Getting Your Publicity Machine Going

McDonald’s have a well-oiled and rolling PR (public relations) and publicity machine – so get yours going to make sure that the wheels fall off theirs. Your PR and publicity serve multiple purposes:

It creates awareness in your community about the unwanted development, lets people know what’s going on and also that there is a campaign to fight this (and who to contact).
It keeps people up-to-date with your campaign progress and any events (such as public meetings, fund raising activities etc.).
It should invite whole community involvement and participation.
It is inspiring and motivating for your supporters to see that the issue is high profile, that the campaign is making progress and that a lot of other people care about this.
It signals to local politicians that this is a major, contentious local issue.
It beats McDonald’s at their own game.

The Letters Page

Start with a campaign to the Letters page of your local newspaper(s) – both paid for and free ones. This page is the most read page after the front page. It is also read avidly by local politicians, as it gives them a barometer on local opinion on key issues, and what are the burning issues of the moment.

It is a good idea to nominate a Task Force member to co-ordinate letters to the press and ‘drip-feed’ the press – one or two letters per week. If everyone writes at the same time, only one or two will get published and the opportunity for letters in future issues will be lost.

If someone writes in favouring McDonald’s (expect this, the company will fire someone up to do this) – the Task Force should co-ordinate a response to counter the points made, but consider asking someone from outside the immediate group to reply with an opposite view (the Task Force could draft the letter if help is needed).

Make sure that the majority of letters to the press aren’t from known Task Force members if you can help it – but rather from your supporting objectors if you can arrange it. It is in your interest that politicians see as many different names and local streets as possible being against the development.

There are times when it may be appropriate for Task Force members to make a Letters page response to a particular McDonald’s activity or statement. All we would say here is use your names wisely and sparingly, because councillors should know who you are anyway and you don’t want them to think that it’s only a group of four or five vociferous people who are against the development.

Having said that, it’s a good idea for the Chair or Secretary of your Task force to write one of the first letters to introduce your campaign, the name of your group and how to contact you.

Whatever you do, don’t give too much away about your campaign – particularly if you’ve got some good planning arguments that you don’t want McDonald’s to know about. Good things to write about are the litter, smells, increased traffic and that the local community don’t welcome a McDonalds at the proposed location etc.

Press Articles

Your local press are always in the market for a good story – give them a good story whenever you can.

Contact the local newspapers (both free and paid for) once the planning application has been submitted to let them know about it, and that there is strong local feeling against it. We recommend that you contact the journalists by telephone and introduce yourself, rather than a paper press release through the post or via fax. Try to develop a good relationship with your local journalists. It can be a good idea to nominate one Task Force member with this responsibility so that journalists always know who to contact, and a friendly working relationship will be easier to develop if the journalists always speak to the same person.

Even if they’re not that interested initially, they almost certainly will be once your Letters page campaign gets going – because this will signal a good story with contentious aspects.

Remember NOTHING is ever off the record with the press; NEVER tell them anything that you wouldn’t want to see in print. Journalists are inherently sociable people with very strong interpersonal skills, and can get you talking without you realising it. Try to select a Task Force member – a ‘spin doctor’ who feels confident about handling press relationships. Expect your comments to be taken slightly out of context and not exactly as you said them – this always happens.

George Monbiot, author and journalist who writes for the guardian newspaper, has written some extremely helpful tips on managing the media, and these can be found at http://www.urban75.com/Action/media.html.

As with letters to the press, don’t give too much away about your campaign – particularly if you’ve got some good planning arguments that you don’t want McDonald’s to know about. Quotes to journalists that point out that the local community don’t want McDonald’s at the site, the size and strength of the opposition to the development, the hundreds of signatures on the petition (and still growing), fund raising events, your public meeting etc. are useful. Your aim should be that press articles emphasise that the development is strongly opposed.

Set Up Your Own Website

Set up your own website and get the address published in the press either via a journalist article (if one is being written at the right time) or write to the Letters page to publicise it as a source of up-to-date information on the campaign. However, once you’ve done this you must keep your site up to date. Put your website address on all your leaflets etc.

There are lots of free providers of websites, but you may have to pay for the domain name (e.g. the name of your site plus the co.uk, org, net etc. – whichever you choose). Some ISPs (Internet service providers) have the facility to let you have your own web pages with a domain name without you having to register and pay elsewhere. You should explore what’s available. We can also host web pages about your campaign’s progress for you via Stop the Store. The main point here is to have web pages somewhere, publicise the address and then keep the pages up-to-date so that your local community know what’s going on.

It’s up to you what put on your website, but consider keeping it factual about latest campaign developments – it will be a valuable information source for objectors who are outside your immediate task force. Don’t forget that McDonald’s will see it too, so don’t give away the details of your battle strategies and tactics.

We don’t recommend bad language – this could lose you support in many pockets of the local community. But do use emotive language to stir people up and also humour. McDonald’s don’t have any humour, and humiliation is a powerful tool.

See also our section on mobilising people regarding leaflets, posters, meetings and other local community activities to get and keep people fighting for your cause.