Communications Campaigns

1 Communications Campaigns: Creative Approaches and Tools 2021-2022 The Bristol Clean Air Zone | Word Count: 3333 | July 12, 2022

2 Table of Contents Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 3 The Issue & Context ........................................................................................................................ 3 Campaign aims and objectives ........................................................................................................ 5 Identified Target Audiences ............................................................................................................. 6 Bristol City Council’s Engagement and Communications Approach .............................................. 8 Monitoring and Evaluation of campaign strategy ......................................................................... 16 Evaluation of campaign theme ...................................................................................................... 17

4 vulnerable people, especially those with underlying health conditions. The UK government- directed Bristol to reduce air pollution by establishing a clean air zone (CAZ). Bristol's CAZ will be launched on November 28, 2022. Vehicles with high emissions of gas pollutants will be restricted but not banned from entering Bristol City. Among the measures taken is charging most emitting vehicles a daily fee to allow them into the city. This will encourage logistic companies and daily travelers to change to less emitting vehicles and adopt alternative traveling means such as cycling, walking, skating, and public transport. Figure 1: Shows how charges will be distributed depending on fuel consumption and vehicle model Bristol's CAZ targets vehicles yet to adhere to the emission standards. However, about 76% of the vehicles meet the city's CAZ standards and will not be banned (Bristol.gov.uk.,

5 2022). The campaign targets the remaining 24% of the vehicles that do not meet the standards to encourage them to reduce their pollution footprint. To prepare people for the campaign, the government has provided a website where people can check whether their vehicles meet the minimum emission standards. Figure 2 demonstrates different categories of vehicles that have met the city standards. Figure 2: Shows the compliant vehicle models Campaign aims and objectives The campaign aims to encourage collective action for all individuals, organizations, and households to work together to improve the air quality in Bristol City. The CAZ will help reduce unsafe pollution levels whose root cause is vehicle emissions. The zone is also the path to ensure that all residents of Bristol benefit from a clean-air environment. Measures that will help control nitrogen dioxide emission include encouraging switching to cleaner vehicles, restricting the highest emitting vehicles, and encouraging citizens to use public transport, cycling, or walking. Restrictions will not affect low-emitting vehicles such as Euro 6 diesel automobiles manufactured from 2015 onwards and Euro 6, 5, and 4 petrol vehicles manufactured from 2006 onwards (Nikitas, Avineri, & Parkhurst, 2018). The CAZ also includes loans to boost people

7 accidents in the city (6.8%) across the same period (Yang, 2016) . The size of the Bristol CAZ was designed to meet air quality goals in the central region where air quality is worst. The designed area will include the city center, Old Market, and other areas, as shown in Figure 4. The choice of the area is intended to inspire drivers and firms to change transport mode, update vehicles, avoid the city, or choose alternative transport means. Portway and Cumberland Basin are part of the zone because they contain the main routes to the city. If the residents of the two areas are excluded from the CAZ, it could take longer to realize the legal air quality targets. The choice of a smaller region will facilitate campaign communication, facilitate behavioral change, and save city life.

8 Figure 4 shows the map of the Bristol CAZ Figure 5 shows the age distribution of the target population Bristol City Council's Engagement and Communications Approach The communication campaign will target everyone within Bristol's CAZ. This section offers a summary of the activities carried out so far and the expected future emphasis of involvement and debate (on the specifics of implementation) with citizens and city stakeholders throughout the upcoming planning phases ahead of Bristol's CAZ rollout in November 2022. Based on the consultation feedback and the most critical implementation milestones, a more specific strategy will be drafted. The preferred Clean Air Zone solutions can't be developed without public and stakeholder input (Schrøder, 2019). Bristol City Council must ensure that all campaign strategies actively involve all the stakeholders to streamline the realization of the Bristol CAZ (Borrowman, 2021). This process has been ongoing since pre-engagement in late 2018 and continuing through the summer of 2019. This communication strategy aims to raise

10 trade associations, general practitioners' offices, schools, builders' merchants, and trade associations. Social media and messaging platforms In 2020, 90.5% of Bristol's households had a computer or mobile device, while 85.7% households had an active subscription to broadband internet (Beutller, & Paschke, 2020). Bristol's age distribution is mainly composed of the youthful population who highly depend on internet news and updates. Social media will be an essential engagement tool for spreading the word and encouraging financial contributions to support Bristol's CAZ. The email CAZSupport@bristol.gov.uk will be used to distribute email messages to the target population. Supporters of the campaign will use the hashtag #CleanAirForBriston to spread the campaign on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tiktok, and Facebook. Essential communications and news will be shared through Bristol's official Twitter account @BCC_Clean_Air.

