THE FUTURE OF MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS 2018

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The world is changing; marketing and communications professionals are facing huge shifts in the way they interact with their consumers, audiences and the media, all of which are now more connected than ever.

As digital continues to transform the way people consume information and discover brands, organizations now face the increasing challenge of ensuring they cut through the noise and communicate eff ectively, and with authenticity, across all media channels.

Kogan Page’s portfolio is the leading cluster of books covering marketing, communications, PR and digital strategy. Our books address the latest industry trends, tools and techniques, to ensure your marketing remains one step ahead. Learn how to communicate with your audience eff ectively at every key touch point, with these leading articles and extracts from our expert authors.

CONTENTS:3 The Experiential Future by Shirra Smilansky

5 Transmedia Storytelling by Daniel Rowles

7 Content Marketing vs Content Strategy: What’s the Diff erence? by Rebecca Lieb

9 Measuring the Value of Content by Simon Kingsnorth

11 Winning the Challenge of Constant Content Generation by Sonia Jeff erson and Sharon Tanton

13 Is all Advertisign Spam? Communication Planning in an On-Demand World by Faris Yakob

15 Fake News, Real Problem by Dale Lovell

17 Copywriting and Connecting on Social Media by Andy Maslen

20 How Not to Handle a Crisis Media Interview by Robert Taylor

22 Creating a Culture of Transparency by Annabel Dustan & Imogen Osborne

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the experiential future SHIRRA SMILANSKY

At fi rst glance, and after failing to impress in the respect of huge numbers, some people perceive experiential marketing as a limited tactical tool, rather than as a key strategic approach that marketers should consider central to their integrated marketing communications plan. In fact, word-of-mouth reach and brand advocacy are so valuable – and can expand the brand’s reach to such a massive scale – that if experiential marketing were to be measured according to its unique benefi ts, marketers would fi nd that it is hugely successful in impacting unprecedented numbers of people. As with all marketing, this is not always the case if only last-minute tactical activities are implemented. To gain maximum benefi ts, customer experience and experiential marketing should be central to the long-term marketing strategy of any brand.

Traditional channels aim to increase brand awareness, market share and sales. Experiential marketing can achieve these objectives, but the live brand experience must be at the core of the integrated marketing communications strategy in order to gain maximum results. Experiential marketing brings a great deal more than brand awareness or a quick sale from a promiscuous customer. To gain maximum benefi ts from implementing experiential marketing, we should look at the more sophisticated results that it can achieve when properly integrated, invested in and planned well in advance.

An immersive and experiential eraSome companies have implemented experiential marketing strategies for years and confi dently diff erentiated themselves from the competition, forming long-lasting relationships with their Target Audience, maintaining customer loyalty and incubating fans into advocates.

They have tantalized the fi ve senses through live

brand experience events in real life (IRL), and amplifi ed them, extending the reach of their content through other marketing communication channels and social media. Immersive brand experiences add value to the consumer, and give something back, paving the way for innovating, market-leading brands to create longer-lasting and deeper connections with customers.

Consumers have visited amusement parks such as Disneyland, Sea World and Universal Studios for decades, revelling in the universe of their favourite characters and brands. By allowing consumers to touch, smell, taste, see and hear, Disney has created immersive experiential environments that generate an emotive response. For years, this has propelled guests to talk and rave about those memorable events to loved ones and acquaintances alike.

A world of experiencesIt is no surprise that while the experiential revolution is occurring and marketers are shifting focus from one-way to Two-Way Interactions, the same thing is happening in education. World-class educational experts (from kindergarten teachers to quantum physicists) are concluding in unison that when learning, the best way to truly understand and absorb information is through experiencing the problem, the process and the solution. Teachers have always taken children on fi eld trips to lakes and forests to help them understand natural biology through engaging with the true environment. They regularly facilitate experiments as a key part of learning.

However, it is not only schools and teachers that believe engagement is the key to successfully educating and informing students. London, along with many other cities worldwide, is home to a fascinating science museum, which allows visitors to touch,

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hear, see and taste, taking them through a journey of staged experiences and interactive tools, all the while communicating key messages. They succeed in educating, informing and achieving their objectives within a creative exploratory environment.

Similarly, MOMI (the Museum of the Moving Image) has captured the attention and wonder of film fans for decades, allowing them to immerse themselves in a movie-themed environment, which is at once interactive, entertaining, informative and educational. This shift marks why establishments such as these spend so little of their budgets on traditional marketing. They know that the consumers who provide their revenue execute their most effective word-of-mouth marketing.

Consumer trends shift towards ‘experiences as entertainment’There has been an experiential revolution across so many sectors, from food, to theatre, to arts, to sports, to retail and to entertainment. It is now the gold standard expected from consumers and a long-term global shift towards experiences has transformed the way we choose to eat, drink, play, sleep, travel – in fact transact and share in every way. When you apply the same deeply considered and immersive, experiential principles applied by ‘interactivity gurus’ and cultural pacemakers – such as Punch Drunk Theatre, Secret Cinema, You Me Bum Bum Train, Immersive Zombie Experiences and countless more coveted immersive entertainment experiences purveyors – to a business and marketing context, not only will you generate immense consumer advocacy and achieve glorious commercial results, but you will also truly add value to your consumers’ everyday lives, giving back through authentic real-world experiences that generate social currency and build long-lasting, deep emotional ‘golden bonds’.

Two-way communication and interactive engagement are the keys to creating memorable experiences that drive word of mouth, and transform consumers (and trade/media/employees/other stakeholders) into brand advocates and brand evangelists. The power of a personal recommendation is unbeatable – 84 per cent of people say word-of-mouth recommendations are the most trusted source of brand discovery. So, delivering an exceptional brand experience is one of the most effective ways to turn customers into vocal promoters of a brand. The value these advocates bring goes beyond social engagement and retention.Brands are being shaped by word-of-mouth marketing generated by socially connected customers.

Experience brands build two-way relationshipsWe can all agree that if a consumer feels strongly about your brand – strongly enough to personally recommend it to many others – you have succeeded in achieving the golden brand bond. The trust and powerful connection between your brand and your customer is an indicator that a genuine relationship has been established. For example, if you went to a dinner date and were not able to ‘get a word in’, you would assume the person you were with was not interested in you. Likewise, from a consumer perspective, brands that only talk at people, not with them, are not going to develop long-term relationships with their consumers or drive brand advocacy. There is a sense that the brand doesn’t care. Two-way engagement experiences are the key to establishing deep and long-lasting relationships with people who trust and recommend brands to their peers.

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transmedia storytellingDANIEL ROWLES

IntegrationIt all starts with the idea of integration. We have identifi ed our value proposition, aligned it with the target audience’s needs, and focused on value throughout. Each of our channels has been carefully selected and we understand the potential journeys between each of these channels and how this may be a complex and non-linear process. We have identifi ed our content requirements to deliver the optimal journey and delivered this in a frictionless way, regardless of what device or platform our audience is using. So we have integrated digital branding, right? Very nearly.

