A Different Perspective: Communication Director 04/2014

COMMUNICATION

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EDITORIAL

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rom its beginnings as a focus of inquiry in the academic f ield, the question of diversity in corporate communications and public relations has moved closer to the fore, to a point where its practical impact and strategic implications are clear. And let’s not forget that the implications of diversity in communications are, well… diverse. It can mean the gender pay gap (this year’s European Communication Monitor found that men earn more than female professionals on the same hierarchical level), recruiting and retaining members of underrepresented groups, and ensuring that the profession’s ethnic and social makeup ref lects society’s.

But it also means the collective understanding that we need to develop other perspectives in public relations and corporate communications, to gain a more nuanced understanding of the who, what and why being communicated, of ensuring a mixed armoury of tools in the communications arsenal: these topics all fall under the “diversity” banner, and are all ref lected in this issue’s Storyteller section. Authors from academia and the profession explore different aspects of this multi-faceted topic; though, being aware that this is a subject that often gets paid little more than lip service, we regret that we are only able to scrape the surface in the space available here. Nevertheless, we hope that this issue acts as a contribution to a hugely important conversation that not only affects communicators of all backgrounds, but also the quality of the work itself. Elsewhere in this issue, we present our usual mix of insight, opinions and best cases on different facets of the communicator’s work, from promoting development cooperation to communicating a spin-off. The communicator’s work prof ile is as varied and multifaceted as ever.

Marc-Oliver Voigt Publisher marc-oliver.voigt@communication-director.eu

Photo: Private

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“ It is an irony of history that the construction of this deadly barrier began with a press conference and that its final collapse was again initiated by a press conference.”

“We should also ensure that a robust and secure processing of personal data takes place in the interest of citizens.”

The latest in communication thought and practice

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Making an impression

Key aspects of communication

TEAM PLAYER How to improve personnel management and your career

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Top communicators at Europe-based NGOs

Abhinav Kumar

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When it comes to reaching European audiences on development cooperation, a creative approach is called for

“The issue of the century” In the wake of the Snowden revelations, the European Union’s new reforms will be the source of scrutiny

Spreading the word Even in our digital age, word-of-mouth communication continues to be an influential form of promotion

Tom Isaacson

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Intensive internal communications around one company’s push for independence

THE STORY OF PR Looking back at landmark communications

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Interview with Giovanni Buttarelli

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Change from within Christina Schmöe

Visibility in a crowded market Oliver Griffith

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Rethinking talent

Communicators with a cause

The corporate and academic stand on communication

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A unique event in one of Europe’s most successful mobile payment markets – Slovakia

A more digital-ready talent base has become essential for success in communications and public relations

STRATEGIC THINKER 18

The big sell Julia Bell

Your data tells a story, and turning it into an infographic can ensure that the story is remembered by audiences

PR ESSENTIALS 10

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Political PR in the GDR There were surprisingly many similarities in public relations on both sides of the Berlin Wall

Jan Niklas Kocks and Juliana Raupp

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PR’s rhetorical inheritance Communicators can look to at least one educator from the ancient world for inspiration

Charles Marsh

Photos: www.dreamstime.com; SSGT F. Lee Corkran - DoD photo,Wikimedia Commons

AGENDA SETTER

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“Practitioners from diverse backgrounds remain ‘outsiders-within’ the occupation, the exception rather than the rule.”

“For a corporate content creator it really does mean the quality bar is being raised because of this consumer empowerment.”

THE BIG INTERVIEW Key communicators under the spotlight

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David Shing AOL’s digital prophet on content, creativity and embracing the new order

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Power and diversity To make public relations less homogenous, the way diversity is approached in practice needs to be improved

Despite a gloomy picture of the state of gender relations in the communications industry, there is hope for the future

Linda Childers Hon

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STORY TELLER Looking at the important questions of communication

Bridging the gender divide

In the driving seat of diversity The BMW Group’s approach to intercultural challenges and the diversity of its audience and of its supply chain

Interview with Bill McAndrews

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A multiplicity of ideas Pursuing innovation means taking advantage of the diversity of ideas and talents in your organisation

Martin von Arronet

Lee Edwards

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Value perspectives Valuing diversity has proven to be profitable, especially with respect to female consumers

Dana W. White

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Going beyond demographics To better understand audiences, communicators need to establish an intersectional practice of public relations

Natalie T. J. Tindall and Kristen Everett

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Towards a diversity and inclusion agenda Being active on the international scene, making a culture of diversity and inclusion all the more vital

Photo: Gino DePinto

Katarina Grönwall

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90 COMMUNICATIONS READER Book Reviews

A round up of recent and forthcoming titles

92 ASSOCIATION

European Association of Communication Directors

The latest developments in the EACD

QUESTIONS TO...

The personal side of communication directors

Deeds not words

Viktoria Mykhno

To truly represent the communities they serve, organisations need more than good will

Head of Corporate Communications, Platinum Bank

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AGENDA SETTER The latest in communication thought and practice

MAKING AN IMPRESSION Your data tells a story, and turning it into an infographic can be an unparalleled way of ensuring that the story is remembered by your audience.

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n this Age of Information, where competing facts and figures, opinions and appeals bombard us from all directions, one form of storytelling helps cut through the noise. An eye-catching mix of data visualisations and text, infographics can help focus the mind on what is essential about a given message. The best examples convey complicated information in relatively simple, easyto-digest images. They also help raise awareness about brands, causes and current events, while also - naturally spreading the word about the infographics’ creators. Little wonder, then, that their use has been so popular in public relations: livelier than a press release, they are a form of content that time-and resource-pressed journalists would be grateful for while also representing a concentrated form of storytelling.

But the popularity of this form of instant communication belies the extent to which they so often go wrong, miss the mark or otherwise fall flat. “One of the most

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common mistakes for businesses and brands is the so-called ‘Curse of Knowledge’”, explains Nika Aleksejeva of Infogram, a service based in Riga and San Francisco that helps organisations, educators, media and brands to visualise data. “Sometimes messages are communicated too complicatedly. There is too much information for a person who doesn’t know anything about a matter or an issue. The right value proposition and the right unique selling point is another issue.”

Your data tells a story, and turning it into an infographic can be an unparalleled way of ensuring that the story is remembered by your audience.

Photo: www.infogr.am

By Dafydd Phillips

AGENDA SETTER

In Cool Infographics (Wiley, 2014), Randy Krum sums up the art of storytelling through infographics in three stages: the introduction; what Krum calls “A-Ha! The main event”; and a conclusion.

The introduction is usually some combination of the title and a short paragraph of text, an opportunity to make sure the reader understands that this infographic is of great interest to them. The main section is the dominant visual portion, and should, says Krum, contain some new, previously unknown piece of information. It’s in this section that the so-called “picture superiority effect” – which holds that concepts are more likely to be remembered if they are presented as pictures rather than words – comes into play. Finally, the conclusion wraps up the message, preferably with a call-toaction encouraging readers to visit a website, purchase a product, sign a petition, change their eating habits, and so on.