11 Figure 6 illustrates the social media platforms and respective images for the Bristol CAZ campaigns Direct email messages will be used to communicate with the potential beneficiaries of financial packages to create awareness of the availability of financial support and the means of accessing it. There will be a comprehensive campaign plan that comprises local advertising, an engagement team, postcards, and telemarketing teams that will host events and reply to individual queries. The Action Net Zero digital hub

13 n e Communicatio n strategy Setup and strategy Sep t Oct Nov De c Ja n Fe b Informing the people about what needs to be done Explaining how they will be affected by the CAZ Providing the target audience with the scientific findings and reports on air quality o Website o Email and newsletter o Social media campaigns o Offline surveys o The Action Net Zero digital hub Distributing a survey that may be completed anonymously by anybody, both online and o Website o Email and newsletter o Social media campaigns o Offline surveys

14 offline Disseminating a communication toolkit to over 600 institutions, such as trade associations, general practitioners' offices, schools, builders' merchants, and trade associations. o Key groups Increasing publicity and compliance through email messages and social media to the target population o Email and newsletter o hashtag #CleanAirForBristo n Local influencers Organize green o ANZ digital hub

16 Monitoring and Evaluation of campaign strategy Monitoring and Evaluation of campaign strategy are designated into CAZ C, and CAZ D. Bristol's CAZ campaign is intended for the highest designation, CAZ D (Council, 2019). It charges public and private vehicles and encourages residents to reconsider their means of travel. Two metrics will be used to evaluate the campaign strategy; (1) air quality and (2) financial benefits. Bristol's Evaluation, shown in Figure 10, will have potentially higher benefits than CAZ C in both metric scales. The financial benefits are expected to be approximately five times the benefits of CAZ C (Lockwood, 2020). The comprehensive coverage of CAZ D will cut congestion, improve health perception, reduce pollution, reduce accidents, and facilitate healthy behaviors through active travel. Table 2: Evaluation metrics for the Bristol CAZ campaign strategy

17 Evaluation of campaign theme This section outlines the communication themes used in the campaign to encourage people and companies to reduce traffic emissions. The inverted pyramid Most air pollution statistics are produced through scientific studies by experts in related fields. The majority of the target audience mainly consists of non-experts in the field, which means they cannot effectively interpret scientific facts that are presented in the scientific style

19 encourage the youths to develop an interest in reading essential materials that can help them to change their pollution habits. Figure 8 demonstrates how a communication campaign can be transformed into humor Communicating using imagery and metaphors Using imagery and metaphors in communicating Bristol's CAZ will help people visualize how pollution affects the environment and their health. For example, the metaphor presented in Figure 9 involves an artist's impression of a heart under polluted air to help people imagine how vehicle emissions can affect their heart health. The metaphor helps people imagine and visualize a smoker's heart to increase their determination to change to greener vehicles or use pollution- free transport such as biking, skating, or walking.

20 Figure 9, metaphor and imagery Creating urgency without causing fear Anxiety is unquestionably associated with the overuse of fear and social stigmatization that pervaded the pandemic, even though quick behavioral adjustments needed to be spurred on by the danger (Nisbet et al., 2015). For the air quality problem, it is vital to strike the appropriate balance between a genuine fear of the future and a required optimism for a better one. In some ways, the pollution problem is simpler to understand, which is why communication and involvement are crucial. If you miscommunicate, you risk alienating your audience, not because they don't care, but because they feel attacked for making lifestyle choices over which they have little influence (d'Anjou & Van Male, 1998). Psychological research on pollution and public health issue demonstrate that communicating through fear does little to promote trust and a