How to launch a campaign…

Date: 26 July 2010

Ingredients
1 full page article in the Guardian newspaper
1 interview on BBC Radio 4 Today programme
1 interview on BBC Newsnight
10 articles across other newspapers
31 articles online
900 sign ups to a phone action,
65 comments on our website

Take all the ingredients and combine well to create heat and froth.

Ok it’s a food campaign so couldn’t resist the analogy to cooking. Last week we launched our new campaign to regulate food speculation in financial markets with an amazing amount of press and media coverage. The story got picked up as it’s the age-old tale of greed at the expense of millions going hungry. Bankers, like Goldman Sachs, are speculating on food prices which have fuelled price hikes in recent years and driving more people into deeper poverty and hunger.

As well as raising profile for the campaign on television, radio, press and web we had over 900 people signed up to call the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to ask them to regulate food speculation. We wanted to convey to the FSA the strength of public feeling on this issue and also to call on them to ask the government for the powers to regulate food speculation.

As expected the FSA developed a standard response, in the face of numerous calls on the same issue and redirected people to contact their MPs. Funny they should say that – something we prepared earlier… we have some guidelines on contacting your MP on this issue.

Thank you to everyone who made the phone call – which has been a vital ingredient in our launch and has helped to build profile for this campaign.

If you have an appetite to do more, then please contact your MP and let them know that food speculation needs to be regulated. You can also sign up to enews (on the right hand side of this page) to get the latest actions and updates on this campaign.