EDITORIAL
Gotta catch ’em all It looks like a scene form a zombie movie. In the early evening in the center of town, a silent mass of strangers gathers together. Strangely oblivious to each other’s presence, their attentions are focused on a small screen in the palm of their hands. But the crowd is harmless: they’re just caught up in the latest craze, Pokémon Go. Proving that old trends just need new platforms to find a new lease of life, Pokémon first appeared as a video game in 1996 and 20 years later is back to teach us all a lesson in real time, targeted messaging that grabs the right audience at the right time and in the right place. What was old is new again, and all thanks to technological innovations that were unthinkable – well, to most of us – a decade or so ago. And that’s what this issue of Communication Director is all about. To mark our 10th year, not only are we tracing the evolution of the communications function from message distributor to strategic partner, we’re also looking at how the changes that rocked our world over the past decade – from technological innovations to political upheavals - have impacted the communicator’s job. And we’re asking: is this period of escalating change and innovation a springboard for the next stage in the evolution of the corporate communications leader’s position? Just two decades ago the internet barely existed as mass phenomenon, social media is a little more than 10 years old: companies have had to adapt the way they work – and the type of skills they hire – to remain relevant. Our Issue Focus section examines the changing environment that chief communications officers find them in today: whether Pokémon Go or the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence or the millennial work place, the communications director is at the center of multiple conversations and how he or she adapts to these will determine the future of the profession.
DAFYDD PHILLIPS
Photo: Laurin Scmid
Editor in Chief
Brought to you by the European Association of Communication Directors www.eacd-online.eu
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EARLY DEADLINE 23 September 2016 LATE DEADLINE 5 October 2016 GALA IN BERLIN 8 December 2016 www.eu.pr.excellence-awards.com
CONTENTS
3/16 76 64
Leadership and communication Defining the leadership characteristics of chief communications and corporate affairs officers
ISSUE FOCUS
Trends in communication
What happens next? A future role of communication directors is to explain societal megatrends to their organisations and stakeholders
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Swimming with goldfish
Future-proofing reputation Managing a company’s reputation is a major responsibility of executive communicators
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Evolving together
How to build on engagement to counter ever-shrinking attention spans
8 • ROUNDTABLE
18 • MONITOR
Breaking up is hard to do
Show me the money
What are the lessons communicators should take from Brexit?
The European Communication Monitor shows how communications is developing into a data-based profession
14 • PR ESSENTIALS
24 • ROUNDTABLE
A communications timeline
The view from the States Leading US-based communicators share their insights into the public relations landscape in their country
The milestones that have shaped communications over the past 10 years
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Photo: Essam Sharaf
Integrating marketing and communications could be key to organisational survival in a fragmented world
CONTENTS
28 • CAMPAIGN
Creating a movement through storytelling
58• THE BIG INTERVIEW
Jürgen Schmidhuber
How one company paid tribute to the people behind the science that shapes our lives
A pioneer of artificial intelligence on how AI is set to evolve – and whether we should worry
31 • STRATEGY
42 • BRAND
Long term goals, short term benefits
Purpose and identity
How organisations are engaging stakeholders through thought leadership on societal issues
The secret to succesful brand transformation in a disrupted industry: a case study
46 • SURVEY
Navigating social acceptance Communicators have a unique opportunity to shape the role of business in society 82 • COMMUNICATION READER 50 • AGENDA SETTER
In the event of change
36 • CONTENT
Changing the perceptions of public-private cooperation Empowering public participation in transforming global agendas
When it comes to communicating international climate conferences, is media coverage more hindrance than help?
54 • AWARDS
10 years of excellence
Books New and upcoming titles for the communicator’s bookshelf
84 • ASSOCIATION
European Association of Communication Directors The latest developments in the EACD
We’re celebrating 10 years of the Excellence Awards – Europe’s biggest celebration of communications 90 • PRIVATE PASSIONS
Photo: iStock, Vivian Hertz
38 • FINANCIAL
Shamanism at work
Unheeded warnings
Inge Wallage on how Wicca enables a rich and meaninful approach to life
In a post-expert age, how can financial communicators distinguish their organisations?
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POLITICAL
Breaking up is hard to do
The panel discuss Brexit at the 2016 European Communications Summit
At this year’s European Communication Summit, a special panel discussed lessons learned – or not, as the case may be – from the Brexit vote. The following are edited highlights from the wide-ranging discussion.
