If you are going to campaign, at least do it right…

Now I know you will all think that I am going to write about poor old Rishi, who looked like a drowned rat when he announced the General Election in a monsoon… or mention that he then went off to the shipyard where the Titanic was built (even my 10-year-old nephew tied the dots on that one). But no, I am going to remain philosophical and not be my usual miserable, cynical, cantankerous old self!

So, with that in mind, let’s use Rishi as a case study on how to communicate your message… or more accurately how NOT to communicate!

First impressions count – We live in a digital age where information is literally distributed at the speed of light. When Rishi stood in the monsoon, people on the other side of the planet watched him live getting soaked. The lesson from this is that when you announce something, say for example your plans for a development, how you break the news really counts. You need to think about it and how you parcel the news and break it to the outside world. There is NO room for error on this, it is instantaneous, and you need to know what your message is, how it will be perceived and more importantly, why people should support your plans.

What you can’t do is rely on the bits you like… Messaging is not the pick-and-mix we used to get in Woolworths. You can’t expect people to ignore the bad things the Government did and only point to the bits you think are good. Similarly, with a planning application you can’t point only at the good bits you like without rebutting the bad bits with facts. And not just facts, you need to provide substantiated facts and they need to be verified and preferably you need third-party advocates that can give their opinion to back you up.

Then we come to KISS… no, I am not intending to snog Rishi, I am talking about the simple golden rule (that should NEVER be broken) about messaging: Keep It Simple Stupid. Don’t try and drown people in heavily convoluted and incredibly clever but completely impenetrable ideas (or policies). This was the number one lesson from the pro-leave Brexit campaign. We all remember the £365million per week on the side of the bus but can anyone remember the complicated warnings about the effects of Brexit on our economy and borders? No, we can’t. What we have is great hindsight.

So, keep your message simple and focus on the positives and for the love of Crunchie, speak in plain English. Planning jargon just confuses people and when they don’t understand something they start creating their own narrative and that is when the message gets away from you and everything goes hideously wrong. People start setting a different agenda and before you know it, you have 1,000 objections objecting to things that you don’t even recognise from your plans.

But fear now, Uncle Henry is here with an umbrella to keep you dry! Get in touch!

Until next week,

Henry