Corporate Communication Blok 2.1 Flashcards
1
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Corporate communication
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Corporate communication is a management function that offers a framework for the effective coordination of all internal and external communication with the stakeholder groups upon which the organisation is dependent.
2
Q
Mission
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Mission:
Overriding purpose in line with the values and expectations of stakeholders
3
Q
Vision
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Vision:
Desired future state – the aspiration of the organisation
4
Q
Corporate objectives
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Corporate objectives:
Statement of overall aims in line with the overall purpose
5
Q
Strategy
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Strategy:
The ways or means in which the corporate objectives are to be achieved and put into effect
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Q
Stakeholders
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Stakeholders:
Any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organisation’s objectives
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Q
Market
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Market:
A defined group whom a product is or may be in demand (and for whom an organisation creates and maintains products and services)
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Q
Communication
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communication:
The tactics and media that are used to communicate with internal and external groups
9
Q
Integration
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Integration:
The act of coordinating all communication so that the corporate identity is effectively and consistently communicated to internal and external groups.
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Q
Corporate identity:
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Corporate identity:
The profile and values communicated by an organisation
- Symbolism: corporate logos and the company house style of an organisation
- Communication: all planned forms of communication including corporate advertising, events, sponsorship, publicity and promotions
- Behaviour: all behaviour of employees that leaves an impression on stakeholders
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Q
Corporate image
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Corporate image:
The immediate set of associations in response to one or more signals or messages from or about a particular organisation at a single point in time
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Q
Corporate reputation
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Corporate reputation:
An individual’s collective representation of past images of an organisation (induced through either communication or past experiences) established over time
13
Q
Corporate branding
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Corporate branding:
Attempt to attach higher credibility to a new product by associating it with a well-established company name. Unlike a family-branding (which can be applied only to a specific family of products), corporate branding can be used for every product marketed by a firm
Identity structures
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Q
Corporate branding - Monolithic
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Monolithic:
single all-embracing identity (products all carry the same corporate name)
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Q
Corporate branding - Endorsed
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Endorsed:
businesses and product brands are endorsed or badged with the parent company name
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Q
Corporate branding - Branded
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Branded:
individual businesses or product brands each carry their own name (and are seemingly unrelated to each other)
17
Q
Risk society
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Risk society has created an emphasis on health and safety, environmental concerns, security and terrorism, and financial risk and regulation. All these issues have an influence on the public mind. General public expects a corporate response. Organisations have started investing in issues management programs such as corporate advertising campaigns.
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Q
Issues
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Issues:
- A public concern about the organisation’s decisions and operations that may or may not also involve;
- A point of conflict in opinions and judgements regarding those decisions and operations
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Q
Crisis
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A crisis is defined as an issue that requires not just decisive but also immediate action from the organisation. The necessity for immediate action may be triggered by, for example, mounting public pressures, intense media attention or direct danger.
- Anticipation: involves the capacity of organisations to predict and prevent potential crisis scenarios from arising before they have occurred.
- Resilience or the ability to cope with a crisis once it occurs and confronts the organisation. A resilient performance is, in effect, one where members of the organisation improvise and act mindfully in real time to deal with the crisis and minimise its impact.
While organisations may not oversee every possible crisis that may affect them, they can develop crisis contingency plans in advance and in anticipation of major possible crisis.
