I came across an article on Euractiv which I’d missed earlier this summer entitled Business warned against ‘uncoordinated’ PA strategies which makes interesting reading. In short, it states that aggressive communications can put companies at risk and that Public Affairs and Corporate Communications strategies should be more closely aligned.
I could not agree with the latter more (or the former for that matter, but I’ll save that topic for a rainy day.) I’d probably even take it a step further. I think all communications activities, including marketing, should be under the same roof and closely integrated. Maybe I’m oversimplifying, but how can a legislator take a lobbyist seriously if he’s saying one thing while an EU media campaign is saying another and the ad in a trade magazine aimed at customers something else?
The web also makes integration more crucial than it’s been before. How? In particular, the nature of search (how +90% of information is accessed online) is such that it’s harder to compartmentalise according to target audiences online than it is offline. Look up a key term on Google and you’ll find the same thing wherever you’re a customer or policy-maker, pauper or CEO.
So what’ll the landscape look like in a few years? Even more so than is the case in forward-thinking organisations today, communications, be it PR, marketing, PA, advertising and so on, will be in the same building, have one boss and one strategy; and what’s more, they’ll be more closely connected to the “business” operations arm of the organisation than is the case today.
Steffen Moller 