In the early 20th century, campaigners for women’s suffrage began to take direct action. This hardened much of the opposition they faced. What modern-day advice would you give to help the suffrage movement win hearts and minds?

Sarah Watson, DDB UK

The Suffragettes were the Greenpeace of their day – making big, dangerous, headline grabbing stunts and pursuing their purist aims with fatal abandon.

Meanwhile, Millicent Fawcett was probably the Jonathan Porritt (Friends of the Earth) of her day; working the wheels of power and putting strong words of clear evidence in the right ears at the right time. Through a modern communications lens, I would observe that the road to universal suffrage was a long one with hard painstaking steps; and these two approaches between them formed the perfect, rounded campaign necessary to achieve radical social change on a grand scale. The Suffragettes’ giving voice to women’s anger was one crucial element of the campaign, and the background of slower-burning influencing was another. The grand Pankhurst-esque moments that we see in Made in Dagenham are now few and far between, but the Fawcett Society still continues the other side of the campaign.

Guy Levine, Return On Digital

The Suffragettes would be ideal for a social media campaign. The first thing they would need to do would be to create a Facebook fan page which would be the hub of the campaign and the place to download your support badge. Following this, a Twitter account would need to be set to share live pictures and videos from the protest. The video content would be uploaded to YouTube to share the protest with the world, with the possibility of creating a ‘bra burning’ viral video. Finally, a Twitition.com petition would be set up for people to show their support, just like Lady Gaga’s Twitition against the Army’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ rule.

We would also suggest people check in with Facebook places and Foursquare at the location of the protest, with the mayor being awarded a brand new limited edition Wonder Bra.

Robyn Ashman, Jillie Bushell

Because of their great strength and unyielding dedication to the cause, the Suffragettes were viewed as tough, firm and, to an extent, masculine in their approach. I’m not convinced the public (particularly men) even saw the Suffragettes as women in the traditional sense, but more as vehicles for change.

My advice to these pioneers would have been to open themselves up to the public. Human interest will always capture the public’s imagination (just look at BT’s Adam and Jane). A simple series of newspaper case studies and image adjustment would have done wonders to show the Suffragettes as mothers, wives and workers but essentially, as women. Without whom, I would most probably not be sat here today, writing this submission.

Next month: Spartacus Having emerged at the leader of a ragtag band of disaffected slaves, Spartacus sought to transform them into a united army with enough singularity of purpose to take on Cassus and the Romans. Given how dangerous this was, how could Spartacus convince his supporters to buy into that mission? Email your response to neil.gibbons@communicatemagazine.co.uk