The sound of corporate silence (Cornelissen Ch. 8 & 9)

I felt Chapter 8 covered mostly similar topics as Chapter 7, so I’ll focus on Chapter 9. The discussion of communication with employees reminded me of Chapter 3’s discussion of stakeholder classification and management. Employees are undeniably stakeholders. But they’re not likely shareholders. Even if they are, they’re (very) minority shareholders. How does an organization communicate with such a large and important bloc of stakeholders who don’t hold immediate or critical power as individuals?

I don’t see many companies with good answers. What Cornelissen calls organizational silence (170) is very real. Even when employee opinions are solicited, I think most people have an implicit bias in favor of uncritical or insubstantial feedback. Why put your neck on the line when you can tell the boss what they want to hear? I’m intrigued by Cornelissen’s example of HPCL’s use of workshops for employees to give feedback and decide their own visions for the company (168-169). I question how possible this is for most companies to pull off. I’m also skeptical of the results. “Going global” was truly the biggest takeaway from the employees at the bottom of the ladder?

My own experience and intuition better matches the example of IBM (174-177). IBM allowed wide freedom to comment, and unsurprisingly, got blunt and sometimes cynical feedback. I see this as an unblocking of the dam of organizational silence. It’s too bad it had to come in a single moment, and not as a matter of practice. The latter would be more manageable and less painful. The problem of silence seems to be related almost exclusively to negative feedback. This is why I’m so skeptical that what HPLC employees were holding back was a deep desire to see their petroleum company expand into an “energy company.”

This is not to say that constantly soliciting negative feedback is a solution. The companies that engage in this the most are probably those trendy tech firms with a name recognition as enviable as their benefits packages. While a practice of constant, blunt feedback might create more honest communication, it can also lead to high stress and turnover.

Cornelissen, J. (2014). Corporate Communication: A Guide to Theory & Practice (4th ed.). London: SAGE.

Re-cycling research (Cornelissen Ch. 7)

The most important insight I took from this chapter was the assertion that the research results of a marketing campaign can form the audit data for another cycle of the campaigns. This allows companies to continually refine their relationship with stakeholders. Theoretically, if the methods are sound, this should perpetually keep most stakeholders satisfied. With the forums for feedback getting wider, and the timelines in which to give it becoming shorter, this perpetual cycle of research should be increasingly prominent.

A great example of this is Domino’s Pizza. In 2009, the company sought to change its reputation as last place on customers’ taste buds. While the its reputation rankings were from a quantitative survey of stakeholders’ preferences, Domino’s used qualitative focus groups, surveys, and social-media feedback to audit specific comments about its pizza. The harsh criticism the company received was not only used as the basis for improvements, but as the content for a clever marketing campaign after recipes were adjusted.

While the objectives of the campaign (improve reputation) clearly came from the quantitative brand rankings, I suspect that the planning and execution did not so much come from the qualitative feedback. I think it’s fair to say that Domino’s knew its reputation was already in the dumpster, and was proactively seeking a way to use that fact as jumping-off point for change.

This counter-intuitive strategy (“Look at how much you hate us!”) may have worked even if the recipe hadn’t been tweaked too much, but to Domino’s credit, they also measured stakeholders’ feedback of the new pizza. This time, they used a quantitative survey method to gather customers’ evaluation on the quality of food and service as it’s ordered.

I don’t think most companies to resort to the dramatic actions that Domino’s took, unless they are in truly dire straits regarding their reputation. This is, after all, a gimmick that should only work once. However, their methodology of letting quantitative rankings guide qualitative audits that flow into quantitative results provides a perpetual cycle of stakeholder feedback and continuous improvement. It may take significant up-front investment, but once the cycle is begun, it could be part of business as usual.

New vision, new image, and how to get there (Cornelissen Ch. 5 & 6)

Reading through Cornelissen’s many examples of corporate communication strategies, the overriding theme that develops is one of expanding visions. Most companies want to be defined in the widest way. Is there any company these days that doesn’t want to be associated with “innovation”? I’m more interested in cases where a company decided it needed to narrow its focus. It’s easy to communicate that you want to be bigger. How do you tell stakeholders it’s time to think small?

Cornelissen does bring up a case that I’d argue is a possible example. His brief discussion of Research in Motion’s rebranding as BlackBerry focuses mostly on the type and content of the company’s messaging. He doesn’t delve deeply into the company’s problems, but to say that it was “struggling” against Samsung, Google, and Apple is an understatement. Rebranding the company with its signature product was not a just narrowing of communication focus, it was a Hail Mary pass.

