Strategic Campaign Research Articles

Living Synodality

Many Catholics living in violent conflict zones or in situations of structural injustice, along with Pax Christi International, Maryknoll, Pope Francis, and others, have been cultivating a tectonic shift toward centering active nonviolence in Catholic social ethics and approaches to conflict. This essay will illuminate how Catholic community organizing and strategic campaigns can both contribute to this shift and be enhanced by such a shift. The first part will describe salient features of this shift in Catholic theology and social ethics. The second part will assess components of Catholic community organizing and strategic campaigns that distinctly contribute to this shift. The third part will offer some initial suggestions for how centering nonviolence can enhance Catholic community organizing and strategic campaigns. In turn, these dynamics between centering nonviolence and Catholic community organizing can better illuminate the way of Jesus and the love of Christ in both the Church and societies.

Modelling organ donation information adoption among Malaysian youth using the information adoption model (IAM)

Purpose The shortage of organ donors is an under-researched global issue that demands immediate attention. This attention should begin at the government level and related organizations. In Malaysia, the shortage of organ donations has been a pressing issue faced by the Ministry of Health Malaysia (MOH) for a considerable length of time. In reaction to this issue, the MOH deployed the Organ Donation Awareness Strategic Campaign Plan by using the platform of social media to disseminate information regarding organ donation to the public. However, the number of registrations is still low among Malaysians. Moreover, the observation from the literature shows that there are limited studies which have been initiated to focus on social media in the context of organ donation campaigns. Design/methodology/approach The quantitative research design has been used to understand the issue. Three hundred and eighty-four completed questionnaires were collected from the target sample, which comprised university students in Malaysia. For this study, partial least squares structural equation modelling was used for data analysis. Findings The result shows that information usefulness is vital because it will lead individuals to adopt organ donation information on social media. More specifically, predictors that positively influence youth or university students to accept information as useful are visual information, information sharing, accessibility of information, needs of information and attitude towards information. Subsequently, information usefulness positively influences information adoption. In the meantime, information quality and credibility do not significantly affect information usefulness. Practical implications The findings of this study may assist MOH or interested parties in designing a sound marketing strategy in the context of organ donation promotion by providing empirical evidence. Originality/value The study provides empirical evidence about information characteristics in the context of organ donation promotion.

New evidence of the relationship between media, culture industry, and mineral efficiency in high and low income asian economies

In addressing the current challenge, this research thoroughly investigates the intricate interplay between media, culture, and mineral efficiency in 23 diverse Asian economies, classified based on their income levels. Leveraging data spanning from 2005 to 2020 and utilizing logarithmic transformations, this study navigates the complex web of relationships. The results highlight a notable positive impact of media penetration on mineral efficiency, particularly in high and upper middle-income nations that boast advanced media infrastructure and higher levels of education. Concurrently, increased government expenditure on media amplifies mineral efficiency within these contexts. The influence of advertising, however, varies depending on consumer behavior, media infrastructure, and market maturity. Control variables bring to light the negative impact of population size and the positive correlation of clean energy with mineral efficiency in high and upper middle-income economies. Formulating tailored policies for media-driven enhancement of mineral efficiency is crucial for both income groups, with a focus on strategic campaigns, cultural initiatives, and educational programs.

Strategic Campaign Communication: Evidence from 30,000 Candidate Manifestos

Abstract Politicians seeking to persuade voters may not always be able to say what they would like to say. Adopting policy positions opposite to that of their party or contradicting their previous policy announcements may be costly. I use computational text analysis on 30,000 candidate manifestos from two-round French elections to show that politicians take these costs into account, by toeing the party line and sticking to their platform, while also strategically adjusting their campaign communication and advertising neutral non-policy issues when they need to reach a broader electorate. I provide suggestive evidence that this moderation of electoral discourse predicts better performance in office and may therefore provide valuable information to voters.

Does populist voting rise where representative democracy is systemically failing?

