With the OECD's Interim Economic Outlook published just last week, this has been a good time for many state officials around the world to declare visions of "green shoots" of economic recovery. Indeed Japan, France and Germany were reported officially out of recession (if you consider at least two quarters of positive domestic growth as an indicator).

If you are a British Member of Parliament, however, such an early prognosis may condemn you to Whitehall's wasteland and a very public drubbing along the lines of that received by Business Minister, Baroness Vadera, when she dared allude to prospects of an UK economic revival earlier this year.

No. For the moment at least, British MPs - and Labour pundits in particular -  are well advised to keep stumm as the country lags the overall economic trend, notwithstanding tentative signs of UK manufacturing recovery (the strongest growth in three years during July.) Whether Prime Minister Gordon Brown's address this Tuesday to the annual Trade Union Congress will raise the embargo - and thwart David Cameron's electoral ambitions in the process - remains to be seen.

This restrained approach must not, however, be aped by commercial enterprise. Just as contingency planning is necessary in advance of an imagined crisis, organizations need more than ever to anticipate and embrace the notion of resumed corporate success - even if it currently seems to be doomed prophecy. For this is not the time for bears in the boardroom if companies are to muscle their way out of the curve and seize early competitive advantage (a philosophy echoed by corporate strategy guru, Philip Kotler and CEO Dr. John A. Caslione in their latest book, 'Chaotics', whose UK launch strategy we recently advised).

Nor, must I say, is it the time for organisations to cut their communications talent. While CEOs and senior leadership teams may be bunkered down in their war rooms, good PR professionals* - in-house or agency - are those supremely qualified and adept at raising a head above the parapet, at sounding the marketplace, at taking a long-view of horizon opportunities and shaping a more bulllish internal culture to evolve corporate success.

In an earlier blog, 'The Client Brief: When PR Agencies Fail', I mentioned that strong PR advisors would tease out the essence of what makes a company viable for the future and build strategies to create subtantial corporate reputation and growth. Certainly CEOs should already be asking themselves the following questions with trusted, seasoned PR/communication advisors driving answers in a way that builds a future corporate mission that is transformative, perhaps even revolutionary, in helping an organization re-launch itself into a deeply altered landscape.

These, then, are my top 10 questions for the current climate - in no particular order and by no means definitive:

1. Learning
"What learnings - or "gems" - have we taken from being forced from our comfort zone? (What worked? What failed? What mattered to the marketplace?)

2. Innovation
Are we embedding those "gems" throughout our product service offering, talent recruitment/retention, issues intelligence and control, corporate language? (What will be the timeline and specific action points to do so?)

3. Skills
Have we upgraded our skills to achieve more with less (for our clients/customers/shoppers/users?)

4. Proximity
Have we reinvigorated our public/social and internal employee networks?

5. Dialogue
Have we evolved our understanding of, and outreach through, their connection channels? (have we clarified internal roles/responsibilities and protocols?)

6. Competitivity
How will we organise our infrastructure and processes to secure and maintain future USP innovation and agility?

7. Value
How will we (re)structure to make our client/customer value sustainable - and understood?

8. Feedback
How will we capture and feed client/customer/public/regulatory trends and response into our continuous improvement?

9. Relevance
Is our current business model still relevant to achieve all of the above - sustainably?

10. Vision
What does success look like and how will we measure it/drive accountability?

Just as slowly as doors to opportunity open, so too can they slam shut, leaving many institutions - and their consultants - on the outside if questions about the company's future shape and role are not aired in a frank, timely and trusting environment.This is where robust, proactive PR counsel matters.

We'd be very interested in hearing whether the current climate and prospects are re-shaping the way your are interrogating your business. Or that of your clients. Please do post your insights which we always enjoy reading!


Image thanks to kind contribution by Alex Nolasco http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexandernolasco/382374166/

Labels: Baroness Vadera, business, CEOs, Chaotics, David Cameron, economy, Gordon Brown, John A. Caslione, marketing, OECD, Philip Kotler, politics, PR, recession., reputation, TUC

In my last blog, I outlined the reasons why so many agencies fail to deliver against client briefs. One of my esteemed associates suggested that I focus this month on what a client brief should include, given that I profess a robust brief to be the foundation to building solid PR programmes - and to recruiting the right agency talent.

My thoughts may not be all-encompassing and I recognize that a degree of tailoring is always necessary. In essence, however, I have 3 guiding principles in setting up a good brief:

1. CONFIDENTIALITY: No brief must ever be submitted to any outside service provider without a legally endorsed NDA (non-disclosure agreement). I am happy to provide an example of this.
2. INTEGRITY: Extreme care must be taken not to include material of a financially sensitive nature (always worth running a brief past the IR team). An equal amount of care must be taken not to 'spin' content. The brief is not a PR document, but a frank and honest review of the company's opportunities and issues to build robust PR response.
3. RELEVANCE: The brief should be geared towards framing the issues and opportunities that the agency can be expected realistically to support. This demands that clients have given first thought to what their marketing/agency expectations are and that they understand what peripheral information is important in helping agencies better understand the company and climate in which they'll be expected to operate.
   

For me, word count does not matter. Content does. And this, in my view, is what a good agency brief should include:

1) The Corporate Story
This section must give as much flavour about the dimension, character, values and principles of an organisation to help PR agency familiarisation but also to aid external corporate positioning.

• What is the company provenance/history and track record?
• What have its milestone achievements been?
• What are its stated mission, vision, values?
• What are its key metrics (financial/geographic) and growth ambitions?
• Is it a market leader or challenger?...
• ... And how does it shape and execute that role?
  
