Communication Director the magazine for corporate communications and public relations
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Issue 4/2016 www.communication-director.com
May I have your attention, please? Practical advice on what content boosts your reach, engagement and ROI
What the Trump win tells us about political communication in a distracted age
COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR
Issue 4 · 2016
European Edition
TL;DR?
A voice in the crowd Communicating in the attention economy
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EDITORIAL
Attention is the world’s most valuable currency. Everyone’s a little ADD, nowadays. Constant connectedness and incessant stimuli have made us a restless audience: a recent study by Time Inc. found that ‘digital natives’ subconsciously move between devices and platforms 27 times per hour. What’s more, we’re drowning in content. Anyone can create it: I can make and edit video on my mobile phone, I can write a blog piece powered by Wordpress or Tumblr, I can distribute that content via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. For professional communicators, this should be manna from heaven. But faced with such a wealth of opportunities for content creation and distribution, are all our carefully-crafted messages in danger of being swallowed up by the rest? Do they even reach our audiences? In an environment like this, where supply far, far outstrips demand, attention quickly becomes the most valuable currency. Advertisers want your attention before the next YouTube video plays, friends demand your attention on snapchat and Instagram, new media tries to grab your attention with click-baiting headlines. There are also more serious ramifications: the political upheavals that have convulsed the world over the last 12 months raise serious questions about the attention economy. Are we becoming deaf to all but the loudest, most extreme arguments? Do the snap judgements encouraged by a “like/unlike” culture negate the shades of grey that are involved in any adult political argument? These questions and more are explored in this issue’s Issue Focus section; elsewhere you’ll find our usual mix of insights, reports, interviews, best cases, essays and analysis. As we approach the end of a dramatic year, your feedback is important to us: let us know what you’d like to see in Communication Director in 2017 at info@communication-director.com
da f y dd p h illi p s
Photo: Laurin Schmid
Editor in Chief
Brought to you by the European Association of Communication Directors www.eacd-online.eu
Communication director 4/2016
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CONTENTS
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4/16
56
Let us not give in How do political communicators convey complicated arguments in a world of increasingly polarised rhetoric?
The programmatic era In a time of ad blocking, programmatic advertising promises to provide greater return on investment
Issue Focus 60
Ain’t no clickbait How are legacy media fighting with digital competitors for attention? The Wall Street Journal’s innovative work provides some clues
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Communicating in the attention economy
Connectivity isn’t everything The world‘s first professor of connectivity on how to stay focussed and sane in a hyperconnected world
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68
80
China is chatting
Oh snap!
Why international brands should adapt to WeChat and grab the attention of the world’s second largest market.
Unsure of your first step onto Snapchat? Many big brands turn to young creative influencers to show them the ropes
Bridging the digital divide How does data help focus distracted eyes? By connecting with audiences and keeping them coming back for more
6 • organisational
16 • corpoRate affairs
Stop. Collaborate and listen
Starting a new conversation
Jimmy Wales on what Wikipedia can teach all of us about organisational collaboration
True transparency is essential if organisations are to be trusted in future 22 • leadership
12 • pr essentials
Today’s corporate affairs director, tomorrow’s CEO?
Just the facts: 2016 The year‘s most telling statistics in communications, PR and public affairs
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A look at the emerging route to the top through senior corporate affairs roles
Communication director 4/2016
CONTENTS
52 • engagement 26 • public affairs
Future engagement
Political communications in a networked world Governments face special challenges in communicating authoritatively in a less hierarchical, more networked world 30 • Evaluation
Getting the measure To get closer to the c-suite, avoid these five fundamental measurement mistakes
What’s the future of employee engagement if employees won’t even be in the same office space? 40 • Rhetoric
Aristotle as guide to 21st-century living In days of stygian darkness, Aristotle offers us hope and courage – and some PR tips, too
43 • agenda setter
Conference, festival or chaos? Super-events like SXSW are revolutionising the way we approach conferences
84 • communication Reader
Books 46 • Internal
Calling the right tune How internal communications can help make the strategic case for the profession
Photos: Laurin Schmid; airbnb; Neilson Barnard / SXSW Interactive
34 • report
The long and the short of it New research into how annual reporting practices evidence long-term thinking reveal surprising findings
37 • Compliance
Demonstrating respect
New and upcoming titles for the communicator’s bookshelf
86 • ASSOCIATION
European Association of Communication Directors 49 • digital
Digital disruption becomes business as usual A look at the businesses that are changing markets – and creating new markets
Communication directors should influence management to make human rights part of the company strategy
The latest developments in the EACD
90 • private passions
Gift horse: beyond words They say that a good rider hears their horse speak, but a great rider hears them whisper
Communication director 4/2016
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organisational
Stop. Collaborate and listen. Wikipedia, which started in 2001 as a hobby project belonging to a small community, has become an organisation that deals with its exponential growth through collaborative thinking and creativity. By jimmy wales
↓ Jimmy Wales speaking at the Kommunikationskongress 2016 held in the Berlin Congress Center / Photo: Laurin Schmid
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Communication director 4/2016
organisational
“ This next generation is very comfortable with the collaborative style in which we at Wikipedia work.”
S
ocial media has changed the world, but much of it is confusing. Quality is not always produced but rather a lot of noise and anger. Wikipedia shows a different path, the collaborative path. It is a place for reasoned discourse, a calm alternative to other spaces online. That doesn’t mean that everything is always calm inside Wikipedia: we are human beings, so we have our arguments. But in general we strive for something quite different and there are lessons here for politics and business. The original vision statement for Wikipedia was to imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. It’s been a few years since then and now we have over 40 million articles, over 400 million people visiting the website every month and active projects in about 230 languages. Regarding our global infrastructure, we now have 10 languages that have over one million entries, 48 languages
with at least 100,000, 128 with at least 10,000 and 234 with at least 1,000. A recent tweet from a teacher explained that she asked one of her students if she knew what an encyclopedia is and the student replied, “Is it something like Wikipedia?” Wikipedia is now 15 years old so, and that means that for students who are entering university today, Wikipedia has existed from the time that they knew how to read and in the last five years or so has supported them in doing their homework or in pursuing whatever interest they have.
What’s in a community? This next generation is very comfortable with the collaborative style in which we at Wikipedia work. But it’s important that we think about the quality of that work. Are we setting a good example for young people? There’s a major strain of work related to what we call community health – making sure that people aren’t being turned off by Wikipedia because it’s too aggressive and angry. Our editing community has certain characteristics: an average age of around 26 and about double the percentage of PhDs compared to the general public. The word ‘community’ is often abused in the context of online – usually people talk about community Communication director 4/2016
when what they’re really talking about is just random interactions among the general public. For example, you can’t really talk about “the Twitter community” because, although Twitter does have sub-communities and groups of people who know each other, Twitter is itself not a community in any real sense. So if your vision of how Wikipedia works is that 100 million people each write one sentence and that magically becomes an encyclopedia, that isn’t really correct. We’ve got about 80,000 volunteers, loosely defined as people who make around five edits per month. But the real community is about three to five thousand people who are organising the work. They are passionate volunteers, the people who really build Wikipedia. They look after everything: they greet newcomers, they make sure the newcomers are behaving themselves (which isn’t always the case) they make plans, and they organise events. They are the true core of Wikipedia, working together under a guiding set of principles. We’ve never regarded Wikipedia as a wide-open free speech zone. We’ve always said, “We’re building an encyclopedia” and “We want to be high quality,” and those are two of our fundamental values. A lot of things are determined by these bigger-picture principles and values.
