Chime Communications blogs

Communications Re-Set

kdickins — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 10:23:33 +0000

The following is my CEO Statement from our 2009 Annual Report which is a bit long but reflects our views on "Re-Set".

Jeff Immelt of GE first coined the phrase, “Re-set World” to describe a business environment turned on its head by the credit crunch and subsequent downturn. Immelt was not talking primarily about Communications.
But he could have been. At Chime we believe that Communications is one of the areas of business activity that has been “Re-set” more rapidly and completely than any other.

Overview
What does the Communications Re-set look like?
The simple answer is that it looks increasingly digital.
Of course, the internet was around long before the credit crunch but the last two years have accelerated its role in Communications and its impact on brands and reputation. Today the web is the distribution channel through which brands and products are consumed as well as communicated, a social channel through which reputation is created and enacted, a channel for immediate measurement and dialogue, a means of distribution and transaction and a channel that demands rapid responses from all communicators be they individuals, brands, companies or countries.
The multi-functionality has changed the way that Communications approaches the internet; it has also triggered important changes in the way other channels are used.

Take the introduction of multimedia newsrooms across both TV news channels and national newspapers, which deliver stories in different forms, through different media channels at different times of the day. The approach that works for TV won’t necessarily work online; the strengths of a radio discussion are very different to those of mobile channels. All are more likely to be consumed at different times. Recognising the differences between the channels and the value that each can bring to a story is now central to all communication plans. In a fragmenting media universe, the ability to communicate a message irrespective of format and channel has become the goal.

Integration
Advertisers and advertising agencies have long spoken of the need for creative ideas that can transcend one media channel or another. They haven’t always acted like they mean it. All too often, a ‘Big Idea’ has come to mean a big TV ad with other formats tagged on. In the Re-set World this is simply no longer an option: building a campaign around one dominant channel simply misses too many consumer contact points. In a recent piece for the advertising trade magazine, Campaign, VCCP’s Stu Parkinson argues convincingly that even those at the cutting edge of digital advertising must remember the importance of ideas, experiences and connections that work across channels. We would cite O2’s communications as a perfect example of that approach.

Chime’s purpose is the business of building brands and reputations and this happens through conversations. Today, the dialogue is more prominent than ever; and because of the internet, it is also vastly more measurable. Increasingly the objective of Communications is to build social participation with and around a brand rather than simply delivering a fully formed brand message to consumers. Aleksandr, the computer-generated Meerkat used by VCCP to promote compare-the-market through Twitter, Facebook and (yes) TV, provides a great example.

Re-set reputations
In the Re-set World, brands and corporate reputation cannot be separated. Consumers can no longer be expected to focus on the former while conveniently ignoring the latter. Toyota was able to track the impact of its product recall through the increasing number of Google searches for rivals General Motors and Ford.

The brand of Manchester United has been subverted by fans angered by their perceptions around management of the club. The Re-set world of communications is about customer participation as much as customer satisfaction.

Sustainability, which cynics once predicted would disappear from the agenda at the first sniff of a recession, has instead seen its scope and significance hugely expanded. Sustainable businesses are no longer seen as ‘green’; they are well-run businesses, and it is well-run businesses and brands that consumers choose to align themselves with in the Re-set World. Transparent, credible sustainability is today as important to brand success as the size of a media budget. Unilever has recognised as much with the introduction of its brand footprint strategy, drawing clear connections for consumers between governance and the products they choose.

Re-set opportunities
The Communications Re-set has brought disruption elsewhere. And with that disruption comes opportunity.
The importance of brand experience in engaging across fragmented media channels is helping to drive the growth of our Sports Marketing division, as the tangible connections delivered by sponsorship are given global reach through the power of the internet.
Emirates’ hugely successful strategy of supporting the passion drivers (usually sports) for different communities around the world, HSBC’s exceptional activation strategy for the Lions rugby tour of South Africa: both show the rapidly accelerating importance of brand experiences that stand above different formats.

The government work conducted by Chime agencies such as Bell Pottinger Sans Frontières is also taking place against the background of a Re-set World. Today it is the developed world that must deal with perceptions of debt and instability, whilst developing economies appear poised to take advantage. Our involvement with countries such as Bahrain is very exciting in this regard.

Research, meanwhile, is re-inventing itself to suit the demands for dialogue, accountability and actionable insight. Today it must provide clients with immediate benefits in increasing the efficiency of campaigns whilst providing foresight around future trends and opportunities.

