Advocacy is an interesting concept. When you first talk to business organizations about it you undoubtedly hear: “of course we do it, there is nothing to it.” When you unpack the definition of advocacy and explain to people that it is much more than picking up the phone and calling your contact in a government office to resolve an issue, you get a different reaction: “its too complex, how can we do it?”
We usually describe advocacy in two ways – what it is and what it is not. Advocacy is about changing public policies or public opinion. It is not about obtaining preferential treatment for one company or solving problems concerning day-to-day business activities of an individual member of a business association.
One of the best advocacy strategies is to brand your advocacy campaign in a way that people associate with it, remember it, and understand it. I was reminded of this as I was giving an example of the successful advocacy campaign in Montenegro to lower a series of corporate and employer taxes. Montenegro Business Alliance put up billboards all over the city with a simple message (10% tax), including right in front of the Parliament building, so that when legislators came into work and left at the end of the day, they saw the same message over and over again:
Makes it kind of difficult to resist the reform when you have this billboard in your face all the time. Do you know of any other examples of effective advocacy campaign branding?
Published Date: May 20, 2010