What is missing is the glue that makes it stick together, which in this case is data. We need to test, learn to refi ne things and to adjust. The environment we operate in is fast moving and fl uid. Therefore our digital branding needs to be fl uid and fast to adjust as well.

Multichannel marketing is deadMultichannel marketing is the idea of delivering your marketing via multiple channels, which traditionally meant print, TV, catalogues and a website that said the same thing (or some other online/offl ine mix). It meant, for example, that a special off er on one channel was off ered in the same way on another channel.

The reality is that if you are still trying to achieve this you’ve got it all wrong. Diff erent channels are used diff erently and we don’t want exactly the same from each. Digital means that we have dozens of diff erent channels and we certainly don’t want them all to communicate the same things. Yet that is not to say we don’t want consistency.

Consistency of brandThe traditional idea of brand recognition is still essential. You need to be able to recognize my brand easily, so that the eff orts I have made via my digital branding to make you understand my value proposition are remembered easily. Without that clear understanding of what the brand represents, the brand recognition is fairly pointless. Consistency in visual identity and tone only serves a purpose if the value you provide is clear.

Omni-channel marketingOmni-channel marketing recognizes the fact that my target audience will want to engage and communicate with me across multiple channels in a way that suits them. It recognizes that each channel plays a diff erent role in the user journey, and this role may change and adapt according to what the person engaging with it wants.

Bear in mind, though, that each user may start the user journey at a diff erent point and jump many of the steps you expected. They may also revisit certain steps multiple times and leave long durations of time between each step. For example, I know that on average a lead generated on my website is done so by a visitor who has visited around fi ve times. This means they have visited my site again and again, obviously fi nding something useful each time, before they fi nally decide to enquire about the service we off er. Without knowing this, I may have dismissed the traffi c being sent to my site by various channels, as it never seemed to be converting into business. In reality, I just didn’t understand the number of steps and complexity involved. Understanding this omni-channel approach is at the heart of truly understanding how diff erent

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elements of your marketing efforts are contributing to your digital branding.

The approach to digital branding outlined in this section embraces omni-channel marketing with its focus on user journey and final outcomes.

Transmedia storytellingI love saying the phrase ‘transmedia storytelling’ to people. They generally give me a bit of a smirk and then give me an ‘I’m not buying any of this nonsense’ kind of look, as if I’ve just expressed the silliest marketing jargon ever invented. However, it is real and is a fantastic opportunity to achieve incredibly powerful digital branding.

In reality, transmedia storytelling goes back to the very beginning of marketing. In fact, it goes back to the very beginning of language and communication. If I tell you a fact, you will probably forget it fairly quickly. However, if I tell you a story that communicates a fact, you’ll most likely remember it. It brings it to life, gives it context and makes it engaging. It’s human nature and it’s how we’ve communicated since before we could speak. It’s all about narrative.

Transmedia storytelling aims to tie together each of the channels and platforms we use – using narrative. This can lead to extremely memorable and engaging experiences. It also relies on great creative concepts and absolute attention to detail when exploring how the user journey can be understood and managed.

GamificationGamification is the principle of encouraging behaviours by rewarding a user in some way. This may be as simple as posting a high score to a public leader board (and remember, this doesn’t need to be limited to games, it could be for the most technical questions answered, etc). It can also take more complex forms, such as being the first user to discover a piece of hidden content, or unlocking hidden features when certain activities are carried out.

The key thing that makes gamification work is that the reward should be valuable to the user. This may be in the form of content or reward, and very often that reward can just be recognition.

For my favourite example of gamification, take a look at the video for Jay-Z’s Decoded book launch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNic4wf8AYg

Integration to transmedia conclusionsThe key to delivering great digital branding is to see how all of the different experiences that we are delivering fit together, whether that is via search, social media, mobile or any other digital channel.

In order for these to fit together, though, we need to test our assumptions, to adjust as things change and to have a constant commitment to improvement. To do this, we need feedback. This feedback takes the form of analytics, measurement and surveying our results.

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Content Marketing vs. Content Strategy: What’s the Difference?REBECCA LIEB

So content marketing is the new black (and some 66.6 million exact-match results for that phrase on Google suggest it’s at least a deep, deep indigo). Inevitably, that’s meant an escalated level of chatter, talk, and pontifi cating about content’s role in the digital mix.

As more and more marketers consider how content can work for them in the digital mix, a certain degree of confusion is beginning to obfuscate discussions and debates. Two very distinct disciplines, content strategy and content marketing, are beginning to blur. And if they’re not blurring, too many people are too carelessly using the terms interchangeably.

As with many marketing-related terms, it’s tough to nail down precise, etched-in-stone defi nitions for either term. But it’s nonetheless clear that content marketing and content strategy are not interchangeable concepts, nor do they refer to the same thing. There is, as we’ll soon see, a huge degree of interdependence.

Let’s throw some existing defi nitions out there for considerations, shall we?

Content strategy• Content strategy has been described as “the

practice of planning for content creation, delivery, and governance” and “a repeatable system that defi nes the entire editorial content development process for a website development project.” And also “achieving business goals by maximizing the impact of content.” (Wikipedia)

• “Using ‘words and data to create unambiguous content that supports meaningful, interactive experiences.’” (Rachel Lovinger, “Content Strategy: The Philosophy of Data”)

• “Content strategy plans for the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content... The content strategist must work to defi ne not only which content will be published, but why we’re publishing it in the fi rst place. Otherwise, content strategy isn’t strategy at all: it’s just a glorifi ed production line for content nobody really needs or wants. Content strategy is also -- surprise -- a key deliverable for which the content strategist is responsible. Its development is necessarily preceded by a detailed audit and analysis of existing content.” -- Kristina Halvorson

Content marketing• “Content marketing is an umbrella term

encompassing all marketing formats that involve the creation or sharing of content for the purpose of engaging current and potential consumer bases. Content marketing subscribes to the notion that delivering high-quality, relevant, and valuable information to prospects and customers drives profi table consumer action. Content marketing has benefi ts in terms of retaining reader attention and improving brand loyalty.” (Wikipedia)

• “Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defi ned and understood target audience -- with the objective of driving profi table customer action.” -- Joe Pulizzi

Content strategy is what makes content marketing eff ective. I like Ahava Leibtag’s take on the issue. She says content strategies are about repeatable frameworks, and content marketing is about building relationships. Marketers, she says, don’t necessarily create content strategies, but rather implement them.

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Evolution, on both sidesBack in the day, content strategy was primarily relegated to the user experience and website development processes. Small wonder. In the Web 1.0 era, your own site was pretty much the only thing online you could control or influence, content wise. Content strategy has blown beyond the walled garden and expanded to embrace auditing, analyzing, creating, disseminating, and governing content in a myriad of channels, ranging from more dynamic websites to the entire scope of Web 2.0 options out there in the wild (and often, how those same rules and processes should be applied to offline channels, as well).

