Comm Pros: Flood the Zone, Drown Out The Lies
June 13, 2025
By: Scott Westcott
Narrative warfare.
That term may seem jarring for professional communicators accustomed to orderly earned media and communications strategies that lead to dream placements in The New York Times.
But for advocacy groups and social good organizations, the traditional playbook isn’t enough. Instead, they must consider adopting the same “flood-the-zone” tactics used by the influencers and organizations that are peddling false narratives on issues such as homelessness, immigration, and LGBTQ+ rights.
That’s the bold take that invisiblePEOPLE founder Mark Horvath detailed in a recent piece that focuses on how to regain control of the narrative about housing and homelessness.
Horvath details the massive transformation in media and how people consume information — and argues that social-good organizations have been painfully slow to adapt. Organizations that ignore these changes and continue to rely solely on tactics that worked historically, could, well, end up being history.
Horvath’s recommendations focus on winning hearts and minds in the fight for affordable housing, but they largely apply to any cause. Here are three of many that are worth highlighting:
Engage local and national influencers. Use people with reach and credibility to help flood the zone with our message—especially across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and podcasts.
Engage young adults. Focus outreach efforts on high school and college students. Many already have homelessness-focused clubs. They care, they organize, and they share.
Unify messaging among local nonprofits and advocates. Coordinate language, themes, and timing to prevent mixed signals and create a cohesive narrative that reinforces itself across multiple voices.
The stakes are astronomically high in terms of who controls the narrative these days. With that in mind, clinging to the status quo may well carry more risk than embracing change.
Certainly, the traditional tactics employed by communicators and PR practitioners still have considerable value. An op-ed can move people to action. A PR pitch can lead to a high-profile story that attracts donors or prods politicians to respond.
These approaches should be accelerated, not abandoned. Yet these tactics alone may not be enough to move the needle or drown out those who for now seem to have a firm grip on the bullhorn.
The truth can indeed set us free. But first people have to be able to hear it.