K ARIN HELMSTAEDT Jonathan, you worked on the Leave campaign so perhaps you can tell us why it worked? JONATHAN REFOY The Vote Leave campaign had a great advantage, which any corporate affairs person would struggle to overcome. For 43 years the British press has hardly written a positive story about European institutions. Now, you can argue that these stories were very poor in terms of the quality of their content and factual accuracy, but they were
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still in the press, influencing voters and decision makers up and down the country. It gave Vote Leave a fantastic platform to leverage in the campaign itself. Secondly, one of the things that really made a difference was getting out door to door and talking to voters. I’ve never worked on a campaign before where it was so easy to get voters to go out to vote. Also the growth in voter support for UKIP in the UK general election 2015 also showed that voters from the left and right were
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increasingly disenfranchised from the three main political parties. This was to be key in winning the Leave vote in the north of England. Utta, working in the ‘Brussels bubble’, how aware were you of the extent of this disenfranchisement that people are feeling? UTTA TUTTLIES We were not only aware but of course we were doing our part to campaign for Remain and to support the ‘Stronger In’ campaign for La-
Photo: Julia Nimke
Moderated by Karin Helmstaedt
POLITICAL
bour. Of course if you have a referendum you need to accept it because that is what the voter wanted. But already in the next days the main messages were dismantled and the main politicians responsible resigned. All of them who initiated the referendum and who strongly supported it stepped down and disappeared from the scene. Our group regrets the vote, but that is what has been decided by the voter so we now support Junker and others in the call for Article 50 to be triggered. It comes back to the messages that were transported, whether the messages were right or wrong, and it is very clear that many of the messages were simply based on lies. Tara, as a political observer were you surprised at the back peddalling that happened almost in the initial hours? TARA PALMERI I was certainly surprised to see a lot of these leaders saying hours later “Oh, well of course if we want to be part of the largest single market we have to have free movement of labour.” Immigration was one of their key arguments and a lot of people thought that when they were voting to keep EU migrants out of the country. But they were being told a few hours later “If we want to have access to single markets then we have to agree to this rule”. I was shocked to see David Cameron step down. When I went to bed that night, Nigel Farage had put out his resignation said they had lost. And then I woke up in the morning and it was Brexit. I think we were all shocked. Anthony, what impact do you think the polls had on the final decision to leave? ANTHONY GOOCH The question posed to the public was complex and some-
what unfair in the sense that it wasn’t really a choice between two clearly defined options. It was to remain in or leave the EU but formulated in such a way as not to clarify what leaving meant. What remaining meant was very clear in terms of the experience over many years and the numbers and so on. One of the reasons for the aftermath of shock including among some who voted to leave was a realisation of what it might mean in concrete terms. In the UK we haven’t had a referendum for so long, you don’t often have a chance to be asked your opinion on a very personal basis. Regarding the influence of the polls, one of the most concerning findings was the number of voters suffering from ‘Bremorse’ who felt certain that Remain was going to win based on polls, and felt safe they could express a vote of protest without the heavy consequences of Brexit. How effective was the Leave campaign really if the orchestrators all abandoned ship, leaving everyone else to deal with the results? JONATHAN I’ve never seen a political campaign where the messaging hasn’t been disputed on either side. It was very easy to pick apart the Remain messaging and it is equally easy to pick apart a lot of the Leave messaging. It was just getting access to the right channels to do this. How often have you read political manifestos or campaign material and thought “those figures are right, those figures are wrong?” Sadly, in political campaigns figures often are blended and twisted to suit a particular message.. ANTHONY If a private sector company runs an advertising campaign and
“It has been very easy to pick apart the Remain messaging and it is equally easy to pick apart a lot of the Leave messaging.” COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR 3/2016
F E AT U R E D I N E U R O P E A N
C O M M U N I C AT I O N S U M M I T 2016
sells a product or a service on a certain basis, that product then goes to the market and is discovered not to be what was promised, we all know what the consequences would be for the company concerned, its reputation, the CEO, board and shareholders. Why don’t we apply the same strict standards to the public political sphere? In our democracy we seem to be willing to give everybody a free pass, there is impunity. In the campaign we saw statements issued and meaning attached to information only to see them backtracked a few days or weeks later and the perpetrators heading off into the sunset having explained they needed to “get my life back”. I think we should dwell on that big time. Anthony, in the weeks before Brexit OECD published a report on the potential economic consequences. What was the fate of that report and what were the implications for expert-based communications? ANTHONY Our report revealed there would be immediate short term economic consequences for every household in the UK: each would have one month’s income less on average by 2020 than they would have by remaining within the EU. When we presented this report in the UK, we were immediately described as an “EU funded organisation” by the Leave campaign and many sections of the media. The point of this tactic was to was to divert from the substance of what we were presenting, and immediately question the credibility of the source. But they were also picking and choosing. In its editorial, the Sun newspaper selectively quoted our report in sup-
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PR ESSENTIALS
A 10-year timeline: the milestones that have shaped communications
The first issue of this magazine was released 10 years ago. The goal was to provide coverage of the latest trends in corporate communications and public relations in order to support our readers in their own professional development. Nothing could give a clearer indication of the centrality of the communications function to modern organisations than the ways in which the profession has been impacted by developments not only in communications technology but also in the political, financial and business worlds as well. Here we present the events, updates and stories that have shaped communications in the last 10 years.
DECEMBER 2006 The publication for in-house communicators: the first issue of Communication Director magazine
2006
29 JUNE 2007 A computer in every pocket: commercial release of the iPhone The first generation iPhone sees its debut in the US. A 4GB model retails at US $499. The product that launched the smartphone era, the iPhone makes almost everyone an instant mobile web genius.
2007
11 JUNE 2007 Gathering minds and exchanging ideas: the first European Communication Summit takes place in Brussels
8 NOVEMBER 2006 A communicators’ community: EACD foundation meeting
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Photos: Carl Berkeley, iStock, private, Frank Ossenbrink
4 OCTOBER 2006 wikileaks.org registered Wikileaks will go on to leak classified documents to media. A new form of renegade investigative journalism hits the mainstream media. Is any communication now truly private?
PR ESSENTIALS
15 SEPTEMBER 2008 Cuts, restriction and insecurity: global financial crisis The financial crisis in the US comes to a head when investment bank Lehman Brothers declares bankruptcy, kick-starting the global financial crisis. Faced with severely tightened budgets, the onus is on communicators to prove their worth as economic uncertainty prevails.
2008
SEPTEMBER 2009 Pan-regional insight: EACD co-organises the European Communication Monitor: see this issue for the latest edition.
2010
4 NOVEMBER 2008 Yes it could: the US presidential election Democratic Party nominee Senator Barack Obama claims victory over the Republican Party’s John McCain. The election of President Obama marks the end of an intensive political campaign that brought social media politics out from the cold and changes the face of electioneering forever.
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19 JULY 2010 Guidelines for measurement: Barcelona Principles established The Barcelona Principles are established to measure communications efficacy at a summit held by the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication. The original principles recieve an update in 2015. The debate may not have ended, but the principles provide a framework for demonstrating the value of public relations.
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Photos: iStock, Ansgar Zerfass, Count to 10, iStock
Photos: Carl Berkeley, iStock, private, Frank Ossenbrink
2009
MONITOR
€ Show me the money Is communication an increasingly datafied business? The European Communication Monitor shows how communication develops from a soft into a hard, data-based profession. B Y D E J A N V E R Cˇ I Cˇ A N D Á N G E L E S M O R E N O
£ 18
$ COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR 3/2016
MONITOR
Linking business strategy and communication Coping with the digital evolution and the social web Building and maintaining trust Dealing with the demand for more transparency and active audiences Dealing with sustainable development and social responsibility
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his year, the European Communication Monitor (ECM) celebrates its 10th edition and it demonstrates consistency in a long-term trend: linking business and strategy is the most important strategic issue for the profession. While coping with the digital evolution and the social web was the top concern in 2007, it peaked in 2011 and now seems to be under control. Building and maintaining trust, dealing with the demand for more transparency and dealing with sustainable development and social responsibility are all moderately falling on the agenda while financial and general economic crises are also calming down. A return to business as usual means a similar return to: show me the money for communicators. Results consistently show that the challenge of linking communication to corporate or business strategies is the most important issue for the field. This should be the top priority for the further development of corporate communications. This shows that, despite growing influence, the profession is still fighting to get a place at the decision
“Results consistently show that the challenge of linking communication to corporate or business strategies is the most important issue for the field.”
