Lorne Jules Issues Strong Advice to UWP on Strengthening Communication Strategy Ahead of Elections
As the United Workers Party (UWP) officially kicks off its campaign for the next general elections, a recent Facebook post from political observer Lorne Jules has drawn attention to critical aspects of the party’s communication strategy. In his detailed post, Jules emphasized the need for the UWP to be more strategic and efficient with its messaging, particularly through the role of a Communication Director. This, according to Lorne Jules, is a far more significant role than that of a traditional Public Relations officer, and UWP leader Allen Chastanet was urged to take note of the recommendations.
Jules shared insights from a political campaign manual, outlining the responsibilities of a Communications Director in a political setting. His focus was on how the role should align the party’s vision, mission, and brand ethos with its electoral platform and messaging. He also noted that, while a robust communication strategy is essential, structural elements like strategic voting can heavily influence an election outcome.
Lorne Jules’ post underscores that a Communication Director must ensure the campaign’s content is engaging and resonates with the party’s target audience. He added that the communication strategy, developed months before the campaign’s launch, must serve as the backbone for key campaign messages and slogans. The Director must also oversee the campaign’s media strategy, utilizing both traditional and digital platforms to maximize voter outreach.
Lorne Jules further outlined that, as the campaign progresses, the Director of Communications must remain flexible to adjust to the rapidly evolving news cycle. Political opponents will often use opposition research to generate negative press, and how the party responds to such attacks can either mitigate or exacerbate the damage.
Lorne Jules clarified that this advice was unsolicited, as he has no official role in the UWP campaign, but provided it as a suggestion for the party to consider as they move forward in their quest to win the next general election.
Below is the complete Facebook post from Lorne Jules:
Lorne Jules’ Facebook Post:
“Now that the UWP has officially launched its campaign to compete for the next general elections it needs to be very serious about getting its message across and that is starting with a COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR which is totally different from a Public Relations officer and I want people like Allen Chastanet to pay close attention to what I’m about to post.
This is material from the campaign manual.
A political party’s director of communications promotes and protects the party brand, ensuring the vision, mission, and policies of a party align with its corporate identity and brand ethos, which itself ‘evokes emotional connections to specific images and stimulates loyalty among target audiences.’ Yet even the most carefully crafted communication strategy cannot always overcome structural components that influence an election outcome, such as strategic voting.
The communications director must frame the content of the electoral platform, ensuring campaign commitments are attractive and understandable, while reflecting the party’s brand image and expressing the world views commonly associated with the party. More specifically, the director must embed and anchor election commitments – and the party vision – in an overarching communication strategy for a national political campaign. This strategy will serve as the backbone for a slogan and key messages, based on the general theme of the campaign.
Various iterations of the key messages are then created to cater to different segments of the electorate. With this communication strategy, the director targets voters as well as secondary audiences, such as party members, who must be mobilized and invested in the campaign: critical efforts will thus pinpoint their queries and grievances. This remains true even if technological practices have become paramount for fundraising.
Drafting the communication strategy
The communications director starts drafting the communication strategy a few months before the election. The strategy takes into account lessons learned during the previous campaign, information gathered during the political term, and themes likely to take center stage during the campaign. The campaign slogan is generally chosen one or two months before the launch, followed by key messages developed internally with key stakeholders – the leader, deputy leaders, cabinet members, senior staff, and the campaign working group (which includes the campaign manager and deputies, director of communications, executive director and the policy director).
A fundamental goal of the communication strategy is media reach, which begins with advertising through traditional media (television, radio, print, billboards, and transit advertising). With a media placement agency, the director of communications, the national campaign manager, and other senior campaign team members plan media buys, often optimizing spending by focusing on districts where the party has strong chances to achieve political gains. Social media and other digital advertising platforms are also firmly entrenched in election campaign strategies.
As the election campaign approaches, the communications director hires short-term contract personnel for tasks including graphic design, video editing, social media content, writing, and editing. At all times, the director works closely with the senior campaign management team (i.e. national campaign manager and deputy managers). That team, with the leader’s input, devises the campaign calendar, an essential component including the timing and location of the campaign launch, platform launch, and policy announcements.
The director of communications determines the outreach strategy and main talking points for various announcements and specific material for each campaign promise (e.g. fact sheets and press releases) is finalized as the campaign unfolds, allowing for adjustments when needed. Scheduling must also take into account the particular interests of voters in each electoral district, media availability, and the party leader’s itinerary. Yet, it must remain flexible enough to handle unforeseen events and seize opportunities as campaigning evolves.
Adapting the strategy to the news cycle
The pace for a national campaign director of communications accelerates once the campaign is officially launched. Traditionally, the position is based in party headquarters for most of the campaign, so the director can collaborate closely with the team that accompanies the leader on tour. The person ensuring the leader’s interaction with the media also liaises with headquarters to gather strategic feedback on the campaign. This allows the director of communications to collect insights and adapt key messages accordingly.
While the overall election communication strategy is developed in advance of the campaign, a daily policy message – also known as a script message – is determined for every campaign day. The national campaign manager and the director of communications generally agree on this message the day before, depending on the schedule of campaign events and announcements.
Everyone must be ready to adapt quickly to the unfolding reality of the news cycle. The big challenge is maintaining focus and staying on message while working with campaign management and the rapid response team – the war room – to deal with negative stories generated by opposition research supplied to the media. These attacks could relate to offensive or embarrassing actions or words by party leaders, or inappropriate social media content posted by otherwise unknown candidates. Their opponents go to great lengths to identify and capitalize upon any missteps – to generate negative media coverage about the opposing party, potentially eroding public support, while forcing that party and its leader to expend precious time and effort responding.
Research shows that negativity in political campaigns can increase voter turnout, depending on timing and circumstances. The team must determine in each instance whether and how the party should respond, knowing a response could fan the flames. In urgent situations, there is no time to follow the chain of command, and the highest-ranking available person in the campaign hierarchy can be asked to make an immediate decision on the response.
The director of communications must ensure that the response is communicated externally, via the media; and internally to staff, candidates, and their campaign teams by sending them timely information and talking points for local inquiries. Through all this, the communications team must make every effort to ensure that these frustrating episodes do not impede delivery of the objectives of the campaign communications strategy.
Another task of the director of communications during the campaign is to collaborate with the digital manager to reach out to the party’s supporters through social media platforms. Digital platforms offer a dynamic range of messaging options, from posts that simply reinforce the daily platform announcement or key messages; to short videos (either custom-made or shared from other sources); to memes of various kinds. The digital manager routinely shares and retweets content from the leader’s social media feeds and that of other supportive individuals and organizations.
Finally, the communications director works with local campaigns to ensure their activities are consistent with the national campaign and the party brand. The director works closely with candidates, local campaign directors, and campaign communications leads, sharing the latest updates about the national campaign and providing them with tools and the best advice to increase their efficiency – for instance, proposing design templates for signs and brochures and advice on local advertising and media outreach.
The director of communications also prepares a series of visual assets designed for digital media tactics, along with guidelines on what to post, when, and how often. Instructions are provided on how to respond and when to ignore online trolls or unfavorable comments. Yet, for the most part, day-to-day management of local campaigns remains local – aside from key ridings, where the national communication team is more deeply involved in matters of campaign materials, messaging, and strategy.
Disclaimer*
No one from the UWP solicited my help or retained my services as a paid or non paid consultant, my only purpose is to give suggestions to assist the UWP in winning the next election.”
Lorne Jules’ insights have sparked an interesting conversation as the UWP prepares for its next election bid. Whether these recommendations will be acted upon remains to be seen, but they provide a strong blueprint for a more coordinated communication effort going forward.
