How NPR fought back for our right to be curious

0:00Ed Gunn: Welcome to On Strategy Showcase. I'm Fergus O 'Carroll in Chicago. In July of 2025, the administration and Congress clawed back$1.1 billion in funding from the Center for Public Broadcasting, which is the main funding engine for national public radio and PR here in the U.S. and PBS. Yes. This was seen as yet another attack on independent journalism here in the U.S. And for those outside of the U.S. who are not familiar with this, NPR and PBS have long been targets of Republican administrations and have been criticized for having a sort of a left leaning voice. The response from NPR is in perfect NPR spirit, which is to fight back without being aggressive.

0:53Ed Gunn: They worked with Mischief in New York City to pull together a campaign, which most notably is known by the fact that it plays with the NPR logo. And not only the logo in communications, but also the actual corporate logo that appears on the buildings of NPR facilities. So really interesting way of coming at it. The other thing you're going to hear about, which was really exciting to be able to get into, was two other strategic directions that Mischief had suggested to NPR. And one of them is an absolute banger. Absolutely loved it. You can see the creative work associated with this episode on our website and on strategyshowcase.com.

1:37Ed Gunn: If you're watching us on YouTube, you'll see the work will be played within the actual episode. And while you're there, not to sound too much like a public broadcasting channel, but it would be brilliant if you would subscribe to our show on YouTube, on any of your podcast platforms. You can subscribe and give us a rating. We would love you to do that. It's an incredible help to the show when that happens. So this is my conversation with Mischief and NPR about the wonderful new campaign that is called For Your Right to Be Curious. Enjoy. Boy, there might be a value in sort of explaining where NPR sits versus PBS and set the stage for listeners and viewers about where you sit and what your role is in that ecosystem.

2:27Ed Gunn: So who is NPR? Who is PBS? Who is National Public, not National Public Radio, but Corporation for Public Broadcasting?

2:34Mishka Pitter-Armand: Yeah, I'm happy to do so. So NPR stands for National Public Radio. PBS stands for Public Broadcasting Service. And together, we are, you know, two pillars of American public media. And we are distinct organizations within the public media system. So NPR is an independent, nonprofit media organization. We're founded with the mission to create a more informed public. So every day we connect millions of Americans on air, online, and in person, and delivering news ideas and what it means to be a human. We work with a network of more than 240 member organizations. And together we foster this deeper understanding and appreciation for our country, the world, ideas, and culture at large.

3:34Mishka Pitter-Armand: PBS is a separate independent nonprofit org similar to NPR in that it is also a member organization with member stations that serve the American public on television. And the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was in existence for nearly 60 years. And it was a cornerstone of public broadcasting in the United States. It was a source of funding for local stations. It was a champion for music and educational programming. And it really helped to make independent journalism and essential community programming possible in this country. And so the disillusion of CPB in January of last year marked the end of a defining chapter in American public media.

4:35Ed Gunn: So the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, was that a content producer or was it a channel? Was it providing content that PBS and maybe NPR could use or was it a holding company? How would you define that?

4:49Mishka Pitter-Armand: It was a source of funding. So Corporation for Public Broadcasting received the funding from the American government, and then they redistributed that funding to NPR, PBS, and all of our member stations.

5:09Ed Gunn: So it's interesting that you said that corporate, you said when it, which is interesting, you said that it dissolved. And this is the interesting, not the start, but probably the result of what initially happened. The U.S. government pulled back a billion dollars of funding for public media, which was primarily going to be going to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to be distributed, as you talked about. That's correct. And so then the reaction, which surprised a lot of people, I don't know if it surprised you guys at NPR, but the Corporation for Public Broadcasting folded. Maybe there was a legal and strategic reason to do that, but that billion dollars, a percentage of that billion dollars was targeted to go to NPR, right?

5:59Ed Gunn: Yes. And then ultimately, what impact does that have on NPR?

6:03Mishka Pitter-Armand: The thing that I would anchor around is that the cessation or the rescission of that funding, the pulling back of that funding, really did—it marked a moment in time, right, for us as an organization. We are still financially stable, and it does mean that there's a new era in public media. And we know that it's always been a collective effort. It just means that we need to be even more conscientious of how we work together as entities in the public media space. The other thing that I will say is that the rescission did also mark an outpouring of support from donors across the country to, you know, it didn't replace that billion dollars because it's a large ticket item.

