Introduction
OASIS is a five-step framework all government communicators should use to plan, deliver and evaluate their communications, regardless of discipline, organisation or scale of activity.
The five steps are:
- Objectives
- Audience and insights
- Strategy and ideas
- Implementation
- Scoring and evaluation
This guide helps ensure that all government communications are effective, efficient and evaluated. It applies to every kind of planned communication, from the most effective way to put out news via press and digital, at no cost, to large-scale multi-million-pound behaviour change campaigns.
Use this guide to develop your plan and structure your thinking. The time it takes will vary – a press or digital plan may take a few hours, while audience analysis for a long-term behaviour change campaign may take several weeks.
What is a campaign?
A campaign is a planned sequence of communications and interactions that uses a compelling narrative over time to achieve a defined and measurable outcome.
All government communications should be viewed in the context of a wider campaign – what do we want to achieve and what is the strategic context? This ensures all our work links to a clear objective and allows us to evaluate the impact of everything we do.
OASIS is not a one-time process. Government communicators should review and refresh their approach at each step, using real-time feedback and performance data to optimise implementation as the campaign progresses. Learnings from each phase should inform the next, and insights gathered throughout should feed back into future campaign planning.
Objectives
Objectives define what a communications activity is intended to achieve, based on policy aims or organisational priorities. To ensure your objectives are purposeful and clearly linked to policy intent, they must align with the four CORE roles of government communications:
- C – Changing behaviours that benefit society
- O – Operational effectiveness of public services
- R – Reputation of the UK and responding in times of crises
- E – Explanation of government policies and programmes
When developing your strategy, always start with the overarching policy aim. Your communications objectives should explain the exact role communications will play in achieving that aim, detailing how individual activities or channels will contribute. Every objective must be outcome-focused and explicitly linked to changing attitudes or behaviours.
Making objectives SMART
To ensure your goals are measurable and trackable, always structure them using the SMART framework:
- Specific: Clearly define the intended outcome.
- Measurable: Include metrics to track your progress.
- Attainable: Ensure the goal is realistic within your scope.
- Relevant: Align the objective directly with your policy intent and CORE role.
- Time-bound: Set a clear deadline or timeframe for achievement.
Audience and insights
Understanding your audience is critical to effective communications. Before developing strategy or content, communicators should establish a clear picture of who they are trying to reach and what will motivate them to act.
Know your audience
Understanding who the audience is forms the foundation of effective communications. Start by identifying who the campaign is aimed at.
- Who currently uses or is affected by the relevant policy or service?
- Do their attitudes or behaviours need to change to help achieve the objective?
- What barriers to change exist, and which can communications help to address?
Make sure you consider all relevant audience types:
- Buyer – who commissions or funds the communication
- User – who the communication is intended to reach
- Influencer – who shapes audience attitudes or behaviour
- Lodge and gatekeeper – who controls access to the audience
- Department and agency – internal stakeholders with an interest in the communication
Use commissioned research, data from elsewhere in government, or publicly available information to build an evidence-based audience profile.
Segment your audience
Dividing audiences into smaller groups based on shared characteristics enables more targeted communications and ensures hard-to-reach groups are not overlooked. To help build these profiles, explore the Government Audience Segmentation.
Segmentation approaches include:
- Demographical – age, gender, location, income, education, occupation
- Geographical – region, locality, or proximity
- By usage – how audiences currently interact with a service or product
- By culture – values, beliefs, and community identity
- By attitude – motivations, perceptions, and behavioural drivers
- Using multiple variables – combining approaches for greater precision
Consider accessibility and inclusion
Accessibility and inclusion should be considered at the planning stage, not after. Read about inclusive and accessible communications.
Understand behaviour change
For campaigns aiming to change audience behaviour, the COM-B model provides a structured way to identify what might prevent the target audience from acting. COM-B categorises barriers across three areas: capability (awareness, knowledge and skills), motivation (beliefs, attitudes and habits), and opportunity (resources, environment and access).
Communications can typically address capability and motivation barriers but cannot overcome opportunity barriers, such as a lack of time or money. If significant opportunity barriers exist, consider whether policy intervention may be needed alongside communications activity.
Strategy and ideas
Strategy defines the key choices and rationale communicators must establish: operating context and policy background, vision and success definition, evidence-based insights about audiences, core propositions, and overall approach covering resource allocation, priorities, milestones, interdependencies and risks.
Customer journey mapping
Customer journey mapping involves five steps:
- Scoping whose journey matters and which behaviours to track
- Mapping audience steps from awareness to action
- Measuring experience by identifying pain points and barriers
- Identifying solutions communications can address
- Applying insights to refine strategy and messaging
Reference the COM-B behaviour change framework when identifying and addressing barriers within journey maps.