Content strategy underpins content marketing. Without examining the competitive landscape, current assets, gaps, resources, the market, and plenty of other aspects, content marketing barely has a leg to stand on. Without a strategy, content marketing turns into one of those classic, eye-rolling imperatives all too familiar to digital marketers: “We need a Facebook page!” or “We ought to be blogging!” or “How come we’re not on Twitter?”

The obvious answer, of course, is because we don’t have a strategy. Content marketing is all very well and

good, but the reason to do it isn’t because all the cool kids are doing it. Without a strategic foundation, a structure, an analysis of resources and needs, and a system in place to measure results, all you’re doing is Facebooking. Or blogging. Or tweeting.

More of bothInterruption-based marketing will never go away, but it’s receding -- quickly. My research, for which we interviewed over 56 marketing leaders, found literally all of them are increasing their investment in content marketing and content strategy alike. Moreover, they’re investing in increasing more complex and technologically difficult content channels, which makes a strategic framework all the more essential.

If not today, then soon – very soon – your marketing spend will shift away from advertising and direct response campaigns and into content initiatives that strengthen ties and deepen relationships with customers and prospects.

The best way to prepare is to start developing content marketing initiatives. And the only way to do that is to first do the research and the homework by developing a solid content strategy framework around these content marketing efforts.

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measuring the value of contentSIMON KINGSNORTH

Given that content can have many guises and the objectives can be quite diff erent there is no one standard measurement approach or tool set. Below is a list of common metrics used; which ones you utilize will depend on the content being measured and the objectives for that content.

Volume and reach metricsThese metrics look at the volume of touchpoints with an audience as well as the quantity of campaign/channel-driven goals. Examples include:

Social reach and followers: is your social reach/followers increasing?

Impressions: how many impressions did your content receive?

Media coverage gained: what coverage was gained? What is the reach of the publications that have published the content?

Social mentions: how many times has your content been mentioned on social channels?

Links back to your site obtained: time-poor consumers of content will of course be more inclined to visit your site if a link is provided in the content. In addition, links from quality sites also bring SEO benefi ts.

Engagement and consumption metricsThese metrics look at the quality of customer interaction and discussion, as well as how campaign or channel content is consumed. Examples include:

Content interaction: how many page views/downloads has the content generated? What are the bounce rates for the content? (Bounce rate is the percentage of users who visit a page and then immediately leave.)

Social triggers: retweets, shares and posts.

Social engagement: this is where content is actively promoted by the consumer and, more than just a like or a share, there is real engagement. For example, adding comments to a post. Linked to this, and a more sophisticated measure, is amplifi cation. Amplifi cation measures the real value of the social sharing by considering the audience of the person sharing a piece of content. For example, a share by Katy Perry, who has over 60 million followers on Twitter, is likely to be more valuable than a share by this book’s author (depending on the context!).

Acquisition and value metricsThese metrics look at traffi c acquisition as well as the full range of sales and revenue metrics:

How many conversions/leads have been generated?

What is the attributable sales volume and revenue?

What is the cost per lead/action/sale?

Depending on your content objectives, a combination of the above metrics should provide the analysis you need to ascertain what content is working and what is not.

Measuring failureThis is an important consideration for content marketing. When it comes to making engaging content you should expect, and indeed celebrate, failure. That is not to say that if you produce 100 pieces of content you think are engaging and they all fail you should be happy, but it is important to recognize that not everything you produce will work. In fact if everything is working you might ask whether you are pushing the boundaries enough.

The key to success is to have your measurement in place. Understanding the features of each piece of content and how you have distributed it will help you

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to understand the reasons for failure when it happens. For example, the subject of your content, the author, which social channels were used, on what day and time and whether it was imagery, copy or video will all be factors in success or failure, so being able to analyse these is important to being able to refine your content strategy over time.

Case Study: Hertz EuropeBackground

Hertz is a well-known global car rental company. However, in recent years the brand had come under pressure from low-cost operators, particularly in the holiday rentals market.

Strategy

To counter this competitive pressure, Hertz commissioned a detailed analysis of the European vehicle hire market to identify where they could steal a march on their competitors in six European territories. This analysis revealed a gap in both functional and engaging content compared to the competition. The lack of content was hurting the brand both in terms of SEO performance for non-brand terms, especially location-based and in terms of conversion. The challenge was deploying a huge quantity of functional content in an incredibly short space of time, as well as developing creative content concepts to support rankings growth for both local and core keyword terms.

Their solution was a major deployment of both functional and creative content. Whilst Hertz’s organic rankings were relatively strong on generic keyword terms, by virtue of the strength of the brand, there were a number of key opportunities to drive improvements for localized keyword search terms. These city- or region-specific keyword terms had significantly lower volumes, but would drive considerably better conversion rates due to the intent of the searcher. For example, a person searching for ‘Car hire Malaga’ is certainly showing purchase intent.

The result was the creation of over 11,000 pages of localized content across the six international domains covering every town, city and region served by Hertz.

Of course this was a mammoth task; however, Hertz followed a logical and audience-centric approach, which made the production process relatively seamless. Crucially, the focus was on added-value content; a side result was SEO benefit.

This functional content was supported by creative, engaging content campaigns that aimed to inspire people to explore a Hertz location. From encouraging leading journalists to try new experiences with a Hertz van, and sharing great walking destinations outside of Edinburgh, through to ghost hunting in St Pancras and finding vintage fashion in Islington, north London, the creative content would reach new audiences and enhance Hertz’s online reach.

Results

Outstanding revenue growth across six European markets. The localized content strategy delivered outstanding returns on investment for Hertz, with both booking and revenue growth exceeding all expectations. The creative content helped Hertz to secure excellent levels of coverage, and high-quality referrals, from leading publications across Europe. This included the Telegraph, TNT Magazine, Scottish Daily Record and the Herald in the UK, as well as Le Parisien, Grazia, GQ and the Huffington Post across Europe. The localized content strategy resulted in significant rankings uplift for city- and region-specific search terms. These pages, which contained useful information regarding the destination in question for the end user, supported revenue growth in all six of the core European markets. This ranged from growth of 11.06 per cent year on year (YoY) in the UK, up to 121.13 per cent YoY revenue growth in the Italian market.

Key lessons

Hertz’s adoption of a content-led strategy helped to drive significant improvements in all markets through solid research, broad and relevant content that was well distributed.

The key content goals, discussed above, were all met and this is ultimately why their strategy was so successful.

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Winning the challenge of constant content generationSONIA JEFFERSON, SHARON TANTON

People can often start content marketing with buckets of enthusiasm and the very best intentions, but then they hit a wall. We’ve witnessed a pattern here with companies both big and small. More often than not this wall looms largest at the two- to three-month mark. The new website is up, there’s some great content coming through but a couple of months down the line frustration strikes.