Outlining collaboration So what are these principles? One is that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. There are a lot of things that Wikipedia is not; in fact there’s a famous page called “What Wikipedia is not”, where we explain that Wikipedia is not a library nor textbook. Wikipedia is not YouTube so, although I really love funny cat videos, they don’t belong in Wikipedia. There’s a lot about the understanding of an encyclopedia that allows us to settle certain kinds of debates: “Should this be here or not?” “Well, does it help to build an encyclopedia?” Another principle is maintaining a neutral point of view. Wikipedia tries not to take a stand on controversial
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ESSENTIALS
Just the facts: 2016 What did the communications landscape look like in 2016 according to the statistics? Drawing on our Facts & Figures section in our monthly newsletter, we’ve picked 10 of the most illuminating results from surveys published throughout the year. From employee engagement to business risks, these are the findings that influenced corporate communications this year.
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6
2
7
3
4
TOP 10 AGILE BRANDS GLOBALLY
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9
10
5
The ideal mix of authenticity and adaptability – termed brand agility – arises from the Global Agile Brand Study from Landor. These 10 brands all display six agile behaviour traits in different measures. They are adaptive, principled, open, responsible, global and multichannel.
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Communication director 4/2016
ESSENTIALS
Top five most influential media for EU public affairs practitioners According to a survey conducted by the European Centre for Public Affairs, senior public affairs professionals from companies and trade associations see these publications as the most important media sources in EU public affairs.
80%
72%
70% 60% 50% 40% 30%
51%
46% 27%
20% 10% 0%
10% Financial Times
1
Business Interruption
2
Market developments
34%
3
Cyber incidents
28%
4
Natural catastrophes
24%
5
Changes in legislation and regulation
38%
6
Macroeconomic developments
22%
7
Loss of reputation or brand value
18%
8
Fire, explosion
16%
9
Political risks
11%
10 Theft, fraud and corruption
Politico
National Media
Wall Street Journal
Euractiv
38%
11%
Communication director 4/2016
Top 10 Global Business Risks for 2016 The Allianz Risk Barometer identifies the top corporate perils for 2016 and beyond, based on the responses of more than 800 risk experts from 40+ countries around the globe.
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corporate affairs
Starting a new conversation We live in an era of profound mistrust. Corporate misbehaviour and scandals affecting even the most august of institutions have eroded public faith in the leadership of large parts of civil society. In a world with more than a billion constantly connected citizens, judgements are formed almost instantly on the basis of corporate deeds – real or imagined – far more than corporate words. True transparency – detailed, honest and sometimes painful – is essential if organisations are to be trusted in future.
Photo: Beppe Raso
By Matt Peacock
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Communication director 4/2016
corporate affairs
“ Corporate transparency programmes defuse the negative; but on their own, they are not enough to secure a long-term licence to operate.”
will always be some people who, as a point of principle, will not believe anything any large company says. But our transparency report did prompt the more reasonable and thoughtful critics to consider that what they had thought were simple answers weren’t, perhaps, quite so simple after all. It also helped people realise that international and national taxation systems were at the root of their concerns, not the activities of a specific company that had at least made the effort to try to explain how those systems worked in practice, so their opprobrium should be redirected accordingly. The report changed the nature of the debate for us. It meant that, for the first time, it was possible to have informed and constructive conversations with a range of different people who cared passionately about the issues for good and honourable reasons.
Secrecy versus transparency
M
illions of people around the world profoundly distrust the companies that we work for, and for two reasons. The first is dishonesty: a belief that companies habitually mislead and obfuscate when addressing real and profound concerns about issues that matter to the public. The second is disempowerment: a belief that companies view people as no more than a fungible commodity with financial logic always trumping social consequence. Those views are widespread and, sadly, they are not exactly without evidence. But it doesn’t have to be like this. Let me tell you about our journey. From 2010 onwards – at the height of the global financial crisis – we faced accusations of corporate tax avoidance. If you wanted to understand what public mistrust felt like, working in one of our stores with protestors outside the door would have given you a good insight. Anyone who has worked in issues and crisis management can tell you that when you are publicly accused of wrongdoing, life gets binary really fast. Either you did wrong – in which case you apologise, explain what happe-
ned, set out what you’re doing to fix it and what you’ll do to ensure it doesn’t happen again and the world moves on (providing you can keep your promises) – or you have done nothing wrong, there is a misunderstanding, in which case you need to come out fighting to tell the world what’s really happening. Our corporate tax challenge was a matter of transparency, not malfeasance. The problem is that accounting standards and international tax norms are highly complex and opaque. It became clear to me and my colleagues across the business that there was a pressing need to explain how tax works in layman’s terms and to do so in depth, with clearly stated principles setting out what our company would (and would not) do – and, moreover, to do so in a public report with numbers that were disclosed on a country-by-country basis. Those discussions led to the first-ever annual tax transparency report published by a company in the global telecoms and technology industry. So did this transparency report persuade all of the protestors and doubters? Not at all. There Communication director 4/2016
About a year later, there was a new issue on the horizon from a completely different direction: the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. His initial allegations appeared to imply illegal collusion between UK intelligence agencies and UK telecom companies, including Vodafone. As we all remember, the allegations quickly gained traction and were reported around the world. This was a difficult challenge. In preparing our tax transparency report, my team and I could speak to all the internal experts in our own organisation and were able to get to ground truth quite quickly. But this issue was different: the problem with national security and secrecy is... it’s secret. If you know about it, there’s very little you can say about it – not least because you can go to prison if you reveal what you shouldn’t reveal. Secrecy and transparency don’t exactly go hand in hand. This was, to put it mildly, a bit of a headache. So we focused on what we knew and what we knew we could say. We knew that our own code of conduct, which applies to everyone who works with us, anywhere in the world, is extremely clear that any form of access to customer data without lawful authority is utterly prohibited. We also knew that our colleagues who are tasked with law enforcement agency liaison – and, to be clear, all telecommunications operators’ licence obligations in all countries require them to provide lawful access to law enforcement agencies – are decent people who act with integrity. So our strategy was to take the same playbook that we ap-
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leadership
Today’s corporate affairs director, tomorrow’s CEO? Today’s chief executives are increasingly difficult to categorise. Requiring skills that their predecessors a generation ago would barely recognise, they are drawn from a diverse range of backgrounds – from academia to industry and government to creative media. Yet there has been little research to date on another emerging route to the top of business: through senior corporate affairs roles in investor, corporate, public and media relations. The two business leaders and former corporate communications directors profiled here offer advice on how corporate affairs professionals can ensure they are credible contenders for broader leadership positions. Together, we explore the skills that they developed to reach the top. By Oskar Yasar and David Broome
I
n the search for leaders with the depth and diversity of skills needed to run our largest, most important companies, industries and indeed governments, communications and corporate affairs departments have not been considered as fruitful places to explore. There are some valid reasons for this oversight. In the past, the communications marketplace was dominated by specialist consultancies, with few significant in-house roles as a route into senior management. It was even rarer for a corporate affairs professional to have a seat on a corporate executive committee. Other functions such as finance were viewed as a more natural route. A rapidly changing market for senior roles is challenging this status
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quo. A new generation of leaders have developed their skills and outlooks in a digitally-connected, always-on world. Communication is no longer a minor but necessary aspect of corporate life. With an ever greater complexity of audiences and stakeholder groups, CEOs have no choice but to spend more time communicating and the market has little time for those who get it wrong. In response, organisations have become more focused on their own reputation management. Many now state publicly that they consider their robust name or reputation to be their greatest asset. Countless studies demonstrate that the loss of reputation exacts a high cost. An effective reputation engagement strategy is now viewed as business critical.