• What characterizes the company's leadership and internal culture?
• What is its business model and structure?
• What are the company's issues and crisis alert procedures?
  

2) The Trading Environment
Here follows an analysis of the company's trading prospects and opportunities, coupled with a realistic analysis of the marketplace threats/issues that the agency may be required to take into account as it develops PR plans.

• Who is the competition?
• What is driving their strategy against the company?
• Which media channels do they exploit?
  
• What is the company's relative performance?
• What is the company's market differential (eg. technology, innovation, commercial)
• Where are the trading threats - and opportunities?
• What are the regulatory barriers? How are these being addressed?
  
• How does the company plan to raise future market entry barriers?...
• ...Or exploit current market conditions?
• What is the company's product/service roadmap?
  
• What key sales and marketing initiatives are planned over the next year to drive growth?

3) The Market Environment
This section begins to deal directly with the company's public outreach strategy and begins to provide insight into the more direct role a PR agency can be expected to play in support.

• Who is the company trying to reach?
  
• How are these audiences segmented?
• What is the current company proposition/message to these audiences?
• What motivates and characterises the target consumer/purchaser/specifier groups?
• Which (online and offline) media channels most influence these groups?
• Which other organisations (NGOs etc) also influence purchase decision?
• What impact have these media/groups had?
• What have been the company's past, public issues? Were they resolved?
  
• Which marketing/corporate outreach initiatives have seen most success?
• Where has the company failed to reach/penetrate its markets?
• What are the company's key marketing objectives over the next 1-5 years?
  

4) The Internal Community
This section recognizes the interdependencies between external and internal communications planning and focuses on how the internal corporate culture can impact or promote external PR success.

• How many employees are located across the company?
• What are current employee engagement strategies/dialogue channels?...
• ...How effective are they?
• What is the employee retention record?
• What are the outcomes of any employee surveys? What are the key issues?
  
• Are any major corporate restructuring initiatives planned?
• How is internal and external communications structured?
• Who are the key spokespeople/external ambassadors?...
  
• ... How competent or well equipped are they?

5) PR Agency Objectives
This section deals with the very specific company requirements of the PR agency and should relate clearly to the above company analysis. It should form the basis of the final agency quote and be embedded within subsequent contractual obligations. For example:

• What credentials (skills, experience, specialism, contacts) must the agency demonstrate?
• Which geographies will they serve?
• What will be their messaging and corporate positioning contribution?
• What strategic market/PR/media insight should the agency contribute?
• Which markets/audiences should the PR agency engage?
  
• What (online/offline) influencer programmes should the agency deliver?
• How must the agency integrate with the business?
• How should the agency evolve its client PR skills?
• How will success be measured? What are the key performance metrics?
  
• What is the budget?
• How will the agency ensure transparency against spend?
• How will they report (to whom, by which method, with which frequency)?

A good client brief is the precursor to any agency pitch and final selection; it sets clear client-agency expectations and is integral to final contractual obligations; it is the reference against which ongoing agency performance can be objectively measured and reviewed.

A good agency, as I mentioned in my last post, will engage with this brief, may challenge it and generate value-adding discussion to help move the company forward in its thinking.

My passion for a good client brief stems from the conviction that, without a brief, there is no performance. And without performance, the communications role will never be viewed as a robust, commercially-minded and trusted entity within an organisation. It is ultimately, therefore, a tool of professional - and personal - credibility.

(With our FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 in-company credentials, we have vast experience in setting up client briefs, including agency performance goals and metrics, as part of any PR agency recruitment or performance evaluation process. Contact us if you would like to learn more).

Labels: business, managerial, marketing, PR, reputation

The e-book has landed! The final boundary of the type-written word breached by a digital tide that has transformed the way we process, relay and absorb information. So what now? With the launch in Britain this week of the Sony Reader, capable of storing 160 novels and reportedly weighing less than 9 ounces, should we be preparing to mourn the death of an old familiar friend or celebrating the final siege of "the last bastion of analogue"(1) - the printed book?

Now I don't know if this is something to be proud of, but I am still of the generation that is instantly transported to childhood nostalgia by the musty smell of leather book bindings and reassured by the crisp sound and feel of paper between my fingers. I appreciate my leisurely reading time, unhindered by processing speed, battery life and the compulsion to squeeze in a quick read before my next client meeting.

Frankly, the issue of e-books leaves me feeling like Alice in Wonderland - a little, how should I say, schizophrenic? On the one hand, there's a Queen of Hearts inside baying to get her hands on the latest digital assault weapon; on the other, a simpering white rabbit needing to retreat down its bolt hole to recapture lost time.

But here's the rub. As that very enlightened 1939 jazz song goes: "T'aint What you Do (It's the Way that You Do It)". War and Peace on e-book? No thanks! An ability - finally - to easily decipher and digest, via a hand-held device, client literature, corporate information and briefing documentation on the move? Why, not?

In the whole communications armoury that marketing and PR professionals have assiduously developed over the last decades, perhaps the creation of a corporate e-book will one day find its place in this digital and paper-conscious age.

Back in the Nineties, at the onset of the digital imaging boom, I was part of a maverick team that successfully marketed the first consumer, Kodak DC20 digital camera - one that had no picture review screen! On that basis alone, my general belief is that anything is possible.

So, until the clever product development folks at Sony devise a fine-grain, textured e-book reader with the Seventies-style scratch and sniff aroma of leather and printers ink, if that belief means having to cross the consumer chasm (2), new e-book firmly in hand, then so be it.

(1): Amazon
(2): Geoffrey A. Moore: "Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Consumers"

Labels: e-books, marketing, Sony Reader