Clicks, tweets, likes and shares offer marketers vast amounts of customer detail, alongside footfall sales and receipts.  Then there’s copious reports and papers on financials, market sentiment and even trendspotting, to be considered.  And all this on top of the anecdotal, on-the-ground feedback proffered by sales teams and mystery shoppers.

From a marketing and communications perspective, this deluge throws up a two particularly serious issues:-

Firstly, how do you distinguish between the peripheral and the really useful data?  Writing in his blog for the Economist Schumpeter (www.economist.com/node/21542154) says that the “value of things is largely determined by their rarity”.  Applying this truism to the data deluge point and it would seem that the data of most value to a company is therefore not necessarily the everyday output from the organisation’s daily marketing activity.  So where is the really useful data and how can it be gleaned?

In a world gone cyber-crazy, brands today have so many touch points with customers, the resulting data noise is tumultuous.  And the current obsession with social commentary is in danger of rendering other data inferior.

Ironically, the stakeholder conundrum of the Noughties has evolved and even a few loud activists, now on-line, can be a serious drain on a brand’s communication effort.  Meanwhile other – often much greater in number – customers’ passivity goes unchecked.  Social media has irrevocably transformed the volume of the consumer voice, and in the main undeniably for the better.  But it has arguably followed that he who shouts loudest and most often will not only get heard but also receive a disproportionate level of attention with respect to their actual value to the brand.  Distinguishing your data is a priority issue, and a critical communication issue that must not go unchecked.

The devil really is in the detail, or the detailed implication of the data in this case.  So the second issue is how to extract genuine intel from the select data, and convert this into useful and valuable knowledge that can be embedded and utilised in the company’s marketing strategy.  This then in turn can determine an organisation’s communications strategy, and in particular identify which audiences to deal with and in what manner and should be a key business endeavour.  .

Paradoxically, the communication by-lines of marketing days gone by still resonate in 2012:  The customer, data and content are all still king, it’s just the dais that’s changed.

SH

Vodafone’s decision in May to relocate its call centre operations attracted criticism when it was reported that some employees learned of the decision by e-mail [1]. This was compounded by an organised campaign of opposition to the decision that focused on the commercial justification for the move within the context of the overall financial performance of the Irish operations [2].

Media coverage of Talk Talk’s announcement in September saw reporting focus on the issues surrounding the abruptness of the announcement and the lack of notice to the government [3]. While Aviva’s announcement last month also provoked condemnation related to the lack of clarity around the impact on employees [4].

Clearly the communication of such bad news will never be welcomed by either affected employees or the government of the day, as testified by the examples drawn. All the more reason that the PR professional tasked with developing the announcement communications plan seeks to ensure that there is no exposure to reputational damage from accusations of insensitivity, inappropriateness or uncertainty in the delivery of the announcement.

In two of the cases mentioned above there was the potential for negative spill-over from the redundancy announcement on the sponsorship activities of the companies concerned, an area that the PR professional also has a responsibility to protect.

From our experience the priorities for ensuring an appropriate announcement that minimises the impact on the client’s corporate reputation are the communication of a transparent and sound commercial rationale for the decision and ensuring that the delivery of the announcement is sensitive to the concerns of all stakeholders, especially affected employees.

EB

Keating & Associates Director, Emmet Barrett, will present the company’s experience of and insights into communicating redundancy announcements at the Legal-Island Annual Review of Employment Law taking place on Wednesday 16^th November in the Radisson Blu Hotel at Dublin Airport and on Tuesday 29^th November at the Stillorgan Park Hotel in Dublin. Details available at http://www.legal-island.ie/.

[1]http://www.independent.ie/national-news/leading-companies-shed-200-jobs-2660234.html

[2] http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0527/vodafone.html

[3] http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0912/1224303945684.html

[4] http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/1020/1224306125735.html

One of the most interesting proposals is one which was raised at the Labour party conference in Liverpool recently. The idea of ‘like for like redress’ as they put it, means “mistakes and falsehoods on the front page receive apologies and retraction on the front page”.

It’s surely no coincidence that in the wake of this, the Daily Mail has followed the lead of the likes of the Guardian by starting its own corrections and clarifications page (now being watched eagerly by liberal media bloggers), showing a hitherto unheard of desire for self regulation.