Approach and proposition
Use audience insight to define your strategic approach with a clear proposition addressing what audiences need to think, feel or do. Develop a Theory of Change mapping assumptions about how communications will deliver objectives and identify potential unintended consequences.
Messaging
Create messages that resonate with target audiences and reflect the proposition. Consider whether different audience segments need tailored messages and test key messages with representative groups before implementation.
Channels
Select channels based on where audiences are, who they trust, and what drives behaviour. Mix paid, earned and owned channels while accounting for audiences with low or no digital access.
Partners and influencers
Identify credible organisations, community leaders, or influencers to extend reach or add credibility. Apply due diligence before partnering and follow our influencer marketing guidance.
Testing and piloting
Test or pilot the strategy before full implementation to assess effectiveness and refine the approach based on findings.
Tools to help you write your plan
- campaignstrategy.org – Free ideas and tools to help you develop your campaign. Tools to help you gather audience insight.
- Office for National Statistics (ONS) – A wealth of data (including Census data) that can be browsed by theme or alphabetically.
- News Media Association – Provides insight into the national, regional and local media landscape.
- Ofcom – The communications regulator provides insight into trends such as ownership and usage figures for television, digital radio and landline or mobile phones.
The Cabinet Office Insight and Evaluation team has specialists that can provide advice on evaluating campaigns, or planning evaluation against SMART objectives. Contact gcsevaluation@cabinetoffice.gov.uk.
Implementation
Once you have defined your approach, you should set out how you will carry out your communications and what tactics you will use.
Develop a clear plan that allocates resources and sets out the timescales for delivery. Bring influencers and partners on board to increase reach and use low-cost approaches where possible, particularly PR and partnerships.
Delivery plan
Develop a clear plan that allocates resources and sets out the timescales for delivery. Use low-cost approaches where possible, particularly public relations and partnerships.
Partners and influencers
Bring partners and influencers on board to increase reach and impact. Apply due diligence before partnering and follow our influencer marketing guidance.
Content and messaging (CARE)
Focus communications content around four principles:
- Content
- Amplifying the message
- Reasons to share
- Emotional appeal
Message structure
Structure each message around five elements:
- Who: character
- What: resolution
- Where: setting
- When: conflict
- Why: plot
Social media (six Ts)
Apply the six Ts when planning social media activity:
- Timely
- Tested
- Topical
- Type
- Threshold
- Targeted
Communication tactics (DORIAN)
Consider the full range of communication tactics:
- Direct
- Online
- Regional
- Influencers
- Antagonists
- News
Scoring and evaluation
You should monitor and evaluate your communications throughout delivery and on completion using the Evaluation Cycle. The objectives and scoring steps within OASIS are particularly important for completing your evaluation.
Approach
Monitor outputs, outtakes and outcomes in real time throughout the campaign and conduct full evaluation at completion. Allocate 5 to 10% of resources to evaluation for paid campaigns. Share learnings across government and feed findings back into future planning.
The three Os of evaluation:
- Outputs – audience experience: The reach and experience delivered through communications activity
- Outtakes – audience perceptions: What audiences think, feel or intend to do as a result of communications
- Outcomes – audience behaviour: The actual response and behaviour change observed
Measuring reputation
Use the ‘Seven Drivers of Reputation’ to assess and manage organisational standing with key stakeholders:
- Leadership
- Innovation
- Performance
- Products and services
- Fairness
- Citizenship
- Workplace
Identify which stakeholders matter most and tailor reputation measurement accordingly.
Measurement tools
Two measurement tool types are available for tracking campaign performance: survey tools for gathering audience data on awareness, attitudes, and behaviour change; and online analytics tools for monitoring digital performance across websites and social media.
Each serves a different measurement purpose – surveys capture what audiences think and feel (outtakes), while analytics tools track reach and engagement (outputs). Check with your organisation’s IT, data security, and data and insight teams before using any external tools.
Online analytical tools include:
- Google Alerts – use to monitor specific content on the web
- Brandwatch – social media listening tool
- Google Analytics – monitor usage of your website
- Hootsuite – monitor content across all social media channels
- Sprout Social – social media reports
- X analytics – monitor your X page
- Hashtagify – free hashtag tracking tool
- Iconosquare – Instagram analytics
Further learning and resources
Browse our resources and search “campaign planning” or “evaluation” for further guidance. Government Communications members can also access related learning in the Learning Hub (opens in a new tab).