Corporate communication

Corporate communication

What’s corporate communication?

Definition 1

Corporate communication is the orchestration of all the instruments in the field of organizational identity (communications, symbols and behaviours of organizational members) in such an attractive and realistic manner as to create or maintain a positive reputation for groups with which the organization has an interdependent relationship”

Definition 2

Corporate communication is a strategic management function that offers a framework for the effective coordination of all internal and external communication with the overall purpose of establishing and maintaining favorable reputations with stakeholder groups upon which the organization is dependent”

Strategic management

Broader focus:

• 1) The organization as a whole. Corporate communication puts its focus not on single brands or products, its about the corporation as a whole, the values, personalities ad objectives.
• 2) Task of presenting the organization to all its key stakeholders (internal and external) > integrated approach.

“Corporate” refers to the business setting in which corporate communication emerged as a separate function internal external.

But also to the idea of “body”: unified way of looking at and communication disciplines and stakeholders and their integration.

• 3) Strategic objective of building, maintaining and protecting the company’s reputation. The survival of any organization is based on how stakeholders see the organization, its vital to build, maintain and protect a good reputation.
• 4) Managerial activities next to tactical skills and activities. Such as planning, coordinating counseling CEOs and senior managers and producing and disseminating messages.

Examples

Example 1: Campari red Diaries

They try to give emphasis on their values, it’s a particular way of communicating. Attributing importance to the brand with a ell produced movie trailer

Example 2: Apple business

They focus on the values of simplicity, sharing ideas and creativity. The video shows how to use the products without being too direct.

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Corporate communication key concepts

Mission

Overriding purpose in line with the values and expectations of stakeholders. It relates to the question ‘what business are we in today?’

Vision

Is more about the future, what we want to become. It is the desired future state, the aspiration of the organization

Corporate objectives

They are usually set by the managements, they provide more precise goals for the activities of the business. They are a statement of overall aims in line with the overall purpose.

Corporate strategies

The ways corporates objectives are to be achieved, they are the long term plans. How we reach our objectives?

Corporate identity

The profile and values communicated by the organization, the way the company presents itself to the public. How the organization seeks to establish. This identity in reinforced by communication (logos, slogans, etc.)

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Corporate image

Its the immediate set of associations of an individual in response to communications from a particular organization in a particular moment. (if I mention apple, I immediately associate it with a personal idea) to investigate the image a company can check the reviews.

Corporate reputation

Its the collective representations of past images, after a certain amount of time. Reputation is very specific.

Stakeholder

Any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of a company. they are involved in the business of the organization, directly or indirectly.

Market

A defined group fro whom a product is or may be in demand (and for whom an organization creates products)

Communication

The tactics and media that are used, all kind of communications activities implemented by organization internal and externaly. Comm means using more traditional medias (tv, papers) and digital media.

Integration

The act of coordinating all communications so that the corporate identity is effectively and consistently communicated to external and internal groups. The define feature of corp comm is the integrated approach, all form of communication are carefully linked together and coordinated.

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Trends and developments in corporate communication

Organizations started to realize that public relations are not enough, there was a need to communicate informations to the public and the stakeholders.

1900s-1970s

Until the 70s there was a predominance of public relations and media relation as a tactical Sales Sponsorship/Direct support. Stakeholders started to Advertising promotions publicity marketing demand more information from Issues & Digital/ Employee/ CSR Comm. & Media Event the company: emergence of the Investor Community Public Affairs Crisis Online Internal Relations Management Relations Relations Management Comm. Comm corporate communication function. Communication was International/Global Comm mainly external.

1980s-2000s

Corporate communication became vital in the organizations such as other departments in companies. Positioning and reputation management became important, to be present in the strategic tool mind of people with a very good reputation was vital. Communication became a That period saw a powerful restructuring trend in many companies where every function in the organization was assessed based in its accountability and contribution to the organization.

Corporate communication became an integrated department of the previous separated disciplines.

2000s-present

Organizations became primary concerned with ideas such s ‘corporate identity’, ‘corporate reputation’ and ‘corporate branding’. When individuals hold an organization in esteem, value its reputation and decide to buy from, work for, they are more likely to become genuine advocates and supporters.

