1. A New Communications Strategy for the Naval Service
Captain Mike Beardall Royal Navy

2. “If the character of the last military era was defined by the West’s ability to conduct precision strikes on enemy platforms and command nodes, the conflicts of the future are likely to be defined more by the centrality of influence…This battle of the narratives… will take place in a decentralised, networked free-market of ideas, opinions and even raw data, which will weaken the immediacy and influence of mainstream news providers.” DCDC ‘Future Character of Conflict’ 2010 “Overall, there is a new capacity for scrutiny and accountability way beyond the assumed power and influence of the traditional media… hundreds of millions of ‘information do-ers’… shed light where it is often assumed there will be darkness.” Nik Gowing ‘Skyful of Lies and Black Swans’, RISJ, 2009

3. The next 30 minutes in brief…
Legacy communications structures
Obstacles to progress
A new strategic approach
Key messages: Key publics
Measurement and evaluation
Future plans

4. Legacy issues… The Regional News Department
Who: ‘FOSNNI Media & Communications
What: Responsible for regional news activities in the UK
Where: Naval Base, Clyde
Which 2*: Flag Officer, Scotland, Northern England and Northern Ireland (Rear Admiral, Based in Scotland)
The Non-News Department
Who: ‘Assistant Head, Directorate Media & Communications, PR (Navy)’ (DMC Op Comms)
What: Responsible for Branding, Events, Licensing, TV documentaries, magazine spreads etc
Where: MOD Main Building, London
Which 2*: Director MOD Media & Communication (Civil Servant based in London)
The News Department
Who: ‘Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff (Media)’ (NCHQ Media)
What: Responsible for news operations, mobile teams, internal communications
Where: Command HQ, Portsmouth
Which 2*: Command Secretary (Civil Servant based in Portsmouth)
The Marketing Department
Who: ‘Captain Naval Recruiting’ (CNR)
What: Responsible for Above-the Line recruitment marketing, TV advertising, recruitment ads etc
Where: Naval Base, Portsmouth
Which 2*: Flag Officer, Scotland, Northern England and Northern Ireland (Rear Admiral, Based in Scotland)

5. Obstacles to progress Structures
Functional geographical and hierarchical separation
Limited resources spread too thinly
Messaging
Messages over complicated and inconsistently delivered
No resonance with publics’ concerns and priorities
Understanding
Despite consistently high favorability towards and familiarity with the RN, it remains poorly understood.
MoE
A capacity to measure the penetration of our messaging and its effect on understanding is not employed
Familiarity
Many of our own people cannot instinctively ariculare our core messages

6. Reform in progress… Structures
Moves to end functional geographical and hierarchical separation, and to co-locate resources and personnel
Messaging
Development, approval and sole-use of the Navy Strategic Message House, Advocate Ambassadors and Spokespeople
Understanding
All ‘Levers of Influence’ to use the SMH as a baseline
Requirement for training organisations to use SMH product
MoE
The development of an integrated output-outtake-outcome monitoring and analysis unit to drive future strategy

7. Getting ahead of the curve
Communications Strategy
Based on Scenario Planning
Monitoring
Media Mapping
Media Analysis
Quotes of Note
Planning
Event horizon 1-12 months
News Operations
Event horizon 0-1 month

8. A new strategic approach
Identify key audiences
Those with the greatest potential to affect future strategic success
Establish core messages
The ‘big six’ that define the raison d’etre of the service
Gauge publics’ understanding
Gain an empirical uptake ‘fix’
Apply communications ‘in grid’
Message house messages become the basis for all comms
Re-measure and re-evaluate
Monitor, analyse an evaluate to determine future policy

9. Key messages: Key publics
1. Decision Makers
2. Opinion Leaders
3. Service Personnel
4. Service Diaspora
5. Media Advocates
6. Youth
Those groups that have the greatest potential to influence our future strategic success
1. Preventing Conflict
2. Providing Security at Sea
3. Promoting Partnerships
4. Providing Humanitarian Asst.
5. Protecting our Economy
6. Ready to fight
The six key messages that we want our publics to remember when they think ‘Why Navy?’

10. Operating ‘In Grid’
Whenever conducting influence activity, instructing outstations to focus effort on delivering key all messages to all key publics, in priority order.

11. What do we want?
When our communications output reaches our target publics, what outcome do we want it to have?
Differentiate We want our messages to be recognisably different
Reinforce Our messages can reinforce existing beliefs
Inform Where no previous knowledge exists, we can help
Persuade Our messages are a call to action!
Fill (2002, 2011) Essentials of Marketing Communications

12. What do we want?
We want our publics to move through a journey from awareness to action…
Awareness
Comprehension
Conviction
Action
What do we expect of publics at this stage?
Audience are aware of the brand and some ‘boilerplate details’
Audience develop greater understanding of the ‘big six’ messages
Audience begin to advocate Naval messaging – naval messages incorporated into own
Audience take positive personal steps to further Naval aims
How might we measure this?
Would need to recall (prompted or unprompted) basic details
Unprompted recall of central tenets of the six messages
Evidence of personal adherence to Naval aims (membership, votes, lobbying as appropriate)
Post-conviction behaviour. Regular re-broadcast of Naval messages. Advocacy.
Adapted from: The ‘Hierarchy of Communications’, after Colley (1961)

13. Why? - A quicker route to market…
Based on Schramm (1955), Hall (1974) and Jenkins (2007)

14. Why? - The Zone of Effective Communication
Adapted from Lengel and Daft (1988, 227) and Balogun and Hope-Hailey (2008,195)

15. Organic Monitoring
MINI is a Royal Navy initiative to keep Ships and Units better informed of RN coverage in the worldwide media
Distributed daily and compiled from several open-source outlets
It also forms the Press Office’s historical archive and weekly briefs
Statistical analysis allows‘at a glance’ evaluation of news stories

16. Outlets range in significance
Organic Monitoring
Consistent outtake monitoring and analysis requires a baseline…
Outlets range in significance
100
Articles range in tone -2 +2
Groups of articles on the same subject make a story
Tone x Significance
= Impact

17. Long-term trends tell their own story
Making the transit from data to knowledge – just some of the information we can deduce…
60 month total of toned articles
Percentage of toned articles with a positive tone

18. What do we want to achieve?
A system in which limited resources are used to maximum capacity
A system in which all the ‘levers of influence’ are centrally guided and where the most effective is used when required
A system in which departmental output is linked to audience outcome through evidence-based monitoring and analysis
By understanding where deficiencies of knowledge exist amongst our key publics, the strategic application of communications will allow us to improve understanding of our key messages amongst those that have the greatest potential to influence the future strategic success of the Naval Service.