Corporate Branding Online: Interview with Adrian Day
January 17, 2012
In the latest of our series of expert interviews, Paul (Corporate Eye CEO) talked to Adrian Day about corporate brand, and how companies can express this online – via their own websites, but also via social media.
Maybe retailers do have an advantage: but how do you communicate your bricks-and-mortar brand online? And how do you communicate your brand in an online space which you don’t control?
Do listen: Adrian and Paul consider the websites of a variety of different companies—from Iceland and John Lewis, RyanAir and Greene King to Rolls-Royce and British Airways—and discuss how your corporate brand values are communicated by the things you do (or don’t do) online, whether intentionally or not.
I’ve broken the interview down into smaller pieces, so that you can quickly find particular points you’d like to hear about. I’ve also included the whole interview and a transcript.
Part 1: Brand expression online
Key topics:
- brand and brand expression
- need for a clearly defined brand
- parallels with retail: it’s the detail – look, feel, engagement
Soundbites:
“[The brand is] the positioning, the proposition and the personality… the expression is how that positioning, proposition and personality is then expressed verbally and visually”
“Firms have to have a clearly defined brand and a clearly defined sense of self – then it is much easier to express it”
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Length: 4:13
Download: Adrian Day interview: part 1
Part 2: Making it explicit
Key topics:
- the website and the brand
- providing brand expression tools
Soundbites:
“Those organisations that really understand their customer and are used to engaging with their customer are better at translating their brand into the online community”
“If you look at John Lewis, Tesco and Iceland… each one of the brand experiences delivered by those websites is in line with what I would expect, knowing about those brands”
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Length: 5:38
Download: Adrian Day interview: part 2
Part 3: Brand across the web estate
Key topics
- corporate site vs retail site
- consumer vs B2B
Soundbites:
“Companies can afford to be a bit braver because people who shop in Sainsburys for example are also shareholders and analysts and we don’t necessarily have these sharp divisions in our lives. I think the messaging can be slightly different, and I think there may be some subtleties in the tone of voice”
“Some of the corporate and the B2B sites are behind some of the more communicative consumer sites”
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Length: 7:04
Download: Adrian Day interview: part 3
Part 4: Getting it right
Key topics:
- getting it right: content, social media and tone of voice
- managing the site for an audience
- demonstrating corporate values in practice
Soundbites:
“The most successful web-only brands – or digital brands, if you like – have been founded on a function… I just wonder if that trends gone too far… and that not enough of the brand comes through in the experience”
“Sometimes website content is overly controlled and you end up with something that is kind of bland, and you don’t notice the difference between one company or another”
“A lot of these corporate sites… you don’t get the sense they’re being actively managed for an audience.”
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Length: 12:33
Download: Adrian Day interview: part 4
Part 5: Branding in a difficult economic climate
Key topics:
- rebranding in an economic downturn
- repositioning the brand for customers and for staff
- repositioning for emerging markets
Soundbites:
“The time to look at your brand is when your market’s changing dramatically, when the organisation is changing dramatically, or in particular when your brand is out of sync with the business strategy and out of sync with consumers”
“Do you take a different approach because there’s a downturn? Only insofar as you take a different approach to your business. I mean the purpose of brand is to reflect the business strategy.”
“The number of organisations that have looked at their branding [in the last year] has gone up exponentially.”
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Length: 6:33
Download: Adrian Day interview: part 5
Part 6: Brand, social media and mobile
Key topics:
- being there as branding: making the deliberate choice
- brand and employee behaviour
- blogger engagement
- mobile content: less is more
Soundbites:
“Those firms that really have strong brands: in the sense of brand, their people will do the right thing.
“Social media is only an amplification of what always went on… but I think organisations do need to embrace it”
“If you can get the American constitution on one page of paper and the Ten Commandments on one page of paper then why can’t you get the key points about an organisation on X number of mobile pages? I think it helps focus the mind and could be an aid to getting stronger brand presence online”
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Length: 12:09
Download: Adrian Day interview: part 6
Part 7: Making the emotional connection
Key topics:
- future of brand experience
- learning from other digital disciplines
- importance of alignment with values and personality
Soundbites:
“There is an opportunity for better use of sound and video and colour and pacing… when you look at what television and cinema achieve in emotional connections through visual and sound stimuli I think there’s quite a way for websites to go”
“Don’t just update the website because you think you need a sort of image makeover; it needs to be founded in the organisational change and the organisation’s values and personality”
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Length: 7:52
Download: Adrian Day interview: part 7
Here’s the whole interview, in case you’d rather listen to it end-to-end; and the transcript, for those who prefer to read.