Translating corporate affairs skills into management talent In our new report, From Corporate Affairs to Corporate Leader, we profile several individuals who have pioneered the path from corporate affairs roles to general management and leadership positions. However, that path remains virgin territory at many organisations. The good news is that for corporate affairs and reputation management professionals who are still keen to reach the top, their wide-angle view of an organisation, core skills of engaging and making people believe and their ability to articulate and deliver a
Communication director 4/2016
leadership
message are increasingly in demand. There’s huge potential for such individuals to succeed, whether their communications background is in politics or government, a publicly-listed company or a trade association. As a result, we are witnessing more corporate affairs and reputation management heads developing into business leaders. Senior communications professionals possess increasing influence within organisations and enjoy wider exposure to business decisions and strategy. An estimated 50 per cent of corporate communications directors now sit on executive committees. Communications is emerging as a business critical function and as a valid and respected management discipline. Furthermore, it is increasingly common for potential business leaders to be expected to spend some time in the communications function. It is unsurprising that the range of skills required in a communications role can translate effectively into management talent. Through their everyday tasks, corporate affairs professionals are honing core CEO skills such as the ability to build a narrative, remain calm in a crisis, multi-task, think fast and communicate succinctly and quickly.
Broader skills, business portfolios, projects Communications skills alone are not sufficient to progress professionals into senior executive or CEO roles. While corporate affairs is increasingly attracting people with broad skill-sets from diverse backgrounds, a need remains for professionals starting in the industry to proactively widen their portfolios. Without commercial acumen and financial management knowledge, an ambitious communicator may find it difficult to progress across organisational departments and become stuck in a career rut. All interviewees in our report stressed the importance of voluntee-
ring for new opportunities and wider involvement throughout an organisation. Managerial training at institutions such as business schools and MBAs can help fill financial gaps, while there are myriad opportunities to gain experience through volunteer board roles. By gaining cross-functional and broader experience, and becoming involved in wider strategy deliberations, many corporate communications professionals have found that their own profile is raised within a business, as well as their efforts being rewarded by increased interest externally. Being vocal about one’s ambitions is also of paramount importance. Most of our current crop of leaders admit to having had close senior support, including mentors who were prepared to guide and to challenge them into trying new roles. Many of our interviewees suggested considering a move to another organisation if that support culture does not exist within an existing employer. An open-minded environment is needed to facilitate a transition out of corporate affairs.
From corporate affairs to corporate leader •• Ensure your organisation is supportive of your ambitions. If it isn’t, move. •• L ook to gain commercial and financial skills and experience. •• Build your network outside your organisation. •• D o your own PR within your business and get to know as much as you can about how it works. •• Find a supportive senior mentor. •• C onsider external management training e.g. an MBA, not-for profit sector to add skills. •• Don’t underrate your existing skills. •• V olunteer for strategic and other managerial opportunities and keep yourself visible. •• Consider a move sideways if it helps build experience. •• Understand the true nature of a leadership role and ensure you really want it.
Articulate the benefits While ambitious potential leaders might want to move upwards quickly, the journey to leadership may not be straightforward. As some of our interviewees point out, sometimes it is expedient to move sideways into a role that may not be high-profile or report directly to a chief executive. Such moves can equip individuals with new skills, vastly improve their operational knowledge and help them make connections that may fuel future progress. This process can build personal networks and add direct experience of an array of different functions, geographies and business areas to an executive’s communications prowess. Some of our interviewees found invaluable experience from gaining NED positions, though there remains concern that corporate affairs professionals are not often considered for such roles. Others in trade and professional
“Communications is emerging as a business critical function.” bodies have made fruitful transitions to leadership roles. This may be explained by the campaigning nature and mind-set of many such organisations, which aligns leadership closely to communications. Yet, such organisations, like third sector groups, can be large and diverse concerns and increasingly operate on extremely commercial lines, so skills other than communications are in demand there as much as they are at limited companies.
Communication director 4/2016
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public affairs
Adapting political communications to a networked world Governments face special challenges in communicating authoritatively in a less hierarchical, more networked world. The British government’s communications team is all set on taking on that challenge. By Alex Aiken
A
s government communicators, our mission is to honestly and effectively communicate policies and publicise opportunities to improve the lives of citizens. That is why one of our biggest campaigns, One You, encourages people to look after their health. And it is why we communicate to explain how you can start a business, take up an apprenticeship or donate blood. The UK Government Communication Service (GCS) covers the 3,000 staff working in marketing, media and internal communications in 300 public agencies. Our 90 major campaigns, professional standards and shared vision of exceptional public service communication work are set out in the annual Government Communication Plan, whose implementation is tracked, assessed and evaluated throughout the year.
The challenge we faced The UK has developed public service communication over 150 years, starting in the 1870s with posters to persuade people to make financial provision for their old age and in 2016 using high quality digital communication for the same goal. We learnt much along the way but it was clear that by 2010 our communication practice had become too
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need to create content, particularly video and graphics, that is shareable. Media, print and online magazines remain a key focus for our work, but we needed to adapt to service the proliferation of channels. Technology offers new opportunities to citizen journalists but it also demands new skills from the public relations officer – to film, edit, post and promote video content, as well as traditional and essential writing skills. For us, building a model of modern communications practice has required five steps:
expensive and poorly targeted. We didn’t have the scale of cohesive cross government work required to properly reach our audiences and this was evinced by the 800 government websites, 200 logos and £1 billion spent on government communications. Today we spend around half that sum, have one web platform (Gov.UK) and a single corporate identity system. More importantly we have campaigns that offer people choices and information. Our housing campaign has provided ways to home ownership and our road safety campaigns help reduce accidents. We have modernised our approach because we saw that society, media and technology was changing quickly and in ways that opened up new opportunities for communicators. People are less deferential and more likely to trust the views of their friends on Facebook, so we
Define the end state
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My role is to develop and implement a communications strategy to support the priorities set by the prime minister and cabinet, manage the corporate team that co-ordinates government work and set professional standards. I believed that if we were going to be successful I needed to challenge my colleagues to deliver a higher quality of professional practice. With the group of directors of communication we defined our goal as providing an exceptional standard of public service communication effectively delivered and efficiently executed by educated communicators. And we emphasise the value we place on professional development. We wanted all our colleagues to demonstrate communications impact and value for money. We have focused on a campaigns model for communication, defining this as: “a planned sequence of communications and interactions that use a compelling narrative over time to deliver a defined and measurable outcome”. And to help people understand what we mean, we developed the mnemonic OASIS – Objective, Audience, Strategy, Implementation and Scoring (Evaluation) to impress upon all our teams how they should approach each communication problem.
