Chapter 4-3 The #KommMit strategy & messaging
4.3.3 Breakdown of the topline narratives
With the broader strategy in mind, the chosen value appeals and based on the results of the initial, concept level testing phase (focus groups and national survey, detailed in section 4.7), the team settled on three topline narratives for the pilot which had tested best in the nationwide survey. Each of the topline narratives is broken down in this section to provide more in-depth insight into each, with specific examples from the #KommMit pilot.
Narrative 1: Stronger together in overcoming challenges
Essence
Talk about communities acting together – no matter our background – and taking constructive steps to overcome challenges. This will move the conversation away from the focus on the migration/integration process and the divisive ‘Us v Them’ and ‘Parallel Society’ frames and into a space of a default post-migrant society in which we all have a role in making things work better.
The challenge
When the conversation starts from the challenges, obligations and benefits of refugees, migration, and/or integration, you have landed in a debate that is dominated by strong emotions and polarised side-taking. This is an area of the public debate that speaks to an idea of a near perma-crisis and for many people, especially for those in the middle, it triggers anxiety and frustration. This leads to many choosing to shut down and not be part of the conversation at all. However, by starting from an idea of shared community challenges, you are starting from a post-migrant assumption in this framing that allows people to focus on how to make things work, and not get stuck in the same old frames. It also provides a bridge to talk about existing diverse communities and local stories, without the need to fix what seem like more daunting broad societal problems.
What to do
- Focus on the idea of acting together in community to overcome shared challenges
- Focus on experiences and examples that build on values of interdependence and solidarity towards a shared future
- Focus on the small stories, rather than on the big policy issues
- Use examples that are authentic local community stories
- Share examples of small victories rather than headline success stories - these are more resonant.
An example from the #KommMit pilot
‘Murat’11
is an example of a German Muslim carpenter who moved to a small village to replace the previous carpenter when he retired. Slowly but surely, he built relationships through his profession and although it was challenging in the beginning, over time he has become a valued and trusted member of the community, and works to renovate community spaces, including churches. For more details, see chapter 5 Stories – ‘Murat’ – Renovation Storyboard.
Why this works
This kind of simple story of everyday life lands on the concerns of preserving a living community which has depended on trusted tradespeople for centuries. Losing such tradespeople in small communities – which has recently been the case – is a concern for many in the middle and speaks to an idea of an uncertain future for such small communities. You are not airbrushing over the challenges of integration, but rather acknowledging that building trusted relationships for any person new to a job or to a context, no matter their background, is a challenge. You are finally arriving at a warm story that allows people to see a future together for them and their children that preserves a way of life as part of a diverse population.
Evidence
This analysis aligns with the testing we conducted. Following focus groups, we ran a national survey on the key topline messages and the following message got agreement from over 70% of ‘The Established’: “In (these) challenging times, every community, small and large, only wins if we all pull together - no matter what we do, what we look like or what we believe”. It is also worth noting that we tested a message that focused on standing together to create a hopeful future (without the idea of overcoming challenges) which did not test well.
- 11Not the real name of the protagonist as he requested anonymity.
Narrative 2: Inter-generational future
Essence
Talk about how our future is already being created and depends on us all – no matter our background – in making a good future for the next generations. This focus on our shared roles in building a sustainable future for the next generations moves the focus into the post-migrant landscape and away from the divisiveness of the current debate on migration and integration.
The challenge
In a situation where millennials are the first generation worse off than their parents and facing significant challenges (e.g. housing), there is significant worry for the future of the next generations. The hurdles that have arisen as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of education and employment, and climate change challenges serve to add to this worry. The reframe approach is to start talking about solutions to these shared challenges, based on where we are now and the diverse communities we live in, not dwelling on fatalistic, right-wing frames of what’s been lost.
What to do
- Focus on stories of shared futures of learning and apprenticeship
- Focus on stories of shared futures in valued professions and services under threat
- Focus on the small stories, as illustrations of how to move on the big policy issues
- Don’t oversell one example; rather hold it out as a beacon of hope
- Share examples which build on value appeals of participation and contribution in a profession that provide pathways for the next generation
- Use examples that are authentic, local, community stories.
An example from the #KommMit pilot
Ayoub is an example of an Algerian baker who moved Germany motivated to learn how to bake the “best bread in the world”. He lives and works in the small town of Lünen in the Kanne bakery, a local traditional business that has been in the family for five generations and an integral part of the local community for over 150 years. He has recently been made head of pastry, evidence that he clearly loves his profession. He has learned from the best and works closely with the team to train a whole new generation of bakers. With an ever-increasing number of smaller local bakeries closing in North Rhine-Westphalia in the last decade, Ayoub and his colleagues are the bridge to preserving that key part of everyday in the community – the daily bread.