One organisation already familiar with the rules of creating strong infographics is IP52.org, a movement started by CropLife International that aims to raise awareness about the role of intellectual property (IP) in our lives. Infographics play a major part of this process: along with movie trailer formats and white board videos, IP52 disseminates them online to highlight just how important IP is for both inventors and consumers alike. According to Deb Carstoiu, director of communications for plant biotechnology at IP52, “IP is often discussed in abstract terms or academic theories by professors and researchers in the field. This prevents the wider public from realising how IP fits into their daily lives. Few people know that without intellectual property we

would not have the technologies we rely upon everyday – from our car to our iPhone to our food. Our infographics set out to change that by showcasing the intellectual property all around us.” The choice of this particular format was a deliberate move away from the pre-existing material on the subject, which IP52 found to be too off-putting, as Deb explains: “Before we began IP52, we reviewed existing materials which explained the basics of intellectual property...

What we found was often dry, difficult to understand, and uninteresting to readers who are unfamiliar with IP.” And so IP52 turned to infographics as a means of engaging viewers and conveying the importance and potential interest inherent in this subject. “We needed to be sure our materials could grab a viewer’s attention and entice them to click, watch and learn more,” says Deb. “Only then could we begin to educate viewers on the importance and value of intellectual property to our world.”

MEDIA FORMATS Anyone facing the same challenge as IP52 can turn to Infogram for a free set of templates in order to create one’s own infographic, or more elaborate services for a monthly fee. Before opting for either selection, Nika Aleksejava recommends that users ask themselves two simple questions: “Say what? and who cares?” She explains: “When you have the answers, use them to construct your message in one Tweet. Once it’s done, imagine that you are the reader in as detailed a way as possible. Imagine your mom would desire your product or learn about the issue. How would you put it for her? Is your message clear?” The next step is to choose the right tool for your infographic: according to Nika, “people usually struggle to find the right chart type for their data” which is why Infogram offer webinars and data storytelling workshops to teach it. As a handy way of memorising the ingredients of a successful infographic, Nika recommends a formula developed by Chip and Dan Heath in their book, Made to Stick – SUCCESS (Simple: find the core of any idea; Unexpected: grab people‘s attention by surprising them; Concrete: make sure an idea can be grasped and remembered later; Credible: give an idea believability; Emotional: help people see the importance of an idea; Stories: empower people to use an idea through narrative).

Once the message has been finalised, the media format needs to be chosen. Static infographics are the basic and most widely-used form of design: an image file that can be easily distributed online and printed on paper. But you can also add an interactive layer to large, static infographics online, allowing readers to zoom in and read the fine print: 04/2014

COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR

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AGENDA SETTER

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An example of 1P52’s infographics

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Deb Carstoiu says, “We focus on providing as many real world examples as possible in our infographics.

We want to show to viewers that intellectual property is not just an abstract theory.”

RELEASE STRATEGIES The next challenge is spreading the word: the most carefully-crafted infographic is useless if no one gets to see it. Infographics help increase traffic and links to the company website, and the laws of search engine optimisation dictate that the more appealing the infographic, the more people will post it on their own sites with links back to originating website, as well as sharing it with friends and their own networks. As Nika Aleksejava, explains, “we‘ve seen that a blog post or an article with an embedded infographic can generate up to 60 per cent more site views.”

When sharing its infographics, IP52 makes use of CropLife International’s 91-country strong network of plant science associations, which, according to Deb Carsoiu, “gives us an incredible global reach through both traditional avenues and digital media.” They also keep an eye on adapting the infographics to local needs: “We produce all our materials in formats that are easily translatable and can be localised to address regional interests and better appeal to various in-country audiences. This has enabled us to achieve not just steady website traffic over the past year, but also educate audiences in many different countries.”

Proving that, even with the daunting competition for attention in online communications, there are many ways to make sure that your package of text and image can be seen, shared and savoured by audiences around the world.

Photo: CropLife International

web page codes such as HTML5 and JavaScript can help with the interface. Clickable infographics makes specific areas of the image clickable with HTML links, which has the bonus of allowing the main design to remain ‘clean’ and uncluttered by additional information. Animated or video infographics add a whole new dimension to the art of the infographic – not to mention also broadening its appeal – with readily-available presentation software ensuring that anyone can take advantage.

Choosing what information to leave in and what to exclude is half the battle. For IP52, it’s a question of focussing on the goal they want to achieve with the infographic, and determining the content based on that. As

PR ESSENTIALS Key aspects of communication

COMMUNICATORS WITH A CAUSE 30 communicators at some of the leading non-governmental organisations based in Europe

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PR ESSENTIALS

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2 ADA Microfinance Focus Inclusive finance (microfinance) Founded 1994 Headquarters Luxembourg City

Amnesty International Focus Human Rights Founded 1961 Headquarters London

Emmanuelle Lamberty Position Head of Communications & Knowledge Management Start date 2011

Thomas Schultz-Jagow Position Senior Director of Campaigns and Communications Start date 2012 Previous position Director of Campaigns and Communications, Oxfam GB

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The biggest challenge facing NGO communicators today is to differentiate yourself in the sea of NGO’s, whether it is for a potential donor or partner.

Asociatia Pro Democratia Focus Democracy Founded 1990 Headquarters Bucharest Iuliana Iliescu Position Programm Coordinator (currently responsible for communication and PR) Start date 2008 Previous position Manager Assistant, DDB Design

Photos: Private; Karen Hatch Photography; Private (4)

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5 Atlantic Council of Serbia Focus Serbia’s Euro-Atlantic integration Founded 2001 Headquarters Belgrade

CARE International Focus Disaster relief, development aid Founded 1945 Headquarters Geneva

Milovan Milosevic Position Executive Director Start date 2013 Previous position Owner, IQ Cafe

Melanie Brooks Position Head of Global Communication Start date 2013 Previous position Media and Communications Coordinator, CARE International

The skill sets needed for communicators working in the NGO sector are patience, diplomacy and an iron will to resist ‘sticking it on the website’.

Patrick Nicholson, Caritas

Milovan Milosevic, Atlantic Council of Serbia

6 Caritas Internationalis Focus Humanitarian aid, International development and social service Founded 1951 Headquarters Vatican City Patrick Nicholson Position Director of Communications Start date 2000 Previous position Journalist

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PR ESSENTIALS

7 CEE Bankwatch Network Focus Sustainability, financial responsibility Founded 1995 Headquarters Prague David Hoffman Position Media Coordinator Start date 2006 Previous position Policy Officer, Bank Information Center

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9 Cesvi Focus Emergency relief, aid, poverty Founded 1985 Headquarters Bergamo

Codespa Focus Development, Humanitarianism Founded 1985 Headquarters Madrid

Chiara Magni Position Head of Communication and Campaigning Department Start date 2012 Previous position Coordinator, Campaigning, Events and Migration, Cesvi

Natalia Amiano Goyarrola Position Director of the Marketing and Communication Department Start date 2010 Previous position Marketing Assistant, Paramount Entertainment