Communication director 4/2016
public affairs
Understand the future – as far as we can We recognised how the world was changing so to understand our audiences and the opportunities better we commissioned a report, The Future of Public Service Communications. We drew together a wide ranging panel of experts from across the public sector, private industry and academia. The report’s conclusion can be summarised thus: As the pace of technology change will only quicken, professional communicators must adapt or become obsolete. Mastering skills of data utilisation, algorithms behaviour change and a more sophisticated grasp of marketing techniques will be key. The report recommended that we put the following at the heart of our discipline:
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• Social marketing to nudge people – we have created a behavioural insights team which in addition to serving government now trades independently, and mandated that our campaigns follow the EAST principle – that they are easy, attractive, social and timely for our audiences. • Understanding of data – we are developing a real-time digital campaign dashboard and each of our main departments has a Performance Hub to share and assess data. • The ability to build alliances – we’ve put stakeholder engagement at the heart of our work, and recently we have worked with 90 civil society bodies to boost voter registration by two million. • The creation of compelling content – UK officials in Ukraine posted a graphic on Twitter to help Russia identify its own tanks when the Kremlin appeared ‘unclear’ about the location of some of its military hardware.
Create a Modern Communications Operating Model and a rigorous evaluation framework The Future of Public Service Communications report provided a sound theoretical foundation but two frameworks launched in late 2015 provide the blueprint for UK government professional communication practice. MCOM sets out to unify our professional practice with four interrelated themes:
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I. Media and campaigns: at the heart of the government communications team is a campaign’s capacity where managing good relationships with traditional media is allied with an understanding of the campaign goal and the range of communication techniques that can reach the audience. II. Internal communication: we deliberately placed internal communication at the heart of the new model to emphasise now that staff engagement in many large organisations needs to be improved. Using the Engage for Success blueprint we said that staff need a compelling corporate story, an environment where their voice is heard and acted upon, truly engaging managers and the integrity that says the organisation does what it says it will do. We’ve created a strong community of internal communications professionals who are radically improving our staff engagement. III. Stakeholder engagement: knowing who our most important partners, friends, and even detractors are is more important than ever. We have employed the discipline of mapping and understanding exactly who and where these ‘stakeholders’ are. This is only half the job – the real work is about building trusted relationships based on common purpose. Technology may be increa-
“We wanted all our colleagues to demonstrate communication’s impact and value for money.” singly dominating our profession but we also need to build strong trusted relationships with others and be ready to engage directly with them. IV. Strategic communication: effective planning and evaluation of our work goes to the heart of our drive to establish communications as a credible discipline that has parity with the other professions serving government. It is what lends the professional credibility that gives communicators the right to speak at the top decision-making level of any organisation. To support this, the GCS first published its evaluation framework at the end of 2015 following consultation with an expert panel from the public and private sectors as well as academia.
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Deliver public impact
Models and reports can set the standard but the test of our work is the campaigns we deliver. The annual Government Communications Plan allows scheduling of 25 priority campaigns in a coordinated way across government departments to reach targets audiences and its progress is reviewed each quarter by the Ministerial Board for communication. One of our most successful projects has been the GREAT Britain Campaign. It was launched in late 2012 to promote the United Kingdom abroad by capitalising on the legacy potential of the 2012 Olympics. The campaign involves the participation of a range of government departments and is active in 144 countries across the globe. It has a strong digital element, monthly evaluation and a skilled campaign team to manage the work. To date in return for a government investment of £100 million the campaign has secured a confirmed economic return to the country of £2billion.
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evaluation
Getting the measure Avoiding these five fundamental measurement mistakes will bring you closer to the c-suite.
I
f there is one thing that helps get communicators a seat at the management table, it is speaking the language of management: charts, statistics, and metrics. Yet measurement remains one of the biggest challenges for communicators, both in-house and in agencies. How can communicators avoid the most common measurement mistakes and open a management dialogue through measurement?
1. Putting measurement last instead of first Measurement cannot wait. Indeed, in a technical sense a measurement mechanism is often only possib-
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le when it is incorporated in the design of the activity from the start. To take a basic example: gathering feedback from a trade show may be as simple as taking an on-the-spot survey. However, whenever I want to do so I find it necessary to discuss in advance the objectives that need to be measured, as well as the survey content that must be developed and agreed before being printed or input into electronic format. I try to settle the mechanics of data collection (print, app, or online) long before the show begins. When I forget this, the alternative is to end up counting imperfect metrics like “number of people attending the show”, when I should instead be finding out something more like “percentage improved engagement” or, at a minimum, “customer leads produced”.
Communicator director 4/2016
More broadly, it is only possible to measure a communications approach when objectives are set up front. At BASF, an innovationbased company, I would be very surprised to hear any of our chemist-managers confuse the measurement of basic scientific characteristics like heat or strength. Why should the corporate affairs department hold itself to a lower standard? Yet sometimes I still find myself starting to talk about how we will do a campaign without clarifying first why we are doing a campaign – are we trying to increase awareness, build trust, both, or achieve something else? Discipline is therefore needed to ensure measurement makes it into the first draft of every communications plan. Implementing a standard template, with standard headings (Measurable Objectives, Approach, Implementation, Timeline), is the necessary first step to incorporating measurement routinely into communications activities.
Photo: Christine Cavalier / Flickr / CC BY 2.0
By Genevieve Hilton
evaluation
Rather than a project or a programme, I like to think of measurement as a good habit to get into – and we know a good habit is truly ingrained when its absence is noticed: just as we feel uncomfortable going to bed without brushing our teeth, we should feel uncomfortable writing even the most basic communications plan without a measurement mechanism.
2. Not establishing basic assumptions with management Is positive media coverage desirable? Should our company be attempting to raise awareness or not? The answer should be obvious. Yet not all management team members will automatically agree. Some may fear notoriety for the company, imagining that it will overwhelm the salespeople with unfillable orders. Some think it nice to have, but not worth the risk. Others err in the opposite direction: they have adopted the confused idea that “all publicity is good publicity”. For this reason, if I forget to agree on the ground rules up front, I will certainly end up wasting precious management time later on, going over the basics, or falling into existential arguments about the value of communication. Here are some basics that I attempt to establish if I want to have any kind of fruitful discussion when it comes time to present measurement results: • Do we agree that awareness and/or trust in the brand is desirable? (And: is one more important than the other?) For management team members that feel unsure about the very question of whether having a strong brand is worthwhile, a useful example is the fiscal valuation of brands in acquisitions – it clearly shows that (intangible) brands are worth (real) money. This can be demonstrated generically or with data from peer companies, and does not need to be re-established in every
“Discipline is needed to ensure measurement makes it into the first draft of every communications plan.”
single results presentation. Additionally, comparisons of the pricing difference between name-brand and generic products are a useful tool in this discussion. Having established this as a base rule, I do not then need to try to assign a spurious sales increase value to each news clipping. • Who are our target audiences? Because our company sells to such an eclectic group of customers – from rice farmers in Indonesia, who need crop protection solutions, to automotive CEOs in Japan who are considering alternative power trains – any discussion of “corporate” communication measurement must start on the basis of a common understanding and definition of the target audience. In BASF’s case, as a company we have established a description known as our “Relevant Public”, defined demographically and psychographically, and gained management understanding that this group is a worthwhile target, no matter whether any given member of the group is individually our current customer. • How fast do the results have to be visible? Building trust takes time, Communicator director 4/2016
and the business results of activities like our science education programme BASF Kids’ Lab (target ages 6-12) might not be seen literally for decades. If the management instead have an intense focus on near term results, then this reality must be acknowledged and addressed. • What is our risk tolerance? Some of the most outrageously successful communications campaigns, before they were successful, were simply the most outrageous. I tell managers that just like in financial services, if you are risk-averse, then you cannot expect more than modest returns.
