Campaigning - a passion for effectiveness

Campaigning - a passion for effectiveness

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  • Peter Metzinger
    Peter Metzinger    Premium Member   Group moderator
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    The difference between campaigning and conventional marketing, PR etc.
    Andreas asked me to explain the difference between campaigning and conventional marketing, PR etc.

    I try my best. First of all, campaigning is not an alternative to marketing, PR, advertising and other communication disciplines. It is even not a communication discipline.

    According to pro:campaigning, "campaigning" is a multidisciplinary strategic approach: "Campaigning is a multidisciplinary and efficient strategic vessel for packaging the different areas of communications, marketing and management in companies and in nonprofit-organizations. It is based on the integration of communications and management; communications and process interventions; and the assumption, that while everything is communication, communication is not everything."

    Campaigning is result oriented. If you hire a PR agency, they will always apply PR-tools, if you hire an advertising agency, they will always apply advertising-tools. If you hire a change management specialist, he will apply the specific change management tools which he offers. No matter, what the problem is. If you hire a campaigner you will get solutions and he will apply those tools that are most effective and efficient. Campaigning is not tool-oriented but result-oriented. As a campaigner you need to know a boad spectrum of all kinds of tools - more than just communication tools. E.g. tools for organisational development.

    Once I was asked by a headhunter to support him because his business was not growing anymore. He wanted a good PR or advertising campaign. When we talked, I noticed that he kept mentioning an accident he had. Business was not growing anymore since then. I proposed to do a trauma treatment (which I don't do, of course). This made even sense, because his business was very people oriented. He did and after that his business turned better again. Sometimes, in a people related business, your personal state of mind can be far more important than presence in the media or public sphere.

    Campaigning is to first listen and then talk. A very carefull and comprehensive analysis of your target groups or individuals comes first and is usually mor comprehensive than in conventional marketing and PR.

    But in the end, as a campaigner I do apply PR, marketing, advertising, change management, knowledge management etc. Campaigning is the product of communication and management (or direct change / interventions).

    As a consequence, campaigning brings all these disciplines together, in an integrated and strategic way. As a campaigner I compose the music and direct the orchestra, while advertising is the trombone, PR is the clarinet, change management is the violine etc.

    It is way of thinking. And for some it is a way of life.

    Have a look at http://www.alleAnderen.ch - there is a video that translates the message "if you only know a hammer, then any problem will soon look like a nail".

    All clear?
    This post was modified on 06 Nov 2007 at 04:57 pm.
    • 06 Nov 2007, 4:54 pm
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  • Peter Metzinger
    Peter Metzinger    Premium Member   Group moderator
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    Re^2: The difference between campaigning and conventional marketing, PR etc.
    Andreas,

    let's make a fiction case: you have a client who wants to hire you for an advertising campaign because his sales do not go up as much as the competitor's. Then you find out during the situational analysis that the reason is cutting-edge IT equipment of the competitors sales' staff, while your client's staff is running on windows based stone age technology. If your client would replace his sales' staff equipment by cutting-edge technology, sales would go up significantly without any advertising effort, only because of increased sales productivity. That approach would clearly be campaigning. But would you seriously call the replacement of technology "communication"? Would that make sense? Of course, like avery activity, such replacement has a communicational aspect, but everything has. Still, you would call this technological progress or equipment renewal or innovation management but nobody would call it communication. Right? That's the difference. Campaigning is the product of (strategic) communication and real / direct change (interventions, which are not primarily communication).

    I can ask you to exchange your light bulbs by energy efficient bulbs. That would be communication. I can also come over and exchange them myself without even asking you. That would be an intervention but no communication. (Of course, it has a communicational aspect in it; like everything has.)

    All clear?
    • 08 Nov 2007, 3:59 pm
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  • Peter Metzinger
    Peter Metzinger    Premium Member   Group moderator
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    Re^4: The difference between campaigning and conventional marketing, PR etc.
    Andreas,

    I totally disagree. Of yourse you can call a chair a "piece of cake" instead of "piece of furniture" and then everybody can agree to understand the right thing. But does it make sense? Does is exclude misunderstandings with certainty? As a communication specialist you know how important precision in the definition of words is. Communication is not possible without precise definition.

    Now let's first have a look at the origin of the word campaigning. It comes from the latin word "campus" which means "field". Campaigning actually means, to go out into the field and take action in order to achieve what you want to achieve. For centuries, therfore, campaigning was identical with military action. And despite of all the propaganda and information warfare accompanying a military campaigns, let face it: campaigning is not communication. It's taking all appropriate measures to achieve real change - from the military perspective.

    How has the term further developed? I learned the term and methodology "campaigning" with Greenpeace. Within that organisation every campaigner - at least in the nineties - agreed that campaigning is much more than communication. It's also communication but not only. If you have limited resources - like Greenpeace, compared to their opponents - you cannot afford to limit yourself to a certain set of tools if you need to achieve real changes. You need to be able to consider and apply ANY tool that leads to concrete results at minimum costs, and of course within ethical boundaries.

    In the example I gave, every campaigner would agree, that exchanging your sales' staff's equipment would be campaigning, even though it would not primarily be an act of communication. of course you can call it consulting - but this is exactly the point. Campaigning is the product of communication tools and consulting - or management - tools.

    I even have a formular for this: campaigning = (strategic) communication x intervention.

    In this understanding, by the way, communication is the mutual exchange of information or

    communication = information x interaction.

