"We wanted to unite people around a simple message: by taking part in research, you can shape the future."

Description

What differentiates a 'campaign' from business-as-usual comms? What are the most important ingredients for running a successful communications campaign? How do you build partnerships based on trust and reciprocity?

In this episode Peter is joined by Lorraine Bridges, Head of Campaigns and Deputy Director of Communications at the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).

She talks about the NIHR's 2023 'Shape the Future' campaign that won her and her team a CIPR Excellence Award and reflects on what goes into running an effective campaign, storytelling, relationship building and the power of setting objectives.

Conversation

The below excerpt has been heavily condensed and edited from the original for the sake of brevity.

Peter: What complexities do you have to deal with?

LB: The NIHR is, by its nature, very complex because research takes place in primary care, across hospitals, in local councils, and it's also delivered by lots of different healthcare professionals: research nurses, midwives, physios, clinical academics, they’re all delivering research or working on research in some way. And so because of that it’s sometimes hard to know where to start, to try and explain what research is.

There’s also an internal complexity because we are the National Institute for Health and Care Research so we also need to tell stories about the incredible difference we're making in public social care.

There will always be a challenge around that, which is understandable and welcome.

When we are starting out with a campaign, we always make sure that we give people early knowledge of what we're thinking of doing. They then have an opportunity to give their views and make their contribution.

It is about reassuring people that even though we may be focusing our campaign on a particular subject right now, this doesn't mean we won't be looking at other subjects for other campaigns in the future.

So, building relationships with people is really important, building trust and having open communication. For campaigns to be successful, we need to take people along with us. And that means people within the organisation as well as people outside it.

What lessons did you learn around developing relationships built on trust?

When all the partners across the NHS or health and care space would meet, we were always there talking about what we were doing. They also offered us opportunities to talk about research on their own channel. So for example, Amanda Pritchard, the chief executive, did a video and talked about research and that got a huge response.

We produce a lot of content for our own channels but if we can take advantage of shared channels and shared channels from partners we can reach new audiences. We can reach people that we can't necessarily reach ourselves. So that worked really well. It was a quid pro quo relationship really.

When we won the award, we went back to them straight away and said, ‘look, this award is very much in part, thanks to all the support we got from you’. So it's been something which was fairly new for this campaign, but we certainly seek to keep building those relationships.

The important thing is, we’re not just contacting them when we need something. This is a genuine exchange of knowledge, insight and content.

What’s one piece of advice you’ve been given in your career that you keep coming back to?

This one’s a bit of a motto in my life and it’s communications-related to a degree: ‘If you don't ask, you don't get’, and that’s been a guiding principle for me.

When you're doing a campaign - going back to the partnership work - just be willing to ask if they would be willing to do something for you. What's the worst that can happen?

They could say no but just be bold. You don't ask, you don't get.

Can you recommend a book that’s inspired you?

I want to mention a book called Multipliers by Liz Wiseman. It's all about how managers can encourage smart people to be even smarter. It’s about bringing out the best in people, just standing back and acknowledging that you’re probably not the smartest person in the room just because you're the most senior.

I've really seen that in our campaigns team, that by standing back and giving people space and opportunity to share their voice, you bring out their talents and skills that you might not have been aware they had from previous jobs or roles or whatever.

If you stand back and allow people that space, you will see people fly. They will blossom, spread their wings and achieve great things.Thanks for reading Research Comms by Orinoco Communications! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.