Where are all the visitors? Why aren’t the leads pouring in? It feels like we’re talking to ourselves. This stuff is valuable – and I’m under pressure to deliver results – why isn’t it getting read? We need more eyeballs on our content, fast!

It’s a natural reaction and a frustration we can well understand. Our advice: don’t panic; check you’re doing all you can to promote your content; and keep on keeping on. Here are some ideas to help you ride out the two- to three-month content marketing slump and get the success your content deserves.

First things fi rst, be patient. Remember, content marketing is a long game: a slow burn not a quick fi x. You will see some interest in the early months but in our experience it’s between six and twelve months when you really start reaping the benefi ts, so hold fi rm.

Keep the faith, and defi nitely keep going, but also make sure you’re doing everything you can to get your content read. Combining tactics to build a distribution plan is the best way to ensure your content gets the interest it deserves.

Are you doing all you can to ensure each piece of content is getting maximum exposure? Here’s a quick checklist of what works for content promotion and getting your content read.

1. Tell peopleIn our digital world this might sound too basic for words but you’d be amazed how many companies forget this crucial real world step. Once you’ve created a piece of content, tell people!

If you’re not a one-man band, tell everyone in your company, and ask them to take the content out there. Imagine the reach you could get if everyone in your company told everyone in their networks? Ask people to email it or post it as a LinkedIn status update if it’s relevant to their contacts.

Outside your company, tell your contacts, prospects and clients about useful content. Don’t be shy of this step if your content is valuable.

Of course you have to have enough people to tell. Grow your network of contacts – even in this digital era, old-fashioned meet-and-greet networking has certainly not gone out of style.

Do this: Global marketing agency Freedman International paste up a copy of each new piece of content on the offi ce wall near the kettle as well as mailing all staff a message and link they can share.

Don’t do this: Keep it to yourself. Hope for the best.

2. Promote your content on social mediaDistribute your content to your social networks, with links to every new piece of content you create on your social channels.

Work hard on your headlines. Make them interesting and engaging. Remember, you can get away with doing this more than once on channels like Twitter (but not too much – don’t be a pain!). Try posting a comment or question with a link to your content on relevant LinkedIn groups. And use hashtags intelligently to

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make your content more findable. Do this: Ask good questions, be curious, comment positively on other people’s posts.

Don’t do this: Spam out links to your content, only drop by when you’re selling, forget to engage.

3. EmailTell those who have signed up to your list. Give them an option to subscribe to receive your latest updates and remember to pop a link to the best of your new content in your monthly email newsletter too. And how about a link in your email footer for each new piece of content you create?

Do this: Invite people to sign up for your new content.

Don’t do this: Buy a list and spam everyone on it with everything you write.

4. Optimize for search enginesMake sure you’re optimizing each new piece of content carefully for search engines to increase your chances of getting found. This means knowing the keywords you want to be found for with the right focus for each piece of content you create. And act like a good librarian, labelling your content correctly by setting the metadata right before your publish.

Do this: Write for real people but be clear on the keywords that they are searching for.

Don’t do this: Forget to label your content. Post and hope for the best. Or worse – stuff your content full of keywords and alienate your readers!

5. Take your content wider with PRPR is a great tool to amplify your content. So work to get your content published in industry-leading media and other websites.

Do this: Develop relationships with a few key influencers so that they will be happy to share your valuable content. Be helpful – not pushy.

Don’t do this: Send identical ‘please share this’ emails to everyone you can think of. Use this tactic sparingly – you’ll quickly run out of people and the people will run out patience if you ask for sharing favours every week!

6. Form a content clubHow about collaborating with like-minded content creators to form a content club – a group of people/businesses whose ideas you rate and content that would be useful to your audience, and vice versa? Agree to tweet out their content (if it’s valuable), and they’ll share yours.

Collaborate with your readers too. Seek their opinions. The more you get your audience involved in creating the content, the happier they will be to share it on your behalf.

Do this: Link up with like-minded content creators.

Don’t do this: Ask them to share stuff that’s not relevant. Or forget to share!

7. PayWhen it comes to driving traffic to your website there are more paid digital advertising options than ever before. But, approach with care and don’t lose sight of the customer experience.

Do this: Talk to the experts and find out all you can.

Don’t do this: Throw money away on annoying your customers.

8. Make the most of trafficMake sure you are making the best of the traffic you do get. Is your website working as hard as it can? Make it easy to find the valuable content you’re creating. Have a really clear path to buy, or to sign up for email updates. Link to other relevant content to keep people interested, lead them to other content that will really help.

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Is all advertising spam? Communication planning in an on-demand world FARIS YAKOB

If we extend current trends in media fragmentation, channel-centric thinking by the advertising industry could lead to both the end of advertising as it is currently conceived and the emergence of a new model of communication. The media-industrial complex has historically delineated itself by channel. Press is one channel, with associated planners and buyers and creatives who work best in it. Television is another. Somehow ‘digital’ became another but it is not – rather it functionally subsumes other channels – all media will become ‘digital’.

Ultimately media channels will become redundant constructs and new designations will have to be created, based on an understanding of people’s relationship with content and how they consume it. While this signals the decline of media planning (because dictating when and where content will be encountered becomes impossible for much of an on-demand world), it also indicates that strategic communications planning will become crucial to reach and develop solutions for consumers.

The creation of emotional value around product consumption, the ability to deploy and navigate commercial signs and let people use them to understand themselves and each other – these are necessary functions in modern culture.

For as long as art and culture has existed, patronage has been required to help support it. Royalty and aristocracy would provide patronage, for a combination of altruistic and image reasons, which allowed art to be created and events for the masses to happen. The nature of this commercial relationship was culturally defi ned – it was never a simple commercial transaction – and the impact a patron had on the work or event was equally prescribed by convention.

It was, for want of a better word, subtler than simply sticking your name on something. A patron’s taste, sophistication and grace – not just their money – were being refl ected in how the patronage would manifest.

Today, brands provide patronage, but often forget that it is not just their money that should be evident. In almost every area of culture, brands – rather than royalty – are now the primary means of support. In times of economic uncertainty, in almost every arena of culture it is brand sponsorship that keeps museums open, writers and artists in work, and your favourite website or app in business. As researcher Danah Boyd says, ‘selling out is meaningless’ in our modern, commercial world.

Yes it creates exhortations to buy and, yes, the world has lots of problems and too much stuff , at least in the parts of it most laden with brands – but advertising is, like law and banking, something that keeps the wheels going.

If trust in advertising has diminished, trust in law and banking has plummeted since the great fi nancial crisis of 2008. Whilst advertising may be perceived to be manipulative, it works mostly in plain sight and its objectives are obvious. An advertising agency has never been fi ned billions of dollars for working for Mexican narcoterrorists.

