For nearly 75 years, NATO has been instrumental in maintaining peace and security on behalf of its member states. As well as managing the Alliance’s collective defense on land, at sea, in the air, across cyberspace, and in space, NATO has helped to foster close relationships and cooperation between its member and partner nations, promoting cooperation, stability, and democratic institutions. Over the years, NATO has also played a key role in global peacekeeping, security, and humanitarian assistance.
Meanwhile, the escalating war in Ukraine and the growing divisions among global powers both underscore how critical the Alliance is to safeguard the security and freedom of its members, and how much is at stake for all of us. While past audience research shows that overall support for NATO is strong, it continues to reveal key weaknesses. Therefore, the work of NATO’s communicators has never been more important.
To protect and strengthen the Alliance, leadership must communicate NATO’s purpose, priorities, and activities to a global audience in a way that builds public trust and confidence. In a crowded communications environment in which competition for public attention and cynicism towards governments and institutions has never been greater, cutting through and meaningfully connecting with audiences is challenging.
This is why Agenda was awarded a multi-year task order to deliver large-scale, biannual research and polling fieldwork across the entire NATO Alliance (plus Sweden) in early 2023. Agenda’s work includes interviewing 31,000 individuals twice each year, conducting detailed data analytics, delivering weekly and biannual reporting, testing messaging and awareness, developing an interactive data dashboard, and preparing and presenting topline results to senior NATO officials.
“Agenda’s management and clear understanding of the range of end-users across the organization and the utility of the project within the context of short and longer-term strategic objectives have made them a reliable partner,” said Amy Lecomber, NATO Senior Researcher and Project Manager (Public Diplomacy Division).
The fact is, NATO represents over a billion people across the Alliance and meaningfully connecting with them is a Herculean task. This is why Agenda’s emphasis on measurement, evaluation, and learning (MEL) is so important to the program’s success. The results of our biannual research along with our MEL approach provide guidance on effectiveness of campaigns, support development of targeted awareness and education activities, and inform leadership’s decisions across all operational domains. They also allow us to monitor trending sentiment across the Alliance and provide insights on where direct engagement is essential.
Along with recent Agenda-directed NATO research, these results allow the Alliance to inform strategic direction in reaching policy objectives. Ultimately, our goal is to help NATO refine its communications strategy, improve public awareness and understanding of NATO’s policies and activities, and enhance trust in and support of the Alliance.
Since the beginning of Agenda’s full-time engagement with NATO in 2015 as a prime strategic communications contractor, Agenda has successfully delivered over 75 task orders, including major campaigns such as #WeAreNATO that are actively used across the Alliance. We have also executed a diversity of assignments for NATO Headquarters (HQ) in Brussels; NATO Support and Procurement Agency in Luxembourg; NATO HQ in Sarajevo; and Supreme Allied Command Transformation in Norfolk, Virginia.
Across all these assignments, Agenda’s success is grounded in understanding audiences through replicable and industry-leading research and programmatic evaluation. Because NATO now relies on Agenda for a variety of complex strategic communications capabilities, including development of measurable strategics to penetrate closed information environments, we have also created a proprietary methodological approach called the Reverse Access Population Targeting (RAPT) mechanism. RAPT targets devices such as mobile phones used by key populations, tracks individual devices and online habits over time, and delivers highly customized content based on relevant and defined objectives – something desperately needed across our ever-fractured world.
Although the Russian invasion of Ukraine dominates the political discourse, this is not the only threat facing the Alliance. The risk of potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific, active conflicts in North Africa and the Middle East, the growing challenge of cyber-attacks, and the security risks presented by climate change are all present and complex challenges that NATO must address. In this context, it is essential that NATO builds and maintains a broad base of public support across all member states.
Given this range of challenges across the globe, Agenda’s research and strategic communications programs are helping NATO enhance its understanding of how it is perceived by citizens of Allied nations and explore the perceptions and behaviors that shape their opinions.
