Tobacco Control Strategy Planning

Strategy Planning for Tobacco Control Advocacy


	Question 6. What medium will most effectively deliver our messages to our target audience?


	Overview Letter

	Introduction to the Series

	Advocacy Introduction

	Our Advocacy Goals

	Our Target Audience

	Messages Likely to Move Our Target Audience

	Messages That Speak to the Brain and the Heart

	Effective Messengers for Our Target Audience

>	Effective Media for Delivering Our Messages

	Getting the Media's Attention

	Making Sure the Media Communicates Our Messages

	Acknowledgments

	Download PDF Version

A frustrated tobacco control advocate once exploded in frustration at the stubborn resistance of a key legislator to a modest proposed tobacco control law: "Not even a thunderbolt from God would change that fellow's vote!"

Maybe not, but it certainly would be an effective medium for delivering the message . . .

Just as we need to analyze our target audience carefully to design the most effective messages and choose the best messengers, we must choose the most effective medium to reach and open the minds of our audience. As the New Age media guru Marshall McLuhan famously said: "The medium is the message."

Lobbying: Direct Communication

If you are fortunate enough to enlist one of the powerful messengers we discussed in Question 5, then your most effective medium may be direct lobbying. This can range from a formal scheduled visit to a parliamentarian . . . to a heartfelt plea from the parliamentarian's wife over breakfast . . . to a seemingly casual conversation among parliamentarians passing in the corridor or at a reception.

Be creative in deciding who is "powerful." Sometimes you most need someone who understands the issue. Politicians sometimes welcome information from any trusted source-to increase their knowledge base, and to speak with more authority in meetings on the subject. In Bangladesh, advocates did careful research on who would be attending an inter-ministerial meeting on tobacco control law. Before the meeting, they gave a copy of the PATH Canada guide Tobacco Control Law (translated into Bengali) to everyone attending.

The participants were expected to come up with all sorts of arguments against the law. Instead, they arrived at the meeting with the guide in hand, quoted directly from it, and made positive suggestions! Obviously, they were thrilled to be able to speak as if they knew something about the issue. They looked at the distribution of the guide as a gift rather than a lobbying effort.

Advocates in Bangladesh have also noticed that they do not need to hold advanced degrees or high positions to be listened to. They simply must provide basic information in a factual manner and be helpful where possible. (They even offer to type up the minutes of meetings!)

Internationally respected messengers might best deliver your message in a more formal setting. They might testify at a public hearing or give a speech at a conference whose audience includes key decision makers.

Messages are usually less effective when they are delivered through phone calls, faxes, e-mail messages, or petitions. One extremely self-important lawyer-lobbyist for Philip Morris, known to be the closest advisor to the US president, once made the mistake of not delivering an important message face to face. He left a phone message for the chairperson of the Senate committee that was considering two versions of a tobacco labeling and advertising-control bill. "We," the message read, as if the lobbyist spoke for the president, "want you to vote for [the weaker] bill." The committee chairperson ignored the message. He might have listened had the lobbyist taken the trouble to visit him in person.

For a clear practical guide to nonprofit lobbying, see Chapter 11 in Jim Shultz's Democracy Owners' Manual (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA, 2002); http://www.democracyctr.org/resources/manual/index.htm#train

Chapter 8 ("The Legislative Battle") of the World Health Organization's Tobacco Control Legislation: An Introductory Guide offers suggestions for effective communication throughout the stages of the legislative process, including direct communication with parliamentarians. It is available online at http://www5.who.int/tobacco

Lobbying can take more aggressive or creative direct forms, such as picket lines, demonstrations, "sit-ins," and street theatre. The PATH Canada guide Using the Media for Tobacco Control provides practical guidance on how to use demonstrations, events, and stunts to attract the attention of the media. Find it online at http://www.pathcanada.org/library/docs/Media_Guide.pdf

Media Advocacy

Tobacco control advocates around the world have learned to take advantage of the power of the media.

In South Africa, we focused essentially on media advocacy. . . . We had to fight and win the minds and hearts of the public.. We made sure that we put our own positions forward in the media, and nothing that the tobacco industry said went unchallenged. So media advocacy was one of our most important strategies.
	-Yussuf Saloojee, National Council Against Smoking, South Africa

Very quickly I understood that the best way to influence Parliament is not necessarily to go to Parliament, but to have press conferences. I learned how to speak with journalists. The campaign and to create legislation -and the controversy-was very interesting to the media and the media began to educate the public. It became a topic for people to discuss. It began to change the attitude of the Polish population. It became the fashion for politicians to tell the media they would like to stop smoking.

-Witold Zatonski, Poland

We look at basic things like research and trying to get a new angle on what's happening, trying to get a lot of the positive things that are happening in the community to journalists, so that the media run with the positives and focus on the positives, be it local media or national media.
	-Shane Bradbrook, Maori Smoke-Free Coalition, New Zealand

If I look back to '93 or even '96/'97 tobacco control had not much support. But now, our activities attract media attention, we can see the movement from that media attention.
	-Yul Deravuth, Cambodia

What we have managed to do by using the media as much as possible is that the politicians themselves see our programs on TV, which are run in conjunction with other groups like the Health Education Bureau and the local medical association.
	-Dr. David Bristol, Saint Lucia Cancer Society, Saint Lucia

Our coalition is a small group; but by getting attention in the media, the coalition comes to seem larger and more powerful.
	-Shoba John, PATH Canada, India

As we have seen, a tobacco lobbyist, perhaps a popular former parliamentarian who has made large political contributions to the governing party, has no difficulty making an appointment with any member of the government. This individual can then personally deliver the tobacco industry's messages to policy makers.