3. Measuring the wrong thing (and then jumping to conclusions) Just because it’s possible to measure something doesn’t mean it’s helpful. Here are some common metrics, and what they do and do not indicate: • How many people showed up? This number of event attendees is a product of the robustness of the database, the relevance of the topic, the seniority of the speaker, and the attractiveness of the invitation. It also is a basic indicator of how many people were exposed to the brand. However, to truly measure the success of an event, it is necessary to set an objective for engagement or message delivery (example: “After this event, do stakeholders agree more or less with the following statements?”) and to elicit a response from the attendees, either through observing their actions after the event or through a direct request for a response via a survey. • How many clippings? Clip count measures notoriety among a particular readership – good or bad. In short, a brand or individual who is already famous will get coverage, no matter what. However, a large number of clippings has very little to do with how many people have read or absorbed the information, whether or not they have accepted the company’s key messages, nor whether they intend to act on the messages. Instead, a longitudinal comparison of key message delivery and share of voice against competitors can help give an indication of overall brand health and can be a strategic tool for communicators to adjust messaging. • How many clippings for this announcement? Additionally, pure clip count does not necessarily measure the excellence of the
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Report
The long and the short of it In an era of quarterly capitalism, why should companies communicate their long-term value creation story? A recent research project looks at how FTSE 100 annual reporting practices evidence longterm thinking. By Anne Kirkeby
D
espite following regulatory checks and balances to the letter, many companies are still unable to convey in their annual report a clear sense of what sets them apart or how well placed they are to take advantage of market drivers. They also provide limited clarity around their unique investment proposition or how they are able to create and sustain value over the long term. One reason for this is that many sections of the annual report are written in isolation and therefore do not provide the connectivity between the elements of the report that is needed to provide a coherent story. Another missing element in the long-term value creation story is companies’ hesitance to provide sufficient information around their future prospects, evidence their long-term thinking and provide long-term targets that they can be held accountable for.
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Why the hesitance? In this era of quarterly capitalism, many would argue that CEOs are not incentivised to focus efforts on the long-term. The impact of quarterly earnings on share price which in turn impact CEO remuneration is one aspect. Another is that a longterm strategy typically relies on continuous investment in the business to enhance long-term competitiveness and growth. However, these investments only impact the share price in the long-term, while using the same money on high dividends and share buy-backs benefits the share price in the short-term. Communication director 4/2016
“Among some investors, the case for longterm investment and fiduciary duty has been building for years.�
Report
To request a copy of Ticking the Boxes, But Missing the Point?, visist www.blacksunplc.com/en/insights/ research/ticking-the-boxes-but-missing-the-point-research.html
out for shareholders each year a strategic framework for long-term value creation. He also asks that chief executive officers explicitly affirm that their boards have reviewed those plans given the critical role boards play in strategic planning. Securing the investment of key investors is critical for the long-term value creation of a company as their backing will allow companies the opportunity to make investments for the future that enhance long-term competitiveness and growth which may come at the expense of dividends. This gives companies a reason to look at the barriers for long-term investment. In providing this strategic framework for long-term value creation, as suggested by Fink, we believe companies should in particular focus on reporting their strategic priorities, long-term objectives and the investments they make to enhance long-term competitiveness. All of which will serve to evidence their true commitment to long-term value creation and potentially attract a stable shareholder base.
Companies that outline specific priorities or objectives with timeframes of five or more years into the future
13%
What does the research say? Why is long-term thinking important? Our research shows that companies increasingly use long-term value creation narrative in the annual report and discuss the value they create for stakeholders more widely. However, further evidencing long-term thinking in the annual report is critical to a credible sustainable value creation story and is paramount in creating a strong message of accountability and trust and securing stakeholder confidence. Among some investors, the case for long-term investment and fiduciary duty has been building for years. Take the example of BlackRock’s chief executive officer Larry Fink who earlier this year sent a letter to S&P 500 and large European companies asking that every chief executive officer lay
However, according to our research, only 13 per cent of companies set out specific strategic priorities or objectives with a time frame of five years or more in their annual report. In fact, 27 per cent of companies set no strategic targets or objectives at all, let alone a timeframe for implementing their strategy. This is clearly at odds with the more than half of FTSE100 chairmen and chief executives who in their leadership statements commit to sustainable value creation.
Communication director 4/2016
As for companies reporting on investments that enhance long-term competitiveness and create sustainable value, the picture is mixed. We’re finding that 75 per cent of companies discuss capital expenditure to some degree, but only 25 per cent discuss how it will improve the business. Even fewer, 20 per cent, discuss how the company’s investment in physical, fixed or tangible assets is linked to the company’s strategy. Digging a bit deeper, we find that companies are making reference to the specific tangible investments they are making. For example, 39 per cent refer to specific tangible investment in technology, 19 per cent refer to specific tangible investment in research and development, and 22 per cent to investment in employees or human capital. Some companies make investment in more than one of these areas; 7 per cent report having invested in all three, while 44 per cent do not report having made any investment in any of these areas. However, most of these companies fail to make the connection to how these investments are part of the overall strategy to future proof the company. This makes them appear disconnected and rather than boosting their value creation story it may turn off investors.
“In this era of quarterly capitalism, many would argue that CEOs are not incentivised to focus efforts on the long-term.” 35
compliance
Demonstrating respect Why communication directors can and should influence management to put human rights at the heart of the company’s strategy. By Pablo Largacha
Photo: www.thinkstock.com
A
n increasingly large number of multi-national corporations (MNCs) are actively assuming their responsibility to demonstrate their respect for human rights in the workplace, not just within the “four walls” of their own premises, but both upstream and downstream along their value chain, i.e. with suppliers and distributors of the goods or services they produce. As a result, most MNCs today have made public commitments to develop and put in place policies, as well as due diligence and remediation processes, in order to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how the company addresses its human rights impacts, either directly, or indirectly through their business partners.
These policies focus mainly on fostering open and inclusive workplaces and include provisions on respect for human rights, supplier guiding principles, and community and stakeholder engagement. Consequently, from a company perspective, the concept of human rights in the workplace is not something that falls under the exclusive remit of the human resources department. In-house public affairs and communication directors have a critical role to play in the implementation of such policies – both internally and externally – as companies become less defensive and more transparent on issues that have been identified, as well as in the corrective actions that are being implemented.
Communication director 4/2016
“Communication directors play a critical role in demonstrating respect for human rights.”
