Communications Consultant Dusty Trice Explains The Message Box
Communications Consultant Dusty Trice Explains The Message Box
Perhaps one of the most important aspects of a political campaign is the message.A good message gets to the point using as few words as possible, tells people what your campaign is about and addresses their core values & concerns. A winning message sticks to the facts, is credible and presents a clear contrast between what you and your opponent are saying. But how does a campaign come up with the message?
One of the tools campaigns use to test the strength of a message and keep the campaign focused is something called amessage box. Here's the basic structure of what a message box looks like:
In the upper left you'll seeWhat you're saying about yourself'. This box would be the positive things you're saying about your own candidate or campaign, for example "community leadership experience" or "lifelong small business owner" or "strong family values" or "Standing up for working families" etc. Get creative, but be genuine. This box is everything you want the voters to know about you for the rest of the campaign.
In the lower left you'll seeWhat you're saying about them'. This box is all of the negative things you're wanting to say about the opposition, for example "made a bunch of promises he didn't keep once he got to Washington" or "career politician" or "completely out of touch with the community" or "supports tax breaks for billionaires" etc.
So that'syour message. Now all you have to do is take these simple themes from the What you're saying about yourself'and the What you're saying about them' boxes and flesh them out a bit. As far as your core message is concerned you'll have pretty much everything you need until election day.But you've still got some work to do
What is your opposition saying about themselves and what are they saying about you?
In the upper right you'll seeWhat they're saying about themselves'. Obviously, this is the box where you try to guess what they'll be saying about their own campaign. It will be very similar to the What you're saying about yourself' box in terms of tone, but is specifically comprised of their talking points. Needless to say, you're either going to have to fill this box in with what you know your opponent has already said publicly about themselves or take an educated guess on where they may go with their message.
In the lower left box you'll seeWhat they're saying about you'. This is where you try to think of the negative things your opponent is likely to say about your campaign. This isn't the easiest task because campaigns and candidates rarely need to find flaws in their own political positions or intuition. Consider getting some outside help from a staffer or close adviser on identifying your weaknesses. Trying to spot a weakness may be as simple as applying your opponents talking points to yourself and then taking an educated guess. Depending on your own unique personal background or voting history this can be a hard nut to crack.
Here's another example of a message box filled out using the recent health care debate. You may be surprised to know that the themes from today's debate have changed very little from those used during the Clinton Era health care debate of the mid 90s.
You'll want to develop your message box early in the campaign and keep it updated as the situation warrants. This allows you plenty of time to refine your message and collect research to defend your positions, as well as plan your own attacks. Not only will your message box help you go on the defense when your opponent throws mud, it will help you plan for these attacks and have a response ready. The message box is simply a tool to help your campaign define and control the conversation.
One last thing Now that you have your message, make sure torepeat it over and over again. You're going to get sick of repeating the same things all the time, but while you may have heard it a thousand times there's a very good chance that the voters have not. Repeating your message guarantees that everyone you meet along the campaign trail will know where you stand.
This post really only scratches the surface of message development and is meant to be a simple introduction to the concept of the message box. If you want to read more about messaging or campaign themes, a simple Google search will get you there.
Best of luck developing your winning campaign message!
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