U4 Helpdesk Query

Content

• Part I addresses NGOs' experience in drawing on advertising agencies' expertise in awareness-raising campaigns
  
• Part II summarizes experience with awareness campaigns aimed at chainging attitude and behavior in poor/largely illiterate communities
  

U4 helpdesk reply

The query is sub-divided and answered in two parts. The first part addresses the issue of TI's and other NGOs' experience in drawing on advertising agencies' expertise. In summary, TI recognises that there are some lessons that can be learnt from the advertising industry in terms of better targeting and getting the message across to one's audience. These lessons are mostly relevant to certain types of products (such as mass awareness raising campaigns at national or international level). To this extent, cooperation is frequently sought and established with local media and production outlets when preparing and running such campaigns (i.e. TV or radio broadcast campaigns, etc.). There are, however, also certain limitations when it comes to considering the industry's know-how, mainly because of the difference in issues involved and techniques used by NGOs vs advertising agencies. Finally, there are financial constraints when it comes to NGOs using the services of professional PR or advertising agencies. To this extent, more free resources capturing industry' know-how would be welcome for use by NGOs.

In terms of other NGOs' experiences and exploring the use of advertising industry's know-how by the NGO sector in general, while it is an area in its infancy, a number of resources are already available on this topic. These are listed under section 1.2 and include resources produced by organisations specifically aimed at capacity building of non-profit sector's campaigning and communications skills.

The second part of the query response addresses the question of examples of NGO public campaigns aimed at public awareness and change of attitude and behaviour. To this extent, three such examples from different regions of the world are described - summarising their methodology, strategy and the results. The NGOs have been using TV and radio broadcasts to communicate their messages and campaigns to the widest possible audiences, as access to public TV/radio has been deemed more readily available to the poorer population than access to up-to-date books or web resources. As seen from the examples, the NGOs do often cooperate with media outlets and production professionals during their campaigns. Such cooperation is most of the time on pro bono basis thus minimising the costs of the campaigns.

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Part I. Learning from the experience of the advertising industry

1.1. TI's experience vis-à-vis the use of advertising industry's expertise

TI, particularly on the global level, has been making limited use of advertising industry's expertise as such for a number of reasons, which primarily include:

• The mission and strategy of the organisation calls for a coalition-building approach and most of the tools used by TI center around capacity building, research and policy development through a participatory approach rather than campaigning in its strict use of the term. National chapters cooperate with media outlets and get industry know-how (usually provided on pro-bono basis) for their specific projects and campaigns.
  
  
• There are certain limitations in being able to draw on advertising industry's knowledge fully, in as much as NGOs tend to look at societal trends (e.g. awareness of development issues, ethics in business, willingness to donate to NGOs/charities and others), as well as the major challenges facing particular countries and the international community, from health issues such as HIV/AIDS to issues such as world trade and corporate social responsibility. Advertising agencies focus on consumer trends, consumer spending habits, etc. There are of course crossover areas such as targeting social attitudes and others, where a learning process from the industry could take place.
  
  
• As most NGOs, TI has budget constraints that do not allow it to contract and use the services of private PR and advertising agencies in most circumstances. So, any lessons learnt from this sector would in most cases have to be through free resource guides on awareness-raising and campaigning which will contain the synthesised know-how from the private sector rather than through commissioning their services directly. At present there are limited free resources - and perhaps that is an area that NGOs would benefit from, if developed further.

1.2. Overview of resources on NGO campaigning and use of private sector (PR and advertising industry) tips

The use of advertising agencies' experience by NGOs in designing and implementing awareness raising and other specific campaigns is an area that is in its infancy in terms of research and resources produced on that topic. There are, however, already a few noteworthy sources and experts one can consult. Examples are summarised below:

1. The "Campaign Strategy" website is a good source of information and practical tips on how to target campaigns, specifically tailored for NGOs but taking into account general PR and advertising tips and know-how. The site's contents acknowledge that campaigning has much in common with advertising and the emphasis of the tips is on assessing and targeting the audience and creating change.

