@CARMA @mazennahawiCARMA.com
Tribal Relations: How our understanding of trust will change amidst the failure of political communications
@CARMA @mazennahawiCARMA.com
Overview
• Political communications is failing• Traditional stakeholder groups changing rapidly• Politicians (and businesses) failing to grasp this change –
main driver of lack of trust• Deeper look into new stakeholder groups “modern tribes”
Complex dynamic of trust in future PR & communications
Political Communications is failing
Source: HBR
Political Communications is failing
Poor Measurement & Research
• Misreading audiences• Wrong objectives, intent and priorities
Failure to Communicate
• Wrong messages• Polarizing communications strategies
Failure to Build Relationships
• General detachment• Arrogant elitism, isolation
Failure in results
• Inability to compromise• Failure to deliver
My PeopleLove Me
Lessons learned
• Dislike, mistrust of politicians is not new• Scandal has always existed
BUT
• The unprecedented scale, volume of dislike, scandal is ….accelerating• The wide-spread impact is global, local and deep rooted• We are entering an age where trust is increasingly rare• Dislike in all its forms – including hate – is on the ascendancy • Credibility of institutions is severely diminishing or dead• The collapse of institutions is being replaced by ‘Modern Tribes’
Lessons learned
The collapse of institutions is being replaced by ‘Modern Tribes’ – transient communities that now are increasingly
setting the global agenda and redefining social contracts
Modern Tribes?
• Global shift in stakeholder groups
• Moving from traditional, predictable and lasting stakeholder groups…… to unorthodox, unpredictable and temporary stakeholder groups
• Stakeholders groups “Modern Tribes” are defined far less by traditional metrics such as gender, age & location – and much more defined by new metrics such as issue affiliation, social contract, mobility and communal values.
TRADITIONAL MARCOMS STAKEHODLER MAPPING
Tories: Target Conservative Voters aged 45-60
Coke: Target youth age 18-25 in cities
Critical Flaws in the traditional model:
• The line between internal/external stakeholders is increasingly blurry – staff are customers, community leaders are on the board etc.
• People do not stay in one place anymore
• Definitions of ‘wealth’ and ‘income’ are shifting
• Issues, loyalties, preferences were the last things to be considered (if in fact they ever were)
• Slow/incapable at tracking mobility, change in circumstance
Internal Stakeholders(Board, shareholders, employees)
External Stakeholders(Customers, Clients, Voters, Media,
Community, NGO)
Age Seniority
Gender Income
Location Ethnicity
Modern Tribes?Ph
ysic
al A
ttrib
utes
Global Mobility
Low-cost travel to internet & phone
connectivity
Wealth
Most people have more money than
ever before
HealthYou are young & probably working at the age of 60
nearly anywhere in the world
Cog
nitiv
e A
ttrib
utes Contentment
/discontent
People are increasingly driven by being content
or discontent
Entitlement
All factors lead to people expecting a
broader and deeper set of
inalienable rights
Intellectual Fluidity
Decision making is quick, changeable based on quickly
moving but shallow sets of data
7 Key features of ‘Modern Tribes’/New Stakeholder Groups
Physical Attributes
Mobility Wealth Health
Cognitive Attributes
Discontent Entitlement Intellectual Fluidity
Tribal Attributes
TRANSIENT COMMUNITIES
• Modern tribes can form and disband very quickly.
• They coalesce around ideas and hopes - not places or age groups - and certainly not around institutions
• Modern tribes are not exclusive and interlock with other tribes
• Modern Tribes often have no name
What do these tribes look like?
What do these tribes look like?
What do these tribes look like?
“Hannah’s Tribe”
• Modern tribes can form and disband very quickly.
