Category: Communications

Avoiding the temptation to do it all

The web offers infinite publication space on multiple platforms at zero cost other than time. Result? Busy organisations communicating everything anyone does a thousand times, just because they can.

Most of the time it’s a mistake caused by two instincts:

  1. The belief that – surely – plenty of people, somewhere, will pick up your material and be interested, given that there are millions of people surfing all the time.
  2. Thinking that because Mr. Hotshot X is considered very clever indeed in your organisation or HQ spent a lot of time and effort on a great launch, obviously everyone else will love them/it too.

The truth? The fact that it’s easy to surf will make it harder to push your material, not easier, because there’s a hell of a lot of competition and consequently, people will find something else which they like better unless you have a good story and communicate it well. Remember, the web is SEARCH – not headline – based.

Meaning that you MUST put yourself in your target’s shoes. Imagine you’re them and think: “what do I like, what will make me laugh, what do I want to learn today, what will engage me, what are my values, how finely honed is my bullshit metre?”

Do that well, and you’ll realise that when your target goes online, he/she probably won’t be interested in finding your highly-polished CTO talking about the launch party and what your product will mean for 6 million eager customers. What he/she will really want is material – whether produced by you or someone else – that has real people (maybe your CTO, probably someone else) giving clear, engaging and honest answers to questions that concern them or others in their community directly.

Doers vs strategists

Doers think strategists are all talk and no action. Strategists claim doers don’t think things through and complete tasks just for the sake of getting stuff done.

Who is right? Both and neither. Truth of the matter is strategy and execution are both part of the same parcel and should be in symbiosis, not competition.

So step 1: strategists, get off your high-horse; doers, step back for a minute and think about what it is you’re really trying to do. Step 2: appreciate that you both have an equally important role to play and accept the other. Step 3: strategise, plan and execute a killer campaign.

Good communications? Ask yourself what you’d think

I get “helpful” suggestions on the job every day: make the interviewee stand in front of our logo, let’s get the CEO to say a word – that’ll impress them, make sure you add key message X to everything, that doesn’t follow our colour guidelines, we need a better jingle, can you think of a good soundbite? And so on.

Will this sort of thing make a difference? Will it make your communication more effective? Will it make people like you more? Will it mean you sell more? Will it lead to behavioural change that will shift your issue the way you want it to over time?  Probably not.

So what should be your first litmus test? Simply – how would I react..? Or – what would I think..?

Don’t even put yourself in the shoes of a member of the general public, a civil servant, a journalist or whoever it is you’re trying to convince. Just imagine – if I had nothing to do with these people – what would I think? Would I be more impressed if there was a giant logo in the background? (Answer will probably be: Nope, I’d probably be less impressed.) Would I be impressed if I was hearing the CEO? (Does that not just depend on what they say and how they say it?) Would I care if the colour on the blog doesn’t match the brochure? (Couldn’t care less.)

Is this not just common sense? Yes, but common sense is often in short supply when it comes to communications. First, people within organisations live that organisation every day and inevitably end up reflecting internal thinking in their outgoing comms. It’s only natural. You’re impressed by the CEO but sometimes it’s hard to remember that others often couldn’t care less. Second, it’s old-school comms still ruling the roost. Very structured, hierarchical, controlled, rule-based communications shaped by conventions that have been proven not to matter or to even be detrimental, like the convention that states that showing your logo everywhere will mean people will remember that it’s you or that the CEO carries more clout than a lowly engineer (even if the latter is much more interesting.) Yeah, whatever. People are looking for openness, honesty and quality, so the less you stage things and follow outdated rules, the more likely you’ll be able to offer them that.

Don't bother with a big online launch: build a story instead

celebration_festivals_lollaI was recently asked to come up with some ideas to attract attendees and to generally “raise awareness” of an event using just online channels. My recommendation? If you’ve only got three months to make sure the right people know about your event, use other channels.

Big splash launches usually don’t work well online: if you’re hosting an event (or have just published something groundbreaking or are or launching a campaign for that matter) and you pretty much know who your stakeholders are (always the case if it’s a niche policy area, as in my example) just use old-school methods like phone-calls, emails and leveraging your networks. If you’re trying to attract a slightly longer list of stakeholders, by all means, advertise a bit too, but don’t expect too much from the web. Sure, promote it on your site, blog and whatever else, but don’t think that a web campaign will do wonders in the short-term.

So what could you do online instead?

First, do use your website as a reference for the event in the run-up to build some momentum e.g. create some hype about speakers by showcasing video footage of previous speeches or incorporate some interactive feature like, say, post your own question for one of the panels at the event. The scope here however is not attract to attendees who don’t know about your event, but rather, to convince people who aren’t sure it’ll be worth it.