Recent scholarship views populist voting as a reaction to systemic failures in political representation. This argument is however controversial due to a lack of empirical evidence. Does this explanation of populist support simply mirror the strategic campaign messaging of populist parties, and should thus be discounted? This study leverages state-of-the-art measures of systemic and non-systemic (i.e. individual-level) representation failures, adopting the constructs of sociotropic and egocentric incongruence. It uses data from the CSES, IPU, the POPPA dataset and the World Bank, covering 64 elections from 2001 and 2018 in 24 Western and Eastern European countries. The study finds that populism owes its success primarily to individual-level representation gaps, and not systemic ones. However, system-level failures in representation do matter in the margins, and for specific subsets of citizens. Furthermore, failures in pluralist representation have more bearing on populist support than majoritarian representation failures.

Enviro-Bragging: When Influencers Should Not Be Humble about a Brand’s Sustainability

Influencer marketing is a critical component of many strategic campaigns, but most research on social media influencers has examined influencer attributes (credibility, attractiveness, follower count, etc.) or congruency with the brand or cause. Challenging the conventional wisdom that green advertising should be humble and answering a call to develop novel green messaging strategies, we conceptualize a new strategy called enviro-bragging. We find this aggressive form of advertising is best suited for green influencers collaborating with brands that dominate their product market. We use signaling theory to show that influencers can function as signals of a brand’s environmental commitment and identify a differential effect of influencer- (versus advertiser-) generated green ads depending on the firm’s relative market position. Interestingly, while we find a significant difference in influencer impact when the brand is dominant, we find no difference when the brand is not dominant. We discuss our results in light of their theoretical and managerial implications.

Pharmacy marketing for public health impact: Promoting preventive care and health literacy through strategic campaigns

Pharmacies are increasingly recognized as pivotal players in public health, capable of promoting preventive care and enhancing health literacy through strategic marketing campaigns. This research explores how pharmacies can effectively contribute to public health by aligning their marketing efforts with broader health initiatives. By leveraging their direct access to patients, pharmacies can raise awareness about vital preventive measures, such as vaccinations, disease screenings, and healthy lifestyle choices. This review examines the role of pharmacies in addressing health literacy gaps, particularly in simplifying complex medical information to ensure patients are better equipped to make informed health decisions. Strategic pharmacy marketing can promote preventive care by highlighting available services, encouraging early disease detection, and advocating for regular health check-ups. Through targeted campaigns, pharmacies can drive engagement and uptake of vaccinations and other preventive health measures, particularly among populations that might be less likely to access healthcare through traditional means. Furthermore, educational campaigns focused on improving health literacy are essential for empowering patients, helping them understand medication use, chronic disease management, and the importance of adhering to prescribed treatments. The research also highlights case studies where pharmacies have successfully led public health campaigns, demonstrating measurable improvements in community health outcomes. It discusses the importance of partnerships between pharmacies and public health organizations, fostering collaboration to amplify health messages. Finally, the review outlines strategies for effective campaign implementation, including the use of digital tools and data analytics to reach diverse patient populations. By integrating these approaches, pharmacies can serve as essential contributors to public health, promoting wellness, disease prevention, and improved patient outcomes.

Damage Control: How Campaign Teams Interpret and Respond to Online Incivility

ABSTRACTSocial media are critical to election campaigns, but they also expose candidates to incivility and abuse. While there is a growing literature on online incivility faced by politicians, little is known about how campaign teams interpret and respond to it. To address that gap, we analyze in-depth interviews with 31 candidates and campaign staff from the 2019 federal election in Canada. We find that campaign teams interpret incivility according to the intensity of messages’ content, but also their frequency, source, and target. They use these criteria to assess potential harms in three areas: security and psychological wellbeing, strategic campaign activities, and inclusive democratic discourse. Based on these assessments, campaign teams use a limited set of platform affordances to ignore, monitor, engage, or block uncivil voices. Our analysis shows that interpretations of incivility are more nuanced and multi-dimensional than most scholarship recognizes. We also reveal the often-hidden labor that campaign teams devote to content moderation, as they try to balance protecting themselves, defending their campaign messaging, and creating space for civil discussion. By paying closer attention to campaign teams’ mediation and moderation of online incivility, scholars can better understand its consequences for democratic political participation in elections.

