Today's micro pod is a starting-off point for thinking through a public affairs communications strategy. Included here are the strategic fundamentals, which don't really change, even as media and technology change. With AI, much is changing at a lightning fast pace. That requires adapting quickly and knowing how and when to use AI platforms to speed up and/or somewhat reduce the costs of this work. The role of AI in messaging and media work is for another report.
Listen:
Any well-thought-out strategy always changes once you’re in the thick of the work. Again, this is simply a place to start and evolve from there. I have put this how-to guide together in vacuum, leaving other vital components in any sophisticated advocacy effort out, for now. Direct lobbying of lawmakers, significant fundraising, digital-first "lobbying," a field program, and hiring the right talent (including attorneys) are among the essential elements. They are all pieces to the larger puzzle that need to fit together.
"The Communicator" is heavy on building a thorough messaging architecture– many don't do enough thinking on this foundational piece--and lighter on the media delivery piece, which many are more well-versed on than I am (like TikTok strategy, for instance). Building and selling the product is the focus, not delivering it to people's homes. But you obviously can't have one without the other and succeed.
Let's tackle seven areas in comms:
- Finding your North Star
- Research to really know your audience
- Developing a narrative story and elevator pitch
- Choosing the best messengers
- Using the media megaphone
- Managing the opposition
- Minding optics
Number 1. Big picture strategy: Knowing your overall objective and how you’ll get there.
What are you using strategic communications for? What’s the larger objective? Is it to win an election? Pass new voting rights legislation? Sell the benefits of scientific research? Promote the good parts of AI? Get people off social media? Got to start here before you go any further.
Knowing where you want to end up allows you to work backwards on using strategic communications to get you there. The end goal with advocacy communications in any industry is to encourage an audience to do something— vote, donate money, buy a product or service. On public affairs and policy issues, it’s about shifting the public sentiment. It’s about getting people’s attention and selling or debating public ideas in the marketplace.
I can tell you what a strong comms operation is not for: to “raise awareness.” Awareness is a precondition but it’s not the goal. The end point is some policy, political, or public opinion shift with an action. People can be aware of a lot of things. But in a civic context, messaging and media work leads to a constituency’s behavior change and/or a political deliverable, like winning an election, killing/passing a bill, or cooling opposition to, say, data centers.
At the beginning of an advocacy campaign, it’s vital to ask yourself three questions:
Why am I doing this work?
The first question is about making sure you’re doing public affairs work for the right reasons and have the appropriate expectations. You have to be able to put your ego aside and do what’s best for the success of the issue you’re working on.
What’s the path to victory, or the method to achieve the goal above?
The path to victory is, essentially, the strategy — the levers of power realistically available to you. Levers of power for civic work include legislation, ballot initiatives, legal cases, elections, media, regulatory measures, public protest and pressure, philanthropy, for-profit ventures, and entrepreneurship.
When things do go off track, as they inevitably will, the North Star helps you find your way back.
How am I going to raise the money necessary to pull this thing off?
A sophisticated messaging and media operation, whether short- or long-term, requires investment. All the fancy strategy and plans in the world are worth nothing unless proper funding is secured.
Number 2. Research to know your audience(s) like your family.
Public communications isn’t about you; it’s about your audience — the people who need to listen to you, be persuaded, and then act. It’s actual public service, not self-service. What does your audience need to hear to get them to do X in step 1?
The first iteration of the anti-litter campaign in Texas decades ago fell flat at first because its message didn’t resonate with the people doing the littering. The campaign changed to the now famous “Don’t Mess with Texas” slogan, appealing to younger white men who had pride in their state—who were also the biggest litter bugs.
Not really knowing your audience, or forgetting your audience, is the biggest pitfall I’ve seen senior leaders and Boards make.
Polling: Measuring what people believe and feel
Quantitative research through scientific surveys allows us to hear what a representative demographic sample of the audience thinks. Qualitative research, or focus groups, does the same, diving more into why people feel the way they do and how to change their minds.
Errors in horserace polling – which candidates are up or down – have tarnished the broader value of taking the pulse of what the people think.
But dismissing scientific polling is itself an error when it comes to how people feel on the issues and how to frame them. Opinion research enables advocacy pros, despite the awful cliche, to meet people where they are. That’s the starting off point for any advocacy effort. Also helpful is message testing, with traditional or AI methods.
Research is critical because we may think we know how other people think. That doesn’t mean it’s correct. It’s mostly likely not correct. So many of us are stuck in physical and algorithmic silos. We can have tunnel vision. We forget sometimes there’s a whole other world of people who disagree with us or who have never heard of “health equity” or "civic infrastructure."
Other research, like finding trends in what everyday people and influencers are saying on social media is also helpful. Social mining should be folded into your scientific polling research (or vice versa).
Number 3. The elevator pitch: Finding your story and messaging
The fundamentals of effective public communication outlined by Aristotle haven’t changed in 2,000 years. The most effective arguments come from a credible speaker (ethos) telling a compelling story (pathos) and backing it up with evidence (logos).
Story over data
The human brain is wired to listen to and retain stories–not facts and stats. People often remember stories and are moved by them. Data is generally less memorable and less moving.
Sally Susman was executive vice president at Pfizer. Her charge at the beginning of the pandemic was to persuade people to take a new vaccine and quickly. Her book details how Pfizer broke through to the public by, she said, ripping up the original playbook of data and experts. “I was wrong. It’s stories. I got to see my grandson at his wedding. Real stories, real people.”
