4.4 Prepare to defend your position

The 4th step of the narrative change planning process – Run the campaign - consists of four elements and on this page, we focus on the final one: Prepare to defend your position. 

1. Sequence the campaign phases
2. Get your ducks in a row & start
3. Monitor as you go
4. Prepare to defend your position

The migration debate is a very divisive arena at the moment, with many strong political and policy actors building their careers and staking their reputations on certain outcomes. As the mainstreaming of anti-migrant positions is unfortunately on the rise, you can be more or less sure that campaigns that are emotionally smart and are obviously trying to reach the middle will get challenged. Such challenges can take on many forms, and we’ve put them on a non-exhaustive continuum from more constructive input to hostile personal attacks as outlined in the diagram below:

So, considering the issue of potential challenges and preparing to defend your position is an important aspect of in the preparation stage as well as ongoing during implementation. We advise considering the four issues addressed below.

 
Be ready to defend your position in public.

Taking the continuum of challenges outlined above, the constructive challenges are to an extent what you want, i.e. if no one has questions after the launch, then you may be in trouble, as the campaign may have little traction. So, you should welcome these clarifications and be active in taking them on.
 
The second level of cherry picking is an attempt to steer your campaign in a direction you are not intending or planning – and is often an attempt to undermine or marginalise the campaign. Depending on who is trying to shift the focus and if there is a danger that this negative shift will have broader traction, you will probably need to respond to this. The British future case below had an example of this situation where it was key for the campaigners to respond.
 

 
The most challenging level of challenge or hostile attack is trolling. The by now old adage is: don’t feed the troll! Or put another way, in weighing up whether to respond, you should consider if the source of the accusation is not credible anyway and/or if your response would just be adding fuel to the fire, and actually helping the troll’s case. Consulting your team and having experience to draw on in determining the strategy for response is very helpful, rather than shooting from the hip with a knee jerk response that could be counterproductive, and ultimately damage the campaign. 

 
Formulate response strategies for predictable challenges – work on a plan B!

One of our colleagues who has experience in running reframing campaigns always starts this process by literally flipping the narrative they are presenting and then considering scenarios how opponents are most likely to challenge or create doubt around these narrative positions. For example, in the Hope not hate campaign, their main message was that giving planning permission for a Muslim prayer centre is an issue of the right to worship. To start, you would invert the message, i.e. giving planning permission for a Muslim prayer centre is NOT a right to worship issue. So, start brainstorming from that point, e.g. Who would argue that? And how are they likely to develop that argument and challenge yours? How will they try to reframe the discussion? And how will you respond?
 
Another good starting point for predictable challenges is the responses you got through the message testing process. You may have already made adaptations to your approach to respond to this feedback, but you can certainly expect feedback/challenges in similar frames, so this is another good source in your preparation process.
 
While you can never hope to cover all possible options for such responses, it is useful to run through as many scenarios as possible and consider how you would shift the focus or respond to relatively predictable challenges. The British Future case box above also shows an illustration of something that may have been predicted. These response strategies are your plan B that you are ready to run with when and if the need arises. In this way, you won’t be caught on the back foot or automatically go into defensive or panic mode – rather you will be ready with a considered and rehearsed response.

 
Expect the unexpected – and have advisors to help keep a cool head!

As is the case with all advocacy, the planning is more alchemy than science! You don’t know how things will play out or how people will respond to your campaign input. Hence, planning for the unpredictable may sound like an oxymoron, but putting in place a process for these unexpected challenges (especially strong attacks) is a good starting point. For example, it can really help to draw on a group of advisors who are not as emotionally invested in the campaign as the team members and can help you focus on the potential strategic risks of various responses. 
 
 

Prepare for challenges from unexpected sources – even from within your community. 

Engaging with and appealing to the middle is not a communications tactic that everyone supports and some on the more liberal-left side are very wary of moving the message in a more conservative direction. We discussed this in detail in section 1 especially regarding the issue of finding a narrative space that you can live with. Unfortunately, many seasoned campaigners told us stories of strong challenges that came from those who they had hoped would be supporters of the campaigns, including the examples in the case box below.
 

• In one well known, left-leaning publication, a commentator levelled the following accusation at the campaign: “The poppy hijab is just Islamophobia with a floral motif”. 
• The models who were in the main campaign photo wearing the hijab were also trolled on twitter from those on the left, to the point that they refused to be part of any further events in the campaign. 

In our experience, many organisations we work with are indeed worried about losing support from their base, and so we would advise a ‘softening up’ process with those in your base so that they know such a campaign is coming and also, they know why you are choosing to message in this way. In the best-case scenario, it may be useful if your campaign to the middle can be co-ordinated with another effort reaching out to the base and that these two campaigns can be seen as a smart, broader strategy to achieve overlapping aims in one strategic direction. This approach illustrates one of our keys to reframing the migration debate where campaigners need to build a movement based on the different approaches for different segments and respect those pursuing each of the three approaches.  
 
 

• What types of challenges to your narratives do you expect (from constructive to trolling)? And from what sources? Think about the expected sources of challenges.
• What are your plans to respond to these challenges if they come?
• What will be your process to formulate a response to unexpected challenges and who will you involve in the process? 

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