Development of strategic issues for communication management in Europe over the last decade (10 years)
making table where communication is part of the strategic management of the organisation. This also indicates that the communication function has to be able to explain the value of communication in different ways, including by using arguments related to economic success. Nevertheless, in order to explain its value, the function needs a clear commitment to demonstrate and evaluate its contribution to overall organisational goals. Unfortunately, communication functions have failed overtime in demonstrating this value through the inadequate methods of measurement and evaluation. This poor performance has become even more pronounced in the last few years on account of the integration and application of big data for management and in public relations.
Transforming communication from a soft to hard discipline Since its very beginnings, public relations and strategic communication attracted students and professionals
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The view from the States Continuing our series marking the Global Excellence Awards – an international celebration of the best in PR and communications hosted by Communication Director – we asked four jury members of the North American Excellence Awards to share their experiences of leading communications across the continent.
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Between you, you represent decades of professional experience in corporate communications. During your careers, what have been some of the biggest developments in the way communicators work? MARJORIE BENZKOFER The obvious answer is technology. When I started at ComEd in 1993, I used a pager and a cell phone that came in a large shoulder bag. But perhaps more subtle and even more profound is the interconnectiveness of stakeholders. Then we could talk to employees through one channel, regulators through another, each in its own swim lane. But today they talk to each other and we have to be taking a holistic approach managing reputation. Usually when companies do stakeholder research it is with one or two audiences, rarely taking a 360 degree view. When we don’t invest in research to listen to what our multiple stakeholders are saying and thinking, we create blind spots for our organisations that can have lethal effects. NICHOLAS ASHOOH The biggest change has been the evolution of corpo-
Photo: iStock
ROUNDTABLE
ROUNDTABLE
rate communications from a one-directional communications function to an essential part of the business management process. When I started in communications, the function was mostly about putting out news releases, communicating some development, promoting a company position or putting the best face on something that went wrong. Today corporate communications is – or should be – working shoulder-to-shoulder with business management as decisions are being developed, providing inputs and perspectives that likely won’t come from operational management. And today the corporate communications professional
Photos: Private
“(In the US) there tends to be greater specialism silos in communications.” is often looked to as a counsellor to the CEO and leadership team, facilitating consensus and ensuring alignment with corporate strategy and values. In short, the chief communications officer today helps their organisation make better decisions instead of merely communicating those decisions. The FBI vs. Apple case earlier this year was a landmark event: what are the repercussions for corporate communications? J. CHRISTOPHER PREUSS It just illustrates how complex and nuanced the issues around security and privacy have become. These are intense and important societal debates that must be approached with exceeding caution and thought – it is dancing on the razor’s edge. The biggest issue for companies is to not put a stake in the ground before fully weighing all the
NICHOLAS ASHOOH
Senior Director, Corporate and Executive Communication, APCO Worldwide Alongside his current role, Nicholas Ashooh is also a member of APCO’s International Advisory Council. Nick has more than 37 years’ experience in corporate communications, serving as senior communications officer at five Fortune 500 companies across sectors including energy and utilities, financial services, insurance, metals and mining, and entertainment. Most recently, he served as vice president of corporate affairs for Alcoa where he also oversaw the Alcoa Foundation.
MARJORIE BENZKOFER
Global Lead, Reputation Management Practice, FleishmanHillard Prior Marjorie Benzkofer leads FleishmanHillard’s work around The Authenticity Gap and regularly works with C-suite executives to manage both brand and reputation. She also leads the firm’s thought leadership efforts at the Center On Reputation, an online and virtual centre that hosts commentary, events and training for seasoned executives throughout the industry. Prior to joining FleishmanHillard in 1997, Marjorie worked in corporate communications for ComEd, the energy delivery company.
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potential options to avoid the controversy in the first place. Apple probably lost as many customers as it may have gained by drawing such a strong line. In the end, it was a moot issue since the FBI cracked the phone another way. MARJORIE BENZKOFER This tension between our expectations of transparency and privacy is going to further flare up in many different ways. Management teams need to be reviewing every aspect of their business to do risk assessments and scenario planning around these issues. The court of public opinion moves swiftly when companies are caught in the crosshairs of these two competing forces. The middle of a crisis is not the time to begin contemplating your values and belief systems when making decisions on these issues, which can creep into employee privacy, customer information, product quality, workplace violence and myriad others. How will you behave and what guiding principles will guide your decisions when the public is demanding full transparency on an issue and also protection of their privacy? ANDY PHAROAH It is a good example, albeit an extreme one, of companies needing to be willing and able to engage in public discussion about difficult issues. When you choose to do that you will not make everyone happy. The worlds of politics, policy, business and reputation are coming closer together. So companies need to have a point of view on a wide range of issues outside of their core. The communications profession in the US is not helped in being able to engage in this due to its discipline silos. From my own day to day work I can say that we as a company are being more active (and more publically active) in a range of policy issues ranging from fighting climate change, responding to issues around added sugars, artificial colors or GMOs or being able to offer equal benefits to associates regardless of their sexuality. While not everyone will agree with the stances we have taken, on the whole clear, open and consistent opinions are at least respected.
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CAMPAIGN
Creating a movement through powerful storytelling As a science-based company, DSM wanted to raise the profile of science and the positive impact science has on society. So it paid tribute to the lives and struggles of real scientists in a campaign strongly connected to the brand promise, purpose and business of DSM.
