation, press and much more over five years to get our messages out there.
One brilliant report just ain’t gonna cut it!
3. Are you sitting comfortably?
There’s a reason why fairytales have survived for generations. People love a good tale and learning is so much easier, and more long lasting, when facts and morals are woven into stories.
Identify the leaders in your area of interest and help share their stories. Behaviour change specialists call these people ‘connectors’. We used their stories to show, not tell, how farming is changing for the better. Better still, we asked those leaders to speak on our behalf by organising discussion groups or writing blogs for us. People listen to those in their ‘tribe’ or ‘group’ first.
4. Stop broadcasting
Knowledge transfer is dead. Long live knowledge exchange!
Adapting to our changing environmental and economic climate is complex and not all changes will be immediate, easy or cheap. These complexities need to be discussed. Make sure you listen as much as you talk. There are also huge emotional elements at play here – changing practice, fear of standing out from the crowd, fear of failure etc. We had a feeling that farmers didn’t have a place for their voice to be heard so we offered it to them. Through our blog, twitter feed, our discursive events and general inclusive approach we celebrated bottom-up thinking and remembered that everything we do is a dialogue.
5. Risky business
You don’t get anywhere interesting in life by playing it safe. Buck trends, go with your gut and don’t be afraid to stir up debate. We don’t advocate saying anything to get a headline, but being brave usually brings rewards. And if it rubs a few people up the wrong way, shrug your shoulders and console yourself that at least they’re talking about you!
When we started Farming Futures we were warned off blogging (“but you can’t control what people say!”) and Twitter (“Surely farmers don’t use that!”). Humour was a no no and the received wisdom from the industry was that farmers only like science and facts and base all their actions on reasoned analysis of all the options. Well, anyone who knows anything about human nature knows that isn’t true. Humans are emotional and irrational creatures and they make decisions mostly out of a need to fit in, be liked and protect themselves. So, we took the risk and went down the human route and it paid off.
The awards and our results speak for themselves.
Take a look at some of our work:
Interactive map of project and case studies
Future Skills project – igniting farmers’ imaginations with visions of possible new farming roles in 2030
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