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compliance
Championing human rights at work First, communication directors have a responsibility to influence senior management to understand and embrace the importance and benefits of making human rights part of the company strategy, as a means of achieving a more sustainable business success. To name just a few benefits: more engaged employees, higher productivity, better qualified suppliers, access to more socially-conscious customers, greater competitive advantage, enhanced growth potential, higher ratings with investors, stronger brand image and corporate reputation. In close partnership with other company areas such as human resources, ethics and compliance and/ or legal affairs, the communication director also plays an instrumental role in co-creating the policies, which is no different than defining what the company stands for in terms of human rights in the workplace and what this means for its suppliers, employees and customers. As part of this drafting process, they will have a key responsibility in proactively engaging with stakeholders such as government agencies, multilateral entities, social investors, human rights organisations, NGOs, labour unions, suppliers and customers, to make sure these policies and processes address their concerns and expectations. Once approved by senior management, the communication director will then carry a big responsibility in branding and communicating the policy across the organisation and to key external stakeholders – probably one of the most important steps in the entire process. In fact, at the end of the day the success of policy compliance rests with company employees: it’s what they do or don’t do in their day-to-day jobs that will determine whether or not the company lives up to its commitments. Hence, in-
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“ Meaningful dialogue with a wide range of stakeholders will be critical to communicate the human rights policy.”
Executive Summary The role of the communication director in promoting human rights at the workplace is to: •• Influence senior management to understand and embrace the importance of making human rights part of company strategy. •• Co-create policies and defining what the company stands for in terms of human rights in the workplace.
ternal communications will play a critical role in ensuring company employees, as well as those of its key business partners, suppliers and customers, understand how to avoid causing (or contributing to) adverse human rights impacts as a result of business actions, as well as how to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts directly linked to their operations, products or services. In this respect, the multi-market presence of MNCs will evidently add an element of complexity for a communication director, due to the different cultural value sets and the need for the company to apply the same standards everywhere, which in the case of multiple facilities and a large workforce implies extensive communication plans to achieve the required shifts in corporate culture.
•• Ensure the company applies the same standards across all markets it operates in, regardless of different cultural values. •• Dialogue with a wide range of external stakeholders and other key audiences. •• Support the identification resolution of issues, reporting on progress and continuous stakeholder engagement. •• Help connect the stories behind the company’s good human rights practices to its products or services.
rhetoric
Aristotle as guide to 21st-century living The philosophy of Aristotle, born exactly 2,400 years ago in northern Greece and founder of the first research university, the Lyceum, offers the perfect basis for a rational, secular, progressive public and private morality in the 21st-century. In particular, his model for living a purposeful, fulfilled and thoughtful life, in harmony with our fellow humans and the ecology of the planet, can enrich our ability to make decisions, communicate with others, realise our full potential, develop rich relationships and face our mortality constructively.
So many of today’s headlines seem like they’re taken directly from a Greek tragedy. What can Aristotle teach us about holding on to hope in days of Stygian darkness? Of all the ancient thinkers, Aristotle provides us with by far the most interesting material on hope and on courage, both of which he analyses at some length. Aristotelian ethics are completely secular ethics divorced from any religious views, and strongly emphasise human beings taking responsibility for their own happiness through developing what he calls the virtues, which include things
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like courage, taking responsibility for your own life, making your own happiness in your relationships, in you working life, and doing that collectively in city states. It’s not just something about your family, it extends to your whole community – the world indeed can become improved through empirical science, rational thinking, rational argumentation and sophisticated political theory. But it is something we actually have to do. We can be optimistic about the future provided we are proactive and courageous. Aristotle defined rhetoric as the “faculty of observing in any Communication director 4/2016
given case the available means of persuasion” – which makes him sound like he works for a reputation management agency. Does his views on rhetoric make Aristotle the patron saint for public relations professionals? Although Aristotle was from northern Greece, he did almost all of his work and set up his university in democratic Athens. By the time he arrived, democracy in Athens had been going for over a century and it was all about the rhetorical power of politicians. Rhetoric had got a very bad name indeed, by the time he started to study it. It was regarded as something that could make black seem white, white seem black, and where the truth was quickly lost sight of. Aristotle’s teacher Plato condemned the
Photo: www.thinkstock.com
Interview with Edith Hall
rhetoric
study of rhetoric as immoral and distinct from philosophy, but Aristotle was the first to describe rhetoric as a set of skills or techniques used by one person trying to communicate persuasively with someone else. It’s completely neutral. You can use it for good ends or for bad ends. It doesn’t have a moral value itself any more than a tool box you have in the garage with hammers and nails. That’s why his treatise, Rhetoric, from as early as 4 BC, is still a model which is studied in departments of speech writing, in debating societies, by political speech writers. It is a clinical dissection of how to make words have the biggest impact on your audience. What are his rules for rhetoric? His ABC of rhetoric is as follows: A is for audience. You have to imagine yourself into the heads of your audience, you must always level your message to them. B is for brevity. He is absolutely clear that the shorter you can make the message the better. He has even timed it that the human brain can only last for about 15 minutes following any one argument, which has been proven by neuroscience. And C is for clarity. There is absolutely no point if people don’t understand what you are saying. You will not persuade them if it’s not clear. That sounds very simple, but nobody had ever said this before, that the minute you lose sight of audience, brevity and clarity then you’re not going to affect persuasion. It doesn’t matter if you are trying to get somebody to vote for you, to buy your products, to marry you, to go to school, to eat their vegetables: these are all simple acts where people are trying to persuade another. With your ABC you can’t go wrong. He was also interested in delivery, which is D. He gave advice on how to dress the part and he talked about visual persuasion in terms of people trusting you – Donald Trump could learn a few things from what he said about not appearing aggressive.
“Aristotle was the first to describe rhetoric as a set of skills or techniques used by one person trying to communicate persuasively with someone else.”
About Aristotle •• Aristotle, whose name means “the best purpose”, was born in 384 BC in Stagira, Chalcidice, about 55 km east of modern-day Thessaloniki. •• Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues – Cicero described his literary style as “a river of gold”– it is thought that only around a third of his original output has survived. •• In 335 BC Aristotle established his school in Athens, known as the Lyceum. He conducted courses at the school for the next 12 years. •• The works that have survived were not intended for widespread publication – they are generally thought to be lecture aids for his students. •• Aristotle made significant contributions to most subjects under study at the time. In philosophy, he wrote on aesthetics, ethics, government, metaphysics, politics, economics, psychology, rhetoric and theology. In physical science, Aristotle studied anatomy, astronomy, embryology, geography, geology, meteorology, physics and zoology. He also studied education, foreign customs, literature and poetry.
Communication director 4/2016
You mentioned he was from northern Greece. Is it significant that he was born and raised outside Athens? Definitely. His family weren’t Macedonian but they lived in northern Greece, which was very affected by the aggressive imperialist, undemocratic monarchy. His father was the doctor to Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great. Aristotle spent his entire life trying to get away from the Macedonians, who he found to be extremely restrictive. He loved Athens because it was a democracy and he could be intellectual there. The minute Alexander crossed over to Turkey and never came back, Aristotle went straight to Athens at the age of 49, founded the Lyceum and for the next 12 years did nothing but write and think in freedom. He is actually a great role model for everybody who hasn’t done what they wanted to by the age of 50. I speak as someone in her fifties, very aware that I’ve got to get my life’s project done. It’s very inspiring to me that he never gave up hope to start up his own university. He set up the first research and teaching institution – the first university in the world. Your blog, The Edithorial, comments regularly on current events. For example, your recent post about the UK government’s plans for higher education drew on classical rhetoric to analyse between the lines of the report. Would lessons in rhetoric in the classroom help us see through the kind of smokescreens so prevalent in corporate and political communications?