BY INGE MASSEN
This campaign won the Company category at the 2016 European Communication Award
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CAMPAIGN
is a predominantly business to business science-based company, active in health, nutrition and materials. It is not a company in which we used to ask each other how stuff made us feel. Our communications used to be very factual and, to be honest, quite dull. This, however, changed when we launched our new brand in 2011. We introduced our brand promise ‘Bright Science.
Brighter Living’ and company mission: improving the lives of people today and of generations to come. We also affirmed one core value: sustainability. This brought a lot of energy into the organisation and added a sense of purpose to everything we were doing. However, after a few years we began to notice that sustainability as such became
form on which we shared stories of unsung heroes of science in greater detail and where we also invited people to share their ideas and leave comments. Importantly, the campaign was ‘brought to you by’ DSM but was not (only) about DSM. The campaign highlighted the difference that science is making to our global society and it does this based on several
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key points. The first being that we believe science deserves to be in the spotlight, and that there are scientists out there you’ve never heard of making a real difference to big societal issues. As one of the campaign’s messages put it, “Great inventions change lives – including those of the scientists that create them” and we wanted to show the struggle, sacrifice and tenacity behind every scientist’s success. By acknowledging that science is a team sport and that 99 per cent of scientific innovation happens outside DSM, we are walking the walk by putting the scientific spotlight on others. We also addressed not only the usual DSM stakeholders but a broader public.
Launch The film was premiered during a global internal launch event which stimulated employees to share and comment
Images from DSM’s movie, Unsung Heroes of Science
Photos: DSM
DSM
an increasingly difficult area in which to differentiate our business as more companies tend to claim this domain. Furthermore we faced a growing mistrust of science among the general public which does not help the acceptance of the disruptive solutions we are developing as a company. So we started thinking about ways to address this problem. To do so, we went back to the core issues and determined what was really unique to us: we are committed to using our unique science competences to positively impact society. In order to truly connect with our stakeholders, we decided to use storytelling to pay tribute to the importance of science and its impact on society. We chose to make a film in which real scientists with real and inspiring stories were portrayed. What’s more, they were scientists who were in no way connected to DSM. The film was the centerpiece of the Science Can Change the World plat-
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STRATEGY
Long term goals, short term benefits Thought leadership is an effort to engage with issues dear to stakeholders – and helps position companies in a whole new light. BY JAN WISNIEWSKI
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he most successful companies have traditionally risen to prominence using strategies based on long-term planning. These ideas can drive strong results through differentiation, market penetration and overall brand reputation. Today, in an age of quarterly capitalism that demands businesses provide evidence of return on investment to their shareholders more often than ever before, a new form of strategic position-
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ing has emerged: thought leadership. Companies are tapping into their experience and passions to show the expertise their brands have in answering some of the biggest questions facing business and society today. But how do companies maintain their focus on the long term in a fast-paced business world? And what is the role of communicators in positioning their companies as thought leaders? According to
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The panel discussion during the EACD anniversary event in Zurich. From left: Thomas Oury, DuPont Performance Solutions; Hanane Taidi, IFIA; Maeve Gallagher, Zurich Insurance Group; Christiaan Prins (on screen), Unilever
Thomas Oury, global business director at DuPont Performance Solutions, even in an atmosphere of financial pressure and accelerated change companies have to engage with customers and employees in
STRATEGY
order to meet shareholder expectations,. Speaking at an event to mark the 10-year anniversary of the European Association of Communication Directors held at the headquarters of Zurich Insurance Group in April this year, Thomas told Communication Director “You have to provide a vision and a purpose. This is going to serve for successful long-term strategies but it is also going to serve for aligning and motivating all your forces on the short term as well.” Thomas suggests that thought leadership programmes not only provide an appealing value proposition for employees – especially those of younger generations – but also give companies a competitive advantage. “Thought leadership provides a great opportunity for long-term investment in cutting-edge innovations, which in turn lead to a strategic positioning of the company and a differentiation from its competition.”
Photo: EACD
Creating partnerships Beyond a long-term company positioning, thought leadership can also bring the short-term benefit of attracting external companies to collaborate. As Thomas explains, “Innovation is getting faster and it’s less and less something you can do alone in isolation from the rest of the world. You need to create an ecosystem of companies working together.” A recent example of collaborative thought leadership is the cooperation between Zurich Insurance Group and the World Economic Forum on the release of their 2016 Global Risks Report. The strategic partnership with the World Economic Forum was designed to position Zurich as a thought leader on political risk and climate change, with a fully-integrated communication campaign focusing on promotion on paid, earned, shared and owned media, generating strong stakeholder interest in the launch of the Global Risks Report ahead of World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos. Also speaking at the #eacd10 event in April, Maeve Gallagher, global head of
external and digital communications at Zurich Insurance Group, explained to Communication Director that, although the report was disseminated through multiple channels, the message was synchronised and the information always easily digestible. Maeve also points to the Zurich Knowledge Hub and the transparent spokesperson role of Zurich Insurance chief risk officer Cecilia Reyes for the campaign as vital assets for driving engagement. Following the high level of engagement generated by their communications campaign, Zurich is once more looking to identify important stakeholder concerns to help drive the momentum behind their report into 2017, as Maeve explained: “We have a series of both online and offline
“What is the role of communicators in positioning their companies as thought leaders?” events where we talk to clients to better understand what their concerns are. We can use that information – filtering it also with the feedback we get through social channels – to understand what concerns people and what risks we need to consider for the next time.” Zurich’s focus on clear stakeholder messaging is also evident in another company’s approach to thought leadership. Unilever’s director of European external affairs, Christiaan Prins, believes that “a good position statement should fit in one tweet”.In explaining the idea behind the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, Christian explains that, because no company is truly invisible in the age of social media, they must be prepared to be part of the
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discussion and be bold in their thought leadership strategies. With Unilever’s transparent commitment to making a positive social impact, Christiaan sees his work in external affairs as an opportunity to use advocacy for solving and not just managing issues. As an example of how thought leadership can drive this change, he points to issue coalitions such as the collection of entities promoting the European circular economy package: “The strength of issue coalitions is that you get likeminded partners on board so the agreement on the route to take is already there. That allows you to really drive forward very clear messaging that actually will drive change rather than just issue management”.
