If you work in the government or public sector you need to communicate better (than anyone else)

How do you underscore the communication of crucial messages when your audience is 9.9 million preoccupied people deep?

This is the challenge the UAE government & public sector entities face every single time they need to provide information to the general public.

Let’s assume your baseline understanding of government function is to “help citizens lead a better life.” If we all agree on this basic premise, then ground zero of success for any media released by government bodies and public sector spaces is to; deliver a message that reaches the general public on their preferred medium, motivates citizens to participate, and allows them to benefit from the available programmes and services.

 In theory, it’s a task that’s as logical in conclusion as a sentence on a page.

In practice, it’s a game of Telephone that’s 200+ entities long, an eye-watering A to Z that begins with the Abu Dhabi Accountability Authority, and ends at Zayed University. Every department represented by its own communication coordinators, and every coordinator working with multiple agencies to serve several department needs.

And therein lies the problem. 

200 entities with even two agencies per department looks like over 400 opportunities for a brand message to miss the mark because ‘agency X’ has interpreted the brand’s values, mission and purpose in a different way than ‘agency Y’.

While bigger agencies have departments that handle individual channels, it still means that PR, advertising, events, social media and offline communications, are all assigned to different agendas and ultimately, voices.

The result?

A disconnect between the overall messaging strategy, and the individual resources tasked with creating, developing and rolling out the media that carries the message into the public forum.

It’s not uncommon to stumble across ten different agency silos in a single entity at the government level, all of them blind to each other's work. The dilution dilemma is real and it’s a serious problem for agencies trying to maintain tone, voice and goal as they straddle multiple communication points.

The solution? Integrated communication design (ICD)

 ICD is my brainchild of a decade in PR, and my desire to challenge the less inclusive integrated marketing communication (IMC) approach that lifts the customer above all else, but puts internal communication in the corner. 

And nobody puts internal communication in the corner.

The connective journey I propose through an ICD strategy is a design-thinking-led process that considers communication from the inside-out. Engaging teams at a vernacular level, so that every single piece of messaging is connected in a seamless baton relay of athletic precision.

No gaps, no overlaps, no synoptic lapse, just a flawless flow of clear articulation between internal teams and their agency counterparts.

Sounds dreamy, right? But how do we get there?

By creating an interlinking process that guides communication planning into practical application. Communication should be holistic, and that means approaching internal team communication and the resulting external communication paths they pave as one unified system.

Integrated communication design should be logical, related and systemic.

But aren’t you already doing that?

Sure, in parts, you might be. But you’ve got to address the whole, and that’s where the application of integrated communication is currently falling short, stuck somewhere between what-we-actually-do, and what-we-think-we-do.

Hairy legs don’t communicate

The traditional image of a communication strategy is a spider-like diagram. Big idea in the middle, channels sprouting out of the body like so many hairy legs. It’s not a spider at all though. And if you’re still sporting a spidery communication strategy, hold tight, because your ecosystem’s about to get a metaphorical upgrade.

Your message should be Jupiter.

Space age vision for (inter)stellar communication

 A majestic planet of a message in the middle, and all your channels are moons that encircle it in an orbital path, unable to drift off or escape from the big message because every single channel is interconnected. Every single channel is aware of its gravity. And each channel speaks for the whole, enhancing the power of the key message in the center; your Jupiter.

 Arachnids and celestial bodies aside though, there’s still the problem of standardising ICD across hundreds of entities, and here’s where we’ll all benefit from good old fashioned pragmatism.

Just Do It (like the major players do)

Governments and public sector entities are decentralised, and I get that. I’m not expecting a collective overnight shift where everyone wakes up and starts using the same agency for everything.

Instead, I propose that the governments and public sector entities align themselves with the communication models of big companies like Nike and Spotify. The way that international brands (with audiences far greater than any one nation), develop powerful, culture-shifting messaging, is through the creation of an ultimate communication guideline that exists in a centralised space.

Every department is still subject to its own budgets and requirements, but by taking a ‘Jupiter-approach’ to messaging, departments maintain balance and autonomy, with a focus on delivering a continuous reflection of brand unity.

One message to rule them all

And what kind of article mentions communication without mentioning the most topical event of all? The big ‘V’. The Covid-19 vaccine.

More than any other time in recent history, the UAE nation is looking to our media to deliver logical, related and systemic communication that has and will continue to inform the course of our daily lives. And with the UAE government rolling out a national immunity campaign to protect all adults from Covid-19, it’s vital that every single press release, social campaign, tv advert and text message delivers one, simple, life-saving instruction; get your vaccine to protect yourself and others.

From outbreak to vaccine, the UAE have deployed a proactive approach to crisis management that encapsulates integrated communication design at it’s finest. The flow of information from government to resident is exemplary. The result? A world leading vaccine program, topping global rankings for inoculation rates.  

Reassuring, educating and guiding civilians at every single point in their journey to vaccination means knowing who to communicate with, which authority should contact them, and through what channel? And, at which opportune moments they need to show up to get people to take action - be it booking a vaccination slot, or figuring out where the nearest vaccination centre is.

Successful vaccine uptake starts with good communication

 A unified brand identity that exists across all communication platforms is the only way to efficiently deliver the kind of mass media needed to sway a nation into action, and create the rippling wave of compliance required to safeguard almost 10 million people from a world of potentially dangerous misinformation. 

Warning: your audience is Googling what you say and do 

Before the internet, you could have proudly rocked up to a global crisis with your spider diagram of communication checkpoints, and gotten a nod of approval from every stakeholder on the grapevine.

Now though, your audience is sophisticated and enquiring, and in possession of a powerful portal of knowledge that fits in their back pocket or bag. Inconsistency and confusion throw up red-flags, and your audience will investigate conflicting messaging with detective-like dexterity.

And when the intended audience is the general public and a whole nation’s collective health, then the margin of error is unforgivingly small.

 Doing ‘everything’ is not integrated communication

Government and public sector entities are the voice of public safety, and that voice rings strongest when it’s heard directly at the source. This doesn’t mean being everywhere for everyone. It also doesn’t mean hiring every agency to handle every platform-centric encounter that a member of the general public is likely to have.

What it does mean is one clear communication strategy that takes cues from the intended audience, and uses behavioural signals to create a carefully considered path of channel-connecting moments that consider the target, understand how to engage them, and know how to take the conversation forward and deliver action.

Save money by reducing stray communication

2020 was the year of a thousand cost-cutting initiatives, but while everyone is focused on tightening purse strings, we need to realise that the lines of communication that connect our audience with a movement-generating mission and vision are looser than they’ve ever been. The most efficient thing we can do to stave against a communication crisis is to consciously audit the channels we use and invite integrated communications design to take a seat at the boardroom table where the big conversations happen, and where the most important moments of recent history find lips and tongues. It doesn’t take a bank of agency retainers to develop communication that connects.

All it takes is one message, delivered with logical, related and systemic skill.