Home  Chapter Sections  1. Introduction  2. Campaigning  3. Civil Disobedience  4. Direct Action  5. Action Planning  6. Lobbying  7. Picketing  8. Starting a Group  9. Publicity  10. Leafleting  11. News Media  12. Internet

How to Do Animal Rights - and Win the War on Animals Chapter 3 Campaigning Methods for Animal Rights 10. Leafleting Produce good looking, quick to read and informative leaflets. Leaflets are a kind of open letter to catch people's eye and be read by anyone. They are an opportunity to introduce your cause, state your argument and draw attention to your group or an event you are planning. People can take your leaflets home with them as a reminder for future action. No doubt many leaflets are quickly discarded but a single leaflet can be handed round and read my many people. Design What people or audience do you want to influence? Your audience could be everyone generally or it could be people in your local area or people who use a particular animal product, eg broilers or eggs from caged chickens, or people who frequent a certain supermarket. What message are you going to tell them? Write it down in a simple sentence and put it at the top of your leaflet. The design, layout and argument of your leaflet should be interesting, memorable and persuasive. Take a tip from the marketing profession and hit your audience with 'AIDA' by getting their: Attention - to attract their notice. Interest - to stimulate their curiosity. Desire - to arouse their wish to act. Action - to make them do what you want. Well written and attractively designed material indicate competence so be sure to do the following. Make only one point per leaflet. Tell your readers the what, where, when, why and who of your cause. Keep what you have to say short and to the point; the more you write the less your readers will remember and the less inclined they will be to read it all. Stick to facts that can be proved. Be careful not to libel anyone or they may sue you; for example, call an act cruel, not the people who do it. Tell readers how they can help and remember to add your contact details, whether email, phone or address – easy to forget! Make your leaflet uncluttered and look good to the eye. Leaflets are more attractive and easier to read with lots of white (empty) space around text. Break up the text with headings and bullet points. Use colour, graphics or pictures to create interest. Lastly, get someone to proof read a mock up of the final leaflet; if you skip this stage expect errors and your readers will think you clumsy and inefficient and act accordingly. Size of paper? Leaflets should be large enough for your message but small enough for people to handle easily and shove into their pockets. But big leaflets look more important. You can make your leaflet on an ordinary size of paper (such as size A4) that fits a desktop printer or a photocopier. To make a smaller leaflet, fold it in half (size A5) and fold that again for a smaller size if necessary (size A6). Printing You do not need a commercial printer. Churn out your leaflets yourself; the learning curve might be lengthy and steep but it is quicker and cheaper in the long-run and you have more control over the final results. Lay out your leaflet on a computer in a normal text editor; you do not need expensive specialist editing software. If you do not have a computer, look for a friend who has, or hire one by the hour at a cafe, or use one free at a public library. The last step is to print off a single copy, you should do this on a good printer, say at a library or at your college or office, then photocopy it as many times as you need. Distribution Get rid of your leaflets; no point hoarding them. Stand in the street and hand them out. Spread them on your information table (see Solo Information Worker, Chapter 4). Pass them along at demonstrations and protests. Leave them anywhere they will catch someone's eye, at a cafe or pub. Provided your leaflets do not say inflammatory or rude things, you can ask libraries and other institutions to put them on their notice boards and circulate them to sub-branches. Distribute them to private houses - labour intensive but a way of discussing your issue with householders if they open the door to you and good for drumming up local people for an event. Obviously, pick places relevant to your campaign when distributing your leaflets in the street, such as outside a furrier or a supermarket. Go up to people, make eye contact and with a smile make a brief positive remark such as 'Please read this', or 'Please support our ...', then move on if they do not engage you in conversation. If they ask about what you are doing, reply succinctly in a sentence or two. Prepare some brief answers ahead of time to questions such as, "Who's doing this?" or "What's this all about?" Get into irrelevant and distracting conversation and you will not be able to hand out your leaflets, unless you have bags of time. If people argue, courteously ask them to read the leaflet and contact you later for a discussion. Ensure you have a pen and paper handy to take down anyone's contact details if they are interested in joining you. Posters & Placards From producing leaflets you can progress to develop your own posters and placards. Posters are like leaflets but much bigger. They are good for promoting an event or strengthening a slogan, message or image. There are laws about the legality of displaying them so find out how they may affect you. Go on to make placards (posters on poles) that you can wave around at demonstrations and rallies; they might find their way into the press or television if the news media are present. Get your message across by other means too, such as printed on T-shirts - see web sites like CafePress.com that provide you with a simple means for doing this. How to Do Animal Rights - and Win the War on Animals. © Roger (Ben) Panaman, April 2008. All rights reserved.