Susie Shaw, APAC CEO, We Are Social, and Paul Edwards, an advisor to We Are Social’s new reputation practice and Director at John Connolly and Partners, discuss the evolving landscape of corporate communication and reputation management. There was a time corporate reputations were managed by corporate communications, shaping messages for shareholders, government and the public.
But then social media arrived, and it is not just shaping but driving corporate reputation. In the new report, “Reputation at the speed of social,” it is shown how reputation has become more volatile, more visible, and far more public.
Here, they examine the impact of social media on corporate reputation, the disparity between consumer expectations and shareholder demands, and the significance of internal culture in shaping external perceptions.
The conversation also explores the challenges of diversity and inclusion, the anxiety surrounding technology, and the emergence of vocal advocates in brand advocacy. Ultimately, they emphasise the need for collaboration between marketing and corporate strategy to manage reputation effectively in today’s fast-paced digital environment.
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Anyone that’s not embracing this is going to be waiting for something to blow up, and then they’re fighting a firefight.
Transcription:
Darren:
Hi, I’m Darren Woolley, founder and CEO of TrinityP3 Marketing Management Consultancy, and welcome to Managing Marketing, a weekly podcast where we discuss the issues and opportunities facing marketing, media, and advertising with industry thought leaders and practitioners.
If you’re enjoying the Managing Marketing podcast, please either like, review, or share this episode to help spread the words and wisdom from our guests each week.
There was a time corporate relations were managed by corporate comms professionals, shaping messages for shareholders, government, and the public. And marketers were responsible for building brand perception and driving sales, yet often referred to as the coloring-in department.
But then social media came along, and it’s not just shaping but driving corporate reputation. In the new report, Reputation at the Speed of Social, it shows how reputation has become more volatile, more visible, and far more public.
One viral TikTok can undo a year’s worth of brand building, and CMOs are increasingly the ones managing the fallout.
To discuss why marketing teams need to own reputation, especially when social media is where it’s being made or broken, please welcome to the Managing Marketing Podcast the APAC CEO of We Are Social, Suzie Shaw.
Welcome, Suzie.
Suzie:
Thanks so much, Darren. Nice to be here.
Darren:
And the Director at John Connolly & Partners, Paul Edwards. Hello, Paul.
Paul:
Hey, Darren, how are you?
Darren:
I’m very well. And this is a topic very close to my heart because in the last several decades of being a consultant to marketing organizations, one of the things that constantly cracks me up is how marketing and corporate comms, or corporate strategies, seem to be, if not enemies, at least frenemies in many situations. Is that your experience, Paul, from your career?
Paul:
It is a little bit, but I think that’s changing, Darren. I think there was always a sense that there wasn’t a shared mindset around issues, and that marketers were very focused on brand and sales, and corporate affairs had a bit of a higher purpose in terms of reputation.
And I think we’ll talk a little bit more about this, but the kind of bifurcation of reputation and brand now, how they’ve come together, particularly driven by social, has actually meant that the two areas actually have to work much more closely. And I think it’s actually given a bit of a common purpose to the two functions.
Darren:
Because, Paul, I was probably referring more to a very deep philosophical difference. I remember a director of corporate comms saying to me, “Darren, you just don’t understand, those marketers are trying to always do something new, always drawing attention to themselves. Our role in corporate comms is to make everyone feel like nothing’s happening here, there’s nothing to see, it’s just business as usual.”
And so, they saw it as quite different. Marketers are there, sort of making noise, color, and movement, a bit of the coloring-in department, and that all they saw with that was risk, risk, risk, risk, risk.
Paul:
Well, I think what has happened here (and to kind of steal a bit of a phrase) it’s actually not “follow the money,” it’s actually “follow the data.” And I think what’s happened over the past decade is that marketing has actually done a much better job in terms of understanding the kind of vast pool of data and insight which is available through digital and social.
And I think at the boardroom, that data is very powerful in terms of providing advice to management and providing advice to the board. And I think if there’s a failing in my area, it’s actually not embracing social and digital enough, and being too focused on disciplines of the past.