7:01Mishka Pitter-Armand: But I will say that it really did help to energize us within the public media space, recognizing how the American public saw value in the work that we did, wanting to see us continue. And we're continuing to see that level of financial support bubble up in a lot of really, really significant ways, for which we're grateful. The last thing I will say is that this campaign is not about, while it was sparked and spurred by the rescission, it's not about the rescission. It's about doubling down and making very, very clear what NPR stands for, the value that we bring to the American public, the relationships that we forge between the public NPR and the network of member stations.

7:59Mishka Pitter-Armand: This is really more of this campaign is about declaring what we stand for as opposed to reacting to the rescission.

8:06Ed Gunn: Ed, this conversation starts at some point. What is that point and what's the challenge that Mishka brings to mischief? uh yeah great question i i mean i think we assumed like we've been wanting to work with npr forever because who doesn't and also like as a super fan of terry gross to get closer to terry anything for that um i think we assumed that this was going to be a donation campaign right given the given the context that was existing in the world at the moment but then to mishka's point We looked through the brief and look, there was a lot of things that we wanted or they wanted to express in terms of what they stood for, which we were like, that's amazing.

8:55Ed Gunn: Using this moment to not be reactive, to not be knee jerk, to not just try and get as much money as possible, but truly try and define what this brand has stood for for so long. And it was funny, I was looking back at the old brief a few months ago, and when we looked at what was being asked, it's hard. Like, how do you define an NPR? And there was thoughts of how do we show we're an essential pillar of democracy? How do we show that we're fact-based reporting that helps citizens make informed decisions? There was talks of independence, editorial independence, and this hyper-local reporting. There was so much that they could say.

9:36Ed Gunn: I think the hardest thing that we had to do was distill that into the one thing that was not only right for the moment, but a really clear, simple encapsulation of what NPR was. Because I think if we could show how important NPR is, like, that is the goal here. If we're able to show the importance of NPR, that will hopefully bring more people into the ecosystem. But not only bring them in, hopefully later donate, become lifetime members and listeners, and, yeah, make America a better place. So, Mishka, for you, what was the problem you wanted Mischief to solve? I mean, what were you looking to achieve?

10:17Mishka Pitter-Armand: Yeah, I mean, multifold, right? It's complicated. So, I think there are a couple things. One is the fact that NPR was the news, right? We're used to making news and driving journalism, and NPR was the news. And so NPR was in headline after headline. And we thought that it was important for us to show the public what we were really all about, that the cuts didn't change our mission. In fact, it made our mission even more urgent. and that we wanted to take this moment to pause and let the hubbub die down and let the headlines pass and then reintroduce ourselves and declare what we stood for. One of the things that was central to the brief that Ed mentioned was also the fact that NPR has always been about curiosity and that was something that we wanted to come through that was inextricably tied to the journalistic work that we do as an organization.

11:34Mishka Pitter-Armand: And so those were a couple of the things, just adding to what Ed mentioned, those were a couple of the things that were sort of also surrounding the brief.

11:44Ed Gunn: So the strategist in me is thinking, okay, so NPR has got 46 plus million weekly listeners. It's a powerful brand. It's got loyal listeners. Were you looking to activate them more in support of the brand? Or were you looking to expand the audience beyond them to come to the defense of NPR in a financial way, in an engagement way. How were you thinking about who that target was for you?

12:22Mishka Pitter-Armand: Go ahead, Ed. You first.

12:25Ed Gunn: I was going to say, I think as we were talking about it initially, it's funny, NPR does have 46 million monthly listeners, but how many of them know that the NPR-ness of it is tricky, right? Like the entry point to NPR is different for everyone. Like some people, it may be on local radio, others, it may be via Tiny Desk. Others, it may be via a podcast that NPR has. NPR is a part of that for sure, but everyone's relationship is unique and there's value for anyone within it. So I think it was, yes, one, make NPR relevant. like if I'm watching Tiny Desk, how many people are thinking of NPR at that moment versus Tiny Desk as an entity?

