Four Suspicions about Corporate Communications

Published June - July 2008

By David Moorcroft - Senior VP, Corporate Communications (retired), Royal Bank of Canada

This is a synopsis of an article to be published in the June/July 2008 issue of Strategic Communication Management, published by Melcrum. Do these observations resonate with you?

1. Strategy is overrated

I’m a great believer in the value of a sound strategy that’s clearly linked to bottom-line organizational goals and objectives.

I’ve spent many years developing, refining, using and writing about a process for producing a clear and easy-to-use communication strategy that ensures resources are used in a focused and productive fashion. But I’ve come to the conclusion that we’ve put too much emphasis on strategy and not enough on implementation.

Going forward, I think we need far less management consultant speak and marketing rhetoric in our strategies and more hands-on, practical ideas on how we can achieve our goals. When we’re hiring and building teams, we need to ensure we have people who can implement our grand scheme because that’s where the money is made.

As Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, once said in an interview (I’m loosely paraphrasing): “If I had to choose between keeping the strategy department and the implementation department, I’d always choose the latter.”

2. Branding has replaced reputation

If brand is the promise, reputation is the delivery of the promise. The former used to be the purview of the marketing and advertising folks, while protecting the latter used to be the domain of the corporate communication folks. But the two have been combined in many organizations, often with the marketing and/or advertising people in charge.

I worry that this situation will lead to short-term decision making that will eventually erode the social capital that organizations have built up with their stakeholders over many decades by doing the right thing for society.

Perhaps I’m being naïve, but I thought the separation of marketing and/or advertising duties from those in public affairs (the separation of church and state) always provided the essential checks and balances necessary to sell products today while ensuring a good reputation for the future.

3. The PR profession is undervalued

Some of the toughest and most valuable jobs in organizations today are found in the PR department. Communicators are expected to have a solid understanding of the industry they work for, a grasp of financial, accounting and regulatory matters, act like management consultants and be partners with functional groups like HR in communicating key policy matters and increasing employee engagement.

And when there are public issues that threaten the organization, it’s the PR folks who develop the communication strategy, publicly represent the organization and engage with stakeholder groups. Yet many heads of communication don’t report to the CEO, sit on the management committee or even have a senior executive position.

A friend of mine who once worked as the head of PR for an international bank and is now the COO of a major public utility once said the senior communications role is one of the most misunderstood and most undervalued in many organizations.

4. Social media needs more thought

Social media is fun, immediate and cool, so it should be used by everyone for everything, right? Wrong. Communicators need to get a better grip on the advantages and disadvantages of social media and develop a plan that makes sense for their organization.

Blogs are a great way to engage stakeholders in a dynamic environment, but they’re also a medium that can create regulatory, disclosure and legal risks. Podcasts can supply stakeholders with easy to consume information, but they can also waste people’s time. Online marketplaces can make comparative shopping and commercial transactions easier, or they can confuse and irritate people.

The bottom line is that social media is about giving, sharing and exchanging in a timely and thoughtful manner, and not about taking, dictating and self-promoting in a reckless fashion. This principle needs to be part of any social media strategy.

Source: Mandy Thatcher, Editor, The Source for Communicators

Network PR, publishers of PR Influences, is the first Australian pr agency to provide online pr, including search engine optimisation. Contact Network PR to find out how you can integrate online pr into your communications mix by starting with an Online Health Assessment.