10 Concern Worldwide Focus Poverty, humanitarianism Founded 1968 Headquarters Dublin Paul O’Mahony Position Head of Communication Start date 2008 Previous position Communications & Membership Officer, Comhlámh Irish Association of Development Workers and Volunteers

11 Danish Refugee Council Focus Humanitarian Founded 1956 Headquarters Copenhagen

Estonian Fund for Nature Focus Environment, conservation Founded 1991 Headquarters Tartu

Peter Hermann Kamph Position Head of Communications and Fundraising Start date 2013 Previous position Head of Communications and Marketing, IT University of Copenhagen

Mariliis Tago Position Communication and PR Manager Start date 2013 Previous position Communication Manager, Estonian Environmental Law Center

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Photos: Private (6)

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PR ESSENTIALS

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14 Finnwatch Focus Corporate responsibility Founded 2009 Headquarters Helsinki

Friedrich Ebert Foundation Focus Education Founded 1925 Headquarters Bonn and Berlin

Sonja Vartiala Position Executive Director Start date 2011 Previous position Fundraising Manager, Amnesty International’s Finnish section

Vesna Rodic Position Head of Press, Communication and Policy Issues Start date 2010 Previous position Head, Friedrich Ebert Foundation’s Thailand office

There is no doubt that we are in the digital age and most people use social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. IHD is doing its best to get maximum benefit from these tools. However, we still get the most accurate and reliable news affecting our organisation from our local people who work on the ground.

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GAWF – Animal Action Greece Focus Animal welfare Founded 1959 Headquarters Athens Evgenia Mataragka Position Communication Manager Start date 2005

Osman Isci, Insan Haklari Dernegi

16 Greenpeace Focus Environmentalism Founded 1971 Headquarters Amsterdam Mike Townsley Position Head of Communications Start date 2013 Previous position Head of News, Greenpeace

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Photos: Tanu Kallio; Private (5)

Icelandic Human Rights Centre Focus Human Rights Founded 1994 Headquarters Reykjavík Margrét Steinarsdóttir Position Director Start date 2010 Previous position Director, Intercultural Centre

Insan Haklari Dernegi (The Human Rights Association) Focus Human rights Founded 1986 Headquarters Ankara Osman Isci Position Director External Affairs Start date 2006 Previous position Journalist, Özgür Gündem

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PR ESSENTIALS

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19 International Federation for Human Rights Focus Human rights Founded 1922 Headquarters Paris

International Partnership for Human Rights Focus Human rights Founded 2008 Headquarters Brussels Ann-Sofie Nyman Position Research & Publications Start date 2008 Previous position Researcher, International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights

Isabelle Chebat Position Communication and Public Relations Director Start date 1997 Previous position Director of Public Relations, Editions Sorman

21 International Red Cross Focus Humanitarianism Founded 1919 Headquarters Geneva

It is not an easy task to lead communications for an LGBT NGO in Russia these days. Sometimes it feels that nothing changes. But at the same time it is rewarding, it makes me feel that my work makes a real difference.

Pierre Kremer Position Head of Communications Start date 2007 Previous position Head of Communication, French Red Cross

Svetlana Zakharova, Russian LGBT Network

22 Kindernothilfe Focus Humanitarianism, development Founded 1959 Headquarters Duisburg Angelika Böhling Position Head Spokesperson Start date 2009

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Marie Stopes International Focus Sexual and reproductive health Founded 1976 Headquarters London John Lotspeich Position Director of Communication Start date 2012 Previous position Deputy Managing Director/Managing Director, Weber Shandwick

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Médecins Sans Frontières Focus Medical humanitarianism Founded 1971 Headquarters Geneva Laurent Sauveur Position Director of Communications, Fundraising and New Entities Development Start date 2009 Previous position International Marking Coordinator, CARE International

Photos: Private (4); Andy Catterall; Private

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CRITICAL THINKING AT THE CRITICAL TIME™

PR ESSENTIALS

25 Norwegian Refugee Council Focus Humanitarian Founded 1946 Headquarters Oslo Tuva Raanes Bogsnes Position Head of Media and Communication Start date 2014 Previous position Head of Foreign News, TV 2

The most rewarding aspect of working in an NGO is that people are not here for the money. They really care about the people we are working for, the refugees, and they work hard to be as efficient and professional as possible. It is a very good place to work, and I learn that people in the NGOs are really overqualified for their jobs, yet they choose to continue the cause, and not just follow the highest salary.

26 Russian LGBT Network Focus Protection of rights and social adaptation of LGBT Founded 2006 Headquarters Saint Petersburg Svetlana Zakharova Position Public Relations Manager Start date 2014 Previous position Volunteer, Russian LGBT Network

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Tuva Raanes Bogsnes, Norwegian Refugee Council

28 Save the Children Focus Children’s rights, aid Founded 1919 Headquarters London

Transparency International Focus Anti-corruption Founded 1993 Headquarters Berlin Virginie Coulloudon Position Group Director, External Relations Start date 2013 Previous position Director of Communications, Transparency International

Sue Allchurch Position Director of Marketing and Communication Start date 2013 Previous position Global Brand Vice President Lipton, Unilever

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Water Aid Focus Water sanitation Founded 1981 Headquarters London

WWF Focus Environmentalism, conservation, ecology Founded 1961 Headquarters Gland

Marcus Missen Position Director of Communications and Fundraising Start date 2011 Previous position Head of Strategy and Development Director, NSPCC

Sudhanshu Sarronwala Position Executive Director, Marketing and Communications Start date 2009 Previous position Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder, Soundbuzz

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Photos: Private (4); Water Aid, Private

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STRATEGIC THINKER The corporate and academic stand on communication

VISIBILITY IN A CROWDED MARKET When it comes to reaching European audiences on development cooperation, a creative approach is called for.

By Oliver Griffith

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estern European countries are among the most influential and engaged in development cooperation.

They are important shareholders in international organisations such as the World Bank Group, the IMF and the United Nations and are major donors for developing countries. Their firms and financial institutions have been active in emerging markets for decades, and their media have global reach. At Europeaan conferences and think tanks experts debate strategies for sustainable development while governments, parliaments, civil society organisations and citizens argue about budgets and funding. Communication between all these stakeholders is lively and well developed, with benefits and risks for all.

However, being heard in this crowded European development marketplace is challenging. To be noticed you must be proactive and creative.

REACHING OUT WITH COMMUNICATIONS As in

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all communications, the objective is to reach the right audiences with the right messages to get the right reactions.

For development communications the audiences are multifaceted and interrelated. Development banks like IFC that work with the private sector reach out to companies, banks and partner institutions. Development institutions that work with the public sector target donor and recipient country governments and parliamentarians, while donor governments respond to their citizens and parliamentarians, among others.

To understand the challenges of reaching these stakeholders, it merits looking at one particularly important audience: the taxpayers of European donor countries. They are, 04/2014 COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR

in effect, the final arbiters on a large portion of development aid. While 85 per cent of Europeans think helping developing countries remains important, growing domestic economic challenges and public sector budget cuts make them question aid levels.