13:11Ed Gunn: How could we get those people to see the value that NPR is bringing? So those who are already there make them more loyal. But secondly, how could we grow the funnel? How could we get those people who may be reading, watching, viewing similar things that NPR actually has something for them, but they may just have a vague perception of what NPR is, but not see the relevance to them now. So the hope was twofold. One, make those loyalists more loyal, actually see the NPR behind the content that they're consuming. But secondly, draw more people in and make them curious about this ecosystem that NPR has that could be really additive to their lives.

13:52Ed Gunn: You know, it's interesting to me when I read some of the background guys, it's like, I was surprised because I think the perception is that NPR leans left in terms of its listeners, that it is predominantly a product of the left. And when you look at people on the right, more conservative right, they have tended to sort of, and have for decades, but anyway, regardless of whether that's right or wrong, but they have for decades sort of tried to undermine it as a tool of the left, right? But in your background, you talked about the fact that even people on the left think it's too conservative. People on the right think it's too woke.

14:35Mishka Pitter-Armand: First, I'll just sort of set the table on that, right? We don't tell people what to think. We protect their right to ask how, why, what, and like rigorously pursue the answers. So our country is polarized. And as you mentioned, it's not unique to America. This polarization is showing up in a lot of different places. And in a polarized setting, people might just want to speak louder. And we really want to underscore that NPR safeguards inquiry through editorial standards, independence, accountability. our commitment is to questions and facts. And so when we think about it through that lens, we know that there are people across political spectrum that are curious, that want to ask probing questions and want to find those answers.

15:33Mishka Pitter-Armand: So that is where we really anchor ourselves.

15:37Ed Gunn: I think NPR uniquely is so beholden to the truth and reporting and asking those hard questions that in a polarized society, it's independence feels hard to come by, right? Where people want to mirror their own beliefs onto a fact. And if the fact does not conform to their previously held beliefs, you must be on the opposing team, which I think puts NPR in a unique position where by trying to be a bastion for curiosity and truth and not conforming to a narrative, we kind of don't follow anyone's narratives rather than those people who are genuinely curious. So I don't think there was much in this that was trying to map onto politics, really.

16:20Ed Gunn: It's more of a psychographic desire that no matter who you are, we feel that was the growth opportunity. Everyone's curious about something, whether it's local, whether it's at the federal level, at the government level, the sports level. And we felt that NPR could be that tool for that. Because I think throughout the discovery process, the local element of NPR is so incredibly unique. Like during crises, you turn on your radio and it's often NPR's local reporting that does this. We cover local in a way that nobody else does. And that is apolitical, like completely apolitical. It is some of the most listened to things are like the farmers daily in Iowa.

17:05Ed Gunn: Being apolitical isn't going to grow the franchise. And I totally get the fact that you've got to be super careful about what you say and particularly as a CMO, how you present it through your marketing campaigns because you, you've already become a target. You don't want to continue to push upon that. But, but I kind of think, do you, do you see this as a, because the instinct I think of an organization that's been targeted like NPR had is to come out fighting. I mean, of course you don't necessarily want to do that for various obvious reasons. But as an organization that ultimately needs to raise funds, it must have been difficult to not come out just with this sense of wanting to retaliate and rally people and create a movement of pushback against what you saw was an intention to shut you guys down or to shut down what you want to do.

18:01Ed Gunn: was there was there sort of either from the research that you did add or from the internal organization was there a was there a visceral reaction from NPR supporters of you got to push back you got to fight back that's probably what a lot of people expected yeah I think well it was funny obviously as Mishka mentioned this played out very publicly the defunding and so you saw the reactions of people and there was obviously the loyalists who were like yep we need to stand we need to donate, we need to do this. It was interesting, a large percentage of people thought like, oh, I thought you guys had gone now.

18:38Ed Gunn: That was it. And I think for NPR, we're not, I know the advertising brand goes, yep, we need to fight, let's rally the troops, let's do this now. This is for NPR. It had to be true to what the brand stood for the entire time. And so I think we were looking at this of how can we fight without coming across as aggressive, because that's just not the brand. Sometimes it's two feet planted on the ground, confidently stating who you are can be a better form of protest than descending into the mire that exists everywhere else. It may work short term, but we were looking at this as a long term brand building moment for NPR to define what we are versus what we are against at this moment.