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agenda setter
Conference, festival or chaos? Conferences aren’t what they used to be. A new breed of mega event has upped the ante on content, production and fun. We take a look behind the scenes at three of the best. By jan wisniewski
W
hen you think of a conference, what image springs to mind? Is it a gently dozing audience in a large, airless room, watching presentation after presentation? Or is it something a little looser, a little livelier – and maybe even a little more chaotic? A growing number of events are relinquishing the old hierarchical model of conferences in favour of a grassroots festival atmosphere. Thousands of people descend onto host cities looking to cross paths with other innovation seekers, while organisers balance between work and play, with varying degrees of focus on tech, business, music and art – and all with just a touch of chaos thrown in. Embracing this chaos may be a vital ingredient to organising a successful event, but how does one go about it and what do participants really take away?
A Texan star Every March, the most headlinegrabbing example of this new breed of conferences takes over the town of Austin, Texas for 10 days. The South by Southwest conference, commonly shortened to SXSW, counts four separate festivals under its banner: Interactive, Film, Music and Comedy. Of these four, Interactive attracts professionals
from around the world to learn and connect. According to Hugh Forrest, director of the festival, the unique quality of SXSW is the variety of people flying into Austin. “SXSW registrants range from medical pioneers to mobile technology developers to music industry professionals,” Hugh told Communication Director. “The one point of commonality for all these attendees are that they are very creative and interested in learning new ideas, as well as different ways of thinking.” SXSW Interactive is one of the largest events of its kind, attracting over 37,000 registrants in 2016. On the European level, The Next Web (TNW) conference is among the best attended, boasting more than 20,000 attendees in 2016. Not bad for an event that drew just 300 registrations in 2006 when it was founded by Dutch entrepreneurs Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten and Patrick de Laive. Boris attributes the growth of TNW – held in a purpose-built village for two days in Amsterdam during May – to the rising number of occupations that are influenced by digital technology. Beginning as an internet conference for developers, investors and entrepreneurs, their audience has broadened as digital innovations have transformed the world of work. “We’re focusing on ‘Generation T’, the technology gene-
President Barack Obama spoke at SXSW Interactive this year (Photo: Neilson Barnard / SXSW Interactive)
“ Finding suitable locations to house the many events is a pressing matter.”
ration,” Boris told Communication Director. “It’s a group that has technology influence their work or daily lives beyond the norm. If you like your iPhone you are not necessarily Generation T, but if you build apps for it or if you are a professional gamer then you obviously are.” Another conference designed for the T generation has also found a home in Europe. For the past five years, South Summit has taken place in Madrid during three days in October. A gathering of startups from all over the world (but with a special focus on Southern Europe and Latin America), last year’s event attracted around 10,000 attendees. Centred around a startup competition with two main criteria, disruption and innovation, the event is described by Liz Flemming, vice president of international at South Summit, as “A place where startups can come and play, and experiment, break, trial, test and invent.”
The big ring With these events attracting tens of thousands, finding suitable locations to house the many
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agenda setter
events is a pressing matter. Though its events sprawl across the city, the core of SXSW activities take place in a downtown building. The midsize city feel of the Texas capitalcoupled with the central location of the main venue allows registrants to chase fun across town without much effort. But this convenient setup is close to unique in the world of creative conferences. South Summit’s venue history is more colourful, including two years inside Las Ventas, a functional bullring. This year, it took place at La N@ VE, an old elevator manufacturing warehouse on the southern outskirts of Madrid converted into a conference centre with four purpose-built auditoriums. “The local government wanted to launch the space as an important part of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Madrid,” explained Liz, “so this year they invited us to participate as Spain’s largest startup event. This has allowed us to increase the quality of production for the event”. Production values are another important hallmark of the modern day conference. Patrick de Laive said TNW is always looking to push these further: “We always work with the latest technologies, we try out new things onstage that have never been done before, and every year we do something totally different. Our production is a surprise every year.” Wytze De Haan, TNW
↓ Taking the stage by storm on day one of South Summit 2016 (Photo by Dan Taylor/South Summit)
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EGALITARIAN EVENTS •• Organisers of SXSW Interactive track the popularity of events by using radio-frequency data taken from badges worn by registrants. •• TNW’s live television broadcast included segments such as roaming startup pitches in a Tesla and tough questions from a 12 year old to CEOs. •• South Summit also holds six one-day events across South America under the South Summit banner during the year. •• US hacker-themed television series Mr. Robot had its own hacker lounge at SXSW Interactive this year. People were encouraged to #fsocialmedia. •• Since 2013 TNW has also held a one-day conference in New York City, called Momentum. •• South Summit’s Investor Den is an exclusive space designed to allow for networking and discussion between investors without facing pitches from entrepreneurs.
director of events, described the intensive 12-month planning of the festival village, which relies heavily on a 3D model of the terrain. “The difference between the first version and the 28th, when we finally have the map and all of the buildings in the right position exactly the way we want it, is totally different,” he told Communication Director. “What it really helps with is having a clear goal that you can communicate with all the different people you are working with throughout the year”. Careful measures like these are crucial when your event involves five stages for keynote presentations, two business exhibitor areas, an arcade hall, food truck carpark and two live television studios.
↑Day two of TNW Conference 2016 (Photo by Dan Taylor/The Next Web)
In the thick of it Year-round planning is also a hallmark of SXSW Interactive and South Summit. At Interactive, attendees can expect to find a mix of keynote and panel presentations, party-like networking events and an awards presentation focused squarely on innovation. SXSW Interactive director Hugh Forest explained a registrant’s time at the event is usually balanced between the conference sessions and the various networking events. However, the most popular attractions are often the keynotes. This is hardly surprising, given the calibre of speaker, such as 2016’s “Attendee In Chief”, Barack Obama. According to Hugh, there is a simple way to avoiding a 35,000-person logjam during these keynotes: “They are simulcast at various other rooms throughout our venue system. So, while all the registrants may not be in the same place for these keynotes, a lot of the registrants are experiencing the same content at the same time during this programming slot.” While a large amount of content for SXSW comes from SXSW PanelPicker – a modified approach to crowdsourcing ideas from leading creative industry experts – the South Summit takes a more manual approach, built on the 10 industry categories evaluated in the startup competition, which is the heart of the conference. At South Summit, to inspire the entrepreneurs and startups that make up half of those in attendance, the speakers invited derive from a simple aim. “We want the best disruptors in the world in each of these industries at South Summit”, Liz told Communication Director. “We’re trying to juxtapose easily identifiable global success stories with cutting edge, new innovations in terms of products and company building”. TNW, meanwhile, isn’t necessarily looking for the biggest names for their keynotes, but instead place a premium on entertainment value and honest insights. “Often there are people in
INTERNAL
Calling the right tune with internal communication? Too often, internal communication has played second fiddle to the needs of reputation management. But increasingly, communication directors are using it to underline their role as strategic advisors. By Liam Fitzpatrick
L
ogging onto some public relations consultancy websites is likely to give you a limited idea of what internal communication is all about. You’ll find talk of “every employee [being] a global broadcaster for their organisation” and the news that “now more than ever, a company’s employees are one of the most trusted sources of information”. Surely, employee communication is more than another way to boost your external reputation? Is the need for more robust external channels the only reason for its rising importance on the communication director’s agenda? Or is building a powerful brand or maintaining a good name the only tune that the public relations department is interested in playing? Clearly, communications directors today know that they have to have a wider repertoire than old-fashioned media relations. Consistently, internal communication is one of the top concerns when communications directors are surveyed by bodies like the European Association of Communication Directors (EACD). They are debating how they should
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orchestrate their teams to meet the rising expectations of their peers around the executive table, expectations for value that goes beyond keeping the press happy.