Aligning and integration As a business director at DuPont, Thomas Oury knows the importance of executive engagement in thought leadership. “Though leadership can only succeed if it originates or is supported by the top management of a company,” he says. “The CEO or the business manager has to be on board. It is also crucial that the programme is fully aligned with the corporate strategy.” But how to ensure that thought leadership programmes align with the business strategy of respective companies? Christian Prins argues success stems from true integration of programmes into a company’s business plan, using the example of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan. “It’s a central element of the business strategy, because Unilever’s growth strategy takes into account that we have to invest in sustainable business in order to allow the company to grow,” he explains. “The Unilever Sustainable Living plan clearly sets out that its goal is to grow the business while halving our environmental impact and increasing our positive social impact. There is a direct link between reducing your environmental impact and growing the business.” This integrative approach can also be seen in Zurich Insurance’s focus on flood
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CONTENT
Changing the perceptions of public-private cooperation
BY OLIVER CANN
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Last year, the World Economic Forum had the opportunity to build on its legacy to become a platform for publicprivate cooperation. The communications function played a central role towards this goal, ensuring that the public is aware of an expanded remit to transform global agendas and, most importantly, is empowered to participate.
Photos: US State Department/Public Domain
F E AT U R E D I N E U R O P E A N C O M M U N I C AT I O N S U M M I T 2016
US Secretary of State John Kerry takes a moment on January 22, 2016, to enjoy the view of Davos, Switzerland, before delivering remarks to attendees at the World Economic Forum.
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risis and hardship may be a recurrent feature of human history; however, it is hard to argue against the fact that the challenges facing our world today are more complex, interrelated and faster-changing than anything we have faced in the past. Climate change, migration, slow growth and growing geopolitical tension are just a few of the pressures facing today’s leaders, who in normal years might have expected to have to deal with one such herculean task. Developing a radar system capable of sensing the great shifts that are transforming our world, and more importantly a compass to navigate them is the purpose of the World Economic Forum. Driven by a mission to improve the state of the world, the organisation works on the simple premise that sometimes challenges are so large, so complicated, and with the potential to impact so many people’s lives, that they can only be addressed by unified, multi-stakeholder action. This principle, which has served as a bedrock for all of the Forum’s activities for over four decades, was underlined in 2015 when the Forum was recognised by Swiss law as the International Institute for Public-Private Cooperation. As a ‘renewal’ of its licence to operate, the institution is now even more committed not only to convening leaders but to catalysing action in a range of areas, from inclusive economic growth to food security to building a robust global financial system. It has also given an opportunity to re-assess the communication function. With the forces of populism and nationalism on the rise, and the ability of leaders to make long-term decisions under pressure, the need to meaningfully engage the public to play an active role in shaping debates that have a long term impact on our collective future has never been more important. We have been moving in this direction for many years, of course: one of the chief criticisms of our annual meeting, Davos, is its composition. Few people would disagree that global leadership has
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CONTENT
a diversity problem and this is why we encourage our strategic partners to take advantage of a quota system to bring more women in their delegations, ensure millennial voices are heard through our Global Shapers community, that we produce research year in year highlighting ways to tackle gender and income inequality and promote social mobility.
“The need to meaningfully engage the public has never been more important.” All of which helps us when we engage the public, but there are still perennial challenges we face when we try to bring the debates of Davos outside the limited confines of its congress center. One of which is that we are an all-yearround operation, with our annual meeting marking the beginning of the year’s work, putting down targets for the regional, industry and other taskforces for the rest of the year. Another is how to get the public – either via the media or directly using our own channels – interested enough to participate in the work we do throughout the year rather than simply tuning in during Davos for the headlines.
A strategy of expansion Our approach to this has been to develop a strategy based on expansion of earned and owned media that places the Forum’s unique, world-class content right at the centre of everything we do. The result has been vastly increased levels of engagement across every metric.
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Unheeded warnings As the Brexit shows, messages from the financial sector can be too easily ignored by disillusioned audiences. With financial institutions all tarred with the same brush, it has been difficult for the industry to make its voice heard even when it has a strong case. In these circumstances, it is the role of the communicator to make sure that a clear business strategy is articulated. BY DAV I D T H O M A S
Dark clouds over London’s financial sector are one more sign of the challenges facing Europe’s financial communicators.
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FINANCIAL
ing’ out of its system and the finance sector goes on pretty much as it always did in terms of all its failings and potential for catastrophe.
A post-expert age? F E AT U R E D I N E U R O P E A N C O M M U N I C AT I O N S U M M I T 2016
Photo: iStock
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he reputational impact of the global financial crisis was indiscriminate and overwhelming. All financial institutions were considered equally to blame and so tarred with the same dirty brush – banks, hedge funds, exchanges, venture capital, private equity – or at least during its initial phase. As a media adviser for a major global exchange group and also in my previous role at the World Federation of Exchanges I have had to go out of my way to stress that the roots of the financial crisis – the tangled web of financial transactions which brought down Lehman Brothers – was not only nothing to do with exchanges, but that exchanges were really part of the solution all along. The crisis was provoked in the first instance by the heedless growth in opaque US asset-backed and mortgage-backed securities market and much lowered criteria for risk taking by the banking sector thanks to the implicit subsidy offered to the sector by governments. The global financial crisis has been explained to death in books and newspaper columns with the advantage for the financial sector that blame has been attached to inchoate and blameable actors like dark pools, shadow banking, bad incentives and short-termist culture – innately bad things that we need to do something about. Ten years on, after a mountain of financial regulation and a shamefully low number of prison sentences, the general population seems to have ‘banker bash-
But fallout there was for many and the toxic half-life of the global financial crisis is not over yet. As the Brexit vote demonstrated, one clear casualty of the crisis was the financial press and its claim to exper-
“As Brexit demonstrated, one clear casualty of the crisis was the financial press and its claim to expertise.” tise. In the run up to the referendum, the grimmest and gloomiest warnings of the leading international financial press made little dent on the mood of the majority. Maybe people have got too used to the likes of HSBC and Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan crying wolf and threatening to leave London if the UK Treasury didn’t do things exactly the way they liked them to be done. Financial institutions have pushed the panic button too readily and treated the serious financial press as a forum for lobbying and self-serving forecasts. They have suddenly found as a result that they have been stripped of their traditional claim on credibility and expertise So, if financial institutions no longer find their message getting through, maybe they have only themselves to blame.