The work we do can increasingly direct how companies behave, as a function of the changes occurring in the media environment. Tiny, incremental changes, based on changing consumer needs, can have signifi cant impact when they are undertaken by companies the size of Wal-Mart. As the CEO of organic yoghurt brand Stonyfi eld said, when discussing distribution via the world’s biggest retailer: ‘if you want to change the way the world operates, you need to marshal your economic power.’ When Wal-Mart decided to stop

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wasting money shipping water across the United States, non-concentrated detergents ceased to exist almost overnight. We have an obligation to advise our clients how best to leverage insight into consumers and culture and communications to make them money.

If you don’t want to live in a hyper-capitalist culture, that’s great, you are lucky enough to be in a free-enough society (probably, if you are reading this) where you can choose, and every dollar you spend is a vote for the kind of society you want to live in. As the documentary Food, Inc. (2008) suggested, companies only ever change their behaviour in response to customer demands. Advertising is ideally placed to help companies to shift and leverage demand – indeed that is, in some part, its raison d’être.

There is nothing sadder or more detrimental for the advertising industry than the self-hating, advertising despising, advertising professional. As Cindy Gallup has pointed out, we need to stop communicating the idea ‘that advertising is a very bad thing’. We can, and should, strive to make it better. This is the perfect time to do so, as the assumptions of the past 50 years begin to crumble, as the sole god of shareholder value is questioned, we can drive clients and the industry towards earning attention, creating explicit value for companies and their customers.

And that starts with the practitioners.

Martin Boase, one of the founders of storied London advertising agency Boase Massimi Pollitt (BMP), one of the places where account planning – the strategic function of advertising – was created in the early 1970s, put it like this:

We believe that if you are going to invite yourself into someone’s living room you have a duty not to shout at them or bore them or insult their intelligence. On the other hand, if you are a charming guest and you entertain them or amuse them or tell them something interesting, then they may like you a bit better and then they may be more inclined to buy your brand.

More than this even, I like to believe that advertising can be a force for good in the world.

A long time ago, when I got into advertising, I decided that I would prefer it if, and therefore I would work towards the idea that, advertising can be a force for good. I mean, who wants to do something for a living that is considered to be an annoyance or indeed a cultural blight? We, as an industry, have the chance, and I would argue the responsibility, to guide our clients to commercial solutions that might also have a beneficial impact on the world.

Despite loving both Bill Hicks and George Carlin, I don’t think that their side is the whole story. (I certainly don’t think marketers should all kill themselves, as Hicks suggested.) To quote David Ogilvy: ‘Advertising is only evil when it advertises something evil.’ Like, say, technology, or any tool, it is what you do with it, and how you do it, and how you think of people, and what kind of person you end up becoming because of it.

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fake news, real problemDALE LOVELL

While all publishers will be guilty of running clickbait, the same insatiable drive for impressions and the digital advertising revenue that underpins it is behind the growing level of fake news appearing online. It’s the evolutionary leap from taking clickbait to a new level – or rather a new low – with the aim of generating more views for monetary gain.

The truth (as opposed to post-truth) of the situation is that, while there may be political motives behind some of the growth in fake news, the vast majority of fake news that is being published, promoted and shared across social media, content recommendation widgets and other promotional platforms has no political agenda whatsoever. It’s created purely as clickbait, with the sole aim of driving as many eyeballs to a publication as possible and then maximizing the monetization of each visit.

Why report real news, when fake news is more entertaining?Fake news has gained a lot of press in recent months. It fi rst came to prominence on the back of Donald Trump’s victory in the US election. Fake news was said to play a part in infl uencing swing voters; there were countless reports showing how Macedonian teenagers, employed as content writers, fl ooded social media with made-up stories.

We read about how we live in a post-truth world, where whoever shouts loudest is shouting the truth. It’s very much on the radar of the media. Research by Brandwatch reported that from October 2016 to mid-January 2017, there were 54,000 media stories published with the phrase ‘fake news’ in the headline.

The financial motivation behind fake newsDigital ad revenue is shoring up and promoting fake news. It’s a sorry state of aff airs. But it’s true.

The political aspect may draw the headlines, but it’s often just a by-product of unscrupulous publications attempting to create fake news story ‘hits’ that resonate, get shares and drive considerable ad revenues their way.

Social media giants such as Facebook have had to react. Fake news does put platforms such as Facebook in a diffi cult position. How do you determine if something is ‘fake’ without establishing fact-checking credentials fi rst? As Adam Mosseri, VP, News Feed, described in a press statement in December 2016: ‘We [Facebook] believe in giving people a voice and that we cannot become arbiters of truth ourselves.’

Towards the end of 2016 Facebook announced a number of updates, such as easier reporting of suspect news, and tools for fl agging disputed third-party stories. But it also stressed that it would look closely at how to disrupt the fi nancial incentives for spammers. The press statement read:

We’ve found that a lot of fake news is fi nancially motivated. Spammers make money by masquerading as well-known news organizations, and posting hoaxes that get people to visit to their sites, which are often mostly ads. So we’re doing several things to reduce the fi nancial incentives.

There will undoubtedly be more and more measures put in place across social media enterprises such as Facebook to minimize the threat that fake news poses in the months and years to come. It’s an ongoing battle, but one that advertisers – those who spend billions across Facebook and social media – are watching closely.

‘Tricksters, deceivers and manipulators’Content recommendation providers have entered into the fake news debate, too, keen to highlight

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their stance. Adam Singolda, Founder and CEO of Taboola – which claims to be the largest content recommendation company on the planet, serving 12 billion recommendations a day to a billion people a month – in a blog post on the topic published 28 November 2016, shortly after Trump’s election victory, reiterated what the company set out in their Advertiser Content Guidelines:

Any type of fake content cannot and will not be tolerated on the Taboola network.

The post lists many of the measures and processes that Taboola has in place to try and catch and filter out fake news, including the company’s use of human content verification as opposed to an algorithm.

Singolda’s post highlights another uncomfortable fact of life for the digital industry, though: whenever a new product, service or advertising format comes along, it is almost always targeted by unscrupulous ‘tricksters, deceivers and manipulators’ who ‘inevitably appear to game every new advertising and distribution channel that emerges (very much like we witnessed with Search, and Display advertising 20 years ago).’

CloakersThe Taboola post goes on to discuss ‘cloakers’ and how it can impact content recommendation widgets. Cloakers are advertisers who submit content that looks legitimate at first – so it passes the human verification process – but is then later replaced with fake content. To combat this Taboola launched Taboola Choice – a way for customers to report something that they don’t like or that may be deceptive, fake or harmful.

Cloaking is just one example of the dubious practices

employed by those out for profit at any cost. As Singolda concludes:

Fake content is an industry-wide challenge. All of the largest online advertising and distribution companies are wrestling to find the solution to this ever-evolving cat-and-mouse game.