Why this works
This story combines appeals to shared challenges and aspirations towards a hopeful future in a diverse society. It builds solidly on preserving a simple tradition and practice of buying fresh bread that appeals to a very strong set of positive emotions, and also a worry about the potential loss of beloved local routines like buying fresh bread rolls. This is a realistic scenario as many bakeries in small towns are closing. The reframe here also makes an appeal to a post-migrant society that is already working to preserve the simple things and provides for a secure and sustainable future for a next generation in a valued community profession and tradition.
Evidence
In all the testing we conducted, this focus on the participation in professional life towards a shared future got the strongest and most continual positive responses from ‘The Established’. For example, in the national survey conducted, the following statement got positive agreement from two thirds of ‘The Established’: “Everyone in Germany, regardless of hair colour, origin or faith, is doing their part to pass on knowledge, skills and traditions to the next generation. Together we can realise a better future for the young generation”. In addition, the video that focused on this message proved to be one of the clear winners in the social media part of the pilot.
Narrative 3: Shared Challenge of Moving
Essence
Tell stories of how moving to a new place or starting at a new school is difficult for anyone – no matter their background. It always takes time to find friends and build relationships, get work and ultimately build up trust and become a valued member of the community. The focus starts from a shared challenge that most people have experienced and steers away from the fatalism that commonly exists around integration which is expressed in the parallel societies frame.
The challenge
One of the most predominant and most widely shared frames in the integration debate is that of the ‘parallel society’, in which the accusation of a combination of bad government planning and lack of willingness of migrant communities are claimed to be the reason for non-integration of migrant populations. This frame is a big driver of fatalism for the future of multicultural societies. The reframe approach in this message is to land on a shared experience that virtually everyone has had when they moved to a new place, started a new job or school and has had the experience that it takes time to build relationships, become comfortable and find your place in any small community. Through this, you can land on a point of empathy.
What to do
- Focus on telling personal stories of moving to a new community
- Focus on everyday interactions in jobs, schools, and with families and children and how these are part of building trust
- Tell the stories of the challenges in the beginning and balance these with small and big steps forward
- Focus on the process over time in becoming a valued member of a community. There are no magic bullets; it is a process of obstacles and openings. So, keep it authentic.
Example from the #KommMit pilot
‘Murat’ is an example of a German Muslim carpenter who moved to small village to replace the previous carpenter when he retired. Although it was challenging at the start because of his Muslim background, he slowly started to get work from locals and over time built their trust as a carpenter. Once he found friends in the community and shared his interest in the spiritual value of community spaces, he was invited and started to volunteer to work on preserving and upgrading such spaces. Step by step, he became the trusted key holder of such community spaces, such as the local protestant church (See Chapter 5, Restoration Story).
Why this works
This message lands on a strong memory of challenge that we have all faced at different times in our lives and so, is potentially a bridge for many to a more empathetic ‘oh yeah’ moment and realisation. Also, by telling the real story of steps forward and backward over time to becoming a community member, again we land again on a space of shared aspiration and experience. These can be powerful moments to open up a different kind of conversation. And hopefully, it can even lead to the audience sharing their own similar stories.
Evidence
This message emerged from a focus group interaction, where a participant realised when talking about the ‘Murat’ story that it would be challenging for anyone who moved to a small village, and everyone in the focus group agreed. In the national survey we conducted, the following statement got positive agreement from two thirds of ‘The Established’: “All people in Germany, regardless of hair colour, origin or faith, face similar challenges integrating into new communities when they move”.
Reflect on the three empirically tested topline narratives from the #KommMit pilot and consider your own advocacy work:
- How do you usually begin generating narratives and messages for your advocacy projects? Are there any lessons to take away from the #KommMit pilot development process?
- Are there any elements from the three narratives above that you could use in your work?
- Why might they work well with your target segment(s)/audience? Which appeal(s) might resonate?
- In the lists of ‘what to do’ for each narrative, are there some points that make sense and you could apply to your advocacy work?
4.3.4 Putting together the pitch & draft stories
Once the decision on the target segment was made and the initial set of unifying values determined, the next step was to build out these ideas into a draft pitch and initial ideas for protagonists’ stories that the working group thought would work well. In the process of trying to find overlapping experiences, aspirations and challenges, the working group came to the idea of tradespeople as good and trusted protagonists and messengers for a cohesion message. Based on this idea, they developed draft storyboards for a number of potential protagonists (see Chapter 5 on stories).