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During the recent Brexit referendum the same scepticism was applied to all the perilous warnings issued by the likes of the International Monetary Fund, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Bank of England and the UK Treasury. All were blithely ignored. Gone are the days when the CEOs of the country’s 100 leading businesses or 365 economists could hope to sway the votes of millions – everything was tried this time and nothing seemed to work. The failure to lay blame for the global financial crisis where it was clearly due has led to most people mentally opting out and adopting a ‘they’re all to blame’ attitude – all including bankers, brokers, hedge funds, even financial journalists.
German and UK attitudes towards the euro The task the Commission faces in building a Capital Markets Union (CMU), especially now with the UK and City of London gone from the EU scene, is daunting. The driving theme of the CMU was that Europe’s SMEs would turn to cheaper and more flexible capital market financing and away from their traditional reliance on bank lending – the aim being to recreate the dynamic and flexible capital market financing as well as the more vibrant business creation record of the US. The sad fact is, however, that since the crisis the European mentality has turned even further against the markets and even more in favour of just leaving one’s money in the bank or getting one’s business loan from the local sparkassen or landesbank. German attitudes towards bond and equity markets are of course poisoned by their historic experiences with hyper-inflations in the 1920s and after the war. In Germany the backlash post crisis was more knee-jerk way – in other words for Germans. For the population the GFC was
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Purpose and identity Brand transformation in a disruptive age. BY NANNE BOS
Like other stakeholders, employees also started to raise questions about ING’s identity. Is ING the same company as before the crisis? What is the role of ING in society? How can ING regain trust? In the context of these turbulent times, questions surrounding ING’s identity quickly became very relevant. When employee and customer engagement is at stake, so is business performance. When Ralph Hamers succeeded Jan Hommen as chief executive officer in 2013, the time had come to think about the future of the
Change at ING Just before the financial crisis hit, ING had just became a sponsor of the Renault F1 team, and entered the Interbrand ranking of ‘most valuable global brands’. At its peak in 2007, ING employed over 130,000 employees in 60 countries, had six business lines with activities ranging from retail, private and commercial banking, direct banking, real estate, credit cards, car leasing, pensions and insurance products. But when the crisis hit, ING found itself at its epicentre. The global recession was hard on ING, which had become too complex. In 2008 the company took a bailout of 10 billion euros from the Dutch government and in 2009 a rigorous restructuring programme began. The effect of the restructuring left the company stronger, simpler and more sustainable. The impact of all these changes on the brand value was dramatic: according to Interbrand, in 2009 ING’s value dropped by 73 per cent compared to an average of 39.5 per cent. The restructuring also took its toll on employee engagement.
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Now the ING brand can be experienced at the touch of a finger
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organisation. But where to start in a world that is changing so rapidly?
Driving change through brand identity Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, once said that one should look for the things that do not change. “When you have something that you know is true, even over the long term, you can afford to put a lot of energy into it,” he said. The same is true for brand and reputation professionals. The massive changes around us force us to go back to the core idea of our profession – managing the identity of the organisations we work for. A relevant and differentiating identity is the condition for a strong reputation. It creates competitive advantage, contributes to profitability and is a success factor for change. A clear identity has the power to engage all stakeholders, including customers and employees and align all functions of the organisation: strategy, human relations, operations and marketing. The brand in this context becomes a point of reference that connects, engages and brings meaning. For ING, capturing its organisational identity and purpose was a bottom-up process in that it involved over 15,000 employees and 10,000 customers across 40 markets. After many discussions on all levels within the company – including the executive board – the purpose of ING was defined as “empowering people to stay a step ahead in life and business”. The purpose then became central to its Think Forward strategy.
Photo: ING
I
n recent years, many industries have undergone some tough times with recessions, increased competition, changing consumer behaviour, rapidly shifting technologies and emerging disruptive business models. And though you might think that this is a period of rapid change, the truth is that the pace of change will never be slower than it is today. Remember when twitter was a bird sound? Although you might remember, your children probably don’t.
BRAND
A PURPOSE AND CLEAR IDENTITY MEANS BUSINESS
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On March 18 2014, the top 200 managers of ING came together in Amsterdam for the kick-off of the new strategic direction. During the event the newly-defined purpose played a central role. As Ralph Hamers said during his keynote speech: “We wanted to go into this company and have a true discussion on what we stand for. And we did that: we discussed with all your people in all the business lines so that we could all align behind one statement: empowering people to stay a step ahead in life and in business. Now, I know that some of you might
“A relevant and differentiating identity is the condition for a strong reputation.” be thinking ‘come on Ralph, stop with the fluffy stuff. What is the point?’ And I’ll tell you: the purpose is the point.” What followed was a CEO roadshow in each market to spread the strategy throughout the organisation. Moreover, we started to work with corporate HR and sustainability to design a companywide behaviour programme aligned with the purpose to replace all kinds of local initiatives. In parallel, we reassessed the brand design and set up a brand vitali-
VS
COMPANIES ORGANISED
around a clear purpose Industrial goods
17% EBITDA
Banking
19% ROE
Top 500 Dutch companies
11% GM
Top 500 Swedish companies
14% EBITDA
COMPANIES THAT AREN’T
10% EBITDA
*Booz Allen (2004)
8% ROE
*Booz Allen (2004)
7.5% GM
*SWOCC (2004)
10% EBITDA
*BBDO (2004
ING’S PURPOSE
EMPOWERING PEOPLE TO STAY A STEP AHEAD IN LIFE AND IN BUSINESS
Society
Customers
Sector
SECTOR This is an exciting time SOCIETY
for banking. Technology is
CUSTOMERS
We believe all sustainable
ple conduct transactions
progress is driven by people
and manage their finances.