Such a rule would clearly be of value if it does act as a deterrent to careless or poorly sourced reporting. If it makes media think twice before running the sort of stories they did on Chris Jeffries[1] or the Sun’s infamous Hillsborough coverage[2] then obviously it’s a positive move.

It remains to be seen how it would work in practice though. Although in theory, if you are wronged by the media, you want everyone to know you were wronged, in reality one might think twice about having your picture back on the front page or the false story repeated again, even with a mea culpa. Clear guidelines would need to laid out for any such redress to ensure it actually benefits the wronged party.

This is the problem with any retrospective punishment – the damage has already been done. Of course the only proper solution is better care in journalism in the first place, honest mistakes are one thing, but careless reporting of and/or knowing misrepresentation of the facts simply shouldn’t be acceptable.

JB

Ireland is currently in the throes of a leadership battle. Sure, the arguments in the media tend to focus on candidates’ political, legal or social prowess. But the jury is undoubtedly unanimous in the belief that what Ireland needs in a President is a leader.

The climate in which this debate rages however, is terse. Whilst The Institute of Leadership & Management has conducted research that finds trust in CEOs marginally higher than previous years, there is still a gap between employees trust in their line manager and trust in their CEO [1].

The deficit in leadership qualities is evident in the commentary on the issue, as case after case is cited as testament to where Ireland’s leaders – in business and public life – are failing their audiences.

Trust is a key element of good leadership but is arguably thin on the ground at the moment. A look at the antecedents of trust – ability, understanding, fairness, integrity and consistency – explains why this is the case. Trust is not an acquirable commodity, but rather must be earned by leaders, and sustained through their actions.

Harvard Business Review also suggests there’s a need for maturity in leaders [2]. This is not about being ageist, but accepting the truism that age equates to experience. And experience matters.

On this point let’s be clear, where experience may be lacking it is critical that support is sought and taken. And from where and from whom leaders take advice is of paramount importance.

We are a nation of talkers but not necessarily walkers. Consultants abound and the leaders of today and tomorrow need to be selective in the counsel they keep. One option is to find a mentor or “personal board of directors” – an individual or group of individuals from whom valued and valuable opinion can be gleaned, and with whom you can sound out your views and options.

Good leaders know that, contrary to being an indication of weakness, seeking out advice is actually a sign of wise and stealthy leadership.

SH

[1] www.i-l-m.com/research-and-comment/trust-business.aspx

[2] http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/10/we_need_more_mature_leaders.html

In marketing circles we often debate how a celebrity’s association with a brand can affect it.  But what about your customers’ ethics and how they can impact negatively on your brand, as is the case with Blackberry Messenger being used by UK rioters last week? [1]

A whistle-stop tour of the brand sees Blackberry in the early/mid Noughties enjoying an enviable position as a ‘destination’ mobile phone for business users…  By the late Noughties it’s challenged by a plethora of alternatives… but then come 2010, it fortuitously finds itself as the phone of choice for a previously untargeted but nonetheless attractively large youth audience…. Now it’s reeling again as the brand is tainted by some of its audience’s use regarding the riots.

Of course the situation is exacerbated by the fact that it’s a technology / media brand and popular wisdom in some quarters dictates these guys are responsible for all modern day ills! So what can Blackberry do?  Or in terms of learning, what could it have done, or can other brands do, to mitigate the issue?

Having a visible Code of Ethics is a good starter.  Not some lip service within the Annual Report, or as an obscure link on the website that’s as hard to find as the RyanAir helpline number.  Many brands have stated principles and values but these won’t be of real practical use if they’re merely static and stated ideals.  Brands need to be upfront about their values and ethics, making it clear what the brand stands for, and by default, what it does not.  This then is a tangible and acceptable hook on which a defence can be built when it’s required.  Critically, having this before a crisis strikes means it is viewed as sincere rather than smacking of knee-jerk ethics and platitudes created to negate criticism.

Secondly, media and other brands could do well to state within their terms and conditions that the brand will assist the authorities if requested to do so.  This flags the brand’s intention to act and pre-empts customer objections to revealing data, as happened with Blackberry and other brands in the past –Vodafone, Facebook, Twitter.

And thirdly, it is inevitable that the problem can be part of the solution.  In this case BM is being used to facilitate the clean up in the same way as it was used to communicate the riots.  Brands cannot disassociate themselves with the negatives easily or quickly, but they can, and they should pro-actively communicate the positives.  And should do so constantly and not just reactively.