It’s an interesting post; if you want to find out more you can read it at www.blog.taboola.com/fakenewspolicy.

Fake news, real problemsIn November 2016, BuzzFeed News reported that fake election news stories generated more engagement on Facebook than election stories from a combined total of 19 major news publications, including the New York Times, Washington Post, NBC News and other reputable news sources.5 The figures BuzzFeed quotes are astounding: 20 of the top-performing false election stories from hoax sites and hyperpartisan blogs generated 8,711,000 shares, reactions and comments on Facebook. The other news organizations generated 7,367,000 shares, reactions and comments on Facebook.

An additional poll conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs for BuzzFeed News in December 2016 found that as many as 75 per cent of American adults may believe fake news stories to be accurate.6 The survey found that when Facebook is cited as a source of news, Americans are more likely to view the headlines as accurate. Chris Jackson from Ipsos argued that the 2016 presidential election in the US was significant as it ‘may mark the point in modern political history when information and disinformation became a dominant electoral currency’.

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copywriting and connecting on social mediaANDY MASLEN

We take our bearings, daily, from others. To be sane is, to a great extent, to be sociable. ( John Updike)

IntroductionMuch of the debate about copywriting for the web rests on the false assumption that people’s behaviour has been changed by the channel, most notably in the oft-repeated assertion that people have shorter attention spans. But social media is diff erent. Before social media it simply wasn’t possible to communicate so quickly, so richly and so prolifi cally (and we could probably add so weirdly, so idiosyncratically and so self-aggrandisingly), with so many diff erent people, all at the same time. At the time of writing, the main reason most people take photographs has shifted completely, from printing out and adding to bound albums (or, more commonly, storing in a box in the attic) to sharing on social media.

Facebook spawned Facebook ads, Twitter followed with sponsored tweets, and that’s not counting the trillions of self-promoting posts on the hundreds of sites on the web grouped under the social media umbrella. All of which has raised anxiety levels about the ‘right’ way to behave and write on social media.

I want to share my personal experience – and view – on how to write for social media. I’m talking about writing for business here; when you post on your own account it’s none of my business what you say or how you say it. I’m slowly coming round to the idea of social media as a reasonably eff ective way to promote, infl uence and sell.

Figure 6.1 TweetI want to off er you some things to think about, grouped into three main clusters: what to talk about, how to talk about it and how to protect your reputation. If you send somebody a badly written direct mail letter

there’s a chance they will scan it, edit it, resize it and then post it on Twitter. If you do the same with a blog post or Facebook update it’s much more likely you’ll fi nd yourself being lampooned, or worse, within minutes.

*Are you on Facebook? How about Twitter? LinkedIn? Instagram? Google +? I’m guessing there’s at least one ‘yes’ coming from you.

And why are you on social media? Do you distinguish between ‘work’ and ‘personal’ sites? Do you tweet on behalf of a company or brand or as yourself? These things matter because you need to set yourself a few rules before getting into it too heavily. For one thing, you can end up spending every waking hour checking your notifi cations, likes, followers and all the rest. For another, this is a commercial activity, at least in part, so you should have at least a smidgen of commercial thinking behind your social media activity.

I am concerned with emotions and motivations, so let’s stop, just for a moment, to consider why people love social media so much. Well, why do they? I think the clue is in the title. It’s a social space. And human beings are social animals. I don’t think pandas would have much time for Twitter, whereas meerkats would probably be on it all the time.

But there’s more to it than simply that sense of clubbiness. After all, for some sites, like Facebook, we already belong to the club of our friends and family. So if our contacts are spread out, maybe it’s a way of staying connected or of feeling that we are connected. But then, wouldn’t it be more connected to pick up the phone and talk to them person-to-person?

Lightbulb: Do social media because you want to, not because you feel you ‘ought’ to. If your heart isn’t in it everyone will be able to tell.

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Ten rules for social mediaSo here are 10 observations for connecting on social media. I hope some of them work for you.

1. Be careful

An old one this, but only say things you’d be comfortable with your gran reading; your vicar, priest, imam or rabbi; your boss, boyfriend or BFF.

Don’t shop on eBay when you’re drunk, and don’t engage in slanging matches on Twitter when similarly inebriated.

The golden rule is an old one: if you wouldn’t feel comfortable seeing it on a poster outside your office, don’t say it at all.

2. Be original

Sometimes, unfollowing is the only option when you read gems like these:

‘Benefits are more important than features.’

‘Today’s word of the day, ‘arcane.’ – hidden or obscure.’

‘INFOGRAPHIC: 10 types of Twitter user.’

Incidentally, if you are tempted to create an infographic, bear in mind these two things: one, it’s just a fancy word for ‘diagram’. Two, if the copy would make sense on its own, then what exactly are the pictures for?

I’d rather have my thinking challenged by tweets/posts on:

‘Why features are more important than benefits.’

‘The moron’s approach to headline writing – and why it’s better than yours.’

‘INFOGRAPHIC: neuroscience, copywriting and EBITDA.’

3. Be fresh

If everyone else is posting photos of their products, post one of your dog.

If the market is saturated with cool infographics, create an ad in the style of an 18th-century engraving.

If the people you follow all blog about their business lives, start blogging about your holidays, home-yacht-building project and cooking disasters (pictures please).

Lightbulb: You’ll never succeed on social media if you only view it as a ‘channel’. It’s much richer and more complex than that.

4. Be cheeky

Social media mores are different to website, e-mail and print mores. You have licence to be a little less buttoned-up.

I happen to think the odd bit of mild swearing is perfectly OK – even moderate invective can work but I tend to asterisk a couple of letters.

Flirting, bickering, mickey-taking: they’re all OK, provided you follow the golden rule – see rule 1 above – and think before you post.

5. Be opinionated

Hedging is boring. We all do it. We cover our backs when expressing a strong opinion in case we’re wrong or liable to get into an argument.

Hey! Get into it. What’s the worst that can happen? (See rule 1 above.)

I think there are at least two types of opinion you can express on social media and get a good reputation in the process. Firstly, a sincerely held opinion: ‘Whale hunting is a national disgrace,’ you might write. ‘Please RT this if you agree.’ Secondly, a completely made-up opinion that you do for the hell of it: ‘Am I the only person here who thinks Princess Kate looks a little like Tony the Tiger?’

In my experience, the latter gets more likes and retweets.

6. Be authentic

This may sound as if it’s contradicting my point about expressing made-up opinions, but I do think you need to be yourself. In the singular.

Nothing is worse than those dreary corporate posts. I saw this on Twitter recently, from a top-four accountancy firm:

‘A personal blog can add credibility and transparency to your profile.’

No sh*t!

What I mean is, make sure your social media writing comes from the real you – sense of humour, pugnaciousness, Flirty-Gertie-From-Number-Thirty and all.

