Communications
Supporting organizations that need to communicate clearly and effectively with the public and/or stakeholders.
Tools to uncover public perception
Environics partners with organizations to strengthen how they communicate with the public and stakeholders. This work is undertaken to raise public awareness, manage organizational reputations, and/or help clients build support for initiatives, policies or positions.
Research is often conducted before communications are rolled out to determine the appropriate target audiences, how best to reach them, and to guide the development of suitable messaging.
Featured Case Study
Commissionaires: Connecting Veterans with Employment Opportunities
Understand the motivations and mindsets of veterans to help Commissionaires continue to provide meaningful civilian employment roles where veterans can thrive and contribute.
Insight-driven strategies for impact
We work closely with communications, public affairs, and policy teams to ground strategies in data and insight. Whether responding to emerging issues, exploring public attitudes, or planning outreach, we deliver clear, actionable findings. From national surveys to local consultations, our research equips organizations to communicate with purpose and engage effectively with the audiences that matter most.
Our Advertising & Marketing services also helps brands create campaigns that truly resonate. From brand strategy to creative testing and performance tracking, we partner with marketers and agencies to boost engagement, optimize spend, and drive growth.
Audience Identification
Do you need to clarify who already knows about your issue or topic, what is known, and who might benefit from more or different information?
– This type of preliminary research is often undertaken before campaigns are developed to allow communicators to target the right audience(s) and optimize expenditures.
– The research in this case would be used to assess public or stakeholder knowledge, attitudes and (reported) behaviors on a given topic. To confirm what needs to be communicated and to whom.
Message Development
Do you need to develop, test and refine your messaging?
– Which messages resonate best with different audiences, how convincing are they, and do they motivate appropriate responses?
– Is there an optimal combination of messages to reach the desired audience(s)?
– We use a number of approaches – qualitative and quantitative – to test arguments, assess how messages are interpreted, and identify optimal content.
Audience Segmentation
Do you need a map of the opinion landscape relative to your issue or topic?
– Segmentation is used to assess the landscape to sort out, for example, who is already onside, who may be beyond reach, and who are your optimal target audiences.
– At Environics this often involves Social Values research which helps inform why people think the way they do and how to best connect with them.
– Social Values analysis helps identify messages that will resonate with the values of specific target audiences.
– This level of insight informs message development so that messages designed for one audience aren’t turning off another group you are trying to reach.
Communications Testing
Need to pre-test your campaign or track its reach and recall?
– Environics has conducted many studies over the years to assess the reach and recall of advertising campaigns, including both pre- and post-campaign research.
– We have also shown preliminary storyboards to get a quick read of what concepts work best with different audience, and last minute “disaster” checks.
– We have developed a hybrid quantitative-qualitative approach that leverages online survey tools to complete concept, material, advertising or web design testing studies. The advantage of this approach is that input can be gathered remotely allowing greater coverage by geography or for harder to reach audiences than can be accomplished in traditional focus group studies.
– This technique can be used in many contexts, from social marketing and public education to commercial applications among customer and prospects.
Online Intelligence
Do you need to understand what is being said online about your organization or issue(s)?
– Through the collection and analysis of social media data, it is possible to understand the sentiment of conversations and patterns that occur online, as well as understand more about the people behind it.
– These techniques can be used stand alone to inform brand or reputation analyses or as a complement to traditional research – to inform the why behind a change in tracking numbers, for example.
– At Environics we use a suite of tools to gather, clean, and analyze data from online sources, and combine that with human interpretation by our experts, providing clear and precise answers questions about your organizational reputation or issues.
In The Media
Our Experts
Tony Coulson
Group VP – Corporate & Public Affairs
Sarah Roberton
SVP – Corporate & Public Affairs
