Case Studies

When working to ratify the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (or New START Treaty) in 2010, ReThink worked with the arms control and disarmament community to adopt a shared messaging strategy that defined why the treaty was critical. We identified national security validators and other key spokespeople to convey those messages, and we helped them write and place op-eds in the outlets that were most critical to influencing lawmakers.

ReThink’s analysis found that for the past several years, the voting rights movement has been playing defense and delivering our messages on the opposition’s terrain. We found that discussions of vote fraud, voter suppression, and voter ID made up nearly 40 percent of news coverage on voting rights in 2016 and 2017—far more than discussion of aspirational, pro-voter policies. Refuting our opponents’ disinformation about “voter fraud” was only elevating…

In the lead-up to the 2016 election, anti-Muslim rhetoric was at an all-time high, driven by then-candidate Trump. To counter this anti-Muslim prejudice, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton invited Gold Star parents Khizr and Ghazala Khan to the Democratic National Convention to speak about their son, Humayun, an Army officer who was killed in Iraq. News outlets across the media spectrum portrayed the Khans as among the most compelling speakers…