7. Be truthful

Social media is a bit like advertising. So stay honest. Only make claims you can back up.

Your tone of voice can be as off the wall as you want – or your director of brand communications will allow – just so long as the content of your posts is truthful.

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Actually, I think honest is a better word than truthful. Tell jokes, fantasise, make stuff up – but don’t be a heel, a fake or a charlatan.

8. Use pictures

You’re a writer, but think about when you could include pictures in your posts to make them more interesting to your reader.

Remember that people love pics on social media, especially Facebook, so they’re an excellent way to hook attention.

I guess that’s partly where all those INFOGRAPHICS come from.

9. Be social

I think if you see social media as just another ‘channel’ or ‘route to market’ you’re going to have a hard time making it pay – or even enjoyable.

If people reply to your posts/tweets, get into a conversation with them.

Look at what other people are posting and reply, in turn, to them.

Necessarily, Twitter demands economy, but don’t let that dictate your tone, which should always be respectful. Thx is OK for thanks, pls for please, but people get really twitchy if they detect arrogance (believe me, I know!).

10. Remember to sell

You don’t have to be cheesy, but why not at least try to sell on social media?

I know, I know, it’s about brand building, establishing a voice, customer communications, community... but it’s costing you money so you might as well have a little think about ROI.

There are so many measures of success to choose from on social media: the most common being quantity. Number of likes, follows, retweets, fans etc.

But try running those past your finance director/accountant and see what they say.

At some point, you are going to have to make your investment in social media pay. Everything else has to show a return, so why not this?

Whenever you take to the sugar-rush world of social media, remember this. The people you want to connect with haven’t changed. The things you want to talk about haven’t changed. You haven’t changed. It’s just the medium that’s changed.

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How not to handle a crisis media interviewROBERT TAYLOR

Watching badly-handled crisis media interviews is one of the best ways to discover how to do them well. And one interview that has gone down in media-training history about how not to do it was given by Lawrence Rawl, chief executive of Exxon Corporation in 1989 after the Exxon Valdez oil disaster in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker, struck Bligh Reef and spilled millions of gallons of crude oil over the next few days in what is still seen as one of the worst environmental disasters of all time.

In response to the crisis Exxon decided to say as little as possible to the media, which of course just made the media all the more hungry for information and explanation. Finally, after an entire week had gone by, Lawrence Rawl, Exxon’s chairman and chief executive, agreed to go live on network TV in the US to defend his company.

This is how the fi rst minute of the interview went:

Presenter: As Charlie mentioned, Exxon released its new clean-up plan as a coalition of groups begin a one-day boycott of Exxon products and several state attorneys general are now calling for a federal investigation into the sharp rise in gasoline prices since the spill. Joining us this morning is the chairman and chief executive of the Exxon Corporation, Lawrence Rawl. Good morning Mr Rawl.

Rawl: Good morning.

Presenter: Can you give me details of this plan. Why was it submitted at the wee hours right before the deadline?

Rawl: Well I can’t give you the details of it because as you’ve indicated, just submitted, this is actually not a new plan, this is a plan for the Gulf of Alaska. The prior plan was for Prince William Sound. So I don’t really have all the details. It’s a very thick, complicated plan.

Presenter: Well there are some . . . it’s not only complicated but some controversy already. You want permission I understand to burn some of the sludge which would circumvent some of the environmental laws. Is that correct?

Rawl: As I just indicated, I don’t have all the details, but I’m sure there is a portion of it which indicates that . . . some of the . . . it’s not sludge, some of the material that’s been picked up or you describe as sludge, burning would be one way of disposing of that, which might require as indicated some relaxation of some air quality. I’m not really familiar with the plan, however.

Presenter: Why aren’t you familiar with the plan?

Rawl: Well it was just completed. Obviously there’s been some misunderstanding about what a chairman of a worldwide company does, and one of the things you don’t do is read every technical plan that is described . . .

Throughout the interview Rawl’s body language looked uncomfortable and defensive. Of course, doing a crisis interview is never an easy experience, but it was surely Rawl’s attitude to the interview that made it even more uncomfortable for him. Far from being open about what happened, he seemed to have come to the studio to communicate the bare minimum. In any case, he appeared to have very little information to give, perhaps because he had been poorly briefed or because he was concealing things that he did know. Either way, he gave the impression of thinking himself too important to deal with the details of a plan to tackle a massive environmental disaster.

In fact, Rawl committed just about the worst sin you can commit in a crisis interview. He gave the strong impression that he didn’t really care about the environmental impact of the disaster and the eff ect on Alaska’s wildlife and communities, but only

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cared about protecting and defending Exxon and his position within it.

Once you give that impression, you’re on a one-way street to public relations disaster in a crisis situation, which is exactly where Exxon ended up. That applies to any crisis interview on behalf of any organization.

“I’d like my life back”One might think that today’s executives are far too media savvy to get caught out as Lawrence Rawl did in the late 1980s, and turn an environmental disaster into a PR disaster. Well, think again, because today’s executives face exactly the same dilemma in a crisis situation as Rawl faced: how much to defend themselves and their organization from mounting criticism.

Take Tony Hayward, former chief executive officer of BP. In April 2010, BP found itself in the middle of a major environmental crisis after the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, which killed 11 people in what was one of the worst marine oil spills in history. Thrust into the media limelight, Hayward did a series of media interviews, many of which were perfectly fine. But one loose comment in one interview will for ever be remembered and associated with his name. Halfway through a TV interview, Hayward said: “There’s no one who wants this thing over more than I do, you know. I’d like my life back.” (Google “Tony Hayward life back”.)

“I’d like my life back”. Understandable on the human level, but catastrophic in PR terms for both him and for BP, because it gave the impression that Hayward cared more about his own life than the lives that had been lost in the disaster, that he was somehow the victim, and that he thought his life was more important than those of the people living in communities along the coast of Louisiana, for example, which had been devastated.

Is that an unfair assessment of Hayward’s thinking and feelings? Yes, almost certainly. But the court of public opinion is often unfair. No wonder that small segment of one interview shot around the world on YouTube and quickly became shorthand for what was seen as BP’s inept and uncaring handling of the crisis.

It is easy to have sympathy for Tony Hayward. His life had indeed been turned upside down by the crisis, and as chief executive he was at the very centre of the media storm on both sides of the Atlantic. But in a crisis situation, and however much he was feeling victimized, it would have been far better for Hayward to say nothing about his own life, and just focus on the two most important elements of any crisis interview: concern and action.

A formula for handling crisis interviewsVarious formulae have been put forward by crisis communications experts over the years for dealing with crisis interviews, but they have the same fundamental elements. In summary, here are the three steps for dealing with crisis interviews of any sort:

1 Concern/sympathy;

2 Action/explanation;

3 Perspective.

We naturally follow this formula when mini crises strike our own lives. Imagine you’ve just bought yourself a coffee and a croissant in a crowded café, and, with the coffee and croissant on a tray, you’re wending your way through the tables towards one that’s free in the far corner. Then disaster strikes halfway across the café. Your left foot clips the edge of a table, unbalancing you. As you lurch forward, the coffee slurps all over the tray and then gushes onto a well-dressed woman in a beautiful white dress.