And media relations is still very important, but with shrinking audiences, I worry at times that you’re actually producing media clippings for executives, not actually making any impact whatsoever on public opinion.
Darren:
And Suzie, speaking of the boardroom, because you’ve got a couple of high-profile board positions, one of them clearly being Sydney FC. Do you find that the role of marketing and corporate comms or corporate strategy sits equally now at the board table?
Suzie:
Well, absolutely it does. I mean, just building on the question you asked earlier, I often do see a difference in mindset between corp comms and marketing. Where I would characterize the difference in mindset as being corp comms tend to have quite a defensive mindset (kill the story, keep it out of the press), and marketing have a much more offensive mindset where they’re trying to build profile, build awareness, create stories.
And I think in any organization, there’s a time when both is important. Every board wants all the things that is going to drive growth for the organization, awareness to be covered, have people talking about them positively, be covered in the media, drive advocacy, all of that sort of thing. And the reality is (as Paul said), you can’t bifurcate these two things anymore. They come together in the feed.
Suzie:
And it used to be the media were the only ones with a megaphone. Now, everyone’s got a megaphone. And that’s why the disciplines have come together. And what has happened is either you’re seeing teams that are building skills that sit in the middle, that know how to wrangle the feed, if you like, or it’s falling through the cracks because those skills and that mindset hasn’t shifted and the skills haven’t been built.
And I see big organizations, really big ones that we consult to who are lacking in skills and strategies, and other organizations that are taking great strides forward and bringing the two disciplines together really effectively.
Darren:
So, Suzie, was that what was the genesis of doing this research? The reputation at the speed of social, was seeing that that was becoming more and more a factor for businesses and particularly at the C-suite and board level?
Suzie:
Yeah, definitely. I’d say this report came from us deciding to launch practice in this space, socially-led reputation management. And what that came from was our clients really pulling us into this space where they were coming to us often in the face of a problem or a crisis where they were saying that, “We’ve got this problem, can you help us better understand what people are saying or what’s driving this problem?”
And we were doing more and more research in that space, but that was sort of where it was stopping. So, large TechCo getting a lot of reputation issues online, what can we do about it? And we’d have to pull up the drains to really understand the problem.
But it didn’t go much beyond research because that’s what we were being asked to do. But we could see that the organizations that we were consulting to were kind of lacking the executional skills, and there was a need for further strategy and implementation of the longer tail of activity that could help them both fix the problem if there was a crisis or a reputation issue.
But moreover, probably, be a bit more proactive about it because I think our view is, why not build your own audience in social and digital so that when you’ve got a message that you want to put out there, you are in total control of your narrative, you’re in total control of when you speak and what you say?
But you can’t do that without having built your audience. And that requires an always-on approach. Paul worked at ANZ in-house for a very long time, and I really believe I would call them best-in-class when it comes to building up platforms like BlueNotes and building up a really strong owned audience, they’ve got 700,000 followers on LinkedIn.
It means that when they want to put a message out there, they can do that because they’ve assembled a large audience that they can address directly.
Paul:
It’s a little worrying that we are still discussing this. I kind of led the project to build BlueNotes at ANZ and to build the social strategy for the bank’s communication. And that was in 2013, we built that.
And here we are 12 years later, still having a discussion about the importance of social and getting on board. I think we only need to look at our own daily behavior to understand that we’re not looking at a newspaper anymore, we’re kind of flicking through our phone.
And that’s where we need to get our head around, because the big shift is traditional news is not leading anymore. It’s kind of hard to say that (I come from that background, I love it), but in reality, socials are leading in all its guises, and we have to come to terms with that.
Darren:
Yeah, I think the last election was proof that even Canberra have woken up to the fact that it’s the content creators and the influencers that are reaching an audience that the traditional media, particularly news media, doesn’t reach.
The other thing about that is from a risk perspective, is that attacks or problems can come from anywhere. And unlike journalists who usually phone you or send you an email 24 hours before they release a story, influencers don’t have those same rules, do they? It can just suddenly blow up without any notification at all.