These are just some of the ways in which interpreting the Re-set World is helping to keep Chime ahead of its competitors as we strive to deliver our brand promise of ‘the Modern Communications Group’. The growth that the Group has delivered over the last year has been achieved not despite the Re-set World but because of it. The core strengths of our approach will enable Chime companies to continue to take a leading role in re-interpreting Communications and helping clients to meet their challenges in the years ahead.

Christopher Sattherthwaite
Chief Executive

Digital's re-setting communications

kdickins — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:06:25 +0000

Thanks to Stu Parkinson at VCCP, here's 8 ways digital's re-setting communications. Click here to read: http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/984994/Close-Up-drive-digital-marketing-forward-2010/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH Chris Satterthwaite

Re-set of music and marketing

kdickins — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:56:52 +0000

Did the Grateful Dead and David Bowie foresee the re-set world of music and marketing in general?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/feb/21/the-networker-john-naughton

Chris Satterthwaite

Why the digital revolution in media newsrooms has re-set the world of public relations

kdickins — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 12:36:17 +0000

People today get their news from a variety of sources during any given day – an insight which has driven a multi-media revolution at the BBC and other new organisations.

Peter Horrocks, the new Director of Global News at the BBC, was the man who managed the revolution at the BBC – transforming 21 different news platforms into one of the biggest multimedia newsrooms in the world.

At the recent Bell Pottinger Group briefing event, he talked about changes this revolution has brought on news gathering at the BBC – and the profound implications of communications professionals.

Click here to read about this further and why public relations has been re-set: http://www.chime.plc.uk/downloads/digital-revolution-in-media-newsrooms-has-re-set-the-world-of-public-relations-Feb10.pdf

What do you think?

Kevin Murray, Chairman, Bell Pottinger Group

Ethics, consumer and business re-set – the new norms

kdickins — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:01:47 +0000

The debate on whether ‘ethical spend’ declines in a recession is in full flow. Are consumers still making ethical choices? Has the recession had an impact?

In almost every walk of life we sense that the world has been re-set. The recession, the explosion of technology, the social revolution – all have combined to create a perfect storm of change. For governments, businesses and brands there is a new normal. But what is it?

What are the facts on how people are behaving with their ethical money today? What do they expect of brands and how do they feel about authentic ethics? Is there a danger that corporate social responsibility becomes so patronising it deters people?

Liza Lort Phillips, of Corporate Citizenship (a Bell Pottinger Group company) reveals the facts. Click here to read.

By Kevin Murray, Chairman of the Bell Pottinger Group

Strategic planning in a re-set world

kdickins — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 11:00:40 +0000

We live in a world that has been re-set. There can be no return to business as usual. The recession, the technology explosion, the social revolution – all have combined to create a perfect storm of change. Good and bad news travels at blinding speed across a vast network of connected people, more prepared to listen to each other than governments, companies or brands.

In this world, our communications planning and thinking needs to be re-set too. We need insight faster, cheaper and we need it to be truly authentic. But how do we get it?

The answer? Learn to tap in to the world’s largest, most honest and unselfconscious focus group.

Read the ‘strategic planning in a re-set world’ article by Nicholine Hayward, Bell Pottinger Group’s Planning Director which looks at fast ways to get fresh, free and authentic insights.

By Kevin Murray, Chairman, Bell Pottinger Group www.bell-pottinger.co.uk

“2010. How to hit the re-set” button.

kdickins — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:11:24 +0000

I don’t have anything to add to this really. If it’s good enough for P&G it’s probably good enough for the rest of us.

Marc Pritchard, global marketing director at Procter & Gamble adds: “The recession has allowed us to hit the reset button and rethink everything. We are striving to ensure that we touch and improve the life of consumers, looking at how to get more value and shift the media to where the customer is, such as the integrated Pampers golden sleep campaign for babies and mums, and our positioning of Olay as a cheaper alternative to expensive department store products. Great ideas around what consumers are looking for are what it is all about.”

This quote was taken from an article in Marketing Week published in June 2009: http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/news/brandowners-advertising-must-be-creative-in-tough-times/3001832.article

Chris Satterthwaite, Chief Executive, Chime

Search Relations

kdickins — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:08:36 +0000

Thanks to Matt Brittin and Peter Cory at Google, I am now able to review search volumes on Google without calling Paul Mead at VCCP Search. Unsurprisingly, volumes for both celebrities at their moment of notoriety have grown by + 1,000s% in the past two weeks. But I have a prediction. The Henry search volumes have declined to near pre- ‘hand ball’ levels from 18th November - 29th November. I don’t believe the Tiger Woods graph will be the same. Why?