The focus with engagement is not merely on shaping opinions or perceptions, but on the organization being transparent and acting in character in order to bring across its distinctive identity and in a way that convince individuals to become advocates.

In the other hand, if an organization say something and then act in a different way, this lack of transparency can cause damage to the company.

Stakeholder engagement became vital. It is not merely about sharing opinions and perspectives: interactivity means that organizations must be acting in character to bring across transparent identity in an authentic way and fostering stakeholders to become genuine advocates.

A brief history of communication

Phase 1: industrial revolution - 1930s

Any small or large organization in history has used communications, corporate communication has always been there. But in a more modern connotation it started with the industrial revolution, an era of mass production and consumption. Organizations started to employ professionals to manage communications and publicity.

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Lippmann, Walter in 1933, states that the development of the publicity man is a clear sign that organizations started to realize to they needed more professionalism in order to communicate right. The approach of this first communicators can be expressed in the phrase ‘the public be damned’. People were not prepared to communications from organizations and they wanted to be entertained by them. Advertisement was very exaggerated and sometimes unethical, and governments were not paying attention on limiting the messages. Communications was an Activity based on publicity, promotions and selling activities. It was conducted by press agents, promoters and propagandists and played on gullible public who wanted to be entertained.

After a few years something started to change, the muckrakers were investigative journalists, people devoted to expose scandals associated with government or organisations. They helped to raise public awareness against unethical and harmful practices. For example the monopoly of standard Oil.

Corporations realised that these journalist were successful and they had to fight back, starting to hiring advertising agents to promote product, to compete for the public attention and doing it right.

Phase 2: 1930s-1980s

In these years there was an economic reform in the US and UK. There was public skepticism on organisations. All these press agencies were brought in house, not anymore as consultants. They realised they needed them all the time, starting to develop professional expertise. Public relations and marketing emerge as two separate external communication disciplines.

Marketing was seen as strictly related to market and profits. Public relations was different, they focused on all the others stakeholders, in order for them to not interfere with profits.

Phase 3: from the 80s

Companies started to integrate PR and marketing because they were seen as connected.

Kotler, this way of thinking was shared by who sad that «there is a genuine need to develop a new paradigm in which these two subcultures [public relations and marketing] work most effectively in the best interest of the organisation and the publics it serves»

Corporate communication results from the effort to integrate all forms of communication in a company, the idea was to work more on the relationships and overlaps of PR and marketing. We call this new perspective, an Umbrella management function.

Models for the relationship between marketing and PR

A) before the 80s they were separate bodies with different objectives and activities. Marketing deals with markets and public relations deals with all the publics (excluding customers and consumers).

B) Very common also today. The two areas are separate but theres some overlap. [ex. MPR: use public relations tools (events) for marketing reasons]. Branded content: features both product related as well as general interest content. Netflix uses the content of women inmates for ads without naming the show. ->

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Corporate advertising, marketing PR, corporate PR, Mass media advertising are examples of overlapping between the two areas.

C) PR is an instrument of marketing and marketing communication. An example is IMC, integrated marketing communication, where PR is reduced to activities of product publicity and sponsorship, ignoring its wider remit in communicating to employees, investors, communities, the media and the government.

D) Marketing is an instrument of PR. Marketing’s role of satisfying customers is seen as only part of a wider public relations effort to satisfy the multiple publics and stakeholders of an organisation. An example is Strategic public relations.

E) There is no distinction anymore, this is usually called corporate communication.

Drivers for integration

Why there was this evolution and merging?

1. Market and environment based drivers

An organisation has several stakeholders (employees, investors etc.). The same individual can be part of different groups, working for a company and investing on another. Its very important to pay attention to these overlaps. This also implies that what I communicate internally, must be aligned with external communication. People now are more active, they want to know what the company does and why. They now pretend greater transparency.

2. Communication-based drivers

We are bombarded today by a lot of messages, advertisement, information. Organisation want to stand out in this confusion. Integrated communication can help with a one identity message repeated and repeated to emerge from the clutter.

Companies realised that they have so many media at their disposal, so many opportunities. Traditional media became really expensive (ads on tv), company became then to use more social media, because they are cheaper and more effective.