What’s your first response? You immediately say how sorry you are and ask if the woman has been hurt (concern/sympathy). You then explain that you tripped, and you volunteer to pay for the dress to be dry cleaned (explanation/action). Finally, you might explain, with some exasperation and embarrassment, that this is the first time you’ve ever done such a thing (perspective).

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creating a culure of transparencyANNABEL DUSTAN & IMOGEN OSBORNE

Telefónica DigitalHow a culture of openness and transparency ensures that employees feel constantly up-to-date with internal change and the impact of external infl uences in a highly regulated business

Lindsey Morrell, Head of Global Internal Communications, Telefónica Digital

Lindsey Morrell came to the discussion steeped in experience both as a leader and in the rich, granular skill set of the professional IC practitioner. What sets her apart is that most of that experience has been gleaned within a single industry: telecommunications, starting out in BT, then O2 and now Telefónica, the telecoms giant. Today, she is head of internal communications for Telefónica Digital.

In her 18 years within IC she has also fulfi lled a number of key roles at a regional and local level. During that time, the business itself has gone through many shifts and changes, shaped and occasionally buff eted by the boisterous climate of the international telecoms industry. It’s impossible to conceive that there is any aspect of the operation that has not been infl uenced by the many internal campaigns she has led, which – as she told us ahead of our conversation – have embraced every kind of bespoke initiative and event, been based on clear messaging above all else, and have focused on engaging Telefónica people in the company story, strategy, objectives and vision.

Changing attitudesLindsey started by explaining how she has noticed a sea change in the attitude towards IC from leadership teams and directors. When she was setting out on her career, many companies simply didn’t have an IC function. It fell within the remit of the PR or HR teams, and just kind of blended into an amorphous cloud of

internal and employee comms – a perception that probably still lingers in some organizations. Lindsey is adamant that they are in fact two separate functions: employee comms are indeed driven by HR, as well as the individual employee, and focus primarily on operational matters such as holidays, salaries, payroll, sick-pay and bonuses. IC, on the other hand, focuses on company strategy, purpose, goals and  direction – the things your people need to know. It’s the latter which, increasingly, is better understood as a function in its own right – not something that is vaguely attributed to HR. It has a direct impact on the bottom line, and it acknowledges employees’ roles as ambassadors. The more they know, Lindsey told us, the more they understand about the direction the company is taking, the more they can be true and valuable advocates for the business.

The idea that IC can really add value to the business is relatively new, but it has gained genuine currency at the top table. This is fi ltering down through the organization to the extent that people will call upon IC services for support in delivering a plethora of campaigns and messages, via a full range of traditional and digital channels: branding, events, forums, town halls, Yammer, social media, the intranet, newsletters, bulletins, videos and animations. In short, said Lindsey, it’s no longer just about copywriting. IC can work with many diff erent teams, departments and business roles across the company – and this acceptance is the biggest change she has sensed in her career so far.

Annabel: Can you describe how internal comms sits within Telefónica?

Lindsey: Within Telefónica there is a global internal communications function that sits in head offi ce in Madrid. We also work closely with our operating businesses across the globe. Within those, we also

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have internal communications teams. So, it’s very much a virtual matrix working set-up. For example, we have an IC team in Germany, which would look after all the local assets for internal communication, and what’s happening there, the CEO in Germany, his actual internal activity plan – all the things that are happening on the ground that affect people in their business.

We link in with local teams when anything comes from a global perspective that we want all of our employees to know about or participate in, whether it’s a big campaign or initiative. I would help them to understand the overall context, provide them with the key messages, branding, banners and headers. Then they would launch it at a local level.

That happens with all of our businesses across Latin America, where we have a huge presence. We are present in 21 countries worldwide, most of them in Latin America, including Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. Many of them have their own internal communications teams working to get all of our global campaigns out across the business.

Annabel: How many people and resources are given to IC?

Lindsey: There are currently around 20 of us in the global team, which sits in our main hub in Madrid. Some of the team are dedicated to IT-based comms, looking after the global intranet and the web, and focusing on day-to-day visual campaigns and things like that. The rest of the team are either IC business partners who look after key areas across the organization and work across different channels, or those working on key projects as required, eg the launch of a new global recognition programme, or the launch of a quarterly pulse survey. They are responsible for building and delivering the overall communications plan, and across the business people use our services to support and deliver their specific campaigns and events.

Across the local teams, it depends on how big that business is. In the UK we’ve got 6,700 employees and a relatively small team of around eight internal communicators. But somewhere like Paraguay or Uruguay, which is a comparatively small business, there might just be one person who deals with the internal communications, because the actual employee base is that much smaller and there’s not a requirement for such a big IC team.

Annabel: What are the challenges of millennials and Gen Z in the workplace for you?

Lindsey: We’ve been talking about millennials for a long while. Over the years, Telefónica has very much shown itself to be a cool company to work for – and a lot of people have worked there for a long time. Four or five years ago, there was a real push to get some younger people into the business, bringing both fresh blood and fresh thinking. We set up various initiatives and programmes, including one which is all about young start-ups coming into the business and helping them to find sponsors who will give them a certain level of financial support. They don’t necessarily work for Telefónica.

In fact, there is now a pile of activity that we do around young people. We invest a lot in millennials. IC is heavily involved in ‘One Young World’, an initiative where we take about 30 young graduates from the business and get them to participate in a forum. It’s akin to a United Nations – bringing loads of our young people together to talk about various initiatives and campaigns, and about bigger world issues. In our UK business, we started a programme called ‘Think Big’, which is very much directed at young people and helping them to realize their full potential. We help them launch ideas and programmes that use technology to benefit the places. However, I do think that maybe we’re using the word ‘millennial’ to death, and sometimes we might be too specific about the initiatives that have been targeted at that audience. We’ve had some feedback from our other employees, asking why we do campaigns or activities directed solely at this group of people. After all, it’s not just that particular generation that can be entrepreneurial, have a different outlook about the way things should be run, or bring different insights to the table. You can be 45 or 50 years old, and still be very tech-savvy and know what’s going on. So perhaps our focus shouldn’t just be targeted specifically at the ‘millennial’ audience.

On the other hand, we do have quite a lot of fresh, young people in the business. And that’s why we have our own millennial network, driven by the growing number of young people, which is about encouraging everyone to share their experiences. But I think we now need to look at what we mean by ‘millennial’. Is it less about age and more about a particular mindset or attitude? We’re working on a campaign at the moment focused on this actual topic, and we’re doing plenty of things around it to collect and gauge people’s responses.

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