Suzie:
You’re absolutely right, they don’t. But firstly, they don’t have the same etiquette, if you like, but they also don’t have the same standards of fact-checking and liability and all of that sort of thing. It’s quite unstructured, and there’s lack of governance in that space, but you’re right, influencers have far bigger combined reach than traditional media today.
I saw a great story in the press today about the government recognizing, in the face of crises like a cyclone, that they’re failing to reach their total audience through the media with weather warnings and things like that. And they’re recognizing that they need to use influencers to help get their messages out there quickly in situations like that.
Darren:
So, looking through the report, I saw that there were sort of five key trends or insights arising out of that. I wouldn’t mind if we talk through each of those just to get more of a sense of what’s actually happening there?
The first one, consumer-shareholder disconnect. And I think that’s one that I think’s been around for a while. It’s just (to your point) amplified massively by the rise of social media and content creators and influencers, but what’s actually happening between business and consumers?
Suzie:
Yeah, I think, as you say, it has been on the rise for a long time. And I think just getting exacerbated more and more. I think the genesis of this was probably the beginning of the tech boom, where big TechCos were delivering continuous outsize growth for shareholders.
And they now form the biggest component of our economy globally. And it’s conditioned investors to expect that continuous outsized growth from any share or stock holding that they might have. And that’s putting traditional companies, or all companies, under pressure to deliver continuous outsized growth.
And how they do that is often at the expense of customers, they’re cutting costs or their employees, cutting employees looking for more efficiency. And as you say, now that consumers have a platform to speak, it’s creating tension because whereas corporate communication and marketing used to be separate, and corp comms teams would go out and make announcements about earnings or dividends or whatever sort of business press, and that might please their investor audience.
Those messages are now reaching consumer audience who are joining the dots and saying, “Actually, that’s not necessarily a good news story. And the reason that you’ve been able to achieve that growth is because you are cutting costs or getting rid of employees at the expense of AI or whatever that might be.
So, I think that tension is getting stronger and stronger in our global economy, and consumers have a platform for communicating what they’re unhappy about. And of course, it all meets in the feed as a reputation issue. And I think it’s creating significant challenges for corporations.
I think on the plus side, they can potentially reach their investor audience directly. We’re seeing more and more examples of investor relations going straight out on their own to channels. I’d say Spotify is an example.
We talked about in here where they’ll just go straight to Instagram, and rather than doing all these calls with analysts, now they’ll just go straight out and talk directly to their investors. But equally, it does create risk if a different audience from your investor audience might not like the news that is being delivered.
Paul:
I think the other driver probably in the last two or three years has been the cost-of-living crisis, Suzie. I mean, it’s no surprise at this time that the company’s facing the most significant reputational challenges are people dealing with the basics of everyday life.
They’re in the supermarket sector, they’re in the energy sector. Where people who are struggling to manage their household budgets each week are really focused on the value for money that they’re getting from those industries, those firms, those brands.
And they’re looking at the value that’s being delivered, and they’re not always happy with it. And they’ve got a voice. It’s not now that you need to get an article up in the Australian or the Sydney Morning Herald. I pick up my LinkedIn, and I’ll tell my 5,000 followers that I’m not happy.
Suzie:
I think that’s absolutely right. And one of the things in setting the context for the five trends that we outlined was a need … in this new environment, it’s not an option, really, to decide whether or not to use social channels to manage reputation moving forward, because if you don’t master that as the corporation, you are seeding ground to your secondary audience, to consumers to shape your reputation without you being there.
But one of the things we talk about is the absolute importance of understanding the broader cultural context that you’re messaging into to ensure that whatever you’re putting out there, you’ve got a really good understanding of how that message is going to be received.
And I think cost-of-living crisis is a perfect example of a message that five years ago may have been more positively received, is going to be received differently now. And so, there’s a need for corp comms teams or whoever’s in charge of how you’re managing your reputation online, has a really good understanding of that cultural context at any given time. Which, again, social data can do a great job of helping to inform.