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Q
development Issue into a crisi
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4 stages of development issue into a crisis
- Latent
- Active
- Intense
- Crisi
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Q
Life Cycle of an issue
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Issues Development life cycle process
Stage 1: Emergence
Stage 2: Debate
Stage 3: Codification
Stage 4: Enforcement
22
Q
Position / importance matrix
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Problematic - low importance / low support
Antagonistic - High importance / Low support
Low priority - Low importance / High support
Supporter/advocate - High importance / High supprt
23
Q
Problematic stakeholders
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Problematic stakeholders:
those stakeholders who are likely to oppose or to be hostile to the organisation’s course of action, but are relatively unimportant to the organisation because they are not normally recognised as important stakeholders and have little power to exert strong pressure on the organisation – educational programmes
24
Q
Antagonistic stakeholders
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Antagonistic stakeholders:
those stakeholders who are likely to oppose or be hostile to the organisation’s course of action and hold power or influence over the organisation – anticipating the nature of their objections and developing and communicating counter-arguments as well as bargaining with selected stakeholders to win their support
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Low Priority stakeholders
Low Priority stakeholders:
those stakeholders who are likely to support the organisation’s course of action but are relatively unimportant in terms of their power or influence on the organisation
Supporter stakeholders: those stakeholders who are likely to support the organisation’s course of action and are important to the organisation in terms of their power or influence – educational programmes and promoting the company’s involvement with these supporting stakeholders
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Supporter stakeholders
Supporter stakeholders:
those stakeholders who are likely to support the organisation’s course of action and are important to the organisation in terms of their power or influence – providing information to reinforce their position and possibly asking them to influence indifferent stakeholders
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Issue-specific response strategies
1. Buffering strategy:
2. Bridging strategy:
3. Advocacy strategy: try to
4. Thought leadership:
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Buffering strategy
Buffering strategy:
organisations can deny the existence of an issue and remain silent
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Bridging strategy:
Bridging strategy:
recognise the issue, adapt their operations and actively communicate and engage with stakeholders
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Advocacy strategy:
Advocacy strategy:
try to change stakeholders’ expectations and public opinions on an issue so that these expectations and opinions conform to current practices and values
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Thought leadership:
Thought leadership:
proactively move on the issue, stake out a position and commit the company to progressive change on the issue
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five different levels of contingency plans
Crisis experts Mitroff and Pearson highlight five different levels of contingency plans:
Stage 1- involves minimal planning around a few contingency plans drawn up for an emergency response. This may involve a limited set of plans such as evacuating the building in case of a fire.
Stage 2- involves more extensive planning but is limited to natural disasters and potential human errors. Planning at this stage involves measures for damage containment and business recovery.
Stage 3- involves extensive contingency plans which include crisis procedures for probable natural disasters and human errors and the training of personnel so that employees can implement these crisis procedures.
Stage 4- involves an organisation-wide consultation of potential crises and their impact on stakeholders. The scope of stage 4 is wider than typical natural disasters and human errors and includes product defects, tampering and social issues regarding the company’s supply chain, operations and contributions to society.
Stage 5- involves all of the previous stages but also incorporates environmental scanning and early warning systems to identify crises as early as possible.
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Reputational capital
Reputational capital is an organisation’s ‘stock of perceptual and social assets – the quality of the relationship it has established with stakeholders and the regard in which the company and brand is held. Based on past performance and communication, organisations accumulate such capital with their stakeholders over time. A crisis will inflict some reputational damage, and as such some capital is lost or spent.
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Goodwill - Halo Effect
Depending on the amount of that was there in the first place, enough goodwill may remain. It has also been described in terms of a ‘reservoir of goodwill’, which means that, generally speaking, an organisation with a more favourable reputation prior to a crisis is also likely to have a stronger post-crisis reputation because it has more reputational capital to spend. As a result, a favourable prior reputation means an organisation suffers less and rebounds more quickly.
As such, previously accumulated reputational capital may create a ‘halo effect’ that protects an organisation during a crisis and negates any long-lasting reputational damage.
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organisational stigma
An organisational stigma is defined as a collective stakeholder group-specific perception that an organisation possesses a fundamental, deep-seated flaw or quality which is demonstrated in repeated crisis or failures, and which, in effect, leads stakeholders to single out and discredit the organisation. Stigma leads to negative stakeholder attributions and judgements of organisation and leads stakeholders to ‘disidentify’ with the organisation and at against the organisation.
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Controllability of the crisis
the controllability of the crisis. Intentional means that the crisis event was committed deliberately by some actor. Unintentional means that the crisis event was not committed deliberately by some actor.
