Data-driven Research Uncovers Strategies for More Effective Messaging
A U.S.-based team used unique research approaches to learn what Americans really think about refugees — and how to leverage communications to rally greater support.
By Amy Lynn Smith — Independent Writer + Strategist
Communication is a powerful tool, when used effectively. But simply putting ideas out there and hoping they’ll reach an audience won’t get you very far — if anywhere at all. There has to be strategic thinking and data behind it: Who are you trying to reach? Do you know what they care about, so you can tailor a message that reaches and resonates with them? And perhaps most important, how can you develop communications that will actually get your audience to take the action you want them to take — especially when it’s on a topic that evokes strong emotions?
In the United States, in particular, that topic is refugees. It’s no secret anywhere in the world that the U.S. is a country deeply divided on this subject.
So what does that mean for people at the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) who want to not only maintain the support of Americans who embrace the organization’s work, but also gain the support of those who may not? Heartwarming stories of refugees moving to a new country and contributing their talents to the community or the voices of UNHCR Goodwill Ambassadors have their place, but haven’t necessarily been convincing enough — so there’s a compelling need for stronger messaging. For example, a generation of local policymakers are coming to power with misconceptions about refugees’ impact on communities. Making sure they understand and support UNHCR’s work and the positive role of refugees could help dispel misconceptions before these leaders move up to positions of power in Congress.
That’s why, in 2019, a team led by UNHCR’s Strategic Communications and Outreach Unit in Washington, D.C., was awarded a grant by UNHCR’s Innovation Service’s Innovation Fund to conduct comprehensive research on the U.S. public. The goal was to better understand attitudes toward refugees and UNHCR. To do so, the team needed to speak with the American public directly to understand what mattered most to them when it comes to refugees. The potential benefits for refugees would be greater support for UNHCR’s work, whether through funding or greater willingness to welcome refugees into their communities. The risk of not changing people’s mindsets includes potential violence against refugees or — as has already happened — refusing them entry or asylum in the U.S., or pure indifference.
But rather than using a traditional survey for the research, which might lead to broad generalizations, the survey was structured to identify unique “personas” — which denote the central tendencies of a group, identified through behavioral research — for engagement and outreach. Another goal was to determine messages that will resonate with those audiences, and those that will not, and communication mediums that deliver the best return on investment. What’s more, the study was designed to help identify spokespeople, champions, and outlets that would have the most meaningful impact on primary audiences. During and after the survey, the team went even deeper with their research, examining the values, worldviews, and beliefs of the participants, and identifying community organizations and local media outlets with the greatest potential to reach each persona group identified as most persuadable.
What the team learned has applications to their specific goals, but may also prove useful for others looking to develop behavior-change communications.
“We’ve built pretty good relationships with policymakers in Washington, but given the heated rhetoric around refugees it became very clear that we needed to do a better job of reaching the American public,” says Chris McGrath, head of the Strategic Communications and Outreach Unit. “We need to reach them where they are, using messaging they understand and messengers they trust, through the mediums they are already consuming.”
Solid data is essential to strategic communications
Trevor Kincaid, former UNHCR Strategic Communications and Outreach Officer in the Unit, who was integral to the project and is now a Senior Communications Officer at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) at the World Bank Group, has a very clear view of the importance of data gathering in communications.
“If you’re developing messaging without data in this day and age, you’re committing malpractice,” he explains. “We wanted to find a way to check our own assumptions. Developing messaging and strategy based on assumptions formed by our own views pollutes our thinking — it just makes it ineffective.”
That’s why the team went to great lengths to create a research tool that “got above our own noise,” as Kincaid describes the team’s own assumptions, to understand UNHCR’s key audiences and the best ways to reach them.
The research began with a national, representative online survey of 2,000 U.S. adults ages 18 and older that was conducted in January 2020. Respondents were pre-screened through a database that anonymously matched their survey responses to existing behavioral data profiles — including information such as consumer and social media data and voter registration — which provided additional data points to layer on top of the survey responses. Machine learning and statistical analysis then segmented respondents into distinct, targetable audience profiles: the personas.
From the standpoint of innovation, research is critical to any project. But the way the team proposed going about their research — gathering data from a small survey group, then using advanced machine learning techniques to predict which other individuals will feel similarly to those surveyed — is a unique approach to identifying particular audiences that are persuadable through messaging on refugee issues. It would also help the team identify individuals that are predisposed to support UNHCR’s work but need to be motivated to take action. The team’s goal was to use the survey results to inform their decision-making and take the guesswork out of their strategy, enabling them to drill down to actionable details about the groups they’d identified. This approach to developing strategic communication is one that could easily be applied throughout UNHCR.
What’s more, research is not just a step. It’s central to every aspect of a project. It must be embedded throughout the process rather than being a single, distinct phase along the way. The team understood the need for research to run through every piece of the project. What’s more, research not only informed how the team identified audience groups, but how to begin developing strategies to reach them more effectively.
“At the most elementary level, we created this tool that let us map the entire country so we can target our messaging,” Kincaid says. “But this tool needed to be more than a fun academic exercise. It is something that can really change the conversation around refugees in the United States because we can do more targeted, sophisticated communications.”
