Intro
Public Relations campaigns are a force for good and regularly help companies, organizations, and governments alike to mobilize collective action. Collective action is a crucial component in creating social and political change, but is a task that many find incredibly daunting to accomplish. PR firms can take these intimidating challenges and create successful and engaging campaigns that mobilize citizens and produce long-lasting change.
So, how do they do it?
They Generate Awareness
More often than we might think, people don’t take action, because they don’t know action needs to be taken. Public Relations campaigns can effectively distribute information through social media, traditional news outlets, online platforms, and events to educate the public on social issues. Once someone recognizes a problem, a plan is created to solve it. PR campaigns can be part of the solution bytaking the important first step to action change by bringing attention to important issues.
For example in 2022, Strategic Objectives partnered with The Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking (The Centre) to raise awareness about the realities of sex trafficking in Canada. A survey was conducted that found nearly 57% of Canadians didn’t believe or weren’t aware that sex trafficking was happening in their communities. This tactic demonstrated how largely unaware most Canadians are about the issue of sex trafficking in their own country and was the first step to raising awareness on a country-wide level. Through infographics distributed, traditional media relations, spokesperson interviews, and social media coverage a total of 127.4M+ impressions were achieved. This left SO and The Centre feeling confident that more people in our own communities had an increased understanding on the presence of sex trafficking in Canada and proves how useful PR campaigns can be at circulating information.
They Build a Plan of Action
Once people have a stronger understanding of an issue that resonates with them, they want to know how they can contribute. Fortunately, PR campaigns inform people about the issue and then provide a plan of action, typically involving tangible things that they can do to make an impact.
While understanding an issue is imperative, knowing how to take action is what helps foster meaningful change. When people are provided with tangible steps , they are more likely to feel connected to the issue and that they are in fact, making a difference.
One of Strategic Objectives’ key goals for the “You Are Loved” sex trafficking campaign , was to equip Canadians with information about the warning signs of sex trafficking and arm them with knowledge and accessibility of the Human Trafficking Hotline. If a person suspects any signs of sex trafficking, they can call the Hotline to access resources and information to help. This campaign generated over 2,000 references to the hotline XX [TS1] demonstrating how wide-spread and influential campaigns can be.
They Foster Compassion, Empathy, and Community
A rewarding outcome of PR campaigns like You Are Loved, is their ability to create more compassion and empathy. This translates into bringing communities closer and builds networks of likeminded individuals working towards a common goal. Not only do these factors [TS1] make people more likely to get involved, it also allows victims to feel a sense of love, respect, and support.
These by-products of conscious, well-thought out, and compassionate campaigns can prompt people experiencing wrongful treatment to speak up because they might be more l comfortable now. Victims and survivors sharing their stories can truly create long-term change and influence people to take action, this is known as the “identifiable victim effect”.
“The identifiable victim effect describes the likelihood that we feel greater empathy, and an urge to help, in situations where tragedies are about a specific, identifiable individual, compared to situations where the victims are a larger, vaguer group of people”.
When victims share their experiences, people often have an emotionally driven response and feel more inclined to help. Not only do PR campaigns help build communities, they also address issues on a personal, humanizing level to successfully motivate collective action.
They Encourage Accountability
Public Relations campaigns can be used as an important tool in mobilizing collective action through their ability to raise awareness, call to action, create a community, and hold those in charge accountable. Time and time again we see these campaigns helping to produce long lasting social and political change.
Whether it’s politicians , large corporations, or individual people at the helm, PR campaigns can call on these parties and pressure them into taking part in collective action. . When people band together to call on their elected officials for help they are more likely to be acknowledged and assisted. Further, people might feel more encouraged to get involved if they know they can see real-life evidence proving that they are making a difference. [TS1] Holding those in powerful leadership positions accountable, is just one way people can see change being enacted in their communities!
Strategic Objectives is proud to work with impactful organizations like The Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking, Children Believe, and Science Up First to spread awareness and mobilize collective action for the betterment of our city, country, and world as a whole.