Intentional / External = Terrorism
Intentional / Internal = Transgression
Unintentional / External = Faux Pass
Unintentional / Internal = Accidents
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Controllability of the crisis - Faux Pass
Faux pas is an unintentional action which is transformed into a crisis by an external actor. A faux pas often begins as an issue between an organisation and a particular external actor who challenges the appropriateness of the organisation’s actions.
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Controllability of the crisis - Accidents
Accidents are unintentional and happen during the course of normal organisational operations.
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Controllability of the crisis - Transgressions
Transgressions are intentional acts taken by an organisation that knowingly place stakeholders at risk or harm. Such as knowingly selling defective or dangerous products.
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Controllability of the crisis - Terrorism
Terrorism refers to intentional acts taken b external agents. These intentional actions are designed to harm the organisation directly (hurt customers through product tampering) or indirectly (reduce sales or disrupt production.
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Crisis communication strategies
| perception low level of responsibility
- Non existence strategies
- Distance strategies
- Association strategies
- Suffering strategies
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Non-existence strategies
Non-existence strategies: Claim of denying the crisis
1. Denial
A simple statement denying that a crisis exists
2. Clarification
An extension of the denial tactic with attempts to explain why there is no crisis
3. Attack and intimidation
A tactic of confronting the person or group who claims that a crisis exists; may include a threat to use ‘force’ against the accuser
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Distance strategies
Distance strategies
Claim of distancing the organisation from direct responsibility for the crisis
1. Excuse
A tactic of denying intention or volition by scapegoating others for the crisis
2. Downplay
A tactic of convincing stakeholders or the general public that the situation is not that bad in itself or compared to other crises
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Association strategies
Association strategies
Claim of connection the organisation to things positively valued by stakeholders and publics
1. Bolstering
A tactic of reminding stakeholders and the general public of existing positive aspects of the organisation in order to offset the negatives the crisis brings to the organisation
2. Transcendence
A tactic of associating the negatives and loss arising from the crisis with a desirable, higher order goal
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Suffering strategy
Suffering strategy
Claim that the organisation suffers from the crisis
1. Victimisation
A tactic of portraying the organisation as a victim of the crisis in order to win public sympathy
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Crisis communication strategies
| perception of High level of responsibility
- acceptance strategy
| - accommodative strategy
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Acceptance strategy
Acceptance strategy
Claim accepting responsibility or culpability for the crisis
1. Full apology
A tactic of simply apologising for the crisis and accepting the blame
2. Remediation
A tactic of announcing some form of compensation or help to victims
3. Repentance
A tactic of asking for forgiveness; the organisation apologises for the crisis and asks stakeholders and the general public to forgive its misdeeds
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Accommodative strategy
Accommodative strategy
Claim promising to prevent the crisis from recurring
1. Rectification
A tactic of taking corrective action to prevent a recurrence of the crisis in the future
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Media Relations
Media relations involves managing communication and relationships with the media – all the writers, editors and producers who contribute to and control what appears in the print, broadcast and online news media.
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News Media
The news media involve a variety of organisations with the core operational process of production and dissemination of news content through various media (newspapers, radio. TV and the internet).
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Framing
Framing essentially involves selection and salience. To frame is to select some aspects of perceived reality and make them more salient in the communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation and/or treatment recommendation for the item described.
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News framing
News framing refers to the way in which news is selectively portrayed by the media in an effort to explain news or ideas about organisations in familiar terms for a broader audience.
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10 new rules of crisis communications
10 new rules of crisis communications
- Communications are a 2-way street
- Real-time is not a suggestion but an expectation of your audience
- Informative is the only way
- Listen, listen, listen
- Your audience will be responsive and so must you
- Sincerity, honesty and apologies go a long way (though actions should speak louder than words)
- Humans dealing with humans
- Adaptability and flexibility are highly recommended
- Twitter-friendly communications are your friend
- Communicate with your staff throughout the internal crisis.
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3 steps to communicating with all your stakeholders
3 steps to communicating with all your stakeholders
- Who are your different stakeholders, both internally and externally?
- What social channels do each of these stakeholder groups use the most, and for what purpose?