Good crisis management is about pre-empting and mitigating the risks.  To be fair I’m sure no one at Blackberry would have predicted riots of the scale of last week.  But then risk management is about preparing for the unexpected.  I remember drafting a crisis plan for a UK company and including terrorist attack as a highly unlikely risk; that was in February 2001…

SH

[1]http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/sectors/retail/retailers-targeted-by-rioters-suffer-fall-in-brand-perception/3029330.article

Andrew Hill “Riots must not kill Blackberry Messenger” Financial Times, August 15th 2011

Interestingly their machinations on the subject are slightly different in that Unilever reduced its marketing spend to €3bn and gave it a serious efficiency remit, and P&G increased its spend by 11% of net sales but deployed it differently, with a brand building focus rather than promotions.

But what both approaches focused on was the long term branding to support their competitiveness despite, or indeed, because of the current difficult economic and price issues.

So the message here to Irish companies – both large and small – is therefore to look at how your marketing is working for you.  And especially to ask the question “Is it working hard enough?”

Seeking external marketing advice can be a good investment but you must ensure the counsel you pay for is reliable and objective… There’s been too much vested interest selling going on in Ireland so caveat emptor!

To be truly impactful marketing must infiltrate the value chain at every level:  Good employer brands generate good levels of employee productivity; well marinated and communicative relationships with suppliers can lead to greater levels of service and discounts; and effective marketing can secure customer satisfaction, attrition and loyalty.

Of course good advice can be about action or direction.  And whilst many companies may want, for personnel or financial reasons, to keep marketing’s implementation in-house, it’s well worth considering mentor or strategic support which can be both invaluable and cost effective.

The current business climate is undeniably difficult, but professional guidance can help brands navigate these turbulent times singling out specific stakeholder groups as required.

Too often marketing is directed at certain groups leaving other audience in a communication wilderness.  But an important facet of modern business is the expansion of all brands’ stakeholder set, each of whom needs to be recognized, assessed and communicated with appropriately.

An objective eye cast over your business and stakeholders, can glean important insights that may impact on your business from not just a reputational perspective, but also with regard to your competitiveness, and the bottom line.

It can be a quantifiable investment, because the power of focused marketing cannot be under estimated.  It’s worth its weight in gold… and we all know how gold is looking at the moment!

SH

Some commentators, including the usually flawless Charlie Brooker, have pointed out that Miliband is by no means the only public figure to have undertaken an interview this way, and lays the blame squarely at the door of PR people[2] who he says “must have figured that since the interview would be whittled down to one 10-second soundbite for that evening’s news bulletins, and since they didn’t want to risk their man saying anything ill-advised or vaguely interesting, they might as well merely ignore all the questions and impersonate an iPod with just one track on it.”

The answer from this desk to that point is ‘well, of course’. Anyone who has worked in the PR industry for a reasonable length of time will have experienced that moment where a pre-recorded interview has gone exactly to plan, only for it to be broadcast with the most pertinent (at least from our point of view) part of a client’s response to an issue left on the editing room floor and you left with more questions to answer.

Let’s be clear, we aren’t talking about fudging a hard hitting toe-to-toe question and answer session here, we are talking about making sure when a pre-recorded interview is edited for news, that an accurate representation of views is given.

These days our audiences have an increasingly short attention span (140 characters for several million people) and we have less and less time and space to communicate our message. When you are faced with an issue where it is absolutely essential that one key viewpoint on an issue is made, ‘staying on message’ is vital.

No, it shouldn’t go to the extremes that we see in this clip. There is a certain expectation that once a person gets to a particular level in public life that they will have developed communications skills that take them beyond simply repeating their key messages, and rightly so.

However we should understand that if someone is repeating one thing over and over again; perhaps it is simply because it’s the one thing they need people to hear.

JB

Hill refers to P&G’s high-tech and “high touch” research, and the FMCG big boys certainly appreciate the value of turning stats into meaningful data. But not all organisations share this mindset.

The true value of a data set is it’s correlation with other sets and the context in which they all sit. Juxtaposing the survey that says your product is great, with the anecdotes and on-line reviews that say it’s not, can reveal telling points regarding the benefits and flaws of your product. But you have to be open to the criticism, and more importantly, you have to be listening.