Choose from five objectives From working with organisations of all shapes and sizes I have concluded that there are probably about five good reasons for good employee communication; advocacy is just one. Pretty well every good internal communication operation sets out to either give employees a sense of belonging, encourage them to collaborate, make sure that they understand what is expected of them and how they are performing, encourage them to embrace change and say favourable things outside work. And of course, in virtually every country in the world, employers are legally obliged to communicate about a number of issues such as safety or workplace rights. Communication director 4/2016
Not every internal communication team has to be excellent at all five of these roles; it’s a matter of knowing what your organisation needs. If you are in an industry, such as oil and gas, with acute and stifling skills shortages, your goal might be to promote employee retention. In a sector such as technology or telecoms where rapid innovation and collabo-
“ Consistently, internal communication is one of the top concerns when communications directors are surveyed by bodies like the EACD.” rative problem solving is essential, you might focus on promoting collaboration. Clarity of instruction may be your priority where there are issues around quality, customer service or regulation. And, periodically, every organisation needs help with transformation. And when a team starts thinking about its results or impact, rather than seeing itself as a production house, it has to think about the skills and activities that are going to matter. When the focus is on broadcasting information, having reliable channels dominates; shift attention onto business results such as employee retention, greater innovation or better quality and the team has to broaden the scope of its work.
Playing a supporting role The communication director who has her or his sights set on more than running an in-
INTERNAL
Normally we say there are five main reasons for having an internal communication operation:
ternal newsroom needs to manage a wide range of skills and capabilities. Naturally some things are core, such as the ability to transmit information or craft speeches and presentations for leaders, but when the emphasis shifts to results rather than products so do the resources of the team. Having looked at communications functions over many years we have developed a general model for a ‘communication value chain’. Whilst every organisation will approach the issue in different ways, we see that there are some
• Persuading people to stay because they are a valued part of a brand, community or an organisation that does important work • Building a community that works in harmony • Helping staff to work better because they understand what is needed and are excited about it • Encouraging them to be advocates • Motivating people to change • Most organisations concentrate on just a couple of these core objectives attempting to deliver them all is not realistic
common elements that recur regardless of sector or location. At its core is always a reliable engine room staffed by skilled experts and crafts people. An internal communications department that lacks the capacity to deliver quality collateral is widely thought to be insurmountably weak. This will involve having channels that reach everyone and providing a platform for feedback, offering mechanisms for supporting leadership communication and having the capacity to support campaigns and initiatives as required. Yet, teams also need to understand the Communication director 4/2016
organisation and its strategic problems. The role of a trusted advisor implies seeking out business problems and proposing solutions rather than awaiting a brief from another function; a brief which might already define (or limit) the value which communication could bring. Being a strategic communications function is more than about doing things well; its about knowing the real issues and defining how communications helps; it’s not about taking orders, it’s about conducting the orchestra.
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Digital
I
n today’s connected world, there’s scarcely a sector untouched by disruptors using digital to challenge established ways of doing business. Turbo-charged businesses like Airbnb and Uber spring to mind, but there are thousands of hugely successful examples across almost every business sector (Disrupt100.com is a useful list of businesses with the most potential to influence, change or create new global markets). In a blog post entitled The Cost of Culture, a 50% Turnover of the Fortune 500, Toby Elwin, founder of Agile Experence Design and Advisory, wrote that “Of the Fortune 500 list of companies at the start of this century, more than half of those companies no longer currently exist on that list.”
Big is the next big thing
Workshopping Bostik’s web estate/ Photo: Freestyle Interactive
Digital disruption becomes business as usual What does it take to be a successful disruptor? Clues can be found by looking at the businesses changing and creating new markets. By andy wood
In 2014, global professional services company Accenture predicted the next 10 years would see traditional companies become digital giants, backed by deep resources, scale, and process discipline. This also involves addressing factors that limit pace and innovation in large organisations: Departmental silos restrict audience centricity. Customer behaviour cuts across departments and internal team structures, so it’s likely you’re only seeing part of the picture. Legacy structures mean technology infrastructure, team skills, experience, attitude and aptitude are out of step with a world fundamentally changed by digital. Bureaucracy has to be re-imagined and re-modeled, to speed up the pace of decision making, to allow the switch from internal to external focus.
Transformation through business as usual In our experience with large corporate clients, approaching the day to day work (launching products, updating websites and running campaigns) with
Communication director 4/2016
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Digital
Popular UK television news presenter Jon Snow helped RS Components spread the word/ Photo: Freestyle Interactive
7 golden rules of successful disrupters Across disruptive companies we see some consistent success factors: •• Audience centricity. At the centre of disruption is a focus on people and common purpose. Successful disruptors understand how to use the interactive nature of technology to bring people together around a shared experience. •• Build the business from the customers’ perspective. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. It’s important to note that very few disruptors offer anything new or innovative at the core of their service.
a disruptive mindset, does drive transformative results. The three following client examples, with varied objectives and outcomes, show how using the principles of successfully disruptive businesses can drive transformational change.
1. Common purpose Bostik’s global web estate isn’t built to sell industrial adhesive products. Bostik share knowledge and expertise on how to use ‘smart adhesives’ to save time, money and deliver a better product. An attractive proposition if you’re wrestling with the challenge of building a light-weight supercar. The result is trusted relationship with customers, who then buy industrial adhesive. RS Components global awareness campaign isn’t designed to promote RS as a supplier of electrical components. RS are an active participant in the electrical design community, offering ideas, expertise and new technology to help electrical designers create innovative products. The designers who participate
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in the RS community and take advantage of RS design tools, buy 25 per cent more RS product. SaxoPrint’s UK market launch isn’t about promoting cost-efficient online print production. The mission is to bring together independent print designers and small businesses inside their ProStudio community. Providing tools, advice and expertise builds a trusted community, which in turn drives print orders.
•• Focus on understanding how to improve or simplify people’s lives. This applies equally at work, the place where we spend at least 80 per cent of our time. •• Put digital tools at the centre of the business. •• Use digital tools to drive a higher degree of audience interaction, building trust through shared experiences about common concerns. •• Use digital tools to drive transparency, through open dialogue. •• Allow two-way reviews, to build trusted relationships.
2. Audience insight Customer research is investment in ‘getting under the skin’ of what motivates the audience, finding the sweet spot where your knowledge and expertise intersects with their concerns. Bostik ran three customer experience workshops across Asia, USA and Europe, SaxoPrint involved quick and dirty telephone interviews, and RS somewhere in between. Across all three, the focus is the same: • Who are my most important audiences? Communication director 4/2016
• What are their problems, challenges and turn-ons? • How can our expertise connect with emotional and practical needs in a useful and genuine way? Immersion days involve spending time as an integrated agency/in-house team, ‘walking the business’, mapping what the customer experiences end to end. Identifying pain points and moments of truth provides invaluable audience insight. Hack days are about acting like a start-up, failing fast and learning in an accelerated way. Bringing together cross discipline experts to brainstorm lots of ideas. Prototyping in real
I ssue F ocus
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