Darren:
And that is a great example because during COVID, we saw a lot of positive sentiment towards the two big supermarkets, Woolworths and Coles, as they were struggling with supply chains and things like that.
But then with the inflation and the cost-of-living crisis, suddenly on social media, people are going into their supermarket and showing 50% off, really? This was that price last week, and now it’s been marked up 50%.
There was a lot of that sort of gotcha type content, which led to Four Corners doing that infamous episode where the CEOs of both businesses were basically put on the spot and grilled about their contribution to the cost-of-living crisis and were they actually doing it.
It makes it very hard when at the same time, you’re both out there telling investors that you’re delivering record profits. It’s always going to be a conundrum, isn’t it? Doing what’s right by shareholders and what’s right by consumers. But I think your point is it’s about managing that messaging and getting that balance across the two, isn’t it?
Suzie:
Absolutely. And then it’s thinking about even a third audience, which is your internal audience. It goes back to this point that you cannot pull apart your audiences anymore, they’re all coming together.
And you’ve got to be very mindful of the … it’s almost that 3D chess thing, that you’ve going to be very mindful of what each of your audiences is going to think about the message that you’re wanting to put out there, and thinking about those different dimensions of the story.
Darren:
Now, the other thing we’ve seen is, you call it the DE&I dilemma. We’ve seen a major political shift in the U.S. and a swing away from the focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But what’s this actually mean from a social media perspective?
Suzie:
I think there’s so many examples. And actually, we wrote this report six, nine months ago, and it’s interesting, every kind of reputational crisis that’s arisen since then has fallen into one of the buckets or more of these trends that still seem to be very salient.
But I think the reality is that it’s very top of mind at the moment and it’s a polarized issue that there’ll be people who are very quick to call out that you’re not delivering diversity. And equally, people who on the other side of the political equation, who might call out the woke mindset or whatever.
And I guess we would say that it is important that organizations do deliver diversity, equity, and inclusion, but not necessarily seeing it as a comms opportunity every time. What we saw when we did the research that people want is fairness, belonging, and policies that represent the whole constituency, not what they saw as policies that were only catering to very small minorities.
And so, it’s really important that organizations, if they are going to communicate a DE&I initiative, that they’re taking into consideration the impact that that initiative or that policy is going to have on their whole constituency. And that might be customers, it might be employees, but that everyone is going to see as inclusive rather than divisive or exclusionary.
Paul:
It’s a complex issue, Darren. I mean, you’re right that partly the backlash is political. And probably, it’s at its high watermark in the U.S., and probably here during the last election. I think as communicators, we’re also partly to blame that we probably oversold those stories and obviously, there’s backlash against greenwashing and so on.
But there’s kind of more fundamental issue here. There’s a group of people being disenfranchised by those messages who are owning that backlash because they look at companies and say, “Look, that’s great you are focused on that issue, but first, I’d like you to do a great job in what your core competency is, and that’s supplying me with a particular product out of value for money.”
And I think you have to earn permission to go into these other spaces. And I’m not sure all companies are getting that balance right.
Suzie:
I think you’re absolutely right. That’s a shift we’ve seen recently that people (consumers, the everyday person who might comment on a company and its reputation) are saying, “Look, we want you to take responsibility, but not the moral high ground. We are not looking to you to tell us what we should think about a political issue or a societal issue necessarily. And that doesn’t mean that you don’t have to take responsibility for your own ESG issues, but don’t tell us how to think or how to shop.”
Darren:
And now, we’ve seen rage bait as the new marketing strategy of actually running campaigns that will deliberately provoke the culture wars and drive the differences between people as a way of getting additional exposure and publicity.
It’s now gone to a whole new level that rather than trying to avoid controversy, we’ve got brands deliberately provoking it, particularly around DE&I because it seems to be such a trigger point for so many people.
Okay, the next one (and I really like this), the inside out corporation, how the internal culture is now the external culture. And I think this is a really interesting one.