Often they are under informed. The 2012 Eurobarometer found that 44 per cent of Europeans said they did

STRATEGIC THINKER

not know where their country’s development aid goes. Once informed, their views may change. For example, a UK poll found that 30 per cent of those who were uninformed or skeptical about aid to India changed their views when informed about Indian poverty levels.

What holds true for individual citizens holds true for other stakeholders – there is still a need for more and better information on development cooperation. To reach the right audiences a pragmatic, targeted communication strategy is critical. Some strategies may be defensive and designed to manage risk; others may be proactive, promoting thought leadership and policy changes. Most are a combination of the two. The overall message is relatively simple: development cooperation is in everyone’s interest, gets results and merits support. However, the nuances and ways to deliver this message are complex.

While traditional media outreach remains important, it is becoming increasingly difficult and competitive as outlets cut staff and funding. Even when interviews can be arranged, publication is far from assured. Development issues may be of great interest to hard-pressed journalists, but they are easily overtaken by breaking news. Other avenues to reach stakeholder audiences must be found.

SPECIALISED MEDIA IS WELL TARGETED One so-

lution is to work with specialised media outlets. These can include business association publications, industry and trade journals, development magazines and civil society and government newsletters. Concentrating on specialised media offers a number of advantages. The reporters are experts and need less background on the issues and your institution. The publications are less constrained by daily or weekly news cycles and reach audiences that include potential partners or supporters. They are also willing to interview working-level experts, whose agendas are less packed than those of senior staff. It is relatively easy to interest these outlets in articles or interviews and the actual publication rate is very high.

ONLINE MEDIA IS TAKING OVER Online media are ever more important. While nothing beats a headline in the Financial Times, Die Welt, Le Monde or El Pais, many online publications reach better targeted audiences

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STRATEGIC THINKER

THE ISSUE OF THE CENTURY In the wake of the Snowden revelations, the EU’s new data protection reforms will be the source of scrutiny, not least by communication professionals. Giovanni Buttarelli, the European Parliament’s assistant European data protection supervisor, explains.

Interview by Dafydd Phillips

Neelie Kroes, vice president of the European Commission responsible for the European Union’s “digital agenda” has called the Snowden revelations a “blessing in disguise” – to what extent do you agree with that statement?

This is indeed the issue of the century. It’s a wakeup call for Europe and Europe should draw a line in the sand now or never. Some surveillance programmes took place on a basis of legal basis in the US but in breach of EU rules. And therefore this is relevant for our legal system and its time to have a final word on this issue.

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What steps are you taking to address the loss of trust of citizens in the wake of the NSA revelations?

Data protection authorities as well as the European data protections supervisors are to be considered regulators but we are not in charge of policy. We advise the legislator and we monitor that the processing of personal data complies with existing rules, so we are strongly advising the legislature to give an answer to the strong request from EU citizens to be better protected in terms of fundamental rights. Those data protections authorities with the competence in terms of security and intelligence are investing lots of energies not only in terms of legal analyses of relevant actions but also to increase the level of security 04/2014 COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR

STRATEGIC THINKER

to strengthen the accountability of the relevant providers and to investigate where possible. The European Data Protection Supervisor, for instance, has invested particular energies in advising both the three main institutions but also with a view to increase the level of security of EU offices, bodies and agencies.

Photo: www.dreamstime.com

What role do you think directors of communications can play in rebuilding trust and informing the relationships between business and users?

They could do a lot of things by keeping alive the level of attention of public opinion by insisting on the need of EU leaders to implement what they promised to the public opinion, to adopt by 2015 a strong EU data protection reform. That is because this is the main important step to be made in addition to a few other points. The European Commission has identified six main actions involving the state of play of existing bilateral agreements with the US and also the signature of new bilateral agreements, as well as some important steps in terms of international legal framework, so the position of certain first countries such as the US with regard to conventions.

So it is important to also address the concerns of citizens and ask for the relevant regulations.

What kinds of limitations exist for the collection of personal data here in Europe?

We already have strong safeguards in terms of lawfulness, fairness, necessity and proportionality of the relevant processing of personal data, although these safeguards do not entirely build on fully harmonised legal framework and that’s the challenge of the EU reform. The EU is not competent on national intelligence but can do a lot

of things in terms of protection of the fundamental rights of EU citizens. In addition to that, some of the national data protection acts also apply to national intelligence.

The European Parliament has voted to overhaul the EU’s 19 year-old data protection laws: when can we realistically expect it to happen?

I stand by the announcements of the European Council and of the Council of the European Union. They both expressed recently, October last year and repeated in June this year, to have the reform approved by 2015 at the latest. And therefore a short transitional phase is to be expected. That means by next year we can see these provisions officially published.

What can we expect from the proposed reforms?

The reduction of administrative burdens and red tape, strong harmonisation of existing rules by strengthening the accountability of relevant controllers and processors that the rights of data subjects, but also by reinforcing the enforcing powers of accountable data protection authorities. And finally by applying these provisions to everybody in the world, offering goods and services to individuals in the EU, or monitoring their behaviour.

To what extent does Big Data present a challenge for data protection?

Big Data is a new challenge in terms of the fast development of IT technologies, it is a serious challenge for data protection provisions but it’s not fundamentally affecting the principles. Our concern is that existing principles will continue to work with Big Data although in need of some ways to implement them in practice. We already had in the past enormous challenges such as changes when we moved from manual files to automatic files in the 70s, from analogic to digital networks, from silos to largerscale information technology systems, from the pioneering e-commerce to the digital agenda. So we need to be prepared to other challenges, but that doesn’t mean we need to withdraw from principles to do with protection, so the emphasis is on the identification of new dynamic modalities to implement the same principles.

How will the EU reforms work around Big Data?

A lot. It will have an enormous impact, by being applicable to the global giants, although two out of the 20 Big Data players are located in the EU, so it’s not extraterritoriality, it is protection of EU individuals or more precisely individuals within the EU regardless of the geographical loca04/2014 COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR

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STRATEGIC THINKER

SPREADING THE WORD Even in our digital age, word-of-mouth communication continues to be an influential form of promotion.

By Tom Isaacson

T

he intuitiveness of word of mouth communication increases its appeal.

We can all think of an instance when we benefitted from it. On my first trip to Rome in 2008, my mission was to find good coffee.

I started with the usual suspects, a Rick Steves’ guidebook, TripAdvisor’s website and, finally, a tour guide.

Both the guidebook and website sent me to the same places – Sant’ Eustachio il Caffe (over 1000 online reviews) and Tazza D’Oro (over 900 online reviews) – but the tour guide sent me to Bar del Cappuccino. At the time, it appeared undiscovered by the other sources, further increasing its appeal. When Bar del Cappuccino proved to have better coffee, service and prices I was hooked.

Since my initial visit, I’ve directly introduced about 170 students to the bar on annual summer study abroad visits; brought another dozen or so friends, families and colleagues for visits; suggested it to a dozen friends and students on their way to Rome; and posted my own Trip -Advisor review. The review, according to TripAdvisor’s own analytics, has had over 150 readers so far.

Why bother? Because I like good coffee.