It’s worth noting that safeguarding the data and privacy of all respondents was of paramount importance, and the team was never given any identifiable information about the survey participants. This was critical for everyone involved to feel safe and for UNHCR to create trust with participants throughout the research process.
Reaching your audience means understanding them first
As Kincaid points out, doing a more elaborate study than a standard survey provided insights into people who may not share the same values, life experiences, or priorities as those who work for UNHCR.
Some of the research findings were unsurprising, like data demonstrating strong disagreement among Americans on the topic of refugees. When asked about resettlement, 45% welcomed more refugees settling in the U.S., while 46% opposed it. There was stronger support for the U.S. providing aid to refugees overseas: 53% for compared to 36% against.
But what was particularly interesting were the primary personas the data analysts felt UNHCR should try most diligently to reach with its messaging, in large part because they’re persuadable, which is typically where targeted messaging begins, especially when it’s intended to drive behavior change. These two groups are the “uphill skeptics,” who feel “soft opposition” to refugees in the U.S. and foreign aid for refugees, and the “tepid supporters,” who hold “soft support” for the same. The other key audiences are “champions,” who strongly support resettlement in the U.S. and aid abroad, “strong opponents” of those activities and people who are “undecided.”
“With those 2,000 responses and the behavioral data, we could then layer an algorithm on top of that, which allowed us to map the entire country,” Kincaid says. “You can slice it down to the zip code, precinct — a suburban woman living outside of Toledo, Ohio, who has a very different view than a person living in the city of Toledo, for example.”
Having this information is an excellent thing, he adds, but then it’s a matter of knowing what to do with it. Much of that came from gaining a deeper understanding of what kinds of messages and spokespeople resonate most with the primary target audiences.
For example, it turns out that Goodwill Ambassadors might not be quite as compelling messengers for certain segments of the public, even though they still have value as conveners. What’s more, UNHCR isn’t a well-known name, according to the study results.
Instead, particularly among “uphill skeptics” the data showed that the messengers they would be most likely to trust are Americans working for UNHCR in other countries. The data also showed that a message of “moral responsibility” was one that resonated strongly with people nationwide.
“We saw there was an opportunity to target certain people with messages of moral responsibility that Americans felt toward refugees around the world,” says Andrea Mucino-Sanchez, Associate Public Information and Communications Officer and part of the project team.
Putting research into the real world
From this idea, a “Hometown Heroes” video was born. Three Americans who have spent most of their careers in the field with UNHCR outside the U.S. told their stories of why they felt called to help some of the most vulnerable people around the world.
The team then took another finding from the study — that local media outlets are the most trusted by the public — and offered the stories of the American UNHCR personnel to a number of them.
One big win was that San Francisco’s local TV channel featured Catherine Wiesner, who grew up in Palo Alto, California, and became the Head of External Engagement in Nairobi, Kenya.
“They interviewed her and showed her work and she talked about how proud she was to work with UNHCR and the United Nations,” Mucino-Sanchez says. “It was all positive and very moving.”
The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio’s largest newspaper, featured Besem Obenson, who was born in Columbus and is now Head of the Sub-office in Medellín, Colombia.
“It was really successful in reaching target audiences and broadcasting the best and brightest of UNHCR, but also the work we do around the world,” Mucino-Sanchez says. “It emphasized this message of moral responsibility, which I think was really successful.”
According to McGrath, the data showed that reaching the two primary audiences UNHCR needs to target was done most effectively through local media, which is precisely why the team chose that route. But they hope to take that idea even further in the future, with personal appearances, film screenings, and other events, perhaps in conjunction with local elected officials and other local community leaders.
Using the data moving forward
Of course, the team would like to work with national partners, too — such as Ben & Jerry’s, which created an ice cream flavor in some markets outside the U.S. called “Cone Together.” Just one of the company’s many social justice-themed flavors, this play on “Come Together” is specifically meant to encourage people to join forces and call on elected officials to “protect and advance the rights” of refugees and asylum-seekers. Other partnerships like this are in the works, as are additional strategies to reach a broader audience, although the team hopes to return to local endeavors, too.
Given how divided the U.S. remains — and the lack of understanding about the lives of refugees, who are often lumped together with immigrants, according to other study findings — there’s still a great deal of work to be done to shift long-held views. But McGrath says the study has done an excellent job of helping the team figure out where to focus their limited efforts, given that the support from the Innovation Fund was strictly for the research.
“We’re going to rely very heavily on free media,” he says, “but we’re also tapping into other organizations and entities that have their own ability to attract free or even paid media.”
Although the team admits that even their sophisticated, data-driven study didn’t provide all the answers, they know a great deal more than they did before — and they intend to put it to good use, both for this project and future endeavors
“You really have to put your assumptions aside to determine the facts of what’s going to change people’s minds — what’s going to move people to become stronger supporters of refugees,” McGrath says. “Just because you think one thing will succeed doesn’t make it true, which means you have to figure out what actually changes people’s minds, and doing that effectively requires data.”