Pretty soon after Henry’s handball, he admitted what he done and regretted it. This is of course is a very different strategy than Maradona adopted in probably the most brilliant and blatant defence of all time in his ‘hand of God’ justification.

For whatever reason, Tiger Woods has not explained what happened and so search volumes and media interest will continue.

Search volumes are becoming the litmus test of public scrutiny more than media coverage. As a result, reputation management without a search strategy is like a football game without a goal or a golf swing without a club.

Search marketing in relation to pay-per-click advertising and search engine optimisation is still associated more with direct marketing and media buying than any other communication disciplines. However, I believe search should be integrated into every communication strategy and as it happens particularly into public relations. We call it search relations.

Charles Vallance put it to me like this earlier in the year: ‘everybody in our sector goes on about fragmentation of the media, the micro-segmentation of audiences etc etc, but to any individual life has never been simpler. You are always one click away from finding out what you want via a search engine – generally Google.’

Communication strategies without search are as naked as Tiger without a coherent explanation.

By Christopher Satterthwaite, Chief Executive, Chime Communications

Re thinking research in a ‘re-set’ business world

kdickins — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:10:02 +0000

By Deborah Mattinson

Christopher Satterthwaite’s blog here last week rightly observes that, if stakeholder value is set to replace shareholder value, the role of PR and communications becomes ever more vital. This idea is at the heart of our thinking about how the research function will transform in the new, post credit crunch business world.

In previous down turns, research businesses have thrived. The conventional wisdom was that information and insight would be needed more than ever when things got tough. However, this time things have been different. In the sudden, seismic shift that hit businesses during Autumn 2008, the race was on to turn off as many expenditure taps as possible. Since much of research is project based it was one of the first to go. Many large scale, long standing and costly surveys usually repeated year on year were cancelled. A brave move: often the argument for continuing such studies is based on their longevity: ‘missing a year will lose valuable tracking data….’ In crisis mode, however, needs must.

A year on and the world looks very different. Businesses are finding that their needs have changed beyond recognition. They’re also finding that they are missing that long standing survey data less than they feared. Why? Because in that new environment, changed beyond recognition in so many ways, the insights they need to rebuild customer and wider stakeholder trust are different from the insights they needed before. That carefully crafted tracker is no longer fit for purpose. Customers are more sceptical, more demanding, more vulnerable, yet less passive. Companies need insight that will not just tell them what happened yesterday but also predict what might happen tomorrow. For these reasons the research business will, I believe, never be the same again.

This has three implications: firstly, research and insight must become more integrated: no longer a silo providing information that was too often ‘nice to have’ rather than vital to decision making. It also means that research must be more ‘stakeholder’ led: a pathway to real engagement and dialogue not just a one dimensional measurement. Finally, research must pay its way, adding value by being truly accountable. For the Communications Director, for example, research can and should offer concrete guidance as to which message will work hardest in the new, more competitive environment.

In short, research must reinvent itself and, in doing so, earn the right to move more centre stage. It must ‘re set’ itself in order to play its role in the resetting of the business world.

Re-set Business World

kdickins — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:58:15 +0000

At the excellent Marketing Society’s 50^th Anniversary Conference Professor Hugh Davidson http://www.marketing-society.org.uk/non-member/knowledge-zone/Pages/seven-ways.aspx made a presentation about how good companies would perform in 2059 (i.e. 50 years ahead). His thinking chimes with the business “re-set” and communications “re-set” thinking.

He suggested that boards of the future would have a Director of Supply, a Director of Demand, a Director of Finance and a Chief Executive. There would be two Non-Executive Directors both of whom would be Customer Directors not just representing customers but allowing customers to participate in the future of the company.

He also proposed that shareholder value must be replaced by stakeholder value – a theme he has previously written about in Market Leader, Quarter 4 2009 http://www.warc.com/Tracking/ArticleLink.asp?ID=89969&M=MarkLead_Sep09

Of all the communication disciplines it is public relations that has the best understanding of stakeholder management as reputation does not depend on one target audience but on all stakeholders. For this reason, customers, employees, shareholders and the broader community, to which companies relate, have been the concern of Communication Directors and their agencies for the last decade.

If stakeholder value is going to replace shareholder value as a longer term measure of a company’s future prospects, good public relations companies will have much to offer the business world in understanding the need to listen, the need for dialogue and, ultimately, the need for participation that is the hallmark of effective public relations.

Hugh Davidson’s views have always been ahead of their time but I think his ideas have never been more relevant for the “re-set” business world we are now part of.

By Christopher Satterthwaite, Chief Executive, Chime Communications plc