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CONNECTED

NETWORKS

Malcolm Gladwell, in The Tipping Point, would likely attach a ‘connector’ label to this behaviour, meaning a broad and expansive social network that occupies different worlds and subcultures allows some people to “connect” others to a topic of interest. More commonly the term used is opinion leadership, which is often divided into formal and informal categories. In this instance, it’s formal opinion leadership; as a faculty member leading a study abroad programme, I incorporate a stop a Bar del Cappuccino into class when we’re traveling from the American University of Rome’s campus to the Pantheon. This of course brings a much greater number of students to the bar than would go if I were merely suggesting it informally to the group.

Photo: www.thinkstock.com

STRATEGIC THINKER

In the classroom, I constantly remind students not to overlook formal opinion leaders. The Wall Street Journal recognises this in the United States and it effectively targets faculty with promotions to encourage a low-cost newspaper adoption for courses, thereby allowing its product to get in front of a generation of future readers. Convincing one can produce a sale to many. Or, as Elihu Katz notes in the introduction of the book Personal Influence, “The secret is to locate those segments of a population that influence other segments in each particular domain.”

The aforementioned coffee example includes elements of traditional and modern word of mouth communication. Someone may seek information about a product or service, then share it with others.

Someone may be told by a person in his or her personal network to try a product or service. Or, in modern society, someone may be exposed to online opinions of people completely outside of their social network that influence behaviour.

MODELS Historically we recog-

nise word of mouth communication predates our ability to earn a university degree in a field studying the topic. We can be reasonably sure it

played a role in all kinds of traditional and extraordinary business developments throughout history, ranging from desired exports from Egypt to Italy during the Roman Empire or investments contributing to the Tulip Bubble in Holland in the early 1600s or the spread of coffee as a worldwide drink.

The development of mass media during the 20th century, however, undoubtedly introduced some changes to the word of mouth process. Initially it was hypothesised, through an early media effects model called the hypoder-

How can opinion leaders with heterophilous networks be identified, targeted and cultivated to increase diffusion mic needle model, that the mass media “injected” information into the general public. Support for the model began to deteriorate when Paul Lazarsfeld’s 1940 study of US voting decisions identified the critical role of interpersonal influence between the mass media and general public. This went on to be called the two-step flow model. The study identified and emphasised the importance of horizontal opinion leadership, meaning each social stratum generates its own opinion leaders. Subsequent research by Katz and Lazarsfeld found it was most evident in the field of small consumer purchases and that it tends to be informal, faceto-face and casually exercised. This remains relevant today to communication directors across the globe.

Everett Rogers extended the understanding of opinion leadership and communication flow in his book Diffusion of Innovations. In it, he acknowledges the early European influences on diffusion research by Gabriel Tarde and others. Among Tarde’s many contributions was his recognition of the impact of opinion leaders on the steepness of an adoption curve. Ironically, nearly a century later, a similar thesis was described and updated by Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point. The book went on to 164 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list. The phrase I used to hear in graduate school for this reintroduction of an old concept was ‘old wine in new bottles.’

Rogers describes how homophilous interpersonal networks – those in which individuals who communicate are similar – “can act as an invisible barrier to the flow of innovations within a system.” Meaning, if people are interacting with people similar to them, an innovation isn’t able to trickle to other groups. Although most networks tend to be homophilous, when heterophilous networks exist the opportunity exists for rapid diffusion. Of course, this re04/2014 COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR

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STRATEGIC THINKER

THE BIG SELL To rekindle excitement in mobile payments, Visa Europe organised a unique event in one of Europe’s most successful mobile payment markets – Slovakia.

By Julia Bell

T

he advent of the smartphone has changed consumer shopping behaviour beyond recognition. Smartphones have firmly captured the position of “first screen”, e-commerce is on track to outpace bricks and mortar growth within the next five years, and 50 per cent of consumers now reach for their mobile phone before they start the purchasing process (according to Nilsen’s Mobile Path to Purchase study, 2013).

All this and the integration of payment technology into smartphones has brought a significant leadership opportunity for Visa Europe, but also a host of threats as new entrants such as Bitcoin, PayPal and Klarna have started to gain traction in the mobile payment market and seek to disintermediate Visa Europe’s future revenue.

Few know that Visa Europe is in fact a member organisation. Owned and operated by banks and other payment service providers from 37 countries across Europe, we do not have direct relationships with merchants or consumers; those relationships are held by acquiring and issuing banks respectively. Our members rely on us to maintain a highly reliable and secure payment system and to keep evolving that system as new payment technologies, such as mobile payment, develop.

SUMMER 2013 By the summer of 2013 our teams had

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been creating safe, resilient and intuitive mobile payment services for some time. Some of our member banks had innovated their business units and processes and made use of our services, however others were not so driven. While enthusiastic, they were not yet ready to launch our technology to their cardholders, and so the commercial availability of our mobile payment services in the European market remained lower than we would have liked.

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Like us, media had been excited about this impending mobile breakthrough but as the months went by they become increasingly sceptical about its future: CNBC believed that mobile payments would only be a success if noteworthy innovation brands got involved: “After Apple Snub, Can This Mobile Payment Method Take Off?”. The UK’s Retail Week claimed that “NFC (the very technology our mobile payment services were based on) may be the weak link”. And my heart sank when the BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones declared that NFC “was not for consumers”.

Left uncorrected, this negative impression had the potential to escalate, cause unnecessary concern amongst already hesitant members and ultimately impact the successful roll-out of this very convenient and safe means of payment.

SHIFT PERCEPTIONS To change

the perception that had started to permeate through the industry, we needed to develop a proactive communications campaign that actually demonstrated just how much mobile payment was alive and kicking

Pulling just one communications lever was not going to be enough to reach this goal. across Europe. Up until 2013, we’d spent a lot of time telling audiences about the progression mobile payment was making, but we’d never actually shown them real live implementations that were being used by consumers and merchants, in Europe, on a daily basis.

Pulling just one communications lever was not going to be enough to reach this goal. A social media

STRATEGIC THINKER

To demonstrate that mobile payment was alive and kicking, Visa Europe took over Bratislava’s city centre

Photos: Visa Europe (4)

campaign on its own was not going to grab the attention of all banking decision makers. Likewise, simply generating a few pieces of press coverage would not create the receptive business climate that we required.

We needed a multi-channel, multidiscipline approach, and we needed it relatively quickly.

RE-DEFINED AUDIENCES Visa is one of the world’s most recognised consumer brands. In 2013, one euro in every 6.50 euros was spent on a Visa card. However, for this campaign, consumers were not the ones we needed to persuade over to our point of view.

To have success we would need to speak to three key audiences. First of all to influential third party en-

dorsers, press and bloggers, to dispel their doubts and illustrate that for consumers and merchants alike, mobile payments were both convenient and secure. After press embargoes had passed, I wanted to prove to our member banks the value mobile payment held and encourage their implementation. Finally, our employees needed to be reenergised and re-focused on working towards Visa Europe’s mobile future.

All corporate reputation strategies require equilibrium be reached. The critical balance for us was to openly address the challenges with mobile payment and transparently share the reasons it had been slow to arrive, while also rekindling excitement in its potential.