Second, and more importantly, build a story around your issue in the long-term, not just in the run-up to an event: instead, make the event one part of your online story, and try to make your web presence the focal point of your issue online. If you manage to make your issue and your web activity one and the same online – i.e. anyone looking up your issue online will in some way find your content – it’ll be a more powerful tool in the long-run than any event could ever be.

What does that mean in practice though? In short (very short), I’d say you need to:

  1. Produce a stream of top-notch content which is a) based on a storyline you know will resonate with your target audiences (if you’re not sure what that is, conduct a poll, but don’t just use key messages the CEO likes); and b) which aims to clarify and simplify a complex landscape for people who might not be totally clued up on the issue.
  2. Don’t pretend you’re the only one out there – harness other people’s content and bring it together on your site – it’ll be their stuff, but you’ll be the one who has brought it together and created a one-stop shop on your issue.
  3. Creative campaigning. Content is king, but do something (online or offline) once in a while that’s a little out of the ordinary – provoke, shock, raise your voice, tell a personal story, involve your community in an unusual way. If done well, it’ll make people take notice of your excellent content a little more and help spread the word.
  4. Don’t forget the boring stuff which makes up some of the basics of eMarketing, in particular search engine optimisation and search engine advertising (i.e. Google AdWords) to help people find your content.

Image source.

Explaining an issue from a target's perspective, not yours

scratching_headA problem that often arises when an expert needs to explain an issue to their target – be it a policy-maker, influencer or a member of the general public – is that the expert develops their approach from their own perspective, rather than that of the target. Policy-makers are asked to make decisions based on a ten-minute minute meeting, or more likely, ten-minute briefings based on research conducted in twenty minutes by their assistants, and yet experts come at them with key messages and the like thought up by a room-full of know-it-alls.

It’s far more effective to work backwards and start from the target’s perspective. Ask yourself, first, what are the basics that my target doesn’t understand, and second, what questions are they most likely to have. If you don’t know, conduct a poll amongst friends and colleagues who don’t know your issue and ask them what their layman’s perspective is. Only once you’ve dealt with that, start imparting your expertise.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t often happen in Brussels: it’s where the policy-buff and communicator conflict I often write about comes into play. At company, association and especially agency level, most of the people tasked with communicating an issue are into the policy bit – which is fine (and necessary) – but they’re not really into the communications bit. Result? In the end, output that is probably very good, but doesn’t do a jot to win over the target of their communications because it hasn’t explained the basics before veering into high-brow.

Image source.

Picking an agency

Parallel universe. I work for an organisation and I’m eager to enlist the help of an agency to help me communicate around the issues that matter to me in Brussels. I know that picking the right agency might help to ensure that the public, regulatory and media playing fields treat me fairly, but I want to make absolutely sure that I pick the agency that’s right for me.

What would I look out for?

  • An agency whose starting points are my business and/or communications objectives, not the size of its address book. 20 former Commission officials or MEP assistants on your staff? I don’t care. I’d rather you understand what I’m trying to achieve and set that as your starting point.
  • Is the agency committed to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs?) It must be, even though I wouldn’t expect them to be defined by the first meeting. The commitment matters though, because in an unconventional and unpredictable place like public-policy land it’s too easy just say “oh well, it was out of our control, what could we have done?” With a commitment to KPIs you show that you’re really keen to win campaigns, not just make money from them.
  • I’d want the people who I meet to be intellectually curious, and passionate about communications and politics. They have to be if they need to learn a new sector and a new organisation from scratch and do their job well. Plus they’d be more interesting to work with and more likely to pursue my account as an intellectual challenge rather than simply looking to tick boxes and send invoices.
  • Must be firm believers in integration: an agency should consider all tactics – be it advocacy, media work, online campaigning – equally important parts of the same parcel i.e. my organisation achieving its goals. It might be an expert in one area, but it should never think that area is more important than all others.
  • Sounds obvious, but I’d really want an agency to make an effort when I meet them. If it’s using regurgitated material, only tells me about existing client work or thinks it’s a shoe-in because of its reputation, I’d not be impressed.

Some questions I’d ask:

  • What are my key issues?
  • How would you approach them?
  • What would you do to really understand my issues?
  • What’s the work you’re most proud of?
  • Who would work on the account?

The demise of copy (and what it might mean)

scribeIn Ogilvy on Advertising, which I’ve just finished reading and which I refer to in my last post (it clearly left its mark,) David Ogilvy, who began his career in the advertising business as a copywriter, describes what makes good copy.

Amongst other things, he states that long copy works far better than short copy in print i.e. it sells better; and goes on to show some campaigns which look like double-page newspaper articles which sold products exceptionally well, sometimes for decades. And he’s not just saying it: he’s got the figures to prove it. His explanation? That people like to be  informed; that they don’t appreciate over-stylised advertising but instead want honest and cerebral material that might help them make up their minds.