3. Organisational drivers

They need to become more efficient and accountable, communication have to show the contribution to the company compared to its costs.

It has become important to have one strategic direction and propose trough consolidation.

You can really exploit the overlaps between PR and marketing, you can increase the skills, tools, etc.

Examples of integrated campaigns

Safety video for AirNZ about Lord of the rings. They integrated many communication tool such as social media, contests, advertising, etc.

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Organisation of corporate communication

There’s usually one department directed by a CCO (corporate communication officer), under him there are other departments under his command. Other senior managers can give very important inputs to the manager, he needs to listen to them and contribute to the final result.

Corporate communication is a management framework to guide and coordinate marketing communications and public relations. Within this framework, coordination and decision making take place between practitioners from various public relations and marketing communication disciplines.

Each of these disciplines may be used separately and on their own for public relations or marketing purposes. For this reason organisations increasingly view and manage them together from a holistic organisational or corporate perspective with the company’s reputation in mind. Many organisations have promoted corporate communication practitioners to higher positions in the organisation’s hierarchical structure. These higher positions in the organisation’s hierarchy enable corporate communication practitioners to coordinate communication from a strategic level in the organisation in order to build, maintain and protect the company’s reputation with its stakeholders.

Vertical structure

There is a very clear chain of command, the ones a the top give orders and commands to the ones at the bottom. Task and activities are divided and arranged into departments. The way how they are divided is up to the different companies.

The CCO reports directly to the CEO and the senior management team (or is even a member of the team).

The solid vertical lines that connect the boxes on an organization chart depict this vertical structure and the authority relationships involved. Within such vertical lines, the occupant of the higher position has the authority to direct and control the activities of the occupant of the lower position.

The communication department is a staff function at corporate headquarters from where it can advise the senior decision-making team, and that the most senior communication practitioner has a direct reporting or advisory relationship to the CEO or even a seat on the executive board.

The vertical structure divides each organization’s primary tasks into smaller tasks and activities, with each box on an organization chart representing a position assigned to undertake a unique, detailed portion of the company’s overall mission.

Such vertical specialization, and the spreading out of tasks over different departments, however, requires some coordination or integration of work process. (this coordination is achieved trought the so called horizontal structures)

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Horizontal structure

In order to manage all units an sub-units in necessary to have cross-functional and lateral coordination mechanism, people need to share knowledge, contents, ideas. They have to work across all the departments, to give guidance to all the bodies of the organisation.

This system works on mechanisms:

• Multi-functional teams, they collect people from different areas and work together. They can be permanent or task-force types.
• Standardised work process, written documentation about who does what and how (flow charts, process maps and checklists). This mechanism institutionalises processes of integration, thus making the organisation less dependent on certain individuals, facilitates continuous improvements of the process of integration.
• Informal channels, ways to share knowledge and ideas such as email, phones, coffee machines, canteen, meetings. Companies can facilitate such informal communications by placing communication professionals physically close to one another.
• Council meetings, formal way of meetings, a place to discuss strategic communication issues and performance evaluations. It usually consists of representative of every department who meet to discuss the strategic issues concerning communication and review their past performance.
• Communication guidelines, practical work procedure, design regulations (selected logos, colors, fonts). Such guidelines may range from agreed-on work procedures (whom to contact, formatting of messages, etc) to more general design regulations on how to apply logo types and which colors to use.

Communication strategy (6)

The process of communication strategy

• 1) Bringing stakeholder reputations in line with the vision of the organization, sometimes stakeholders have a perception of the organization (corporate reputation) far from the desired one (vision), the perception must be close to the one wanted by the company.
• 2) Reinforcing existing reputations of stakeholders if broadly in line with how the organization wants itself to be seen.

A communication strategy involves the formulation of a desired position for the organization in terms of how it wants to be seen by its different stakeholders groups.

The paradigms of the process of strategy-making

1) Rational planning mode: continental make tyres. Same message for all audiences. Objectives are set out and methodically worked out into comprehensive action plans.

2) Intuitive visionary: or emotional level, objectives are set out and methodically worked out as a more flexible, intuitive or visionary process.

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3) Incremental emergent: or ex. Ceres they use what happens to explain their personality. The process of strategy formation is rather continuous and iterative.

Strategy fo