Suzie:
I think it used to be that it was only the leadership who had a voice within an organization, and that people were looking for messages about performance to drive reputation that might’ve been earnings or whatever.
But increasingly, I think we’re in this era of the EVP where the employee value proposition is a big part of what shapes people’s impressions and a corporate reputation. And once again, because everyone is empowered to have a voice through social, they’re having a voice about their experience of being in an organization.
And if it’s positive, then that will help positively influence the perception of the reputation. But if it’s negative or if there’s a dissonance with what a company’s saying about the employee experience with what people are actually experiencing from the inside, then that creates cracks in the reputation and fault lines.
And I think our view is that you need to be clear-eyed and honest and consistent about what the employee experience is. But if you are consistent, and it is a good positive employee experience – and by the way, companies can’t get away with bad employee experiences because we’re just in a time where the employees are very empowered generally.
But if there is a positive experience, they can be really used as powerful advocates to help shape a corporate strategy. Because I think we’re at a time where peer-to-peer communication is extremely valuable and, and effective, and employees are sort of trusted advocates from the inside.
So, there’s a real opportunity to help shape a corporate reputation by using the employees as insiders to help form a view.
Paul:
Your experience as a consumer is your interaction with those employees very often. For those of us who travel, you get a grumpy crew on an airplane, to me, that actually says there’s something not right here because those people love being there. But there’s something else that they’re grumpy about.
Or you go to your favorite cafe, but they have constant turnover in staff. To me, that says they’re not looking after their people. And so, I think with the people of the company are the real experience of consumers.
And for people who are trying to address their reputation, you need to start on the inside rather than thinking you’re going to fix the falling down house with the lick of paint on the outside. But that’s probably where we’re trying to drive this.
Suzie:
I think in old marketing terms, they’re real reasons to believe. And if it’s true, they can really have a great effect on reasons to believe it’s a great company.
Darren:
I’m pretty sure it was Richard Branson that said the most important people to him were the employees, because they’re the ones that actually deliver the brand promise and experience to the consumer.
But it’d be interesting, particularly, there’s all these predictions about AI is going to make a whole lot of people redundant. When you then have to fire people, how do you then manage that experience for them so that they don’t all become, let’s say, turning on the company for not protecting their jobs?
Again, it’s one of those strange conundrums that businesses driven by profit alone or delivering “shareholder value” will find this a real challenge to get employee messaging and shareholder messaging quite different.
Suzie:
That point really intersects with one of the other trends, which is around the sort of tech anxiety. And a lot of these trends sort of meet in the middle.
But people are quite anxious about tech. Shareholders and corporations are excited about the potential of technologies like AI, but consumers and employees are quite anxious about it for both data security reasons, but also employment displacement.
And it’s another example of where corporations need to be very careful with the way that they’re managing the use of technology and deployment of technology, and the way that they’re messaging about it, because it creates a lot of anxiety.
And we found a number of data points that illustrated that Australians are actually some of the most anxious people in the world. You can imagine in the U.S., they’re a bit more gung-ho and a bit more tech-positive, whereas we are a high governance culture.
And I think there’s a feeling in Australia particularly where we want the government to have figured out a bit more protections around jobs and data security and all of that before we sort of let the technology loose.
But as you can imagine, we live in a global world where it’s pretty hard to put reins back on the unbridled horse at this stage.
Darren:
Well, we saw just recently, Commonwealth Bank (probably the largest bank in Australia) announced that the AI in their call center was going to allow them to significantly reduce the workforce and they were laying off, I think it was 45 people, I’ll have to check that.
And then immediately did an about-turn and went, “Oh, hang on, we’ve miscalculated. We’re not actually losing those jobs.” I think it’s going to be one of those issues, this technology tension, your fifth trend is going to be one of those points that’s really going to need some serious consideration particularly at that C-suite level around how that’s framed.
How do we frame technology as being a benefit to all, rather than just a benefit to the shareholders? Paul, do you have a view on that?