Presidents Biden and Trump have relied on economic data and stats to make their case the economy is better than people think it is. But people’s own lived experiences with inflation triumph over someone saying some version of oh, all is fine. The economy is getting better.
Framing the story
What’s the authentic elevator pitch for your advocacy issue in 30 seconds? How would you describe something over dinner with friends? Inherent in the story is the conflict or problem and the resolution or solution. It’s two or three short bullets that speak to a storyline or theme, often with logos, pathos, and ethos. I would stress pathos.
Then, within, an umbrella story are the classic three supporting messages, which can be more stories, data, and, yes, common sense. Constructing the right messaging architecture is both science (from the research above), art, and creativity to get attention. Great care must be taken to choose the right words and tone. Do not speed past this step.
(Side note: Metaphors pack a punch; use them. An example from James Talarico in Texas: "Our southern border should be like our front porch – there should be a welcome mat and a lock on the door. We can both welcome immigrants who want to live the American Dream AND keep out people who mean to do us harm." Zohran Mamdani is also deft in the use of metaphor.
Number 4. Choose the right messenger(s)
What kind of person will your audience listen to/ have trust in? An oil executive would rather listen to another oil exec about climate change than an environmental activist. Perhaps a cultural influencer is better to deliver your message than you, even if your subject matter is science or tax policy.
Remember, TV and social clipped video are discriminating mediums. What you as the spokesperson look like, how you sound, the background of the shot, and what your facial expressions are at least 60% of the message. The other 40% are the words you use. (These percentages are made up, but you get the point.)
Whoever the spokesperson or messenger delivering the core story/message is must have credibility and come across as authentic. People can smell a phony a mile away.
Many different kinds of people, especially unexpected champions, must be disseminating your message. Ideally you put together a deafening chorus of strange bedfellows and social proof, i.e., traditional coalition-building. If a Fortune 500 business, the NAACP, AARP, or NASCAR supports an issue, that lends credibility. Expand your sphere of influence by getting other-liked minded individuals or institutions on board with what you’re doing. Even give them an amount of buy-in you feel comfortable with. Just don’t be an island.
Number 5. Using the megaphone and finding right media channels
Once you figure out your core message and messenger, creative content production begins. Whether the content is a social media video, podcast, YouTube show, news interview, digital ads, or a live speech before an audience, how the information is packaged helps determine its traction.
Megaphone is more important today, given how many places online and off your target audience gets their information. You’re not going to advertise on Facebook if your audience, in their 20s, is on TikTok. Business leaders are reading the Wall Street Journal or The Information--not doomscrolling (hopefully). The energy right now is in the clip economy and podcasting, especially in the center-right/ semi-non-political shows like Joe Rogan. And getting mainstream media coverage, not as influential as it once was, is helpful on AI platforms like OpenAI and Gemini. Being “everywhere” or even dominating a niche sector isn’t easy in a media landscape shattered into a 1,000 chards of glass.
Number 6. Must have: a campaign plan against the opposition and disinformation
It’s wise to anticipate the forces —opponents, disinformation manufacturers, scandal, reporters, information overload- that will try to yank your message off track. When it comes to public affairs and issue advocacy, it can be extremely helpful to define your opposition early and often.
Find your opponent or competitor’s vulnerabilities. Do internet scrubs, on-the-ground investigations, speak to people where the opposition lives. Decide which vulnerabilities to take advantage of.
Disinformation management and innoculation
Fact-checking is still perceived as the antidote to misinformation. But in today’s fractured media ecosystem, it’s more of an intellectual exercise than a meaningful comms move. Cognitive science shows that people don’t change their minds based on facts alone. We cling to narratives that reinforce our existing worldview. Despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary, a sizeable portion of voters still believe the 2020 election was stolen, and – more relevant right now– the integrity of our election system is compromised.
Build counter-narratives of your own early — stories that are emotionally resonant but also — and this is key— that can define an issue first. Speed matters. Like really matters. This is about cutting a lie off at the knees before it can take hold. Defang it. Once you alert people that is coming, the weaponized story loses some of its power (i.e., believability).
Number 7. Optics matter.
The ivory tower and intellectual crowd may roll their eyes at optics. But, like it or not, optics also communicate meaning beyond words. Body language, tone, props all matter. These non-verbal cues factor into public perception. Perception is reality.
Good optics reinforce trust and legitimacy. Bad optics create mixed messages, backlash, or ridicule—even when the policy or cause is defensible on the merits.
A president plays golf while his country is at war. Terrible optics.
Same goes for the ubiquitous Mexican flag at an immigration/ anti-ICE rally in Los Angeles in 2025. That’s not the best way to win the U.S. immigration debate—using another country’s flag. One of the issues here is not about identity and pride in Mexican heritage, which was why protestors used that flag. That’s understandable. But the audience is the tens of millions of Americans not from Mexico watching across the country.
Additional note
Don’t be partisan. Find common ground, not for kumbaya reasons but as a matter of strategy. In 2018, healthcare drove a wave election, powered in part by a concerted, on-message campaign to protect the Affordable Care Act. The campaign included moderate-to-conservative voters. All of us had to—have to— deal with pre-existing conditions, premiums, and prescription costs. A majority of enrollees in the ACA marketplace live in congressional districts represented by a Republican.
Similarly, in the years since Roe vs. Wade fell, abortion rights have prevailed at the ballot box across multiple states, including in red states like Kentucky and Kansas. The advocates’ message was about the freedom for women to make their own decisions and not have the government telling them what to do.