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Length: 56:10
Download: Adrian Day interview (whole interview)
Download: Transcript
Many thanks to Adrian for taking the time to talk to Paul.
Who were we speaking to?
Adrian is an experienced brand consultant and client director with many years experience working at leading firms such as Landor, Siegel & Gale, Ziggurat and Uffindell. He is now an independent brand consultant.
Adrian is experienced in conducting brand research, brand positioning, brand architecture, naming and creative briefing projects together with brand implementation programmes.
He has developed brand strategies and architecture solutions for a wide range of international clients including BP, RBS, National Bank of Dubai, Swiss Re, Telstra, and British Airways.
Authenticity and Audience – Being Human: interview with Mallen Baker
January 10, 2012
It seems obvious that not all your stakeholders are the same, with the same needs; yet for many companies it would seem that one size fits all when it comes to corporate responsibility reporting and communication. Simply producing a CR report isn’t enough to communicate with all of your audiences; and not all of them want all the information there is in your report.
Paul (Corporate Eye CEO) talked to Mallen Baker about the importance of identifying the different audiences for your corporate responsibility communications: about providing them with the information that interests them; about creating the opportunity to engage with them and to discuss the issues that matter.
I’ve broken the interview down into smaller pieces, so that you can quickly find particular points you’d like to hear about. I’ve also included the whole interview and a transcript.
Part 1: Tailoring content and conveying authenticity
Key topics:
- understanding the different audiences
- tailoring content for those audiences
- conveying authenticity and generating trust
Soundbites:
“The key distinguishing features between a good report online and a mediocre one are a couple of things. First of all is that the company is clear about who its audience or audiences are… and the second part is the integrity of information and the authenticity of the voice that you’re hearing.”
“If you care about your audiences, you use a medium and an approach that they will relate to as your starting point.”
“Consumers see through the fluff very quickly. And all of the polls show that they’re becoming more and more cynical about the claims that companies make in the environmental and ethical space.
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Length: 8:40
Download: Mallen Baker interview: part 1
Part 2: Communicating commitment
Key topics:
- the Centrica report interviews
- CEO commitment; embedding sustainability in the business
- discussing issues that are in the public domain
Soundbites:
“[they] had the courage to step up and say ‘We are prepared to be placed in an area that’s just slightly outside of the comfort zone’ ”
“Whenever there’s a controversy in the press relating to a company the first thing that I will do is go to their website and see what they say about it… the mind boggles just how often the answer to that question is ‘Nothing’”
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Length: 4:13
Download: Mallen Baker interview: part 2
Part 3: Authenticity and audit
Key topics
- third party commentary
- collaborating with the audience to solve a problem
- using neutral spaces to exchange ideas and information
Soundbites:
“Having trusted third parties who have had the time – and the incentive presumably – to look carefully at what the company’s doing and to talk to them, and then to give their own reflections, good and bad… that generally plays pretty well”
“The other thing that provides authenticity is when people not only are admitting that something has gone the wrong way this year but actually seek to engage their audiences with problems that they face that they haven’t yet worked out how to solve”
“It’s shifted the focus a little bit from ‘the company is the star, the company is the centre of the universe’ and puts it into a position where there are sustainability issues and the company is one of the actors… one of the creators of environmental consequences alongside the rest of society”
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Length: 7:15
Download: Mallen Baker interview: part 3
Part 4: Audience and integrated reporting
Key topics:
- integrated reporting
- importance of the audience
- interim sustainability reporting
Soundbites:
“integrated reporting could be … a very positive thing, and potentially a dangerous thing in equal measure.”
“The encouraging thing is that… it will lead you to be clear about the communication that you send to one of your key audiences… the danger, the downside, is if you begin to believe that that integrated report is whyat you produce for all of your stakeholder audiences.”
“Many of your direct stakeholders do not get their information from reports.”
“Where you are engaging your customers or your supply chain or your employees with what you are doing and what’s happened, then the more up-to-date and current that is, and preferably more of a discussion and two-way flow that is, then the more likely you’re going to succeed.”
