We take a look at an alternate method for approaching message mapping...The Chandler Message Mapping Model by Dr. Robert Chandler, an organizational communications expert. 

Chandler looks at three different tiers or stages of an emergency and using appropriate messages for each stage.

• Tier One: long term core messages which are used repeatedly e.g. "Duck and Cover" "Click it or Ticket it"
• Tier Two: used during an alert and includes three memorable phrases used with moderate redundancy e.g."Stay Alert, Stay Awake, Stay Alive"
• Tier Three: used in an acute situation, sentences are short and only used in a limited number of times for specific audiences.

 The Chandler model of message mapping purports the following;

• it is a more sophisticated version of traditional message mapping
• it makes use of three different levels of message mapping
• it develops and holds audience attention over time
• it recognizes that pre-incident information needs are quite different from mid-incident and post-incident needs.

What is of interest is the approach that the method uses to create the message map: Working Backward.

You begin with the overall goal in mind, determine the three sub-points that relate to the goal, create three sentences for each message goal (Tier Three), reduce the sentences to three short phrases (Tier Two) and, reduce phrases to three short words (Tier One)

 As Dr. Chandler says that the alternative to not planning your key messages in advance is " High-profile communication gaffes are caused by lack of preparation, confusing or inaccurate communication or inability to get a message out quickly to the right people."

You can incorporate the best of these approaches into your own 'message mapping' preparations. We have found that you can obtain good results by keeping your approach simple, and build on the fundamental premises of human behaviour as outlined by Dr. Vincent Covello (see Delivering Key Messages in a Crisis #CAEC010) when developing your key messages.

We will add more alternative approaches to message mapping as they come to light.

Note: To see how message mapping fits into the overall crisis communications plan, see the template that we have developed in the resources folder of this project.