Messaging Lead
Role Purpose
As Animal Think Tank’s Messaging Lead, you’ll be helping unite the Animal Freedom Alliance behind narratives that inspire and mobilise everyday people to achieve key milestones for Animal Freedom. To do this, you’ll offer well researched and tested communication tools, ensure campaigns are framed well and their action logic tells a persuasive story, as well as help to build expertise in Story-based Strategy within the Alliance.
About the Role
This full-time, Lancaster-based role will be highly creative and dynamic. Working alongside our Narrative Lead and Narrative Research team, you’ll undertake innovative messaging and narrative research and use this to inform Alliance campaigns to ensure they’re as persuasive and memorable as possible.
– You’ll research the messages, stories and narratives of other social justice movements and analyse their use of language, framing, metaphors and visual strategies.
– You’ll collaborate with other freedom movement campaigners and communicators to develop messages and stories to inspire and mobilise different segments of society.
– You’ll design systems to embed key messages, stories and narratives into the Alliance.
– You’ll create and deliver messaging and narrative trainings for the Alliance to help build its capacity for Story-based Strategy.
– You’ll build and lead a messaging team that can support Alliance national actions for Animal Freedom.
About Our Narrative Research Project
We believe that a big part of social and political change is narrative change – helping to change the dominant cultural ideas we’re surrounded by. We’re inspired by other freedom movements and campaigns that have successfully changed dominant narratives to help bring about real-world change, such as the Freedom to Marry campaign, which helped win same-sex marriage in all 50 US states in just 12 years.
Who We’re Looking For
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You are skilled in communicating creatively and persuasively
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You enjoy reading, writing and research, and are also practically minded
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You have knowledge or interest in social justice communication and messaging
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You collaborate well with others and can also take the initiative to lead on your own projects
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You believe in the power of storytelling to help bring about social change
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You can commit to an organisation engaged with peaceful resistance.
Ideal, but not essential:
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You have experience managing large creative projects
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You have some knowledge of market research and/or public testing
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You have experience developing and delivering trainings.
Objective and Key Results
The role’s broad 12-month objective will initially be to:
Inform the narrative direction and Story-based Strategy capacity of the Animal Freedom Alliance.
1. Determine the most persuasive messages and stories that will mobilise collective action.
We want to create a broad-based mass movement that reflects the diversity of society, and to do this we need to determine the stories that resonate across different demographics and psychographics, and inspire others to become involved. You will research what different social segments empathise with and what moves and inspires them, and identify potential leverage points and narrative strategies that connect most deeply with them. To scale and broaden the mass movement, we need a narrative that engages our base, one that gives the mass movement meaning and participants a defined purpose.
2. Develop a portfolio of tested slogans, messages, stories and visuals that can be utilised and adapted by the Alliance.
Alongside the Narrative Research Lead, you will research and craft sample messages and stories to be publicly tested. This will involve determining the most effective language, frames, metaphors, values and visuals to be used in public-facing communications.
3. Design the systems that will embed the narrative into the mass movement.
For the Alliance to disseminate its narrative effectively and widely, we need movement organisers to be trained as persuasive communicators, understanding messaging best practice and how story is the driver of strategic campaigns. As well as creating messaging guides, you will help build a team that develops and delivers trainings to movement organisers, who can in turn empower their local groups to become more effective and innovative communicators. You will also help build a press team for national campaigns and training spokespeople.
The following readings will help you succeed in this role:
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Re:Imagining Change by Patrick Reinsborough and Doyle Canning
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Don’t Buy It by Anat Shenker-Osorio
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Don’t Think of an Elephant by George Lakoff
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Citizens by Jon Alexander
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Narrative Politics by Frederick W Mayer