How Audience Insights Become Winning Messages
The key to Galvanize Action’s success is understanding our audience, engaging with women on an ongoing basis, and talking to them about the entire range of issues that matter. This “secret sauce” is the key to making progress on the problems that affect our lives—like access to affordable childcare. Our nation’s childcare crisis is top of mind for many of the women we hear from, and it presents a perfect case study to examine how our audience insights become messages that help make a better America.
Winning messages start with award-winning research: we analyze which psychographic traits and values are most predictive of our audience’s civic choices, then we dig in to learn more.
For example, in-group care is a top value across all Galvanize Action segments. This shows up as a desire to protect the people who are closest to or similar to oneself. People who are high in in-group care will agree with the statement “It is my duty to take care of my family.”
All three of the following messages from our nonpartisan affiliate Galvanize USA apply in-group care in order to build support for government action on childcare. But they speak to three different groups of women with three different ideas about who is deserving of support and how involved the government should be in providing that support. Give them a watch and see if you can spot a few key differences:
As a Teacher was created for Traditionalist Conservatives. Merit is the strongest value at play: notice how moms are centered as the hero because of their hard work. It reflects their idea that hardworking people like them deserve support because they’ve earned it by making the right choices in life. Meanwhile, the government plays a smaller part in this message than it does in the other two. This is because this segment doesn’t believe the government should have an outsized role in their lives. You may also notice the use of nostalgia, which this group is over indexed in.
Best Investment speaks to Uncertain Individualists. This message addresses childcare in terms of what can help everyone be successful, pulling on the Uncertain Individualist value of achievement. It also points out that the government isn’t holding up its end of the social contract when it comes to supporting families. Uncertain Individualists tell us they don’t think the government cares about them or families like theirs, so a little bit of government blame (while making it clear this group isn’t reliant upon government services) goes a long way.
New Program is for Trusting Liberals. Trusting Liberals are proud of their role in advancing rights for women; they tell us they want to leave a strong legacy for their in-group. They are high in compassion, and not just for people who are similar to them. They’re more likely to see the systemic issues that affect Americans than other segments are. So a message like this that includes specific policy ideas and discusses the government and private businesses working together is perfect for them.
This strategic approach turns research insights into impactful messages that truly connect with women and build support for government action on affordable childcare: something that benefits our entire society.
