Strategic Framework
Messaging that resonates at the core.
We developed our own messaging framework, called Baseframe Theory, to build each message on the physical and financial security an audience needs. We use it with Republican and Democratic audiences alike.
The Problem
People who believe in the mission write most advocacy messaging for people who already agree with them. They think about purpose and the future, the needs Maslow put at the top of his hierarchy. But the audience that decides most issues is worried about a paycheck or whether their kids are safe, so a message about purpose doesn't reach them.
The Framework
4. Aspiration
3. Connection
2. Stability
1. Foundation
We build every message in 4 layers, starting with Foundation at the bottom and working up.
The growth and future the organization wants to talk about comes last, once the 3 layers below it are in place.
With safety and control in place, we show the audience who is on their side and who is delivering the message.
On top of that, the audience needs control over their own circumstances. If a message takes control away from them, they won’t hear anything we put above it.
We start with the audience’s physical and financial safety, whether the issue is health care or foreign policy.
How a message gets built
1 Ground
2 Acknowledge
3 Show
4 Invite
Every message opens with something the audience already accepts as true.
Next, we address what they’ve heard about you or your issue.
We give them proof they can check for themselves, like a local example or someone they recognize.
Then we ask them to join you and let them decide how far to go.
A conservative audience and a progressive audience each get a message in their own language, but both messages use the same 4 layers. We developed the framework by asking what would have reached our own families growing up.