2. Another interesting source is the output and proceedings from a workshop convened by InterBrand and SustainAbility in March 2003, involving major NGOs such as Amnesty, Oxfam, Greenpeace and others. Although strictly speaking the theme of the initiative was the "Future of NGO Brands", there are a lot of cross-cutting themes with the advertising angle. In particular, as one of the objectives of the workshop was to establish whether there were any insights to be garnered from the world of commercial brand management which ties with the question on lessons to be learned from corporate advertising sector. Some of the NGOs present acknowledged that they have in-house brand development managers and similar roles.

3. The SPIN Project (Strategic Press Information Network) is a US-based organisation that provides media technical assistance to non-profit public-interest organisations across the nation. SPIN offers public relations consulting, including comprehensive media training and intensive media strategizing and resources for community organisations. It believes strategic, aggressive, planned and proactive public relations can make a big difference and provides training and resources on this.

4. The FrameWorks Institute is another organisation working on a related mission. It seeks to advance the non-profit sector's communications capacity by identifying, translating and modeling relevant scholarly research for framing the public discourse about social problems. FrameWorks designs, commissions, manages and publishes communications research and strategies for nonprofits to achieve those aims. This organisation's work is probably better suited for think-tank modeled NGOs rather than mass-campaigning ones.

5. In terms of individual experts in the field, Chris Rose, formerly with Greenpeace has been particularly active in this specific area. He has written a number of publications on the topic, such as recently a book for Earthscan on how to campaign effectively. Extracts from the book are available. For more information, he can be reached through mail@tochrisrose.idps.co.uk

More traditional NGO campaigning resources (not necessarily with an explicit emphasis on utilising private sector advertising experience but very helpful for targeting NGO campaigning efforts) include:

1. Campaigning Manual, Amnesty International 1997 ISBN 0 86210 271 5 - A-to-Z of practical campaign organisation (recommended as useful if only a bit dated). Please consult Amnesty's website on ways to obtain it.

2. Turning of the Spar, the Brent Spar campaign book. Free copy available from Greenpeace by emailing info@uk.greenpeace.org

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Part II. Experiences with awareness campaigns aimed at change of attitude and behavior within poor and/or largely illiterate populations

Summarised below are examples of awareness-raising campaigns in different parts of the globe. Access to public TV or radio is often more readily available to the poor population than access to up-to-date books or web resources and can thus be a useful means to reach wide audiences. Costs can vary greatly depending on the particular project but also, most importantly, depending on the type of cooperation reached with the media outlets and the advertising or production industry. In most cases the NGOs manage to get access to free airtime or use of pro-bono expertise of production professionals thus keeping the costs to the minimum.

Radio Spots Campaign (Brazil)

Background: TI Brasil asked a São Paulo-based radio station (owned by the O Estado de S. Paulo media group) to regularly air short anti-corruption spots aimed at awareness-raising and behavioural change. The initiative, called 'Say no to corruption', began broadcasting in August 2001. Eldorado airs the radio spots four times per day, two of which are aired during prime time listening hours (intervals during its noon news programme). Other Brazilian radio stations approached by TI Brasil replicated the initiative (with at least nine other radio stations having joined the campaign soon thereafter).

Choice of media: As the medium for public service messages par excellence, and the only such medium with a constant audience throughout the day, radio was thought to provide an excellent vehicle for short, repetitive messages aimed at promoting the objectives of the tool.

Drawing on professional expertise: According to the creators, the tool was only possible because TI Brazil wrote the spots themselves. In a different situation in which the organisation does not have the necessary capacity, the writing of spots would be assigned to a professional (paid or voluntary). This would put the usual advertising-like strains on production (such as conveying ideas for the spot to the writer, supervising the writing of spots, and trying to achieve something via an intermediary).

Additional Remarks: To inform an even larger audience about the campaign, TI Brazil also asked about 800 people (200 of whom are journalists who are informed on a weekly basis about TI Brazil activities) to tell other people in their communities about the campaign. All spots are reproduced on TI Brazil's website. TI Brazil also invites people to submit ideas for new spots.

