Two Case Studies of Successful Strategic Communication Campaigns

Strategic communication has come to be a popular term to describe the process by which U.S. military organizations managed and unified their planned communications efforts. Unfortunately joint doctrine leaves many of the words associated with strategic communication undefined including themes and messages and strategic communication has long suffered from definitional problems. While many commentators and experts have criticized the shortcomings of U.S. communication efforts especially in operational environments very little attention has been given to documenting success stories that suggest tools that leaders can use to design and implement campaigns. This book details two case studies of successful strategic communication campaigns?the Multi-Year Roadmap in Stabilization Force-Bosnia and the creation of the U.S. Africa Command. Both campaigns began in environments unfavorable to the commanders and their organizations but in both cases the campaign helped turn perceptions of the command into a more favorable light. The book concludes by drawing on the facts of the two cases to present a general architecture for communication campaigns applicable in both enterprise and operational contexts.