19:22Ed Gunn: I think the aggressive side, the issue that we talked about a lot in meetings was we don't want this to be just about us, like what we're going through at a brand level. Like this should not be, we're annoyed, we're important, we are the things that need to stay. The listener, the consumer, the American population needed to be at the core of this. And I think we can fight for ourselves, but we needed to prove what we mean to the individual. Like that was the important thing here. So yes, we wanted to fight, maybe not aggressively, because I don't think that's NPR, but it had to be for people. And I think often when a brand has a limited amount of spend, because obviously our spend is cut, you can waste a lot of time showing who you as a brand are against rather than what you are for, which in this case is the people.

20:16Ed Gunn: Yeah. So as you mentioned that when you went through the process of planning, you came up with a couple of different strategic territories that you presented. Can we talk a little bit about those territories and what made each of them distinct? There were two other really interesting territories that we played around with. I don't know about you, Fergus, but when I listen to NPR, the feeling that I get compared to other media, it's this sense of calm. There's a real calming nature to it. Nothing's hysterical. Nothing is out to increase my heart rate. There's no rage bait. It's just, it feels like while the storm is circling around me, NPR tells me what I need to know.

21:01Ed Gunn: It gives me the information. It feels a little bit like the adult in the room. He's like, this is what's happening. This is what we need to do. This is what's going on. But it makes me personally feel like I've kind of escaped from this reactionary world. Like there was something really compelling in that. I think maybe we felt it may not meet the hour as much, but it felt true. And then the last territory, we talked a lot around the benefit of the P in NPR, the public. What does that mean? We're seeing a world now where there are lots of conglomerates going on. There's a lot of monopolies happening.

21:37Ed Gunn: But to be truly public rather than corporate felt like something that's important and not really well understood. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, like just owning what would a, we do things for the public. We are funded by the public for the public. I don't think that had been expressed. People assume we're just there, but don't see the real human-to-human side that we're really focused on. So Mishka, the guys come to you and you kind of workshop the three of these. What struck you? Were there elements of the other directions that you were like, oh, they could be strong?

22:13Mishka Pitter-Armand: Yeah, I mean, especially the last one that Ed mentioned.

22:15Ed Gunn: I mean, our mission is to create a more informed public.

22:21Mishka Pitter-Armand: Like you see that on, you know, posters throughout our office. You guys should do that one. Go back and do that one too.

22:30Ed Gunn: Two campaigns, parallel.

22:33Mishka Pitter-Armand: There's definitely the hope for that. And fundamentally, I think where we landed and one of the reasons why we leaned into curiosity, that curiosity positioning even more is that it really did help to link what we stood for as a journalistic organization. And curiosity is central to journalism. And getting into those questions that journalists ask, and you talk to any journalist, and they will tell you. There are a core set of questions that you ask and you want to dig into. And so that felt more connected to how NPR is relevant to people's everyday lives. talking about public felt purposeful for sure, but not necessarily relevant, especially when there's so many things that people are contending with on a daily basis.

23:39Mishka Pitter-Armand: We needed to make sure that people understood what NPR could do to help them get through their everyday challenges. And so those are some of the connection points that made the positioning around curiosity for the campaign really the most compelling of the options.

23:58Ed Gunn: And of course, people in the industry will recognize that PBS has done the Be Curious campaign for a long time and phenomenal work. I think that came out of Minneapolis. I don't know if Greg was a part of that back in the day, but that stuff, I was looking at it last night. It's so beautiful. And I bring that up only because does there tend to be a halo effect over NPR, NPR over PBS and PBS over NPR. Are you sort of seen as one in terms of listener perceptions, or are you seen as separate in terms of brands? Because there's so much, I mean, it's almost like a shared purpose in essence.

24:36Mishka Pitter-Armand: Yeah, I mean, the founding for the two organizations originated together. As we mentioned, Corporation for Public Broadcasting was a funding source for both PBS and NPR. And there are member stations who are dual licensees where they have to carry one set of call letters and they both support, produce or distribute content from PBS and NPR. One of the main differences between PBS and NPR is that at NPR, we produce content. Morning edition, all things considered, a slate of podcasts. PBS is more of a distributor. They don't produce their own content. So there are some fundamental differences and radio versus TV, again, you know, big, big differences in terms of the distribution channels.

