As well as putting together the ‘nuts and bolts’ of communications – the speeches, articles, websites, reports and so on, I also have a good deal of experience in designing entire communications strategies – putting the pieces together. I can therefore offer a consultancy service to organisations which are thinking about their own communications strategies.

My experience in this area began when working with Paddy Ashdown, then leader of the UK’s Liberal Democrat party, a role in which I played a part in shaping the party’s priorities for communications. I later helped to draw up communications plans for organisations including BTEC – the qualifications provider which is now part of Edexcel – and the Pre-School Learning Alliance.  At BT, I led a ‘think-tank’ which was set up in the corporate relations department to look at the future of corporate communications.  

A case study – putting the case for Britain being in Europe

“David played a leading role in turning a low profile
organisation into a high profile one."
Lord Radice, former European Movement Chairman

In 1996 I took on a major challenge when I was asked to be Director of Communications for the European Movement, with a brief to make the case for British membership of the European Union - and ultimately of the euro currency.

Since working on a European campaign with Paddy Ashdown, I had always believed that Britain gained more from being part of the EU than was generally understood. Now the task was to get that message into the press and put pro-Europeans onto the media's radar after years of domination by the so-called 'euro-sceptics'.

Our strategy was to enlist some strong, well-known individuals from politics and business to provide our ‘voices’ and then to carry out a series of interventions to get ourselves noticed, varying the tactics from month to month. The ‘voices’ included Peter Mandelson, Charles Kennedy, Edwina Currie and Lord Haskins. Over 18 months running up the 1997 general election, we succeeded in generating hundreds of media references and raising the profile of the pro-European argument.  Our tactics included the following:

• A Gallup poll showing the extent of public ignorance about the euro. It showed that the British public were "more euro-baffled than euro-sceptic".
  
  
• A letter to the FT from 15 chairmen or chief executives of major UK companies including BP, Shell, Unigate, Unilever and Vauxhall.
  
  
• A campaign launched in 1997 and called ‘Europe ‘97’, featuring a tabloid newspaper with ‘97 reasons to be in Europe’ and a press advertisement signed by 97 MPs
  
  
• A petition presented to EU leaders at an Amsterdam summit by comedian and supporter Eddie Izzard