Sometimes, tobacco control advocates can also gain personal access to decision makers. Doors may open because they are highly respected members of society or represent noteworthy NGOs—or because they have worked hard to build relationships of trust and confidence with key influentials.

But more often, the doors to high-ranking offices are closed to tobacco control advocates–along with the minds of their occupants. In such cases, advocates must find the right medium to deliver their messages.

Professor Franklin D. Gillian of the University of Southern California is a leading scholar in a new branch of political science, media-effects research. "The news has the power to set public agendas, direct attention to particular issues, and, ultimately, influence how we think about those issues," Gillian tells us. "In short, [the news] is an important link between citizens and their government."

For tobacco control advocates, this is critical information. We cannot try to solve a problem that the public is unaware of. The media must herald the news that tobacco use will ultimately result in disease and death. And it must get these facts to the public as often as possible, and as dramatically as possible.

Our discussion in Questions 7 and 8 addresses media advocacy in more detail. Under Question 7, we cover "access strategies." These are the techniques skillful tobacco control advocates use to get the news media to turn its attention to the health, economic, and environmental effects of tobacco. Under Question 8, we discuss "framing strategies." We will see that the way the news "frames" a problem determines how the public will view that issue. This means that not merely the volume of news but also its presentation determines the rise of an issue to the national policy agenda.

Narrowcasting: Media Advocacy in the Advanced Stages of a Campaign

Once the public is educated about the hazards of tobacco, the focus of tobacco control media advocacy shifts to its next stage: delivering the messages that key decision makers need to hear. In this stage, advocates concentrate on the media that reach and influence decision makers—even if these media do not reach the broad public. Such media advocacy is sometimes called "narrowcasting" (as opposed to "broadcasting").

Narrowcasting requires us to look at media in terms of specific, limited audiences.

Parliamentarians are likely to read the news and editorial pages of their nation's most widely circulated newspapers—especially papers published in the nation's capital city. They also read newspapers from the heart of the region whose voters elect them to office. They may watch the evening news on national television.

Maori activist Shane Bradbrook describes the importance of getting the media's attention, of timing, and of knowing which media to use to reach lawmakers in New Zealand:

In terms of the politicians, newspapers are really important. Okay, but what newspapers, what's important, and what day is it important? Because, in New Zealand, they tend to fly in on Monday morning, so it's really important that they get the main national papers in front of them and the stories in that. And also, they tend to leave on, say, Friday, so you know you've got to get those stories in. Obviously, they're there during the week, but probably—the feedback we've had is—for those early morning papers, basically every day, that's what a politician will be flicking through.

Suppose your target audience is an individual, such as the finance minister, or a narrow group, such as government economists. You may choose to narrowcast your message to them through specialized media. You might approach a nationally or internationally respected economics journal, such as the Economist or the regional editions of the Wall Street Journal.

Tobacco control advocates need to learn as much as possible about precisely which media are the most likely to influence the key decision makers who need to hear their message. They must then develop strategic approaches to those media outlets.

"Talk radio provides some useful opportunities for advocacy but like other outlets needs to be thought of in a proactive way so that it fits in with an overall media strategy. As with other media outlets it is important to know the different talk radio formats and who the audience is for particular broadcasts." This is the advice of Makani Themba-Nixon, Lawrence Wallack, and Lori Dorfman in Media Advocacy and Public Health: Power for Prevention.

Another medium that is often useful to advocates is a report from an official body. Tobacco Control Strategy Planning Guide, "Engaging Doctors in the Full Range of Tobacco control Activities" provides this example:

The Tobacco Advisory Group of the Royal College of Physicians of London published a report in February 2000, entitled Nicotine Addiction in Britain. It was targeted and distributed directly to British Doctors. By emphasizing the 'central role of nicotine addiction in smoking: its physical, pharmacological and psychological effects,' this report encouraged physicians to make smoking a 'major health priority in Britain.' It also made specific recommendations 'for the ways in which smoking could be managed by doctors and health professionals in the future.'

Yussuf Saloojee, working in South Africa, has been among the most strategic tobacco control media advocates. He cautions:

While it makes sense to define our target audience, tailor out messages to that audience and use the vehicle most likely to reach that audience, for me one of the joys of media advocacy is that while delivering a specific message to a specific target, you may at no extra cost, be able to reach a much wider audience.

It may depend upon the media culture of a country, but in South Africa, I have found that getting our stories on the South African Press Association wires (SAPA is a news agency like Reuters), inevitably means that the story gets picked up by all the media. I very rarely give exclusives to any newspaper. The only time I target a specific newspaper is through the letters pages, which allows us to get our views to readers unfiltered by the perceptions of reporters seeking "balance" between public health perspectives and tobacco company public relations propaganda.

Once, our environmental minister, while abroad, had seen a report in the press that cigarettes were cheaper in SA than in any virtually other country surveyed. Upon returning home the Environment Minister took up the issue with the Finance Minister, becoming one more advocate for higher taxes; another benefit of a shot-gun approach that hits many targets, as opposed to the single shot which hits one.

We list other helpful guides for media advocates under Question 7.