25:37Ed Gunn: So, Ed, let's talk about the idea. Tell us where it came from and explain it for the listeners. We'll drop it into the show. yeah i mean um i guess if we were we were trying to run around curiosity right like how can we prove curiosity within this world of npr and i think as some of the teams came through like halfa and halfa henry and nitya like there was this whole idea around what if we could turn the npr logo into almost a quality mark for curiosity like a curiosity mark in some ways because NPR as the three letters may not have meant a lot to people at that moment. Like to some people it did, but not to everyone.

26:23Ed Gunn: But let me ask on that one because I'm just curious, have you any sense of where that comes from? Because obviously it's a creative moment, but had you guys been jamming and just loosely were like, hey, look at this logo? Or did anybody ever explain where was the moment that that came from? uh it was a bit as you said so there was a few ideas that were all around the logo there was one where look what if we changed it to corporate radio and did like a corporate version where it was like the exact opposite of what you can see but then there was just this that flip like the fact that i think i can't remember who had it but the fact that there was three letters npr the core pillars of journalism are these questions and fortuitously have three letters like we went back and forth both internally but also with mishka and team around could we even do this can we play with npr because it's been a mark for 59 years it is everywhere and the core of this brief was to make it mean something so it's almost like the one thing you should not touch and try and make famous is the one thing we're going to mess with.

27:38Ed Gunn: And I think we internally fell in love with it. The minute I saw it, the minute Greg team saw it, I was like, there is something so provocative about that. But to the point you had, the question you had earlier, you sometimes have to meet the moment, two feet on the ground, but feel like sometimes it's okay to change those one things that should not be changed. And so we loved the idea of infusing that with meaning and with the meaning not being something forced or addy but being true to what happens on the ground every single day by NPR what is true to every part of the brand like every output every podcast every bit of local radio so it was just gold dust like I don't know the team here are brilliant and it was like the minute of the first day so I was like okay great we are going to do whatever we can because it feels provocative but it feels like what NPR would do.

28:34Ed Gunn: It doesn't feel like what an ad agency would do. It feels like what someone on the team would see. A lot of the questions that you see in this bit of work is from real people. It is the questions that people have, like why are grocery prices so expensive? What does it mean to be an American right now? Why is ice in my city? These are questions that people have, that every time someone would have that question, we would put that in locations where that is an important question to be asked and then a QR code would outlink it to our journalism that goes deep because I think NPR isn't just about building a three second long clip to explain a complex issue we really go deep into the why the who's the what's and so by having that major moment of the flip of logo followed by the New York Times article which was a manifesto explaining what we truly stood for.

29:33Ed Gunn: And it's important that the note at the end there is our conviction, where it's like, the more you try and silence curiosity, the more curiosity you're going to create. Like, that's where this starts, where now we want everyone to ask questions. So I wanted to break in here to explain these spots before they play, because there isn't a lot of, there's no audio track on most of the spots. So I wanted to explain both of them. It might help make sense when you're listening to it. The first spot opens on a couple walking out of a grocery store. One of them starts to look at the receipt for the groceries as they're talking.

30:09Ed Gunn: And then a thought comes into her mind that we then hear. And then it flips to the NPR logo. And then it flips to a content segment from NPR that explains what's going on as it relates to the topic that this person has been thinking about. The second spot is it appears to be a parent who is outside a school waiting to pick up their kids. There's two kids in the back, and the two kids are crazily, you know, gaming on their devices. And the thought then comes to the father, who then ponders it, and it then rotates into the NPR logo again, and then to a piece of content from NPR that's addressing the use of devices among young people.

30:56Ed Gunn: So that's the way these are structured. Here are the two spots from NPR and Mischief. I'm excited to see it. I've never slept on stage. That's a great thing. I'm glad that my folks are coming.

31:15Ed Gunn: Why are groceries still so expensive?

31:24Ed Gunn: Grocery prices have actually outpaced overall inflation over the last five or so years. And mind you,

31:34Ed Gunn: How much influence do those feeds have on my cats?