And there’s lots to listen to: The social media networks also offer management a rich and varied source of information – and one that’s fast gaining traction as Twitter et al expand their services. This should be utilised and the information analysed alongside other data sources to expand the typically rhetorical PR survey that says your product’s great.

Ultimately in this Information Age we should be mindful that the public, customers and consumers don’t just want to be heard, but genuinely AND demonstrably listened to.

SH

Communication may well be top of the agenda again but the critical rules of engagement have changed.
Stakeholder activism dictates that any and all communication put forward by an organisation must be transparent and honest. Whitewash precedes backlash and denial is not the best form of defence unless it is wholly true.

What this means in the day to day, is that organisations and brands must first objectively interrogate their comms plans and not automatically default to either the historical or typical messages. The messages that resonate in this new Age of Communications are not the PR platitudes of old, and brands must move on from these if they are to secure a sustainable place in the consumers’ minds and pockets.

Secondly a business’ practices from marketing to customer care to supply chain management should be open and visible as concerned consumers will seek out the information they want and publish it accordingly. Witness Nestle’s issue with buying milk from farms owned by Mugabe’s wife, and the public outcry that gathered huge support on Facebook, resulting in Nestle changing its position.

And where these practices are articulated, as indeed they should be, in guidelines and codes such as customer charters, marketing codes and CSR policies, these should be accessible and not ‘hidden’ in obscure corners of the website or Annual Report.

Thirdly, relevant partnerships, associations and interests should be declared. For example Newstalk’s coverage of the O’Brien O’Reilly debacle was peppered with references to O’Brien’s ownership of the station. Conversely the issue of major brands (quietly) manufacturing own label products sold on at a cheaper price, grates with consumers as it begs the question – why am I paying a premium then?

With so much information being accessible to a wily public, there are few places for organisations to hide. Better to craft your communications strategy on this basis than to build it on privacy’s quicksand.

SH

Where once, a demonstration of the commercial rationale for a proposed restructuring programme was a fundamental communications requirement, now it seems that businesses are comfortable to make such announcements without concern for demonstrating the commercial need; that it seems is taken for granted. And for the most part, it is.

However, communications still has a critical role to play in assisting companies achieve a successful outcome to a restructuring exercise, especially one that involves a significant headcount reduction within an organisation that expects to re-build public, shareholder and employee confidence in its future structure and strategy. From a PR professional’s perspective, the announcement rationale was merely one element of a programme of planned communications which would support the restructuring initiative to the realisation of the new commercial agenda.

A case in point is the media focus in recent months on the implications for AIB employees of the proposed group restructuring programme, as yet to be announced by the bank and approved by the EU. In April reports of a leaked e-mail from the bank’s chairman David Hodgkins claimed that the bank had reached the final stages of its strategic review and a restructuring programme would require “change of a magnitude never before undertaken by AIB”[1]. No-one was arguing the need for the restructuring but instead attention was focussed on the bank’s future and the uncertainty felt by employees.

While a figure on the expected headcount reduction wasn’t mentioned, some sources are already predicting up to 2,000 jobs could go, mainly from the retail arm of the business. AIB has declined to comment on what it calls at this stage “pure speculation” but stated that it would prefer to keep all redundancies on a voluntary basis. Achieving a headcount reduction of that magnitude via voluntary applications will be a challenge, especially in a stagnant labour market with few alternative opportunities.

But Mr Hodgkins’s challenge is no different to that faced by the broad cross section of Irish companies as the significant contraction in the domestic market is forcing them to right-size their operations.

Planning and implementing an effective communications programme around such decisions will have a major influence on employees’ reaction to the proposals and the effort required to achieve acceptance. The PR and communications function will have a significant role to play in helping to win employee consensus and support.

If applied strategically, communications can help to diffuse pressure points in the course of negotiation, win public support and dampen opposition, create momentum in the course of achieving a change and protect the company’s reputation if dispute arises.

EB

Next week Keating & Associates Director, Emmet Barret, joins with former Labour Court Chairman John Horgan and HR consultant Niall Saul to impart their many years of consulting expertise in supporting restructuring programmes at the Legal-Island course – Dealing and Negotiating with Employee Representatives – An essential Skills Masterclass in Restructuring.  Details available at http://www.legal-island.ie/.

[1] http://news.businessandfinance.efinancialcareers.ie/NEWS_ITEM/newsItemId-31486

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