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Length: 6:47
Download: Mallen Baker interview: part 4
Part 5: Social media and CSR
Key topics:
- the right social media mindset
- going to where the audience is
- expanding the audience for CSR
Soundbites:
“You can’t have a discussion with a corporate entity. You can only have a discussion with a human being or a highly trained parrot.”
“One of the big challenges for the companies who are used to corporate communications and to being faceless – except for maybe the CEO in certain contexts – is that they find it very difficult to shift to a medium where it’s personal.”
“If you really want to engage the people who are your stakeholders… you need to go to where they naturally gather. And social media potentially creates tools that enable you to do that.”
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Length: 9:13
Download: Mallen Baker interview: part 5
Part 6: Trends in CSR communication
Key topics:
- conflicting trends in CSR communication
- legislation and innovation
- the human element; stories
Soundbites:
“The evolution of corporate responsibility reporting or sustainability reporting to date is completely unsustainable in itslef, ironically, because… the current state of the art doesn’t connect with audiences.”
“The trend has been more and more GRI reports, more and more standardisation. And I start to see a counter trend now, which is from the leading companies [who are starting to say] “We’re going to find ways that actually communicate better with some of our key audiences… we’re interested in finding the way that works.”
“It’s the human element, the story. … and it is the most elusive element because it requires you to be prepared to corporately communicate on a human level. That will always be a minority sport. But I think there can be some very, very good rewards for those who will pick up the intelligence about how it’s done well and give it a go.”
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Length: 7:32
Download: Mallen Baker interview: part 6
Here’s the whole interview, in case you’d rather listen to it end-to-end; and the transcript, for those who prefer to read.
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Length: 43.43
Download: Mallen Baker interview (whole interview)
Download: Transcript
Many thanks to Mallen for taking the time to talk to Paul.
Who were we speaking to?
Mallen Baker is a writer, speaker and strategic advisor on corporate social responsibility and Founding Director of Business Respect. He is responsible for the Business Respect email newsletter on CSR, which is the longest running CSR internet newsletter in the world.
He is a regular columnist and contributing editor with Ethical Corporation.
Mallen was formerly the development director with Business in the Community, where he was responsible for developing BITC’s approach to marketplace issues, which includes how companies manage issues that arise around their core products and services. He produced the Marketplace Responsibility Principles working with a leadership team of CEOs from major companies headquartered in the UK.
He initiated the Business Impact Review Group – the group of 20 companies who developed a common approach to CSR reporting, and was responsible for the work of the Business Impact Taskforce which produced the landmark “Winning with Integrity” report.
Mallen chaired Kingfisher plc’s Stakeholder Advisory Panel 2007-2010, and was a board member of CSR Europe 2006 – 2008.
Welcoming the New Year on your Corporate Website
January 2, 2012
It’s a brand new year: no doubt you have exciting new ideas for developing your corporate site in 2012. But have you taken care of calendar duties for the change of the year?
I spent yesterday reviewing various corporate websites, and was slightly surprised that they hadn’t all updated the copyright year in the footer. Many have, of course – but have you?
Some of the outdated dates I saw may have been due to caching; and today is still a holiday here in the UK – many people don’t go back to work until tomorrow, Tuesday 3 January. But the date can be automatically generated.
If it’s not automatically updated based on the system date on your site, ask your developers if they could sort this out for you – one less thing to think about next year!
Other things to consider:
- adding in future dates for the new calendar year in your events calendar, and moving 2011 dates to the ‘historic’ section of the calendar, if you keep historic dates
- making sure that you have a new tab—headed 2012, of course—for your news releases, RNS and any other time-specific sections, and that older material is moved out of the ‘current’ tab. Check your reports, presentations and webcasts pages too…
- some of your content, inevitably, will refer to 2011 as the current year. It’s worth developing a spreadsheet with the URLs of pages that need to be updated on a calendar basis, so that you can find them quickly in the future. If you don’t have one yet, then likely pages to check quickly are landing pages across the site, and your strategy pages, including your CSR strategy page if that’s separate.
- check the history/timeline page too. That might need to be updated…
- do you have any text in the rotators on your landing pages or home page, that refers to 2011 as ‘this year’?
- and while you’re having a tidy-up, are there job postings on-site that should be cleared out?
If you’re running a corporate blog, you may want to check that your archive page is working well, and think about your editorial calendar for 2012, making a note of any special company events that are coming up that could be or should be covered in the blog.