Paul:
Yeah, I mean there’s always a bit of a dilemma for CEOs looking at their share price to think that going out big on the latest thing which actually might help their price-to-earnings ratio is a positive thing. I think there’s just a little caution here, and I’m reluctant to criticize CBA because I know Matt Common, and he’s very focused on the culture of that company.
And certainly, it reflects my time at ANZ, where I’d be a very externally focused corporate communications head. And you’d talk to the chief executive about what you’re going to do to build the reputation, and the feedback was often, “Actually, Paul, the biggest issue that I’ve got is the culture of the company, and that’s where I want the focus to be.”
And I think you’ve actually got a generation of CEOs who are actually very in touch with their people and the need to drive engagement and a positive culture. And many of their balanced scorecards are driven off employee engagement numbers each year. So, they’re very focused on driving those. But it is a difficult balance with these new technologies.
Suzie:
I think a good point, Paul often raises is around socially-led reputation management that often the biggest gain is about employee engagement. If you think about any of the banks or the TechCos, or whatever, they’re massive corporations and they might have tens of thousands of employees.
And actually, social is probably one of the most efficient ways of reaching and engaging them, both in terms of frequency of use of the platform, but also, they’re probably not opening emails.
If you’re working at Woolworths for example, it can be a really effective way of humanizing the leadership and having more frequent interactions and driving a bit of dialogue and so on. So, it’s yet another opportunity that we see as being really powerful. It’s that employee engagement.
Paul:
You’re absolutely right on that. I mean, certainly at ANZ, we used Facebook for a lot of our internal communication and employees rated the fact that we would say something which was visible externally.
But we also delivered on a platform which was accessible to them. It’s on their phone, doesn’t have three layers of security. And let’s think about open rates on emails like maybe 25, 30% internally. I know that’s a terrible statistic, but that’s the truth of it.
Darren:
No, it is true, very true, yeah. And I think like all of us, employees are overwhelmed with the amount of messages they get bombarded with, so the more you’re able to put it in a platform or a context that they’re already using, the better that is.
I think also, social’s a great place for almost social proof. The messaging you’re putting out there makes employees (if they align with it) feel like it’s reinforcing the reason why they’re employed there.
Suzie:
Absolutely. I mean, one of the things we talk about with the practice a lot is there is no such thing as internal comms. Because you’ve got to assume, just because the nature of platforms and communication, that whatever you do communicate internally, you should be comfortable with it going externally.
And obviously, we’ve talked about the need to think about the external context and the cultural context and so on, but I think it’s wise to think about talking first to employees and being comfortable that that may be overheard by customers or investors.
Darren:
Now, one of the things obviously in this technology tension is for corporate Australia to build the trust level with consumers, because we’ve seen a succession of data breaches over the past 12 months, everything from Optus to most recently, Qantas and a few others in between. It is a concern, isn’t it? And do you think there’s a best practice for using social when this occurs?
Suzie:
I think there is. Firstly, I would say data security is a massive global, complex issue. And I think there’s so much work for governments and law enforcement to do because a lot of these corporations are being attacked in a pretty malicious way. And I just don’t think that the protections are in place for the corporations as much as they are for the consumers.
But in terms of best practice in response, we would say always, transparency is important. Communicate often, communicate early, and be transparent. And also, talk to your customers and your employees.
We’ve seen examples where people are worried about talking to their customers because there might be backlash (and in favor, they’re talking to the media), but the reality is people will feel a void if they’re not being communicated with.
Paul:
I think there’s also just a sense of socially-led crisis responses as well. We talk about the media cycles shortening, but in fact, much of the media coverage of these data breaches is actually led by social; it’s like services not available, emails you’ve got, and media are picking up on that. And so, actually being in the social media cycle is probably more important now than being first into the news cycle.
Suzie:
One of the things that we’ve seen has been very useful with the approaches that we’ve taken and strategies we’ve developed in the face of some of these challenges is social can be a really good source of intelligence to help you understand, “Well, what’s on consumers’ minds, and what are they worrying about with the issue?” So, that you can take the most frequently asked questions and then proactively answer them for everyone. I think listening is as important as speaking in these instances.