Gendered times: how gendered contexts shape campaign messages of female candidates

Abstract We develop and test a theory of gendered political times, which argues that the gendered political climate during an election shapes the extent to which female candidates emphasize feminine or masculine traits in campaign messages. We measure gendered electoral contexts through rigorous analyses of public opinion data and news media content of the top issues during an election, and we complement these data with an analysis of the gendered traits candidates emphasize in campaign messages during U.S. congressional election cycles from 2000 through 2018. Our results suggest that feminine electoral contexts do not necessarily lead female candidates, or male candidates, to rely on feminine traits. We find that masculine electoral contexts lead female candidates to rely more heavily on feminine traits. Our results have important implications for understanding the forces that shape the way candidates develop strategic campaign messages, and the factors that ultimately influence women’s under-representation in politics.

Smoke-Free Policy Adoption in Horizon City and El Paso Community College: A Strategic Campaign Approach That Turns a "No" Into a "Yes".

Coalitions in Horizon City in El Paso County, Texas and the El Paso Community College (EPCC) had previously attempted to pass smoke-free policies in 2008 and 2016, respectively; however, both policies failed to pass at those times. The coalitions refocused their activities and were successful in passing policies in EPCC in 2020 and in Horizon City in 2021. We employed a participatory case study method to understand what factors changed between the first and second attempts at smoke-free policy adoption in Horizon City and EPCC. Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework as a basis for analysis, we identified the role of coalitions, their beliefs, use of power resources, role of policy brokers, and external events. We identify best practices and make recommendations for coalitions seeking to adopt smoke-free policies in other locations.

Quantification of the Impact of Solar Water Heating and Influence of Its Potential Utilization through Strategic Campaign: Case Study in Dimbaza, South Africa

This paper ascertained the performance of the evacuated tube solar water heater (SWH) coupled with an auxiliary electric heater with reference to the replaced electric water heater with the same storage tank capacity (200 L) in a building. It also examines the influence of the uptake of the SWHs in the community due to different campaign methods. The study evaluated the performance of a 4 kW electric water heater and a 2 kW input SWH with an auxiliary electric heater, and quantified the annual energy and cost savings. A survey using questionnaires was conducted among 150 residences in Dimbaza based on the house representative’s perceptions to replace their electric water heaters with solar water heaters (based on the monetary saving inscribed on the solar water heaters, the sensitization of the target population on the environmental benefits of the solar water heaters and both the monetary savings and environmental benefits). The findings revealed that by replacing the electric water heater with the solar water heater with an auxiliary electric heater, the annual electricity savings due to hot water heating was 4408.99 kWh and the net present value payback period was 4.32 years. The desire of the household representatives to replace their existing electric water heaters with solar water heaters due to the campaign strategies increased from 75 to 126. This study is capable of providing a mechanism to increase the penetration of solar water heaters and justifying the techno-economic viability of solar water heaters.

Are Campaigns Getting Uglier, and Who Is to Blame? Negativity, Dramatization and Populism on Facebook in the 2014 and 2019 EP Election Campaigns

ABSTRACTRelating to theories of dissonant public spheres and affective publics, we study negativity, dramatization, and populist content in political party Facebook posts across 12 countries during the 2014 and 2019 European Parliament Election campaigns. A quantitative content analysis of 14,293 posts from 111 (2014) and 116 (2019) political parties shows that negative emotion, negative campaigning, dramatization, and populist content has increased over this time. We show that political parties sought to evoke more negative emotions and generate more dramatization, engaged more in negative campaigning, and included more populist content in their Facebook posts in the 2019 EP election than in 2014. Further, we show that posts evoking negative emotions and dramatization and involving negative campaigning yield higher user engagement than other posts, while populist content also led to more user reactions in 2014, but not in 2019. Negative, exaggerated, and sensationalized messaging therefore makes sense from a strategic perspective, because the increased frequencies of likes, shares, and comments make parties’ messages travel farther and deeper in social networks, thereby reaching a wider audience. It seems that the rise in affective and dissonant communication has not emerged unintentionally, but is also a result of strategic campaigning.