We empower people and or-
with the imagination and
The future will belong to
ganisations to realize their
determination to improve
those who can invent ways
own vision for a better future
their future and the futures
that makes our customers’
– however modest or grand.
of those around them.
lives and business better.
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changing forever how peo-
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SURVEY
$
Communications professionals have a unique opportunity to shape the role of business in society. And the journey has only just begun. BY JÉRÉMIE GUILLERME
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SURVEY
I
t is no secret that businesses are challenged almost on a daily basis by the pace of change happening in their environment. Market disruptions, new regulations, economic crises and recoveries, changing lifestyles and consumer habits are just some of the things that require them to be a lot more agile. On the other hand, there have never been greater expectations on business to create longterm value for society and act as a driver of positive change. In that context, the challenge of the communications function is to ensure business stays relevant to the people who enable it to exist and perform: stakeholders. How? By understanding stakeholders’ expectations, aligning corporate strategies and behaviours to these expectations, and engaging stakeholders on the evolution of the company. This process enables companies to align their interests with those of stakeholders, to reach a point where they are recognised as a meaningful contributor to society. This is what we call social acceptance. But how are organisations performing along the steps that can unlock social acceptance? Black Sun, in partnership with Communication Director, have mapped a ‘social acceptance journey’, and asked over 200 European communication professionals about their role in helping organisations build better relationships with society. Our findings show that social acceptance is considered a driver of business performance by most communicators, but not all organisations have the right steps in place to enable it.
Building the case The starting point of the social acceptance journey is about gaining clarity on the rationale. Why should social acceptance matter? We found that 86 per cent of European communications professionals consider social acceptance as a driver of business performance. When
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asked whether their CEO shares this opinion, 76 per cent agree. The perceptions gap is minor, but still indicates that communicators need to better explain the business case for building long-term trust with society.
Understanding stakeholders Gaining social acceptance requires a deep understanding of stakeholder needs and expectations. How good are organisations at hearing them? More than eight out of 10 European communications professionals think their organisations have
a number of communicators struggle to turn these multiple data streams into insight. As one head of communications from the banking industry explained: “We have a huge amount of data coming from contact centres, social media channels, our end of year survey, our brand survey... We have an issue on how to aggregate data, visualise it and translate into actionable insight.”
Aligning to stakeholders To gain social acceptance, organisations need to embed the needs and expectations of stakeholders in their communications, strategy and operations, as well as in the behaviours of their people. How are organisations performing in this area? We found that stakeholder expectations are being used to inform communications strategies (73 per cent) more than business strategy (69 per cent), and corporate culture (46 per cent). Stakeholder feedback needs to not only inform the way an organisation speaks about itself, but also how it behaves,
“Social acceptance is considered a driver of business performance by most communicators,.” clear knowledge of who their key stakeholders are, but less than half of them (49 per cent) collect their feedback in a robust and systematic way. Having developed stakeholder maps, communicators need to gain a better understanding of how stakeholders perceive their organisation. Customer surveys, reputation audits and employee engagement data all provide vital sources of information and can be used to shape communications and business strategies. However
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both as a collective entity and as a sum of individual employee behaviours. Communicators need to better translate external stakeholder expectations to internal audiences in order to ensure they affect actions as much as words.
Engaging stakeholders Building and maintaining social acceptance requires organisations to create
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AGENDA SETTER
In the event of change When it comes to communicating international climate conferences, is media coverage a help or a hindrance? BY JAN WISNIEWSKI
A
t the end of 2009, world leaders and national representatives from across the world gathered in Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change conference. The Bali Road Map, the outcome of the 2007 conference, had promised that a framework for future climate change mitigation was to be created in Copenhagen. However, by the final day of the event, the
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international media were reporting on the stagnation of the negotiations. For example, the Associated Press wrote, “The U.N. climate talks were in serious disarray Friday, with delegates blaming both the US and China for the lack of a political agreement that President Barack Obama, China’s premier and more than 110 other world leaders are supposed to sign within hours”. In the end, the 2009 UN Climate
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Change conference produced the Copenhagen Accord – a document that delegates agreed only to “take note of”. As this example shows, climate change issues are far from resolved at major conferences. This is despite research findings becoming more assured – in 2014, the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment report declared high confidence that human activity is disrupt-
AGENDA SETTER
A passerby takes a picture of an installation erected in protest against pollution, near the site of the United Nations Climate Change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark
ing climate systems. But what role does media coverage play in the perceptions – negative or positive – of climate change conferences? Is the media just a passive recorder of the daily developments at such conferences, or do their coverage actively shape the outcomes of these events?
Photo: Neil Palmer (CIAT)
Mediated climate Professor Alison Anderson, editor in chief of the Routledge journal Environmental Communication, suggested in a 2009 paper that the lack of homogeneity and dominant sources of information in the media coverage of climate change is reflected in the unsettled nature of societal climate change perception. Considering the competition between multiple actors such as scientists, industry bodies, policymakers and NGOs in having their voices heard on climate issues, Anderson suggests the media “play a crucial role in framing the scientific, economic, social and political dimensions through giving voice to some viewpoints while suppressing others, and legitimating certain truth-claims as reasonable and credible”. The actors involved in climate change policy and opinion are especially prominent during climate conferences. At Conference of the Parties (COP) 21 in Paris last year not only were 150 heads of state in attendance but other political figures such as governors and mayors joined as well. Also competing for media attention were those on the political periphery such as business executives and environmental non-governmental organisations (ENGOs). According to a 2016 paper from media and climate academics Antal Wozniak, Hartmut Wessler and Julia Lück, in the 20 years of increasing media attention before Copenhagen and even in the decreased cov-
erage since then, UN Climate Change conferences and the simultaneous COPs have been a focal point.
Covering climate change Climate change is a tough topic for journalists as it lacks the short term impact and simplicity favoured by traditional news values. And although climate conferences provide journalists the opportunity to gather quotes from important players in the global climate debate, focused coverage across one time period does not necessarily mean that significant climate news will continue to gather attention. As part of a project called Down to Earth, a German research team recently looked at how the news from the UN Climate Change conference in Paris reached
“The annual UN Climate Change conference has now become part of the yearly news cycle.” and influenced citizens. Speaking with Communication Director, the team’s Dr Imke Hoppe of the University of Hamburg says that other issues may be more significant in the media and in public attention during climate conferences. “At the time of the conference last year in Paris, coverage related to terrorism and immigration issues was high on the agenda of the audience,” she explains. Although the concentration of climate coverage does mean policy breakthroughs and blunders can be overshadowed by other current affairs, the annual UN Climate Change conference has now become part of the yearly news cycle. However, the focus of the coverage has not remained static.