Compare that to the present day and it’s safe to say that long copy is not king anymore, largely due to how most people consume media. They don’t read their one favourite paper and magazine, but instead skim dozens of sources across all sorts of media. No doubt people are exposed to far more content than ever before, but at the same time, the level of detail most acquire has been dramatically reduced.

What might this thirst for quick and snappy copy (and other types of content, like video) mean in the wider scheme of things? No doubt I think it’s representative of a dramatic fall in the level of depth which most people expect from the communication material they absorb; and I don’t think it’s especially healthy. On some of the issues I work on, I represent sectors or organisations that sell useful and safe products and services and have the experts to prove it. However, they’re losing the battle for the hearts (not minds) of the general public and in turn getting nailed by legislators because a smart NGO campaign based on soundbites has done the rounds. This soundbite then gets picked up by readers who take a sensationalist headline at face value but aren’t going to read the whole article let alone wonder what the other side has to say.

So what now? An exciting time for Brussels-based communicators: the challenge is not simply to create sound content based on fact or to create big splash campaigns, but to skillfully combine the two.

p.s. I’m not a super-libertarian NGO-bashing demagogue. Quite the contrary in fact. I just don’t believe in dishonest communication which preys on people’s unwillingness to investigate issues in depth, whichever side it emanates from.

Can an eCampaign alone shift public opinion?

I’ve just finished reading Ogilvy on Advertising, David Ogilvy’s definitive guide to advertising. One of the campaigns he describes which most struck me was one on teenage alcohol consumption executed by Ogilvy’s Oslo office in the 1970s which was seen by up to 75% of Norwegian adults and caused such a furore that it led to a sharp dip in teenage drinking.

Could a really well executed campaign in 2009 be as successful – and in particular, actually shift public opinion on an issue – given today’s media dispersion and the ease with which we can avoid marketing? Yes, and it’s been done time and again. Example? Look up some of the UK Department of Transport’s ads over the last ten years – they’ve had a significant impact on people’s awareness of the dangers of drink driving and the like. Media campaigns can still be seen by enough people plus the nature of media these days means that a story can go on for much longer – if it gets picked up – because it gets milked dry in scores of media outlets more so than would have been the case a few years ago. If the message really resonates, causing a shift in public opinion is still a real possibility.

Next question: could an eCampaign alone shift public awareness and perhaps opinion to this extent? Possible, but it’s difficult. Although the nature of community and connectivity means that people who buy into a campaign can share it with the people they know and a campaign might go super viral (although most of the viral success stories seem to be about juggling hamsters and the like) I still think a substantive campaign needs an offline element to really succeed. Why? Largely because the web is search driven: people find what they enter into Google, so unless they’re looking for your campaign on saving pandas, they’ll not find it. Yes, they’ll read your email about the pandas, but they won’t usually act on it or remember because they’re busy searching for what really tickles their fancy.

Why bother eCampaigning then? Because it does work but is more likely to really raise awareness or shift opinion if integrated with offline channels. As a communicator, plan media work and events and back it up with a sound online campaign presence. If you’re really good, your eCampaign gets picked up by bloggers and eventually regular media. Then when the aforementioned friend picks up the email about the panda he doesn’t hit the delete button but instead thinks: “ah, this is the really interesting panda campaign I read about in news source X. I can actually do something about it? I think I just might.”

Corporate comms and public affairs should be part of the same parcel

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.

Dilemma: communicators don't get it and online consultants who aren't communicators

The web offers a wealth of opportunities to communicators. Greater engagement, communicating directly with stakeholders, better integration, clearer measurement, speed, cost-efficiency.

So what’s the problem?

One the one hand, traditional communicators don’t get the options. They often adopt an offline PR approach to the web: all about content production and having the right hook, but with little understanding of how the web works beyond being a publication tool. They ignore the importance of search and how people find information online, of how web users navigate a website, the value of hyperlinking and aggregating information from third parties, fostering interaction and perhaps most of all, using the web as a learning tool.

Then you have the other side of the coin. Web consultants who ignore the importance of content and building a story. They always start from a “web” perspective. They’ll dismiss a site because it does not follow best practice in navigation. They’ll say that a video is terrible without having even seen it because it hasn’t been embedded in the right way. They’ll say a hyperlink is awful because it’s too long rather than check what it leads to.

Clearly you need a balance of the two to be a good at online communications. Who fits the bill best? Usually young PR or marketing professionals who have grown up using the web and are very comfortable with technology. They get the content and message side and also get the web, but they see it as an end rather than a means.