By Laura Newman

My Food Revolution is about bringing people together who care about the future of their children, about their right to good health and a proper diet.  I know there are millions of people across America who care about these things and I’ve seen how, with a little confidence and basic knowledge, people quickly change the way they eat.”

So says Jaime Oliver, British celebrity chef and host of the Emmy award-winning reality TV show Food Revolution.

Here is how I interpret Jaime’s quote.  Revolution is about:

1) Bringing people together

2) Caring

3) Confidence and knowledge.

These are the ingredients (pun intended!) of change.

Growing up in a family of foodies, I’ve certainly had my share of conversations about foie gras vs. nachos and El Bulli vs. McDonald’s.  But when I watched a few episodes of “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution” on YouTube for the first time last weekend, I had behavior change on my mind more than I did cooking or obesity. Jamie selected Huntington, West Virginia as the birthplace of his “revolution” after a 2008 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report revealed it to be the unhealthiest city in the United States, based on obesity-related deaths and disease rates.  He makes his way into an elementary school cafeteria, the home of the obese family, and even a mortuary on a quest for change.

Our environments and stakeholders might differ from Jamie’s, but fundamentally there’s a profound aspect of Corporate Communications that’s about changing behavior. After all, if our stakeholders read our messages and don’t think or act differently, have we really done our job?

Let’s review Jamie’s concepts with a Communications twist:

1)    Bringing people together – The key here is to bring people together in their natural environments.  Jamie doesn’t invite people to join him where he is (at least not at first).  Instead, he enters their world.  CEC members may have read our recent case study from Southwest, which outlines the way the airline company uses ethnography to truly understand their stakeholders and make better business decisions as a result.  In internal communications we’re also familiar with “bringing people together” virtually, over social networking platforms, like Sabre Holding’s SabreTown.

2)    Caring – Outside the boundaries of HR, emotions don’t really have a place on an executive’s agenda, right?  Wrong!  The CEC has quantitative research to indicate that the only—I repeat, only—driver of stakeholder activity (that is, level of frequency in writing or talking about a company in-person or online) is “emotional connection,” defined as shared values with the company, feelings of ownership for the company, or feelings of investment in the company.  With this in mind, when it comes to building advocacy and motivating these advocates to pass on our message, caring is all that is comes down to.

3)    Confidence and knowledge – If we’ve listened effectively to our stakeholders and have a precise understanding of what really matters to them, we should have the confidence that we will create resonant communications.  And we can’t forget the importance of trust — trust that with the appropriate knowledge, our business executives will make better business decisions.  CEC members, if you haven’t gotten a chance yet, listen to Scott Stevener, Team Lead in Corporate Marketing & Communications at Monsanto, discussing the way his team has been able to make smart decisions as a result of their stakeholder-centric media monitoring.

So what is missing? What principles are you following to encourage behavior change in your stakeholders?