4.6

Message House

A one-page hierarchy of a single overarching message, the pillars supporting it, and the evidence beneath each pillar.

No canonical originator; PR and corporate comms practice since at least the 1990s

What it does

One roof message, three supporting pillars, evidence beneath each. Gets separate teams saying the same thing.

When it breaks

An internal alignment device. Copied straight into public-facing copy it produces corporate boilerplate.

Case

Published message houses are rare because they are internal documents. A genuine one sits in the UNDP/MDG-F “1919” communications plan for the Philippines (2010), with the roof message on rural water access and pillars split by three stakeholder groups rather than by theme.

UNDP/MDG-F — strategic communications plan ↗

Diagram — not yet drawn

The house, but with the pillars sized by how much evidence actually sits under each — one of them visibly too thin to hold the roof.

In the wild

Unvetted · not part of the tier assessment

What has been written about this tool in the last twelve months. Machine-retrieved and unchecked — everything above this line was checked.

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