I think an even more illustrative example of desperately-needed narrowing of vision is that of Yahoo! This is a company whose communication strategy has needed tinkering for many years. I mean, it’s got an exclamation point in its name. An exclamation point I will omit from the rest of this post. Once synonymous with search, Yahoo was the front page of Web 1.0. Today, it is better identified with bloat. It’s a search engine, a news source, a photo-sharing site, and a video-streaming site, and it keeps broadening its reach.

In 2013, Yahoo began a rebranding campaign that included introducing a new logo. The campaign included releasing 30 different logos in 30 days. I’m torn on whether this is symbolic association or emotional message style. It is literally symbolic, in the sense that it’s a symbol. However, Yahoo’s justification for the campaign was the emotional responses they received from people shown various new logos. Both message types could work with the strategic intent of the campaign, which I think is to improve stakeholder awareness of a brand with an image that’s hard to distinguish. Put another way, if Yahoo is such a sprawling enterprise, they have to find a way to make it stand out that is above and apart from its muddled identity.

The reigning search champion recently had its own logo change. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Google recently restructured to become just one division in a new conglomerate with a different name. This news may have confused some stakeholders (which, in the case of Google, is a significant chunk of humanity). Here was a moment to definitively stake out a new identity for a (slightly) changed company. What’s interesting is that both Yahoo’s and Google’s logo changes coincided with questions about their identities. But while Yahoo’s clearly came from a feeling of insecurity over its size and breadth, Google’s came from a feeling of strength in splitting up a sprawling company. Both companies clearly felt that the most effective message to communicate their new visions were new logos.

Cornelissen, J. (2014). Corporate Communication: A Guide to Theory & Practice (4th ed.). London: SAGE.

Why build a monolith? (Cornelisen Ch. 3 & 4)

It’s easy to see why a company like Starbucks is constantly trying to engage stakeholders in surprising and sometimes disastrous ways. It is, by nature, heavily customer-facing, and has an aggressively open image. While flamboyant social-media-conscious companies are the ones likely to get the biggest stories, I’m intrigued by how Chapter 4 brought the issues of large conglomerates to light.

In recent years, I’ve noticed just the transition to monolithic branding of Unilever that Cornelissen mentions (72). I was vaguely aware of the company as a huge conglomerate responsible for hundreds of brands, but was surprised when I started seeing its quirky logo stamped on its products. It seems like the company has become more forthright in linking its brands together. What would cause a company to try to link shampoo and mayonnaise?

Let’s look at which stakeholders are involved. The definitive stakeholders—shareholders—are already well aware of the brands their sprawling multinational oversees. Well, let’s assume they are. Such moves are likely aimed at stakeholders both primary (such as customers), and secondary (the general public). Using the power-interest matrix (50), I would put customers in quadrant C; they need to be kept satisfied, but aren’t particularly interested. Does the average ice-cream eater care that their odor was crafted by the same company? Probably not.

Other members of the public could be in quadrants A or B, needing to be kept informed, at most. But I think moves toward monolithic branding are both reactive and proactive. I see them as reactive is the sense that the average consumer is more aware of who makes their products these days. Negative publicity typically centers on the parent companies that operate brands, as opposed to the brands themselves. If a consumer learns that Unilever is the maker of Dove through a negative news story, it should concern the parent company. Their reactions are usually examples of what Cornelissen calls stakeholder management; short-term tactics beholden to events (55).

Engagement—proactive moves—can come about as a result of trying to stay ahead of future negative events. Unilever’s social media presence is largely of the feel-good type.

New report shows #sustainable companies outperform their peers in financial performance http://t.co/f8joinI0rq #NCE2015

— Unilever (@Unilever) July 7, 2015

I don’t think the parent company’s shareholders would have felt any need to present themselves so publicly if it weren’t for the increased visibility that the 21^st century puts on corporate practices. I think they would’ve happily continued largely in the shadows, as far as the usual consumer (and thus, most stakeholders) are concerned. Dove would be Dove, Hellmann’s would be Hellmann’s, and Unilever would be a funny word only business insiders knew the context of.

The inherent difficulty in uniting the disparate brands that Unilever oversees is a testament to how monumental a task it would be for key stakeholders to undertake. Cornelissen’s arguments for why a company moves toward monolithic branding are less cynical than what I’ve discussed, focused on potential “market values” and advertisement savings (74), but I think the points I’ve raised need to be considered. Not all parent companies can lean on famous leaders or unique outlets to communicate their brands.

Cornelissen, J. (2014). Corporate Communication: A Guide to Theory & Practice (4th ed.). London: SAGE.