Mission drift between the balance of social mission vs. financial performance of microfinance institutions

Recently, many researchers have highlighted the imbalance between the financial and social missions of microfinance institutions (MFIs), which is considered to be the main objective of the research. Hence, the objectives of the current study were to identify the roots of mission drift and the reasons for high interest rates. In addition, the article was focused on the examination of the most efficient products of the sector. The research paper is conceptualized and based on primary data collection through field work, which has been analyzed using SPSS software. Secondary data has been collected mainly from peer-reviewed articles. As an improvement strategy, representatives of the sector should plan strategic campaigns to solve the situation. According to the results, though the strict regulations of the sector lead to stability in the market, changes regarding micro-savings or microinsurance regulation should be developed for future enhancement of MFIs in Armenia and in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region.

Significance of Digital Marketing Strategies for Continuity of SMEs

Purpose: Digital marketing trends change time from time; therefore, Small and Medium-sized enterprises often face challenges while adopting digital marketing strategies. These challenges are caused by the richness and complexity of tactics to optimize growth, customer engagement, buyer behaviors, and business continuity. This paper focuses on the significance of adopting digital marketing strategies through the 6W Marketing Model for the continuity of Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs). To achieve this goal, the nature of digital marketing strategies for SMEs, such as content marketing, social media marketing, and email marketing, were analyzed.
 Study design/methodology/approach: A thematic literature review was conducted to explore the significance of digital marketing strategies for the continuity of SMEs. We synthesized the available literature that interconnects digital marketing developments with SMEs. The data was obtained through mixed, quantitative, and qualitative methods.
 Findings: The findings underlined the need and significance of digital marketing awareness for business continuity. Consequently, respondents recognized the role of the 6W marketing model to assist in making informed decisions on which type of digital marketing strategies to employ. Besides, this study ignores and does not consider specifics of the algorithms which give a content ranking. It is imperative to understand the role of these algorithms, how they work and how to deal with them to get the most out of the campaigns. Low-quality or relevancy scores will affect the campaign and bring lower results.
 Originality/value: This paper brings together the challenges and complexity of utilizing digital marketing strategies for SMEs' business continuity. Marketers always search for the best elements for strategic campaigns. Hence, based on the research, the 6W marketing model is proposed to understand better the impact of each digital marketing strategy on business continuity. Besides, the model presents a guide to strategically allocating financial and human resources.

Singapore's “War on Diabetes”

In 2016, in the face of an impending diabetes epidemic, Singapore started a new strategic campaign, announced by the then Minister of Health in a parliamentary speech, which was referred to as the “War on Diabetes”.1 This campaign sought to rally the entire nation to rein in the diabetes and obesity epidemics. More than 5 years have passed and many initiatives and policies have been introduced, but how has Singapore faired in this “War”?

Building social accountability to improve reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health in Nigeria

BackgroundLike many places in Nigeria, Niger, a predominantly rural and poor state in the north of the country, has high fertility, low contraceptive prevalence, and high maternal mortality. This paper presents a descriptive, contextualized case study of a social accountability campaign run by the nongovernmental organization White Ribbon Alliance Nigeria to strategically mobilize collective action to demand quality maternal health care and improve government responsiveness to those demands. We treat maternal health as a component of reproductive health, while recognizing it as a less contested area.MethodsData come from more than 40 interviews with relevant actors in Niger State in 2017 and 2018 during the initial phase of the campaign, and follow-up interviews with White Ribbon Alliance Nigeria staff in 2019 and 2021. Other data include White Ribbon Alliance Nigeria’s monthly reports. We analyzed these data both deductively and inductively using qualitative techniques.ResultsDuring its first phase, the campaign used advocacy techniques to convince the previously reticent state government to engage with citizens, and worked to amplify citizen voice by hosting community dialogues and town halls, training a cadre of citizen journalists, and shoring up ward health development committees. Many of these efforts were unsustainable, however, so during the campaign’s second phase, White Ribbon Alliance Nigeria worked to solidify state commitment to durable accountability structures intended to survive beyond the campaign’s involvement. Key challenges have included a nontransparent state budget release process and the continued need for significant support from White Ribbon Alliance Nigeria.ConclusionThese findings reveal the significant time and resource inputs associated with implementing a strategic social accountability campaign, important compromises around the terminology used to describe “accountability,” and the constraints on government responsiveness posed by unrealistic budgeting procedures. The campaign’s contributions towards increased social accountability for maternal health should, however, also benefit accountability for reproductive health, as informed and empowered woman are better prepared to demand health services in any sector.