And here’s something that has caught me out in the past: if your blog software automatically creates new subdirectories for uploads, ensure that you have access to any new 2012 subdirectories. If your systems administrators keep tight control of access rights, you may find that they haven’t yet given you permission to update those subdirectories. It’s quickly sorted out, of course, but I expect you want to get a flying start on 2012.
What have I missed? Are there any New Year jobs that need doing on your corporate website that I haven’t mentioned here?
Collaborating with Activists: Catalyst for Change
December 1, 2011
The Corporate Responsibility and Reporting conference wound up with a session from a panel of activism experts talking about how companies should respond to defuse a potential crisis before it blows up.
The description of the activist strategy was fascinating. Having identified a potential issue, and done their research to establish the scale and detail of the problem, they will target brands that they see as a catalyst for change: either the market leader, where potentially the most publicity is available, or the laggards, where potentially the most change is possible.
The first approach will be a fishing letter raising the problem; the purpose of this is to establish what your likely response will be – will you call in the legal team, pass the letter to PR, or hide the letter at the bottom of your inbox?
If a respected organisation such as Greenpeace have sent you a letter like this, it is because there is a problem… hiding won’t help, and may trigger an active campaign.
The activists advise:
- don’t ignore the letter
- do acknowledge receipt
- do investigate the claim
- and call them to organise a meeting with as senior a member of management as possible.
Interestingly, they say:
- talk directly to the activists
- don’t send a lawyer or your PR company, as doing this is likely to confirm to the activist group that there is indeed a serious problem and that you have something to hide.
Better by far is to work with the activist group, visiting the field with them to see the problem. Then establish an action plan and communicate your progress against these targets. Not only to the activist group, but also – to aid transparency – publicly.
Best of all would be to have established a good working relationship with the activist organisation in advance – and if CSR is ‘in the DNA’ of the organisation, then they would have such relationships in place.
Transparency about the challenges an organisation or industry faces would deflate any potential campaign in the future; and, just as in the case of blogger outreach, relationships with respected organisations might mean they come to your support if you are criticised unfairly by other – perhaps less respectable – activist organisations in the future.
Medical Students: Mobile, Motivation and Mass Communication
November 30, 2011
This weekend I was invited to run a workshop for medical students about building quality websites. Yes: medical students.
This was a conference for students running their medical school society committees – so, students from across the UK – and my session was for those with responsibility for their society websites this year.
Because every medical school and every MedSoc is set up slightly differently, each is different, but primarily the purposes of their websites are to:
- inform (about education, about events, about current – medical – news, and about welfare)
- recruit (new medical students; new MedSoc members; volunteers)
- sell (event tickets and other items)
- share (create a community of support for their peers).
We ran through an exercise of examining the home pages of a few MedSoc sites to see which items of good practice could be identified and used by others. We found a fair few reusable ideas for MedSoc sites, and it also became clear that what the students were looking for on these sites included:
- an explanation of who is behind the site and what they do
- a statement of why the visitor should join (the school and/or the society)
- fresh – and useful – content for visitors of different types
- contact details.
Why would you care about this?
Some of these are things that companies should consider with respect to their own sites (not yours: obviously you’ve covered these bases). But there is more to it than that:
- mobile
These students were bright and highly motivated – unsurprisingly, since these were medics. They were also very clear on what they saw as a quality website; and they almost all used the internet with a mobile device (usually a smartphone). What do you think they make of your site?
- motivation
I sat in on one of the earlier conference sessions, and heard from a 5th year medical student building revision apps using medical expertise from his peers and from hospital consultants.
These students are a select group, and further self-selected by finding time out of their intensive course not only to run a student society but also to get to their annual conference. And to find time to build an app as well…
- mass communication
These students are individually willing to voice their opinions and to speak up for themselves and the people they represent. The official theme of the conference was 2020; the unofficial theme that one attendee thought was developing was the need to band together to achieve more—from pooling the results of the revision apps worldwide, so that individuals could compare their own progress with results from their peers around the world, to the MedSoc webmasters sharing best practice and technical support in earning revenue from their websites.
So: what are you doing to prepare for a future in which individuals are demanding service from you from wherever they happen to be, using whatever device they prefer, with virtually instant access to information and with the backing of their peers around the world?
——–
Here’s the outline I used to generate discussion, together with screenshots of a few of the MedSoc websites
Thanks to Birmingham MedSoc for the invitation to participate.
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