- Don’t forget about email, SMS and phones
who / when / how
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reputation platform
A strong reputation platform rests on a rendering of the company’s history, strategy, identity and reputation that rings true to internal and external observers. Three important questions to ask yourself: Is your reputation platform:
- Relevant
- Realistic
- Appealing
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Communication specialists
Despite the different dynamics of their specialties, experience suggests that all communications specialists benefit: (1) from having a solid appreciation and understanding of the company’s reputation platform, and (2) from being provided with a clear version of the corporate story that is adapted to the interests of their target groups. Consistency in the articulation of the corporate story among specialists is more likely to increase awareness, understanding, and ultimately build trust and respect for the company with its key stakeholders.
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Internal Communications:
Internal Communications:
A group responsible for communicating with employees, that frequently interfaces with the human resources function in the company.
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Marketing Communications
Marketing Communications:
A group responsible for communicating with the company’s customer accounts and often interfaces with marketing and customer service functions in the company.
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Investor Relations
Investor Relations:
A group responsible for communicating with investors and analysts who monitor the company’s financial performance and prospects
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Government Relations
Government Relations:
Often called “public affairs”, these specialists are generally responsible for improving the company’s relationships with regulators, legislators, and other government representatives.
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Public Relations
Public Relations:
A group whose responsibilities would include interacting with the diffuse set of NGO and activist groups motivated by concern over a specific social problem to which the company may be contributing.
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Communication strategy
A communication strategy stars with formulating a desired reputational position for the organisation in terms of how it wants itself to be seen by its different stakeholder groups. When such a broad-based objective is set, communication practitioners translate that aspiration into specific communication programmes and campaigns aimed at both internal and external stakeholder audiences.
Based on an assessment of the gap between how the company is currently seen (corporate reputation) and how it wants to be seen (vision), a communication strategy specifies a strategic intent, on which possible courses of action are formulated, evaluated and eventually chosen.
Communication strategies typically involve a process of bringing stakeholder reputations in line with the vision of the organisation, in order to obtain the necessary support for the organisation’s strategy.
- Strategy formation consists of a combination of planned and emergent processes.
- Strategy involves a general direction and not simply plans or tactics
- Strategy is about the organisation and its environment
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The link between corporate strategy and communication strategy
On the one hand, the decisions that are made at the level of the corporate strategy need to be translated into specific communication programmes for specific stakeholders. At the same time, corporate communication and communication strategies need to be linked to the corporate strategy. This link consists of advising and informing the CEO and senior executives on stakeholders and reputation issues so that these can be factored into the overall corporate strategy and the company’s strategic vision.
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Ideal situation
- The content of the strategy starts to form an organisation-wide assessment of how the organisation is seen by the different stakeholders (reputation) in the light of the organisation’s vision at a particular point in time
- Gap between reputation and vision – basis for the formulation of a strategic intent
- Strategic intent is translated into strategic messages (or content platforms)
How the organisation is seen by stakeholders -> reputation -> strategic intent -> the change or consolidation in the company’s reputation that is intended
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Strategic messages
Strategic messages are designed to change or reinforce perceptions in line with the vision of how the organisation wants itself to be known
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Themed messages
Themed messages relate to specific capabilities, strengths or values of an organisation. These messages are continuously and consistently communicated to stakeholders to achieve the strategic intent of changing or consolidating the company’s reputation. Such a themed message may involve a company’s specific capability, its general strengths or achievements or particular values associated with the company’s identity. Themed messages emphasize an aspect that the organisation wants to become associated with in the mind of important stakeholder groups.