• They coalesce around ideas and hopes - not places or age groups - and certainly not around institutions
• Modern tribes are not exclusive and interlock with other tribes
• Modern Tribes often have no name
Measuring Modern Tribes: Refining Stakeholder Mapping
TRADITIONAL MARCOMS STAKEHODLER MAPPING
Tories: Target Conservative Voters aged 45-60
Coke: Target youth age 18-25 in cities
Internal Stakeholders(Board, shareholders,
employees)
External Stakeholders(Customers, Clients, Voters, Media, Community, NGO)
Age Seniority
Gender Income
Location Ethnicity
Physical Attributes
Cognitive Attributes
Mobility Wealth Health
Discontent Entitlement Intellectual Fluidity
Measure: Connectivity
Travel
Measure: Real PPP
Affinity to Share
Measure: Activity &
Contribution
Measure: Sentiment by
issueperson,
Organization
Measure: Demand intensitySocial positioning
Advocacy
Measure: Data availability,
Accuracy
Measuring Modern Tribes: Refining Stakeholder Mapping
TRANSIENT COMMUNITIES
• Modern tribes can form and disband very quickly.
• They coalesce around ideas and hopes - not places or age groups - and certainly not around institutions
• Modern tribes are not exclusive and interlock with other tribes
The big re-alignment in audience measurement
• Before setting an objective - understand if it’s in fact the one your stakeholders/customers want! – let them decide your agenda.
• Understand all the ‘tribes’ related to your business: Monitor, analyze and simply list their leaders, followers and issues.
• Do not stop at traditional/primary audience models - make the effort to build in the ‘tribal’ nature of these stakeholders groups: measure the tribe’s physical and cognitive attributes
• Understand the engagement and messages that will foster trust with these ’tribes’
….Now you can start a serious PR/Communications campaign
Understanding Trust in the Tribal context
• PR is foremast about relationships (not outputs/activity)• Modern Tribes are based on trust • How do we engage - ethically and scientifically - on a basis of trust?
Trust
Character Competence
• Tribes are easy to find and reach – so find them!• Meet he tribe: Nothing beats human contact• Let them talk first; you listen• Build objectives, products, services, policy – with
their views in mind• Engage, update, adapt
• Deliver the value you promised on time, with the right qualities
• Challenge yourself to see if the value you are delivering is making a difference
• Always have excellent, accurate information • Measure…measure….measure• Be ready to change at a moments notice
Measuring Trust in the Tribal context
Refine your Monitoring/Listening Program
• Cool off on the keywords, strengthening broad data-mining
• Monitor what matters: Do not go for all clips/mentions – focus on People, issues, themes
• Integrate your monitoring across all channels: Digital, traditional but never forget/leave out grey literature
• Jump on any opportunity to listen in person to the “Tribe”/Stakeholder group
• Scientifically capture, tabulate and correlate your monitoring information to match analytics with your objectives
Modern Tribes/Stakeholder groups are transient communities: They are cross border, multi-everything, fluid and change place, ideas and positions very quickly – you must be able to adapt at their speed.
• Let Science guide your strategy, Let ethics mark your engagement• Rebuild your stakeholder map: Go easy on primary metrics & invest in identifying tribes/groups that matter to
you. Keep it simple: focus on people and issues
Measuring Trust in the Tribal context
Primary Leadership: who is in charge of the tribe
Secondary leadership
Key internal, external influencers
Members of the tribe
Inter-locking tribes
Your relationship with this group
PEOPLE ISSUES
Core & secondary drivers
Key messages by advocates &detractors
Trust/credibility metrics for you and for them
Forums of engagement (media, events)
Definition of success
Measuring Trust in the Tribal context
• Are Trust barometers helpful? Yes, but don’t over do it – more importantly have a trust index for each stakeholder group and their associated issues.
• Always remember to measure misinformation: Often ignored in an industry which is slightly too optimistic by nature. If you are only measuring positive content and engagement then you are not seeing the whole picture - which means you do not have the whole truth.
• This sounds complicated? It will be when you set it up, but once you have done so it’s easy to maintain and adapt
Conclusions
• We have always known about mistrust in politicians, scandals…..what is different this time is this is now impact global society as a whole.
• Discontent is diminishing traditional institutions and they are being replaced by “Modern Tribes” - new stakeholder groups that are transient communities primary coalescing around ideas, and less around income, location, gender….
• PR and communications professionals, especially in public affairs, must re-think stakeholder mapping and create new models to engage and measure with these communities
• Measuring is key to understanding and engaging these audiences
• As with all great PR, keep it simple – let science guide your strategy and let ethics mark your engagement
Thank you!
@CARMA @mazennahawiCARMA.com