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Understanding the Rules of the Game: Making Our Case on Defined Benefit Plans
The organization working with NCPERS to respond to attacks on defined benefit plans explained how pension plans under attack can develop and implement a strategy for defending their plans.
Alexander Kippen, an expert in the field of communications strategy and media training, suggested there are key steps trustees must take when responding to pension plan attacks. They include understanding the local environment and your audience, developing a clear message and delivering it effectively.
In California, Kippen noted that the local situation began when Governor Schwarzenegger defined the issue. He labeled public employees collectively as a special interest group receiving special benefits.
The employee organizations' success began when they "turned the tables. Instead of being identified by the governor, they began to identify the issue through clear communication and getting in front of the cameras," Kippen noted. "They even followed Schwarzenegger across the country as he tried to raise funds to support his campaign!"
The California campaign illustrates the characteristics of persuasive communications, Kippen said: "There are simple steps you can take, such as pick three key points and say each three times to ensure they are remembered."
When developing a message in defense of defined benefit funds, Kippen believes a pension fund's message must answer the question the audience is always asking: What is in it for me?
Kippen stressed that a pension plan's message must reach multiple separate audiences, whose members have widely varying levels of awareness of pension issues:
- media,
- government, general public,
- third party experts,
- plan participants, and
- financial community.
Regardless of the audience, Kippen stressed, "the resulting message must have three basic qualities. It must be clear, concise and credible."
Messages that resonate with an audience, Kippen explained, focus on the why-for example, why defined benefit plans are good for employees and taxpayers. They include comments from experts who use examples and analogies to make technical or unfamiliar information easy to understand.
As one example, Kippen talked about a Florida campaign, in which the fund labeled an attempt to move workers from a DB plan to a DC plan as a radical change that was costly and chaotic. The first proof that the message was credible was the discovery that the state spent $89 million in the transition-and yet few workers moved to the new plan. The second proof, to make voters care, was the reminder that this unsuccessful campaign took money away from vital taxpayer services, such as fire and police protection, and education programs.
Kippen stressed that successful campaigns also share another quality: easy access to the message. Today that requires funds to get their message out early and online. Some funds use their general website, while others establish separate sites for a unique campaign.
Next, Kippen explained the research his firm conducted for NCPERS and the resulting messages that came out of focus group sessions. These messages and materials that funds can use to defend against privatization and other attacks will soon be distributed by NCPERS.
In closing, Kippen encouraged the delegates to go on the offensive, the strategy that worked so well in California. He suggested that pension funds can also capitalize on the current debate over Social Security, in which private accounts have been identified as a way to add to the nation's deficit, not a way to solve Social Security's long-term funding problems. And whenever possible, stress also the benefits to taxpayers of the existing pension plan.
Prior to CommCore Consulting Group, Alexander Kippen was a political reporter covering Congress, the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton Administrations for Canada's Global Television Network and Fox News. He has also been a senior manager with some of Washington's most respected public relations firms, where he provided media counsel and media training for both established and emerging corporate clients. Kippen has contributed reports to CNN, and National Geographic, and has written for The Washington Monthly, The Washington Post and New York magazine.
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