How a group of crafters won over the board of M&S
For Women’s History Month, we’ve been sharing stories of brilliant women we admire.
This week, we’re feeling inspired by Sarah Corbett, founder of the UK-based Craftivist Collective, a movement dedicated to the art of gentle protest. Members of the collective use sewing, crochet, knitting and other crafts to bring about change.
We particularly love the story of how Sarah and 24 other craftivists used their skills to persuade M&S to adopt the independent living wage.
Sarah had been approached by Share Action, a registered charity that promotes responsible investment.
Having hit a wall in their campaign to get M&S to pay its 50,000 staff fairly, Share Action were looking for a creative way to get the attention of the M&S board.
The solution Sarah came up with? At M&S’s next AGM, present each board member with a beautifully wrapped M&S handkerchief, hand-embroidered with a message about the need for change.
And guess what? It worked. The chair of the board even declared it the most powerful campaign they’d ever seen.
Here are three things we, as communicators, can learn from this beautiful bit of craftivism.
1. Personalise your message
Sarah paired each craftivist with a single board member each and urged them to “google the hell” out of their chosen target.
The idea was that before starting the project, each craftivist should have a fully rounded picture of their particular recipient’s work history, likes, dislikes, hobbies, favourite colours, passions, family situation and more.
Basically, anything that would help the craftivist embroider a unique message that spoke directly to the heart of that one person.
The lesson: Know your audience. But, also, don’t think of them as an “audience” (a word suggestive of a group). The more you can speak to — or, at the very least, as if to — one person, the more powerful your message will be.
2. Empathise, empathise, empathise
Craftivism, which grew out of the feminist movement, is all about pushing for change in a slower, more gentle way than traditional forms of protest allow.
So Corbett urged her fellow craftivists to make their embroidered messages thoughtful, beautiful and kind. Loving even.
She urged the crafters to acknowledge that the board members had a difficult job to do and to present themselves as critical friends offering support, rather than as aggressive enemies.
The lesson: Getting to know your audience isn’t simply about intellectually understanding where they’re coming from. It’s also about understanding them emotionally. So put yourself in the shoes of those you want to persuade and imagine how your message will make them feel.
3. Interrupt the everyday
In an age of digital “clicktivism”, the slowness and very material nature of the hand-made gift stood out massively. There was no sending this message to the delete folder unread.
Another example is the Craftivist Colletive’s shop dropping campaign — where activists drop little hand-written notes into the pockets of fast fashion items, encouraging the wearer to reflect on the environmental or social impact of consumerism.
The physical form of the message also reminds us of an example from our own work — how, in a time of change, employees of a digital media agency clung to printed-out copies of a manifesto we’d helped them create. Very old school. Very powerful.
The lesson: Think creatively about the medium for your message. Go where your audience is, yes. But also go where your competition isn’t. If everyone else is emailing them, try another channel. Think, too, about how you can make your message different from everyone else’s — for example, by ditching the clichéd language your prospect is used to seeing (“innovative solutions”, anyone?),