In putting together a targeted value appeal, pitch and message to mobilise ‘The Established’ to back the campaign, the work of Marshall Ganz12
on ‘Public Narrative’ was a useful guide, as detailed in Figure 16 below:
Figure 16: Elements and targets for a mobilising campaign pitch
So, it was important for the working group to develop a pitch that:
- is an issue or topic that the activists can authentically lead on (story of self)
- sets out a plan to address an issue that is relevant and mobilising for the activists and ‘The Established’ (story of now)
- builds on the shared experiences, aspirations and challenges of activists and ‘The Established’ (story of us)
As Claim Allianz members, there was little question that the members of the coalition have the legitimacy to lead on the conversation on social cohesion and tackling discrimination against Muslims and more broadly on Islamophobia (Story of Self). Most importantly, it is a direct concern for many of the community that the coalitions’ organisations serve from the Muslim population. In addition, the urgency to tackle issues in order to improve social cohesion in Germany is something that has been on the agenda for a long time and is a recognised concern of ‘The Established’ (Story of Now). The values identified above served as the basis and bridge into the Story of Us, with a strong focus on the values of interdependence, participation and a shared future, evident in the #KommMit pitch.
After many drafts and a testing process, the final pitch was developed for the #KommMit website as follows:
Using Ganz’ guidance, reflect on your pitch writing and answer these questions to make notes for your pitch:
- How do you usually develop pitches for your campaigns? Could the framework from Ganz be helpful for this work?
- What motivated you (or your organisation) to leadership of your community and/or on the target issue? Think about the key moments. (Story of self)
- Why is the target issue a shared community concern for you and your target audience? (Story of Us)
- Why is it urgent to act now on this target issue? What is at stake if we don’t act? (Story of Now)
4.3.5 Testing to finalise the concept and messaging strategy
At this point, once the draft pitch and storyboards were ready, the next step was to test the campaign concept to make sure we were on the right path. As outlined in the introduction, empirically testing concepts and content for narrative change work is at the heart of ICPA’s work, as there is too much at stake to leave this to chance or rely on your instinct of what you think might work with target middle audiences. We used two sequential methods for this concept testing phase: focus groups and a national survey.
Focus groups
The focus group approach entailed two groups recruited from ‘The Established’ segment seeing and providing extensive feedback on the draft pitch and materials. Having observed the discussions, the working group had the chance to see what was working or not13 . Out of the focus groups, there were many takeaways (broken down in detail in section 4.2), but the following is a summary of the key findings:
- The cohesion focused value appeals and the stories shared for the most part worked well and triggered constructive cohesion framed responses.
- The focus on tradespeople also worked well.
- A number of other openings were identified, e.g. the shared challenge of moving (see topline narratives above).
- But, significant underlying assumptions and associations that really need to be changed also came out in the discussion, e.g. the automatic association of Muslim as non-German/foreigner.
Based on the takeaways from the focus groups, the bigger decision was to squarely frame the pilot around sharing the stories of everyday lives of Muslims in Germany as a way to combat the problematic assumptions that arose. This guided the whole content development process around authentic protagonist stories.
National survey on the topline narratives
To triangulate the findings of the focus groups and see if the elements that worked in focus groups would also work with a broader population sample of ‘The Established’, we ran a national poll on the topline narratives that had clearly resonated in focus groups14
. The overall results of the survey synopsized below in Figure 6 confirmed that there was general agreement among ‘The Established’ on the focus on tradespeople and intergenerational future, the ‘shared challenge of moving’ and also the ‘stronger together in overcoming challenges’ framing. What was also clear was that a focus on ‘standing together for hope’ was not as strongly supported. These takeaways then guided the team in putting together the stories and firmed up the final focus of the pitch.
Figure 17: Key results from topline narratives national survey
Read through the Methods of Message Testing resource for narrative change, and use the following questions to reflect on your own work:
- Have you experience using some of the seven testing methods outlined in the resource?
- What message testing methods could you imagine using to test campaign concepts?
- What testing methods can you afford and have the capacity to use?
4.4 Your narrative strategy development work
By working your way through the set of checklists using the #KommMit case example and practical resources provided, you will have a good foundation and informed initial ideas for your middle-oriented narrative change strategy and message development that can serve as a useful guide for work and decision in your team or network.
As a recap, the following are the set of Getting Started Checklists in this chapter:
- Understanding the middle segments & choosing your target (Section 4.3.1)
- Finding a resonant value/message space (Section 4.3.2)
- Building out your topline narratives (Section 4.3.3)
- Putting together your pitch (Section 4.3.4)
- Testing your campaign strategy/concept (Section 4.3.5)
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- 12Marshall Ganz (2011) Public Narrative, Collective Action and Power.
- 13We commissioned IPSOS Germany to recruit and facilitate the focus groups, which were held online in December 2021.
- 14The national survey of 1000 people was run on the IPSOS Fact Facts panel in July 2022.