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Message styles
Message styles:
Functional orientation Symbolic orientation Industry orientation
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Rational message style
Rational message style
1. Definition: a superiority claim based on actual accomplishments or delivered benefits by the organisation
2. Conditions: most useful when the point of difference cannot be readily matched by competitors
3. Content: informational in the form of a claim that is supported with information as the grounds for the claim
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Symbolic association message style
Symbolic association message style
1. Definition: a claim based on psychological differentiation through symbolic association
2. Conditions: best for homogeneous organisations where differences are difficult to develop or easily duplicated, or for messages around areas such as CSR or social capital that are difficult to communicate in concrete and rational terms
3. Content: transformational in the form of endowing the organisation with a particular image through association with culturally shared and recognized values or symbols
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Emotional message style
Emotional message style
1. Definition: attempts to provoke involvement and positive reactions through a reference to positive (or negative) emotions
2. Conditions: effective use depends on the perceived authenticity of the professed emotion and on the relevance of the emotion to the stakeholders
3. Content: appeals to specific positive or negative emotions (e.g. romance, nostalgia)
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Generic message style
Generic message style
1. Definition: a straight claim about industry or cause with no assertion of superiority
2. Conditions: a monopoly or an extreme dominance of industry
3. Content: a general claim (to stimulate demand for a product category or raise awareness of cause)
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Pre-emptive message style
Pre-emptive message style
1. Definition: a generic claim with a suggestion of superiority
2. Conditions: changing industry, allowing a company to take a position on an issue connected to that industry
3. Content: a claim of industry-wide leadership on relevant issue or capability
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CSR
CSR can be defined as the continuing commitment by business to contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the community and society at large.
CSR is often defined in terms of the notion of a ‘triple bottom line’ that includes people, planet and profits.
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Basic communication strategies for CSR:
Basic communication strategies for CSR:
- Informational strategy
- Stakeholder response
- Stakeholder involvement strategy
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. Informational strategy
- Informational strategy:
There is not necessarily a persuasive intent, but companies instead aim to inform the public as objectively as possible about their CSR activities.
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Stakeholder response
- Stakeholder response strategy:
Stakeholders are asked for feedback on CSR activities, or more generally in response to organisational decisions and actions. This strategy is a two-way in that stakeholders are asked about their opinions and expectations, but it is ultimately the company that decides what the focus of the CSR activities should be, and then engages with stakeholders to promote these activities.
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Stakeholder involvement strategy
- Stakeholder involvement strategy:
There is a real mutual dialogue between a company and its stakeholders. Stakeholders have a genuine say in the CSR commitments of a company, with the company trying to meet, if not exceed, the expectations of various stakeholder groups on social and environmental issues.
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Guidelines for CSR
- Set clear objectives: The company shows that it is serious about CSR by setting clear objectives for social and environmental performance annually, and by systematically reporting on the results achieved afterwards.
- Set progressive objectives: Objectives are progressive in bringing new aspirations and standards to bear upon business operations instead of a regurgitating of existing practices that may be seen as socially and environmentally viable.
- Involve stakeholders: Objectives and targets include issues that are relevant to stakeholders (or ‘material’ in integrated reporting terms) and are linked to clear benchmarks and standards (at the industry and policy levels)
- Report transparently: Reporting is an honest, transparent and full-scale self-assessment instead of polishing of performance data.
- Be accountable: Performance data are rigorously assessed and verified by credible auditors (accountants or consultants)
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Focus group
Focus group:
A semi-structured group discussion facilitated by a researcher whereby the researcher tries to dig deep into the underlying motivations around an issue or a problem.
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Survey
Survey methods are quantitative in nature: the attempt is to record in numbers the level of awareness, attitudes or behaviors of the population in relation to certain issues or circumstances. Advanced forms of statistical analyses are then used to test hypotheses concerning relationships amongst a group of variables under study. Surveys serve both descriptive and analytical purposes.
Descriptive: Characteristics of customers
Analytical: Consumption behavior
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stages and levels of evaluation
During the preparation of the program or campaign, practioners may pre-test the appropriateness of messages and the way in which such messages are presented.
The implementation of the program or campaign in turn is associated with continuous measurement and evaluation of the outputs in terms of, for example, the amount of on- and off-line media coverage received or the number of stakeholders who have received or attended to the messages and activities.
At the impact level, research focuses on the number of people in the target audience who have seen the message, digested its contents, and have in turn changed their views of and behaviors towards the organization in a favorable way.