    I have 25 years of campaigning experience now. Please believe me, that campaigning is more than communication. It is applying all possible tools, not matter from which field they come.

    Of course I can see a lot of agencies, who try t define campaigning as pure communication, because that offers them the ooportunity to sell the same stuff that they always did under this new and sexy sounding name. i would call that "cheating on their clients". For this reason a handful campaigners founded pro:campaigning as a professional organisation with the mission to promote quality in campaigning understanding, practice and education.
    • 09 Nov 2007, 2:45 pm
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  • Peter Metzinger
    Peter Metzinger    Premium Member   Group moderator
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    Re^6: The difference between campaigning and conventional marketing, PR etc.
    Hi Andreas

    Now it's getting really complex :-)

    Let me try to respond to a few point - in the little time I have.

    1. "I am referring to my posting above that in my view campaigning is always restricted to a certain goal whereas corporate communication has a long term view on the organisation's communication." - In the real life of real campaigners campaigning is never restricted to a certain goal but is always directed towards the long term strategic goals of the organisation. I don't know where you experienced the opposite but certainly not in cooperation with real campaigners. That would be like saying "water is dry". Absolutely unthinkable. have a look at the Four Layers of Planning under
    http://procampaigning.kaywa.ch/static/cas-campaigning - there you will see one of the central tools that we apply in long term strategic planning. Campaigning can be long term as well as medium term, of course. But in the last case I would call the strategy a campaigning project strategy as part of a long term campaigning strategy.

    As I said, if you look at reality, the real work of real campaigners, campaigning is always embedded in and directed towards long term strategic goals. Or in your words: campaigning always has a long termn view. Anything else would be neither effective nor resource efficient - which are central campaigning values.

    2. "To my view this would nowadays be called management (...)" - Yes. You can say, campaigning is a certain approach to the management of change. So it is management. Of course, it is. Therefore it also has a long term view.

    3. "I would only call it consulting from the viewpoint of the agency, from the organisation's point of view again it would be management". I agree. Consulting is one part of campaigning agency's work. This is an important difference to conventional PR or advertising agencys. Campaigning agencies need to also do strategic and/or organisational consulting. Otherwise they cannot do their job. When change within the client's organisation is more effective than communication campaigns, then we must be able to identify this situation and propose the adequate measures. Which is indeed consulting. However, consulting is only part of our business. The other part is what's called the "creative work".

    4. "Management would - to my view - also include the management of communication - or so to say: strategic communication. " - Yes, see points 2 and 3.

    5. "If you want to include the intervention and measures outside the communication, an organisation has to have a corporate strategy upon which the management can base its measures, be they long-term or short-term." - Absolutely right and another reason why real campaigning agencies cannot limit themselves to the "creative work" but MUST also offer strategic or organisational consulting. See also the Four Layers of Planning in the link above.

    I think we are gradually coming to some common understanding. At least your made me smile a lot today. I love these kinds of opinion exchange. It's a pity we can't do it over a beer.

    have a nice weekend!
    • 09 Nov 2007, 5:23 pm
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  • Peter Metzinger
    Peter Metzinger    Premium Member   Group moderator
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    Re^8: The difference between campaigning and conventional marketing, PR etc.
    Andreas,

    I think the key to understanding is your question, what a "real campaigner" is. I would say, someone who has been working in the field of campaigning long enough to understand the business. I have been working as a campaigner for 25 years now. It was not me who called it "campaigning". I learned the expression with Greenpeace. If there ever was a real campaigning organisation, I would say it was Greenpeace. Greenpeace never understood themselves as a communication organisation. When we took action, we took action - no matter if it was communicated through the media or not. Of course we tried to get media coverage as much as possible, but that was not the goal. The goal was to change things on the spot - intervention as opposed to communication; or better interventio as complementary to communication.

    A real campaigner is someone who has been around campaigning before the term was picked up by communicators, claiming they do the same. Because, when you say, it is the same, I have to say it is not. As you said: you would not call it communication when a goal is achieved by the exchange of old technology. But I would call it campaigning. There is a real difference. I make a last try to explain it.

    Imagine, only very few people in Europe have ever heard about Harley-Davidsons (HDs) and their is only a dozen HD riders. Now a guy from Germany travels to the USA, sees those bikes for the first time and realizes how cool they are in the perception of a lot of people, especially girls. So he realizes that the image of HD would give himself a cool image. When coming back, he paints the HD logo onto his bicycle. Then he starts spreading information about HDs, branding the term as cool with HD standing for independence, freedom and rebellion. But he always only calls them bicycles - because they have two wheels, without mentioning the motor. Over the time people in Germany start to think that HD bicycles are cool and some people start painting the HD logo onto their bicycles. Now the HD people hear about this and get involved into a public discussion, claiming that bicycles are not HDs, because they are motorbikes. What they get to hear is "Well, bicycles and your motorbikes are the same. They have two wheels and the HD logo on them. And in the end it does not matter if you call them bicycles or motorbikes, as long as you can ride them." - This is, how I sometimes feel when I have these discussions. It's not true. Communication is a part of campaigning but by far not all. It's not the same. It makes me feel like a carpenter who is being told that carpenters don't use screws, only because they also use hammers and nails. I've done campaigning for 25 years now. Please, believe it's not identical and it is more than communication. Otherwise - why would you need a new expression, if it was the same?
    • 10 Nov 2007, 2:29 pm
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