Politicians are skilled at not noticing things. What makes them sit up isn't louder noise. It's the kind of noise that makes ignoring look worse than acting. The best campaigns in this category don't beg. They create a situation in which inaction becomes the more embarrassing option.
Here are nine tactics from the Storytelling Engine that make politicians the story, whether they like it or not.
Tactics in this article:
- Expose the Perk
- The Preemptive Thank You
- Make Inaction Speak
- Give the Problem a Voice
- The Absurd Alternative
- The Loophole Stunt
- Children as Messengers
- International Witness
- Build the Solution They Won't
1. Expose the Perk
Name the privilege publicly — and make refusing to act an admission of guilt.
Fly With Us — Flybondi, Grey, 2019
Flybondi needed to launch Argentina's first low-cost airline while the 2019 national budget was being debated in Congress. Each of Argentina's 329 senators and members of Congress could legally claim 20 plane tickets per month, and many used expensive airlines or sold the entitlement back, pocketing the difference. Flybondi ran a social media and billboard campaign suggesting that flying with them would save a large part of the parliamentary budget. The timing made ignoring it structurally difficult: to stay silent was to be seen as actively choosing to spend more. The campaign achieved brand awareness for a new airline and generated positive public opinion by making the brand's commercial interest and the public interest feel like the same thing.
Miles for the People — Reclame Aqui, Grey, 2019. Brazil's 600 congresspeople fly to Brasília weekly — 5,000 tickets per month, paid for by taxpayers who rarely fly. Reclame Aqui plastered each flight's accrued air miles onto social media and encouraged citizens to demand them back. The project reached Congress, prompted a change in the law, and returned miles to ordinary citizens — including some used for life-saving surgery.