Another important aspect is that local organisations in provinces were also invited to take part in the initiative. One local organisation in the southeastern state of Espírito Santo arranged to air spots with two radio stations in the state's capital, one of which was the state's leading AM/FM station. In this particular case, the local organisation (Transparência Capixaba) included a number of additional spots of their own, many of which referred to local cases of corruption making it even more locally relevant.

Financing: There were no costs involved as the TI Brazil managed to reach the pro bono cooperation of all involved media and partners.

Results: In terms of dissemination, it has been noted that the number of radio stations broadcasting the campaign has been small vis-à-vis the size of Brazil. TI Brazil also notes that it is impossible to ascertain the actual audience exposed to the campaign because radio audience polls are too expensive to be conducted by the average Brazilian radio station.

This initiative was launched in 2002 and more details on it can be found through contacting:
Rodrigo de Faria e Silva, Transparência Brasil
Email: transp@transparencia.org.br

Television Sketches (Niger)

Background: The project aimed to produce and broadcast a series of short television dramas in order to raise awareness and influence attitudes towards the problem of corruption in Niger. The films covered three fields in which corruption is viewed as a serious problem: health, education and customs. The sketches were broadcast at prime time for six weeks prior to a national seminar on corruption (the timing was specifically chosen to raise awareness before a major public event).

Choice of media: Television was the obvious way to communicate the association's message because it reaches the widest audience possible in Niger (it is popular outside the capital Niamey/urban areas as well). The choice of the methodology was also conditioned by the fact that the use of such sketches is a common way of raising public awareness in Niger.

Drawing on professional expertise: The project was produced with the help of MOURNA drama troupe, which specialises in the production of public awareness films.

Financing: The project (production an broadcast costs) was funded by Cooperation Francaise. Limited funding meant that the broadcast could not be carried on for a longer term.

Results: It was through this initiative that the issue of corruption has for the first time been tackled directly on television in Niger. Although it is very difficult to assess the exact impact of the films on public opinion and attitude, the implementers of the project consider it to have clear and discernible effects in terms of citizens knowledge and understanding of the issue and its negative impact on the society as a whole (thus shaping their attitudes) as well as awareness raising on the institutions dedicated to the fight against corruption and anti-corruption activities and steps.

This initiative was first launched in 2001 and more details on it can be found through contacting:
Aissata Fall Bagnan at aissata_fall@caramail.com

Radio Broadcasts (Thailand)

Background: Transparency Thailand (TT) has produced a series
of radio shows dealing with the problems of corruption and the lack of transparency in government and business circles. The shows were aired on a major Bangkok radio station with an audience of over 1 million people.

Later, TT was invited to broadcast an additional 15 minute radio slot on the
country's military radio network. This has allowed for coverage on more than
ten other radio stations in many more remote and rural areas of Thailand.

Choice of media: The idea of a radio broadcast fulfilled both the aims of the project and a number of the group's wider objectives and TT's board quickly agreed that it was an excellent idea. TT was offered a great opportunity to develop a new radio service by the radio station Ruam Duay Chuay Kan. This popular station runs 24 hours a day and has about 1 million listeners.

Drawing on professional expertise: The main responsibility for content and preparation was with TT, but professional assistance on production has been provided by the partner radio station.

Financing: Airtime and studio facilities were provided free of charge by Ruam
Duay Chuay Kan radio station. Honorariums to experts were paid by TT.

Results: Over the first two years of the initiative, the shows have been aired more than 100 times, and over 200 guest speakers have appeared from various government agencies, independent organisations, the private sector, academic institutions and civil society groups. The implementers consider the project to have met its objectives. They believe the radio shows have had a significant impact particularly because they reach out to a very large and diverse audience. The radio station has agreed to continue supporting the programme by providing assistance and air-time.

This initiative was first launched in 2001 and more details on it can be found through contacting:
Dr Kanokkan Anukansai, Programme Director
Transparency Thailand, c/o Center for Philanthropy and Civil Society
Seri-Thai Road, Klongchan, Bangkapi, Bangkok 10240Thailand
juree@nida.nida.ac.th