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The Media Challenge
Ekomok is a local non-governmental organization in the city of Milenovo, which is a city of about 180,000 people. The city has a medium sized river flowing through the center of it and is famous for its ornate bridges, several of which date back to the early Ottoman period. Ekomok is a group of young people, high school and university students and the organization has existed for almost two years. Until now they have done small projects like rehabilitating a park in the center of town and organizing an earth day concert of local bands. They have wanted for a long time to do something about the river, which is always full of garbage and looks very unappealing. Their parents all remember a day when one could swim in the river, but that was a long time ago. They have done some research into people’s habits, by stationing members of their group along the river banks. They observed that most of the garbage that gets thrown into the river comes from townspeople walking nearby the river and from people in the villages upstream from the town who throw their household waste into the river because they do not have municipal garbage collection services.
They put together their research and got a small grant to do a campaign to clean up the river. Milenovo has two local television stations, one public radio station and several private radio stations, as well as a weekly newspaper that used to be state sponsored and has now been private for several years.
The response to the media challenge
Objective
Their objective is to get the local government structure and the residents of Milenovo involved in cleaning up the river and changing behavior so that it stays clean.
Target
This group has several different target groups. The first is the municipal government institutions. The second is the urban population of the town and the third is the population of the villages along the river north of the town.
Message
The main message that Ekomok wants to communicate is that the people of Milenovo and the surrounding villages must take responsibility for keeping the river clean. They have two messages that fit within the larger one. One is directed at the municipality and that is that the villages along the river should get municipal garbage collection. The other is that the people of the town must stop throwing things in the river. These two messages are designed for the different target groups that they have identified, but are tied together by the overall message.
Tools
Because Ekomok has only a small budget to work with, they have to choose media relations tools that will not cost them much money. However they do have a pretty committed group of approximately twenty volunteers that can be engaged in activities that require a lot of people. They chose several different tools based on the different messages and their three main target groups.
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Press Conference: |
Ekomok’s first move is to hold a press conference to
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announce
the start of their campaign and to present the results of their research. They choose to hold the press conference on the banks of the river near one of the old footbridges. They make a large banner to hang from the bridge and prepare press kits for the journalists attending that include a report from their research, an information page about their organization and the campaign, a plastic garbage bag and a pair of rubber gloves. They follow the press conference with a clean up action that includes their volunteers and invites the journalists to join them.
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Letters to the editor: |
Because one of Ekomok’s strengths is their group
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volunteers they begin to write letters to the editor of the weekly newspaper. Their letters focus on urging the municipality to expand garbage collection and encouraging people to stop throwing things in the river. The volunteers make individual visits to some respected members of the community such as professors, the director of the hospital, leaders of the business community and ask them to write letters as well. They prepare some points and an information page for each of these influential individuals with a slightly different focus, for instance, health effects of the pollution, benefit to business development if the banks of the river are clean and useable for cafes or leisure activities.
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Press Briefing: |
Ekomok invites the Mayor of Milenovo and
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municipal sanitation to an informal briefing with selected local journalists who have been following their campaign. The purpose of the briefing is to discuss the options for expanding the municipal garbage collection to the villages along the river, without the pressure of cameras and microphones. They bring in an independent moderator, a biology teacher from the local high school and set a clear agenda for the discussion. The agenda includes a report from the municipality on what is currently covered, a discussion of
what kind of resources would be necessary to expand the garbage collection and what could be done then to raise the awareness of the people in the villages.
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Analysis of the response
What was their challenge?
This group faced several challenges, the first one being to attract attention and gain credibility. As their members are mostly young people and their group is relatively young they will have to continue working hard to get the media to take them seriously. Another challenge was the fact that they had different target groups and a slightly complex message. Although their campaign may have been effective, it might have been easier to concentrate one at a time on the two secondary messages they came up with. They were also limited by their small budget, however they managed to overcome their limitations by choosing creative and inexpensive media relations tools.
What did they do right?
This group chose some very effective and inexpensive methods of getting press attention or using the media. The press conference was a good way to kick off the campaign and the press briefing was a good way to approach the problem together with the municipality without creating an adversarial climate. The press briefing was also a good way for Ekomok to build relationships with particular journalists who can then continue to report on the ecological issues in the city.
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If you were a member of Ekomok what other actions would you suggest to your colleagues? |
What else could they have done?
After the first press conference, Ekomok may have lost some momentum with the electronic media on the issue of getting residents to stop throwing things in the river, because after that did no more events in front of cameras and microphones. They may have considered doing another cleanup action and issuing a press release to the electronic media inviting residents to join them. Another thing they could have tried was to get some of their members onto television talk shows as guests or interviewees. The more interviews the group has beyond the statements at the press conference the more people will recognize the campaign as a long lasting process and the group as a serious force in the community.
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