From Policy to People – A National Comms Reset

The Challenge:

A national health body was running dozens of public campaigns — but citizens were seeing noise, not clarity. Messages overlapped. Tone shifted by department. And impact was unclear. The brief? Build a unified communications approach that would boost trust, consistency, and performance across the board.

The Approach:

We audited over 30 public-facing campaigns across multiple agencies and uncovered key barriers to clarity and recall. Then, through a cross-departmental working group, we developed a modular playbook that helped teams translate policy into plain language — tailored for real people. Framing, tone, and structure were simplified and standardised. Training followed to embed the new model.

Key Moves:

• 🔍 Audited 30+ health campaigns to identify message confusion and tonal drift

• 🧱 Defined common barriers to trust, clarity, and message consistency

• 🤝 Ran cross-agency working groups to co-create framing and tone principles

• 📘 Built a modular playbook: From Policy to People

• 🧑‍🏫 Delivered train-the-trainer sessions for civil service and agency teams

Results That Mattered:

• 📈 86% of campaign teams adopted the new framework within 6 months

• 🏛️ Playbook now embedded in central government comms training

• 🧠 Improvements reported in message clarity and public recall

• 📣 Cited as best practice in strategic review of national communications