Darren:
It’s part of the social media mix that people often forget is social listening, rather than just trying to flood it. Look, I wanted to leave four to last because I think it’s probably the most positive trend, but also the one that sometimes is overlooked by marketing but could absolutely be in the marketing wheelhouse, so to speak. And that is the rise of vocal advocates.
Because there is nothing like having someone jump onto social media and sing praises about your business or service, or particular employee in such a public forum. You can get an email as a CEO telling you someone’s done a good job, but when it’s on social media, it just feels that much more special.
Suzie:
Look, I didn’t know that I’d agree it’s overlooked by marketers. I think this is essentially what influencer marketing is. I think the difference is a really good strategy that’s identifying genuine advocacy and amplifying it in a really authentic way is the sweet spot for making it work.
Whereas there’s probably too much activity where it’s just pay to play and you’re getting a whole lot of people with a big audience to advocate, but maybe not in an authentic way. But we would always work with brands to say, “Let’s start by looking at who is genuinely advocating for you,” or also identifying those opportunities to flip a detractor, really listening and understanding what is it that this person’s got an issue with and can we bring them in and reverse their sentiment?
We had an example a couple of years back with a big technology company where they were getting a lot of criticism online about some product issues, and we found that 80% of the engagement was around this one very influential detractor.
And when we did a bit of digging, we understood that they were previously an advocate, and they just weren’t being engaged effectively. And so, we developed a strategy about bringing them in and consulting them and making them feel part of … really hearing them out and seeing their value in their criticism to help drive ultimate advocacy.
Darren:
Yeah, Susie, I think it’s interesting you say it’s not overlooked. I think there’s certain categories that have definitely gone deep into this, but for a lot of brands and a lot of category businesses, it’s one of those areas that just feels like you have to give up a bit too much control. And yet it’s the one area where actually, in a way, giving up control and being more as a facilitator rather than the controller works incredibly well, doesn’t it?
Suzie:
I think that’s right, you’re absolutely right. I think it’s about identifying genuine advocacy, and then I think not completely giving up control. We do see sometimes brands that are just only creating creator-led content, and there is a dilution of their brand, or there’s a lack of strategy and coherence around that brand.
And that’s equally problematic, I would say. That it can really cheapen the brand – we’ve just got a whole lot of random voices saying their piece. So, I think it’s the darker of orchestrating advocacy, and making sure you’re clear on what messages you think are going to engage the right audience, and how do you engage your advocates in an orchestrated way. And then how do you amplify it to make sure that they’re being overheard by all of your potential customers?
Darren:
So, how do you think marketers should be getting involved and starting to be proactive around reputation? Because a lot of the things that we’ve discussed today, there’s a combination of there’s definitely marketing roles, but there’s still an important corporate strategy component of that.
So, I see the way the research has been phrased. It’s about marketing and corporate strategy working together, isn’t it? Rather than one or the other taking control of it?
Suzie:
Definitely, I think for us, we’ve found that we need to understand who really owns responsibility for brand reputation and who’s empowered and accountable. I think we’ve seen a huge opportunity to get beyond some of the relatively superficial metrics.
So, for example, RepTrak is very widely used by a lot of organizations, and it is a consistent tracker of brand reputation. But one of the things we’ve seen that social data can really do is supplement that data to help organizations much better understand the live issues that are driving reputation, either positively or negatively, and really help inform more sharper corp comm strategies.
I think there does need to be collaboration between marketing and corp comms, or there needs to be clarity around who owns this. And I’d say the single biggest thing we would encourage organizations to do is be more proactive about it. We see a lot of people engage when there’s a crisis. You cannot wait till there’s a crisis to build an effective owned platform.
Darren:
Yeah, too late.
Suzie:
It’s too late, it’s too late. But you can fortify your reputation by building up an owned audience and building up the positive profile of your leadership team, and all of that stuff. But yeah, you can’t wait for a crisis to do that.
And I think I constantly hold up ANZ as the best-in-class example. They have been doing it consistently four years, and it’s not just about publishing your press release on LinkedIn, it’s genuinely offering value to an audience such that they then want to follow and engage with you over time in good times and bad.