31:44Mishka Pitter-Armand: companies talking about parts of products you know working like slot machines or you know really wanting to keep kids using it more and more so mishka how how did you react when you

31:53Ed Gunn: saw this and in what form was it was it was it an idea or was it a a comp of an ad when you saw it

32:00Mishka Pitter-Armand: how did it how did it strike you it was the proverbial slide deck and um but you know

32:06Ed Gunn: obviously delivered with you know i didn't think that ad gun and mischief ever did slide dex see now we're getting the inside story they are they are like normal people in the industry no just do some haikus and improv jazz in the corner um hope it wasn't powerpoint man that's

32:23Mishka Pitter-Armand: all i hope um yeah and and you know i think originally when we when we first saw it we were like changing our logo like on one side you know it felt like really like you know it's been around for 56 years and hasn't been touched is that really what we're going to be doing and then on the other side it felt like well is that going to like what about this feels true to us because there are lots of brands that have gone around changing their logo, right? And it felt kind of flippant, a little bit like a PR moment. And the more we sat with it, the more we were able to really, you know, sort of anchor in that truth to what Ed was saying.

33:12And it also felt both

33:18Mishka Pitter-Armand: sort of bold and forthright and at the same time felt very connected to our product, right? That was the other piece. Like we don't want it to just be like a PR moment. We want it to really come all the way through to our product. And that was where we pushed the team more to help us understand how is this actually going to drive audience? How is this actually going to drive people to listening to NPR stories? Help us think through there. And that's where we were able to really anchor into, so what happens when someone reads that question, let's make sure that they're clicking through, let's make sure that they're getting to a space where they actually see an NPR story that is relevant to their everyday life.

34:08Mishka Pitter-Armand: So I think those were some of the emotions. Once we actually, once we landed on and said, yes, this feels right, now let's optimize the idea so that it actually drives through to building audience for us.

34:21Ed Gunn: I can imagine, Mishka, that internally somebody had to have said, are people going to recognize our logo if we change it to H-O-W or W-H-Y? Were there were there people who were concerned about that and and if so how did you get them over that because that what that's what plagues original ideas is that there's a voice that is or there's

34:45Mishka Pitter-Armand: a there's a a group that is like i don't know that people are going to get it or make the connection yeah yeah there were definitely those questions and and there were a couple really practical things that we did. So when the logo shows up on npr.org or on the NPR app, for example, it rotates. So it starts with NPR, then it flips to WHY and it flips to HOW, it flips to WHO and comes back to NPR. So those high traffic spaces were some of the the applications of the campaign that really helped to solidify for folks that there's a connection here. You would also have seen it on our social media platforms where the logo would swap week by week.

35:33Mishka Pitter-Armand: It started with NPR, then it flipped over to each of the questions on a weekly basis. So every time we reposted something or you visited the NPR page in social media, you would see that the logo was flipping week after week after week. So those were a few places. And one of the most sort of visible things that showed up was that we changed it on the building too. So our headquarters station that had NPR was flipped to who and how, why and how. So we really wanted to make that consistency and just by virtue of that consistency, it helped to bring the thread through and make the connection between NPR and these questions.

36:23We're really excited to see how the community runs with this.

36:27Ed Gunn: We've already seen other local radio stations who are not part of NPR already using this idea of fighting for your right to be curious and asking those probing questions. This should be as public radio. we want the public to see this as an avenue to start asking those questions. We don't know what we're going to do next, but I think for us it's an exciting opportunity to see what will be necessary later on, what is the mood of the moment and where NPR can find themselves, rather than, I think, pre-planning it well in advance. But Mishka, I don't know, you may have something else. I think Mishka got me pretty tight-lipped about it, I have a feeling.

37:10Ed Gunn: Yeah, yeah. It's definitely a tap. I'm able to say everything. I get it. I get it. It's Mishka Pitter-Armand, CMO of National Public Radio, NPR. And Ed Gunn is EVP Strategy and Mischief. Thank you guys for this. It's great, great work. People can see it on our website. We're going to drop the spots into this edit. And we'll probably drop in some of the out of home as B-roll, as this conversation is shared with people. great as always from mischief and it's brilliant to see you guys taking a stand against what's happening and continues to happen even this week with what we're seeing with Scott Pelley in 60 Minutes and a stand definitely needs to be taken and hopefully this soon will pass thanks for being here thank you so much thank you very much for having us and we will see everyone on the next episode