Participatory & Experiential Campaigning

Experiential and participatory tactics invite people to feel, act and reflect. From in-person live acting to Virtual Reality, creating moments for observation, conversation and participation, engages people in a personal way. These tactics help campaigns break out of their bubbles, make values more tangible, and create emotional connections that last beyond a single interaction. 

Participatory and experiential tactics can also support audience research, as they provide a curated space for impromptu reactions to your campaigning, making it easier to refine strategies, validate assumptions, and explore open questions. The insights they generate can help ground future decisions and communication initiatives in real-world evidence. 

Social experiments in public spaces

Public spaces are the perfect stage for social experiments to show that even small gestures make a difference. By staging simple interactions or scenarios, these experiments show how social norms, biases, and solidarity play out in real time. Even small gestures can demonstrate that change is possible and encourage others to reflect on their own behaviour.

Get inspired

The GLAS Foundation in Bulgaria, produced a video where queer couples shared tenderness in a public space in an effort to capture honest reactions and support from passersby. Even with a staged homophobic intervention of a paid actor, people surrounding the couples defended their rights to exist safely in public. While this does not offer a comprehensive representation of public attitudes, experiments like this often have the power to move people emotionally and support others in shifting behaviour.

Have a conversation

Participatory campaigning also takes the form of intentional, respectful conversations. Research shows that respectful, in-depth exchanges can shift attitudes on contentious issues. Approaching people with empathy and curiosity can help them reconsider their position when having a personal dialogue.  Whether through door-to-door canvassing, street interviews, or phone calls, this is a great setting to explore attitudes more deeply, test messaging, and see how people respond in real time. 

Get inspired 

The Leadership Lab in Los Angeles used “deep canvassing” – having long, empathetic conversations on people’s doorsteps – ahead of a local vote on trans rights. In many of the conversations they had, they shared personal stories to help others reflect on their own experiences, which showed to shift people’s thinking and support. A later controlled study found that just one conversation of around ten minutes, even with a stranger, reduced prejudice, with effects persisting for months.

Virtual Reality 

Immersive digital tools, such as Virtual Reality, allow people to step into perspectives they might not otherwise encounter. VR experiences are often felt more intensely than other kinds of media, which makes them especially effective in shifting attitudes. When someone puts on a headset, they get to step into a situation you want them to understand more deeply — whether it’s facing human rights abuses or imagining a different future.

Get inspired

VR is also about making important moments more accessible. Google’s #prideforeveryone filmed several Pride marches in 360 degree VR so people who could not attend still felt part of the celebration.

Hide in Plain Sight

Hide your messages inside music, art, and fashion to escape the scrutiny. You can also share content on alternative platforms, such as streaming services, gaming platforms, or encrypted messaging apps, to reach people beyond bans. These five independent journalists collaborated with a musical director and turned ten censored articles into pop songs. Uploading them to streaming platforms, the public was invited to share the “Uncensored Playlist” under #truthfindsaway, so that information could slip back into places where it had been suppressed.

Centre values:  As always, make sure your message is easy to grasp. Participatory and experiential tactics are most powerful when they clearly communicate the values and mission behind them.

Keep an open mind: if you let a predetermined outcome guide the questions you ask or the actions you take in social experiments, you risk forcing specific results. Approaching these tactics with openness allows real insights to emerge and ensures the process stays ethical and meaningful.

Agility: Your hypotheses may not always be proven, and that’s ok! Build in flexibility so you can pivot if the outcome is different from what you expected.

Root your social experiment in intersectionality: Having a diverse perspective when conducting experiments leads to higher accuracy of your results and therefore, higher credibility to your audience. Make sure the people involved — and the audiences you engage — reflect the diversity of your target communities.

Informed consent ethics: Make sure everyone involved in your social experiment is informed that their opinion and information might be made public and how. If passersby participate without full information, take extra care to protect their privacy and personal data.