SILICON VALLEY OF EUROPE We needed to challenge

the perception that mobile payment would live or die on western implementations; that if it was yet to be adopted

by French, British or German consumers by now, it never would. I chose to focus the campaign around a two-day event in Slovakia, one of Europe’s most successful mobile payment markets. It is Slovakia’s population size, the 04/2014 COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR

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TEAM PLAYER

How to improve personnel management and your career

RETHINKING TALENT A more digital-ready talent base has become essential for success in media, in-house communications and public relations.

By Abhinav Kumar

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S

ome months ago, in an ironic display of the permeability of today’s digital world, The New York Times Innovation Report was leaked. The 91-page document had been sanctioned by its publisher to leverage its most strategic internal thinkers to create a winning strategy for the newspaper in a changed and hyperconnected world. To synthesise the elaborate report into a nutshell, it concluded that “We, the NYT, are winning in journalism and creating great content, yet still losing our audience to social media and other digital challengers.” It is the paradox that haunts most traditional media houses and 04/2014 COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR

by transference, the in-house communicators who have traditionally utilised them as their primary channels of communication.

I recently spoke in London at an innovation forum for communications. I chose to speak on the panel focusing on “tomorrow’s talent” since I firmly believe that if we don’t have the right talent to deliver effective and increasingly digital campaigns, build social media engagement around our

TEAM PLAYER

brand and bring in innovative technology to our company, then our communications strategy is bound for failure – no matter how good it is. Just like the New York Times, we should all have our own innovation plans with talent being the prime driver for change.

THE DIGITAL GAP A recent survey by Econsultancy asked over 1200 respondents in public relations and marketing to talk about how prepared they felt for the digital world. Only 43 per cent said that the digital talent in their company was good or excellent and a majority felt otherwise. It is a feeling shared by many. Just when you feel you are gaining momentum with Facebook and Twitter, a thunderclap hits you.

What is Thunderclap? It’s a relatively new crowd speaking platform that allows a single message to be shared flash mob style at a pre-agreed time.

By signing on to a Thunderclap campaign, thousands of users agree to send out the same message at the same time, making it trend on multiple social media channels. As one example, Beyoncé and World Humanitarian Day reached out to over one billion people through the 30,000 supporters they gathered.

This is the biggest challenge that tomorrow’s talent will have to deal with – the ability to understand and manage an increasingly complex and fast-evolving set of communication channels. Napoleon famously described the power of traditional media by stating “Four hostile newspapers are to be more feared than a thousand bayonets”. Today newspapers fear the thousand tweets that take place every two seconds, and are stealing their readership. The press advisor to a former UK prime minister recently asked me what my pre-

ferred source of news is and without blinking I said Twitter. I follow over 150 journalists from around the world on Twitter and invariably catch what they are writing directly from the horse’s mouth, which is faster and more efficient than anything a press service or publication can provide.

SEISMIC SHIFTS One of the foremost expert groups tracking technological change, the Gartner Group, predicts that by 2017 chief marketing officers will spend more on technology than chief information officers across the globe. That is just one of many powerful statistics on how the rapid evolution in technology is causing major changes to our profession. This has caused four seismic shifts:

We should all have our own innovation plans with talent being the prime driver for change.

A) REBALANCING OF TALENT Journalism, public rela-

tions agencies and in-house communications has been the tripod of our profession, with historically relatively limited mobility between the three. It was the rare bird that flew the coop and landed on the other patch. However, as each subprofession finds that it does not have the skills to address the new digital world, it has set off a musical chairs of poaching across the tripod. Media houses need to drive a stronger digital strategy and create community managers, a skill they are recruiting for from the corporate world. With declining circulations and revenues, many media houses have had to cut newsrooms, leading to an availability of terrific journalistic talent which agencies and in-house departments – needing to up their games on content and manage many more owned media – are increasingly aggregating.

B) MERGER OF MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS About a year ago the editor of a public relations

trade publication had written an article titled “Is the CCO an endangered species?” in which he stated that a marketing function, energised by the growing importance of stakeholder management, would stray into the communications domain and risk making it obsolete. I did not agree with him and conducted a poll based on this, which over 80 chief communications officers responded to. The results were a landslide – 62 per cent said they believed that marketing and communications will merge into a single function in their companies in due course of time.

Only 20 per cent believed they would remain separate in the future and the most pessimistic 20 per cent predicted 04/2014 COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR

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TEAM PLAYER

CHANGE FROM WITHIN When light manufacturer Osram decided to take the plunge and push for independence from Siemens, intensive internal communications were harnessed to generate excitement and push the process forward.

By Christina Schmöe

The listing meant that a new mindset was necessary both for managers and employees.

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employees worldwide and generated revenues of more than 5.1 billion euros in fiscal 2014. Until 8 July 2013, Osram was part of Siemens, already independent in terms of technology and sales.

However, the technical description of what was happening in July 2013 does not reveal the more strategic and emotional dimension of the important step Osram took that day. The factual language of the 185-page Joint SpinOff Report, agreed between Siemens and Osram, outlining details of the changes in ownership, governance and in the corporate identity, hides the excitement, passion and energy from both management and employees that 04/2014 COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR

went along with this new step in the company’s history. A step taken in order to secure its leading position in a market that is fundamentally changing.

A MAGIC MONDAY Osram’s

strategic needs and the benefits of going independent were of course communicated externally by media relations and investor relations but also internally on a constant basis, since the listing meant that a new mindset was necessary both for managers and employees. After more than 100 years of successful development, the company was faced with the challenges and opportunities of a disruptive technology change towards LED, as well as an increasingly accelerated and competitive market. The listing would allow us to be more flexible and to take advantage of the dynamics in the lighting market. It would not have been possible without the tireless efforts of many teams and individuals from across the group.

A highly focused communications programme was implemented, leading up to the day of listing and preparing the organisation for the new era of independence and selffunding. Well-planned internal and external communications following the “magic Monday” of 8

Photo: Jean-Luc Valentin / Osram

M

onday, 8 July 2013, marked the beginning of a new chapter in the history of Osram. On that day, the company, originally founded in 1919 through the merger of German Auer-Gesellschaft together with AEG and Siemens & Halske, gained its entrepreneurial independence by going public as Osram GmbH & KG. By 2013 Osram was one of the leading light manufacturers in the world. The company’s business had been focused on light – mainly on traditional, professional or retail lamps. Today, the company’s portfolio covers the entire value chain from components – including lamps, electronic control gear and light-emitting diodes (LED) – as well as luminaires, software-based management systems and lighting solutions and thus on energy efficiency and the quality of life. The company has more around 34,000

TEAM PLAYER

July 2013 were one of the key success factors in making this major milestone possible. “The listing was in many ways the communicative coming out for Osram”, commented Stefan Schmidt, the company’s head of media relations.

BEING PREPARED AND BEING ENGAGED Preparations for the communications activities had already begun in March 2011, when Siemens announced its plans to make Osram a listed company. From January 2013, when it became clear that the spin-off from Siemens could happen and a listing could take place later that year, preparations were directed towards a more concrete timeline.

