Create and Manage Campaigns in Planet 4: the P4 Campaign Generator
By: Gabor Galgocz
Tags: Greenpeace, Improvement, Digital Campaigns, Microsite

Create and Manage Campaigns in Planet 4: the P4 Campaign Generator

In October 2018, we announced the project to ship native, customizable campaign features within the P4 architecture. Well, after piloting it (at International level) with the Climate Emergency, Ocean Declaration and Plastic toolkit campaigns, the P4 Campaign Generator (P4CG) is now ready for broader adoption and further iteration.

Why the Planet 4 Campaign Generator (P4CG)

Greenpeace is a global campaigning organisation. That’s our core business. The P4CG represents the solution for web presence of the core business.

For many years, due to many reasons such as tech obsolescence, fast-changing teams and environmental disasters urging us to act quickly, we noticed an overproliferation of microsites, independent web properties (e.g. ChangeYourTuna, ClickClean, PeopleVsOil or LessIsMore) which responded well to the above mentioned needs and at the same time provided unique branding.

Besides being quite expensive to ship, those microsites proved challenging to maintain, replicate or even convert into new outputs, creating a dependency on external agencies whenever a campaign needed even a slightly divergent branding from the institutional website. In addition, supporter data was frequently not collected in a way that Greenpeace could later contact those supporters about other campaigns or initiatives.

At Greenpeace, campaign teams need flexible, easily replicable and maintainable web properties. The P4 team needs inputs for new features, high code quality and reusable solutions for the future. That’s where the P4CG comes in.

The PeoplevsOil Campaign. Now on a microsite, soon on Planet 4.

What the P4CG does

Here’s what makes the P4CG a totally new toolset within Planet 4:

Customizer: P4 campaign pages can either look just like P4 core or totally different, allowing editors to choose a template based on campaign style guides or to choose additional customisations of colours, fonts, etc. but keeping all core P4 functionalities. All with clicks, not code.

The same blocks rendered in the P4CG themes (Default, Oil, Oceans, Forests, Antarctic, Plastics) — image by the P4 team

Import / Export: P4 campaign pages can be exported to an XML file, then imported to any other NRO site, making the rollout of a global rapid response campaign a lot easier, since the editors don’t have to work on creating the page from scratch, only the text needs to be translated. See how the Export/Import works.

The P4 Import feature of the P4CG

Reusable tech: Campaign teams have tons of ideas for new features to engage with supporters, and the P4CG allows to both ship the urgent tools the campaign needs, and the option to incorporate (at a later stage) such new tools in all P4 sites. Taking the example of the Ocean Declaration: the campaign needed a responsive table with search and sorting features, fetching real-time results from a Google Sheet. By collaborating with the campaign’s developer, the P4 team supported work for the campaign deadline, while making sure the selected tech (Gutenberg block) could be then iterated and included in core. This technology is now available to everyone, making innovation scalable through shared engagement systems.

The P4 Spreadsheet block rendered in the Oceans Theme. Source Greenpeace international.

Global Counter — A solution to display the overall number of signups from all participating NROs, taken from different digital engagement tools allows both global and local campaign tracking. The numbers of the Counter block can either be entered manually or be automatically fetched using and API from the different digital engagement systems.

When to use Campaign pages and when to use a Take Action page?

If you have a campaign, it doesn’t mean you need a campaign page built in the P4CG.

The P4 Campaign Generator brings in the flexibility to have alternative branding (incl. logo) and a minimal navigation for a specific campaign, the opportunity to export and import an existing template, while leveraging the P4 features and blocks.

As it currently happens, however, a campaign may also very well exist on a P4 Take Action page, continuing to make use of the Planet 4 default layout, navigation and taxonomy.

Recommended usage matrix for P4CG & Take Action Pages — Image by P4 team

Creating alternatively branded pages with different logo, tone, style and navigation de facto creates a separate experience from the main website. This option can be interesting for users coming from external sources (e.g. social or email). The advantage of having such a microsite-like page is a tighter focus on the key engagement ask, with a strong design element and a self-contained, single page experience. As such, this feature can be useful for long-term global campaign projects.

It is also important to clarify that such microsites create a disconnection in the user journey for visitors who are exploring the site organically. Therefore, campaign pages in the P4CG should only be created for campaigns with a strong art direction, targeted to large new audiences and expected to run for several months.

One option does not necessarily exclude the other, though. In some cases, a campaign page such as the COP25 may work well to target a specific audience such as influencers, educators, policy makers, etc. while a more P4-branded counterpart as a Take Action page may focus on Actions around the COP25.

It might be a good idea for a campaign to have both a Take Action page and a campaign page too — and use the campaign page to engage new, external audiences.

Practical examples? The Climate Emergency Campaign (P4CG) and the Clean Air Campaign (Take Action Page) are built on the same instance but provide different experiences.

Campaigns with sub-branding (P4CG main scope) — .gif by P4 Team.

What the P4CG will do in the future

Besides the first set of features, the P4CG tech is planned to integrate more tools over the next iterations:

Lead syncing to all databases — Expanding the native Engaging Networks integration of the Block: Form, all Greenpeace National and Regional Offices (NROs) will be able to integrate other digital marketing platforms to forward the leads collected in P4 to their databases.

— Expanding the native Engaging Networks integration of the Block: Form, all Greenpeace National and Regional Offices (NROs) will be able to integrate other digital marketing platforms to forward the leads collected in P4 to their databases. An even more flexible customiser — As of now the P4CG has 7 templates (Antarctic, Arctic, Climate Emergency, Forests, Oceans, Oil, Plastics) based on those campaign style guides. In the future, editors will be able to create a unique campaign page by picking colours themes and fonts not related to a specific style guide, selecting what best fits the local context or campaign

— As of now the P4CG has 7 templates (Antarctic, Arctic, Climate Emergency, Forests, Oceans, Oil, Plastics) based on those campaign style guides. In the future, editors will be able to create a unique campaign page by picking colours themes and fonts not related to a specific style guide, selecting what best fits the local context or campaign Vanity URL — a set of redirects from a short, global “vanity URL” like greenpeace.org/savethearctic to each site who joins the campaign has to be part of the package. This feature is not going to be directly available in P4, but the process to select, request and approve such redirects is part of the full solution to support global campaigns.

— a set of redirects from a short, global “vanity URL” like greenpeace.org/savethearctic to each site who joins the campaign has to be part of the package. This feature is not going to be directly available in P4, but the process to select, request and approve such redirects is part of the full solution to support global campaigns. Multi-page campaigns — Just as with the LessIsMore microsite (not on P4), the idea is to allow the creation of multi-page microsites with their own navigation.

Maps, scorecards, quizzes & co. — From low to complex feasibility, such great engagement features used across campaigns will be progressively integrated, along with any major feature the P4 team believes it adds real value to the overall product and community.

Coming up next

That’s probably enough for an overview, check the full documentation, start playing with it in your P4 site and (if you’re a Greenpeace P4 editor or a digital campaigner) join one of the 3 upcoming community calls to see what the P4CG can do,

This is the first prototype of the P4CG and it will evolve to serve editors and campaigns better and win even more campaigns. As usual, for any questions or doubts feel free to comment below, tweet at #GPP4 or shout via email.

¡adelante!