The Intersection of Candidate Gender and Ethnicity: How Voters Respond to Campaign Messages from Latinas

Despite the recent surge of women of color in elected political office in the U.S., the representation of Latinas is strikingly low. Past research offers unclear conclusions as to whether Latina political candidates face biases due to the intersection of their identities as women and as ethnic minorities, and how Latinas can navigate such biases. In this study, we identify how Latinas draw on their intersectional identities as both women and ethnic minorities to develop strategic campaign messages and how voters respond to such messages. Through an analysis of campaign advertising data and an original survey experiment, we show that Latina candidates do not face an automatic disadvantage based in gender and ethnic biases, but they can benefit from the intersection of these two identities, especially among female minority voters. These results are consequential because they offer insights into how to improve the descriptive and substantive representation of marginalized groups in the U.S.

Opportunities presented through the use of social media and social media Influencers in Strategic Farm Safety Communication Campaigns

Opportunities presented through the use of social media and social media Influencers in Strategic Farm Safety Communication Campaigns

Communicative interventions for preventing the novel Coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak: insights from Iran’s rural and farming communities

ABSTRACT Purpose The article explores how best agricultural extension and advisory services (AEAS) can contribute to communicative interventions in preventing the COVID-19 outbreak in rural and farming communities. Methodology An action research was conducted in Iran, as one of the top countries experiencing the COVID-19 outbreak. Findings A strategic communicative intervention campaign for preventing the COVID-19 outbreak was designed at national level through diagnosing the situation, planning, organising expert teams, producing appropriate information, and disseminating through social networks, mass media and interpersonal communications. Extension staff, many relevant institutions, most key rural informants, local leaders, facilitators, farmers and nomads received and exchanged this information. Practical Implications These communicative interventions can not only help health care service systems control the outbreak, but help rural communities increase their knowledge about the virus and health measures to participate in preventing further spreading of the virus, while continue their agricultural activities. Theoretical Implications Preventing and managing health-related crises require effective measures, including communicative intervention campaigns. The article shows how agricultural extension systems can contribute to crisis and emergency risk communication and can support health care efforts and enhance the competencies of rural communities during human health-related crises. Originality/Value The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) which has transmitted to all parts of the world, including rural areas, can threaten food security and rural communities’ livelihoods. The study generates important insights about the process of extension interventions for enhancing these communities’ knowledge and skills to prevent and manage the virus transmission.

The automation of marketing

Today, the average campaign response rate is less than one per cent and with the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI), traditional marketing is wading into troubled waters because the waves of strategic campaigns, the retargeting, the real-time media buying and personalised e-mailing are not moving the marketing needle as they used to. The robotisation of shopping and marketing is changing how brands compete for consumers. This paper stipulates that the real opportunity in marketing today lies in redefining the customer relationship rather than in cutting costs. In the future, humans might only be needed in the consumption phase of the buying cycle and purchasing decisions could be left to IoT-connected bots that order products for the customer. These products will then be delivered by anticipatory systems that understand when orders are to be made. For companies to succeed in this environment, they need to make the marketing, ordering and delivering process as seamless as possible, not just for the humans who will consume the products but also for the bots that will order them.