More than 60 project teams from headquarters and corporate functions as well as teams across the whole Osram group had already built the new framework for becoming independent – with technical preparations and transformations of systems, processes and procedures in order to be able to operate without the reliance on existing Siemens structures and systems and preparing the company for the change of control.

Now it was time for a closely-aligned working group to get into the details of planning the countdown to the new independence. Besides the preparation of the external communication function there was a specific focus on internal communication and on the change expected for employees. As head of corporate affairs and sustainability – and in this function also responsible for internal communication – I worked together with my team in close collaboration with strategy, human resources, legal and all working groups related to the spin-off, as well as with the offices of the chief executive and chief financial officers to make sure that internal communications planning and the development of core communication materials were synchronised with the overall roadmap. The prospectus and the roadshow presentation were the leading documents from where all other communications were derived.

THREE OBJECTIVES The group followed three overall objectives. First, to ensure that key internal stakeholders were well prepared for the switch of Osram’s legal status, the new governance and managerial model as well as being supportive of the long-planned independence. Second, to leverage the upcoming spin-off and listing as an emotionally powerful initiative that was not only orchestrated from top management and company leadership, but was driven by everybody in the organisation. The big opportunity that was ahead for everybody – to actively take the company’s future into our own hands – needed to be 04/2014 COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR

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THE STORY OF PR Looking back at landmark communications

POLITICAL PR IN THE GDR Despite systemic differences, there were surprisingly many similarities in public relations as practiced on both sides of the Berlin Wall.

I

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t is now twenty-five years since the Berlin Wall came down. In autumn 1989, a massive concrete structure that had separated friends, family and neighbours for over 29 years finally became permeable and collapsed under the pressure of civic protest, ultimately giving way to a reunited Germany. It is an irony of history that the construction of this deadly barrier began with a press conference in 1961 and that its final collapse was again initiated by a press conference in 1989.

It was at a governmental press conference in June 1961 when West German journalist Annemarie Doherr questioned GDR’s head of state Walter Ulbricht about border fortifications. He famously boasted that “nobody has the intention to erect a wall” only to have the GDR’s military close all borders and build walls and barbed wire barriers two months later. A period of separation began that was to last for over 29 years.

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Years later, in November 1989, at a time when civic protests in the GDR were becoming stronger, the GDR’s governmental spokespersons once again held one of their infamous press conferences. Political correspondents knew, and feared, the scenario which followed: an overly crowded room, flickering neon light and long-winded and monotonous declarations slowly read by governmental spokespeople. But this time a sensation occured. Shortly before the conference was due to end, government spokesperson Günter Schabowski – after being questioned by Italian and West German journal-

Photo: SSGT F. Lee Corkran - DoD photo,Wikimedia Commons

By Jan Niklas Kocks and Juliana Raupp

THE STORY OF PR

ists – proclaimed that the GDR’s citizens could now unrestrictedly travel over the still fortified border.

It later emerged that poor preparation caused him to give that information away too early – yet from that point, the demise of the Berlin Wall was unstoppable.

While events of political public relations acted as a catalyst for the building and demise of the GDR’s infamous border fortification, the history of political public relations in the vanished socialist state is still largely unexplored.

SOCIALIST PUBLIC RELATIONS – A COMMUNICATIVE OXYMORON? At first glance, the mere notion of socialist public relations appears as contradictory.

How can public relations possibly exist in such a system? Since the days of the classical ‘agora’ – the marketplace in ancient Athens in which citizens gathered together to publicly deliberate political and societal issues at stake – the existence of an independent public is understood as a constituent characteristic of democracies. It was in this marketplace that people were able to pursue their individual interests and to publicly advocate matters of relevance for them. This is often perceived as the birth of public relations: free citizens advocating individual interests and trying to convince their stakeholders and relevant publics. Such developments have lead many – including public relations’ founding father Albert Oeckl – to postulate a direct and reciprocal connection between public relations and democracy, stating that the former could only exist under the conditions of the latter. From this point of view, one would have to subsume public

communication in the decisively non-democratic GDR under the notion of propaganda.

Yet for many areas, this perception has clearly been contested. Various studies – pioneered by the works of Günter Bentele – have argued that public relations were very much in existence in the GDR’s socialist system. A variety of examples can be found in both the economic and cultural sector. While one might argue that democratic systems could not exist without some form of public relations – basically understood as the public advocacy of individual interests – the reverse is not true. There is a broad scientific consensus on the fact that democracy is not necessarily a precondition for public relations.

But what about political public relations? Did they exist, and if so, in which form? What role did they play in the GDR’s politics and how did those in charge actually understand them? In order to clarify these questions, we have conducted a qualitative analysis focusing on various accounts authored by those in charge of political communication in the GDR. In total, we have carried out an indepth analysis of 29 substantial documents. Due to the constitutional unity of government and state party in the GDR, which is a particularity of non-democratic socialist systems, we discuss governmental and political communication together.

POLITICAL COMMUNICATION IN THE GDR As our analysis shows political communication was of importance in the GDR right from the beginning. According to early accounts from those in charge, it was organised in a professional and centralised way and it also fulfilled an informational duty. Two years before the foundation of the GDR in 1949, the later state party SED had already

The history of political public relations in the vanished socialist state is still largely unexplored. extensively debated at its party conferences communicative measures aimed at improving relations between citizens and state. Communications were, according to the GDR’s leading communicators, to be objective and distinctly non-propagandistic; the latter was to improve their impact among the general population.

Initially, political communication was primarily used to distribute information. However, from the early 1950s on, it was also to serve the functions of education and agitation. Additionally, the Cold War conflict with west04/2014 COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR

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THE STORY OF PR

PR S RHETORICAL INHERITANCE For values-based public relations, communicators can look to at least one educator from the ancient world for inspiration.

By Charles Marsh

C

ompared with related disciplines such as advertising, public relations is a young profession infused with all the advantages and disadvantages of youth.

Like many adolescents, public relations has some degree of freedom to chart its future – and, again like many adolescents, it seeks role models to imitate. One model that shows continuing promise is classical rhetoric.

Classical rhetoric flourished in history’s first democracy, the city-state of Athens, the city of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. In that democracy, as in commerce today, relationships were fluid. Just as in modern economies, individuals and organisations required resources that they didn’t control: materials, votes, willingness to unite to resist opponents and more. To acquire those resources, they developed communication-based relationships. Classical rhetoric was more than persuasion: it was the art of building and maintaining essential relationships through language.

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A SCHOOL FOR HEROES In that Athens of long ago, three notable schools – universities, we’d call them today – existed, each with its own philosophy of rhetoric: Plato’s Academy, Aristotle’s Lyceum and the school of Isocrates.

Note that third name: Isocrates, not Socrates. In the 21st century, Isocrates surely is the least-known of the three ancient educators. Yet scholars today increasingly believe that, of the different models of classical rhetoric, Isocratean rhetoric holds the most promise as a model for modern public relations.