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In 2012 Professors Risto Kunelius and Elisabeth Eide of the University of Tampere’s MediaClimate Project identified two broad positions taken by journalists when covering the conferences. The first of those constructed a discourse calling for a decisive, multilateral agreement. The second focused on a narrative of competing national interests. The academics argue that as this second position has gained prominence there was a change of tone following COP15 in Copenhagen, which challenged the realistic chances of a multilateral agreement and legitimacy of transnational organisations. In contrast to COP15, COP21 in Paris has been hailed as a positive step forward in global climate negotiations, with the Paris Agreement representing a consensus of all 196 nations represented. As French president Francois Hollande stated during the close of the conference, “In Paris, there have been many revolutions over the centuries. Today it is the most beautiful and the most peaceful revolution that has just been accomplished – a revolution for climate change.”
Turning coverage into action? But how does media coverage of the event translate into societal interest and perceptions? Dr Hoppe explains that the results of a survey performed as part of the Down to Earth project suggested that most German citizens were using traditional media platforms to access information about the event. “Many people gathered information about the conference via television. Over 50 per cent of those who had received information about that event more than once a week were using TV,” she says. “Following television was radio with 35 per cent and newspapers with a little more than 20 per cent. All online channels were reported by less than 25 per cent of participants, including online news providers, Google News and mail providers with 21 per cent, social networks with 16 per cent, and Twitter and blogs with only five per cent.”
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10 years of excellence
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AWARDS
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t’s time to celebrate. 2016 marks 10 years of the European Excellence Awards — that’s 10 years of distinguishing and honouring the best of what modern international and national public relations has to offer, from local newcomers to international superstars. It has been an exciting and eventful 10 years: the global expansion of the Excellence Awards, celebrations in nine of
Photos: European Excellence Awards (page 54); Thorleif Robertsson (2), Laurin Schmid (2)
It’s inspiring to see so many smart and creative campaigns from all over Europe and it’s an honour to be acknowledged with such a prestigious award.
Europe’s most vibrant cities and over 12,000 submissions in total. It all started in 2007 in the Ritz-Carlton in Berlin with already 50 categories and submissions from dozens of countries. Since then, the Awards have grown in reach, renown and content, and now stand at the forefront of European celebrations of communications. If you haven’t already, now’s the year to take part in this success.
This award is like the European championship in the field of public relations. Schleiner + Partner Kommunikation
ANR BBDO
We feel deeply honoured being recognised for our work among many brilliant cases from all over Europe. European Excellence Awards is a great platform to show our industry's most innovative and creative work. Burson-Marsteller
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THE BIG INTERVIEW
“Few people make AIs, many talk about them.” Artificial intelligence will transform every aspect of our civilization, according to Jürgen Schmidhuber, whose deep learning artificial neural networks are widely used by the world’s most valuable public companies. But how do you create a curious robot? And what reassurances can be given to those who fear the rise of the machines? INTERVIEW BY DAFYDD PHILLIPS
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THE BIG INTERVIEW
C
an you tell us what differentiates true artificial intelligence from what we can already see around us today? True AI is not just about pattern recognition but about general problem solving through active interaction with an initially unknown world. True AI acts, perceives, acts, perceives – and gets a stream of input data which it shapes on its way to solving goals. Most commercial AI, however, is just about passive pattern recognition, e.g., better speech recognition on your smartphone, better gesture recognition, better prediction of the stock market, better prediction of what you want to do next given the data on your smartphone. But your smartphone does not have arms; it does not directly and actively shape the world. It can influence you by giving you advice, such as “now you are in a foreign city and there is a second-hand shop not far from here, which you should go to because there is a good deal for you.” But general robot control is more complicated than that, and still less developed than mere pattern recognition. It’s not going to stay like that, and in the next few decades we will see very sophisticated robots that will be able to solve all kinds of problems – including strawberry picking, which is harder than most people think.
, .”
Photo: Vivian Hertz
How do you build an artificial agent that curiously and creatively explores the world which at the beginning it doesn’t understand? We equip such an agent with two recurrent neural networks: one is the controller and the other is the world model. The controller sees the incoming stream of perceptions – video, audio and so on – and translates that into commands which make the robot move and shape the history of incoming inputs. The other one, the model of the world, learns to predict what happens if the agent does this and that. Over time, the prediction machine looks at all the data that’s coming in, all the actions that were executed, all the perceptions that came in, and tries to find regularities in these data. And regularity is important because… Regularity detection means better prediction and better compressibility, because whatever you can predict well you don’t have to store. If you have a video of 100 falling apples, once you can predict these falling apples because you understand gravity then you can greatly compress the sequence of incoming data. And all of science is about that, about finding simple rules behind the observations. Now, we can measure the depth of the insight of a neural network by looking at, first, how many computational resources it required to encode the data before learning took place and how many afterwards, when it discovered the regularity. And the difference between before and after is a number and that’s the fun that the network has. It is a reward signal which goes to the controller, and the controller is trying to maximise all the expected reward until the end of its
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ISSUE FOCUS
ISSUE FOCUS
Trends in communication 64
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Leadership and communication
What happens next?
Defining the leadership characteristics of chief communications and corporate affairs officers Interviews with Gizem Weggemans and Richard Marshall 68
Future-proofing reputation
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Evolving together Integrating marketing and communications could be key to organisational survival in a fragmented world By Merlissa Elvin-Poulose
Managing a company’s reputation is a major responsibility of executive communicators By Herbert Heitmann
A future role of communication directors is to explain societal megatrends to their organisations and stakeholders By Elaine Cameron
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Swimming with goldfish How to build on engagement to counter ever-shrinking attention spans By Chris Galloway
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