Paul:
Look, I always remember when we were developing BlueNotes there that we had a discussion, “Well, if you’re going to have a great social strategy, you’re going to have a great content strategy.” And I think I’ve always been very focused on the content first.
But I don’t see this as a competition, it’s really a question of people coming together around the data opportunity, which is implicit in the shift to digital and social media. And that’s kind of fundamentally different to looking at the reach of a media article and doing a finger-in-the-air assessment of sentiment of an article.
These are actually insights which can actually help you develop strategy and be more influential with your chief executive or your board. And I think that’s really the thing to be embracing here between the two functions.
And it actually will actually help drive collaboration rather than necessarily looking for, “Well, who’s the owner of this?” And that’s where I think some of the leading organizations in corporate affairs, like the Page Society in the U.S., have really been trying to take the function to become a better advisor and a better user of data as a source of advice.
Darren:
Paul, I think you’re right, collaboration. Because even without this issue of social media, which you guys have really highlighted the role that plays and the impact that’s having, but just to have an alignment or an understanding of what each hand is doing, because corporations don’t exist in isolation anymore.
They don’t talk on one side only to shareholders or government or only to consumers, they’re talking to everyone. Social media happens to amplify that very quickly. And one of the great things about human nature is we love to amplify the negative a lot more than we like to amplify the positive.
So, anyone that’s not embracing this is going to be waiting for something to blow up, and then they’re fighting a firefight rather than getting on the front foot and actually putting it in place. A great idea, We Are Social Reputation. So, is that a business that’s now up and running, and you’re offering it through We Are Social, Susan?
Suzie:
Yeah, absolutely. So, like I said, we found that clients sort of pulled us into this space, and we saw that we were being asked to tactically address some issues they had, but we still saw gaps beyond that and built the practice.
Paul’s been advising for just over a year now, we’re working with some large corporates and doing some really powerful work. And yeah, we see a lot of opportunity. And I’m absolutely convinced everyone will get there.
But I think given our social capability that we have (that has been built over many years) and really strong data analytics capability, I think we’ve managed to build some capability more quickly than some of the more traditional advisors have done. But like I said, I think everyone will get there.
I think the other thing that creates an opportunity is brand building has fallen away in many ways. We’ve seen a drive towards more performance-based activity or more tactical activity in marketing, and I think social offers an opportunity to tell a lot more brand stories.
But actually, the discipline of brand building through not just a brand campaign but building up the profile of your leaders or telling stories about satisfied customers, or getting behind the scenes of your food quality, all of those sorts of things.
There’s so much opportunity to fortify the brand through some of this brand storytelling. But again, it’s sort of falling through the cracks in a lot of ways. So, yeah, we are seeing a lot of exciting opportunities for us.
Darren:
Yeah, I’m interested in at what point will we start seeing that brand and reputation (for where the company is the brand, I’m not talking about a Unilever, where they’ve got a multitude of brands, but an ANZ, where the company, the listed entity, is the brand) aren’t interchangeable?
And if you go down that path, then you can look at the balance sheet, and the difference between the cost of your assets and the value of the companies called goodwill and your reputation and brand are actually what contributes to that. It makes it quite a neat solution to a problem that everyone’s been battling with for a long time.
Paul:
Yeah, and I think you’re also starting to see heads of function come together. We’ve talked a little bit about Commonwealth Bank here, that their head of marketing and corporate affairs came from the marketing side. And that’s the single source of truth for their executive committee and board there.
And so, I think you’re also seeing these functions come together in an organizational sense as well. And I think you’ll see more of that over time.
Darren:
Well, time’s got away from us. Susie Shaw, thank you very much. And Paul Edwards, thank you for joining me on Managing Marketing.
Suzie:
Pleasure, great to see you, Darren.
Paul:
Thanks, Darren.
Darren:
One question before you go, and that is, if we are bringing corporate comms and marketing together, does that mean social should be in-house?