Who was this now-obscure rhetorician and what form of rhetoric did he advocate? Just as important, how did 04/2014 COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR

his version of rhetoric fare against the competing models of his morefamous rivals? Could Isocratean rhetoric really hold lessons for us today?

Isocrates began as a speechwriter for Athenian litigants, but he soon grew weary of combative, winner-

THE STORY OF PR

and Aristotle. Plato originally had little use for rhetoric.

To him, rhetoric was an instrument of deception, a “device of persuasion which will make one appear to … know better than those who know.” However, as he developed his idea of the philosopher-king – the introspective ruler capable of discerning the absolute truth of every situation – Plato begrudgingly condoned a limited form of rhetoric. True philosophers who had discovered absolute truth could then – and only then – use persuasive language to lead the uninformed masses to truth.

Platonic rhetoric thus enters many relationships with an “I’m right; you’re wrong” stance, and, by modern standards, quickly grows even more troublesome: the all-knowing philosopher is allowed to deceive in order to persuade.

In Republic, Plato writes that philosopher-kings (and only philosopher-kings) may lie: “It seems likely that our rulers will have to make considerable use of falsehood and deception for the benefit of their subjects.” While acknowledg-

Isocratean rhetoric is the values-driven discourse of responsible citizenship.

take-all rhetoric and relationships.

Turning his back on that confrontational model, he opened a school that became, in the words of 20thcentury scholar Edward Corbett, “the true fountainhead of humanistic rhetoric.” The Roman rhetorician Cicero offers a more dramatic account of the founding and impact of Isocrates’ school: “Then behold Isocrates arose, from whose school, as from the Trojan horse, none but real heroes proceeded.”

To appreciate Isocratean rhetoric, we should contrast it with the models of his more-famous rivals, Plato

ing that this deceptive “we know best” model of rhetoric does exist in today’s public relations, modern scholars have declined to recommend Platonic rhetoric.

Aristotelian rhetoric may sound more familiar to modern public relations professionals. Aristotle defined rhetoric as “the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.” Although he wrote, “We must not make people believe what is wrong,” Aristotle does discuss how to create a “misleading inference,” and he adds that sometimes “we must assert coincidences and accidents to have been intended.” Modern scholar Robert Wardy concludes that Aristotelian rhetoric “subordinates truth to victory.”

In Aristotle’s defense, we should note that he analysed the rhetoric that existed – not the rhetoric that he might prefer. However, despite Aristotle’s brilliant analysis of such enduring concepts as ethos, pathos and logos, modern public relations scholars have declined to endorse the deceptive “hired gun” aspects of the rhetoric Aristotle described. Cicero himself noted that Aristotelian rhetoricians were able to “reel off two speeches on opposite sides on every case.”

Unlike Plato and Aristotle, Isocrates did not write works about rhetoric. Instead, he wrote model essays for his students in which he occasionally would break the 04/2014 COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR

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THE BIG INTERVIEW Key communicators under the spotlight

DAVID SHING AOL’s digital prophet on content, creativity and embracing the new order.

Interview: Dafydd Phillips

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speak to people on my cell phone (no landline anymore). I text and email a lot and lastly I refer to tech industry experts via my favourite sites like TechCrunch, Engadget and HuffPost Tech. Translating these ideas and themes is the hard part!

Could you describe how your role fits into the AOL organisation – what does AOL want and expect from a digital prophet?

Photo: Gino DePinto

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In your job as digital prophet, where do you look for new trends and how do you choose which ones to champion?

Great question, and the answer is the opposite of what most people expect. My role is to distil digital trends so that brands, agencies and the industry can take advantage of them. I look for innovative trends, emerging ideas and themes, and lastly I look at mainstream trends. The hierarchy on how I find these starts with my tribe. People I respect who are inventors, disruptors and thinkers in their fields, who I regularly meet with face to face. Artists, fashion designers, musicians and scientists. I also speak a lot with early teens to understand their habits and behaviours. I still

THE BIG INTERVIEW

deliver innovative ideas and creative solutions from ideation through to delivery. I also work with many of AOL’s internal brands and marketing to provide them an independent point of view.

AOL owns The Huffington Post, Engadget and TechCrunch. Is this an indication that content is the bottom line for the postTime Warner AOL? As stated, AOL blends both culture and code. Specifically high quality editorially focused content at the cultural cusp of their category. That is The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Engadget, Makers, Stylist etc. But equally as important is the code that drives the reinvention of brand engagement through unique advertising opportunities – at scale and efficiently made possible by technology. That is where AOL One delivers efficiently across the advertising cycle by adding technology to make people and workflow more effective.

For a corporate content creator it really does mean the quality bar is being raised because of consumer empowerment.

You’ve said that brands have between five and nine opportunities to get consumers to fall in love with them. Could you expand on this?

I read a statistic recently that said people would only refer five to nine brands per year to one another. Surprisingly this number seems low with all the digital amplifiers today.

Understandably my role is unique.

But so is AOL. We blend culture and code by delivering both brands to people (advertising) and people to brands (destinations). Most of my work leans into the peopleto-brands side of the business. Although I am known for delivering keynote speeches across various territories where AOL is present, I also work very closely with agencies and brands directly on behalf of AOL to

What is the Age of Context?

The Age of Context refers to a couple of things. Building brands aligned to people’s passions provides them the information they crave, delivered in the way they want to receive it through over-the-top-content, desktop, mobile, tablet and wearables. This is only going to become even more contextual as mobile, data, sensors and locationbased technology – all combined with social – continue to develop.

People are their own curators and creators. Where does this leave the corporate content creator – is their any chance of influencing how your content is received and contextualised?

It is indeed an exciting time. For a corporate content creator it really does mean the quality bar is being raised because of this consumer empowerment. It also means we 04/2014 COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR

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STORY TELLER Looking at the important questions of communication

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STORY TELLER

A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE Finding the value of diversity in public relations “Power and diversity” by Lee Edwards page 58 – 61

“Value perspectives” by Dana W. White page 62 – 65

“Going beyond demographics” by Natalie T. J. Tindall and Kristen Everett page 66 – 69

“Towards a diversity and inclusion agenda” by Katarina Grönwall page 70 – 73

“Deeds not words” by Michael Hastings page 74 – 77

“Bridging the gender divide” by Linda Childers Hon page 78 – 81

“In the driving seat of diversity” Interview with Bill McAndrews page 82 – 85

“A multiplicity of ideas” by Martin von Arronet page 86 – 89

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AN ORGANISATION DOESN’T CHANGE OR UPDATE ITS BRAND EVERY DAY. BUT WHEN IT DOES, YOU WANT TO MANAGE EVERY SINGLE ASPECT OF THAT MOST IMPORTANT INTANGIBLE ASSET. With us, your brand implementation and management is in

creative processes can be challenging. But the execution will

safe hands. Having executed 1,300 projects and programs

also have many implications across all your brand touch points.

over the last 22 years, the processes regarding execution

VIM Group has 10 international offices around the world.

and organisation have become a specialty of ours. Managing

Want to know more? Call us at +44 20 36 08 61 70

VIM GROUP

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