Branding, Communications and Credibility: The Bottom Line
Author:
Terry Prone
Terry Prone and Kieran Lyons, authors of the first title in the new ICAI publishing suite, This Business of Writing, ask you to consider whether your company speaks with clarity and purpose.
Warren Buffet once said he would never invest in a company he didn't fully understand. He also claims he keeps his sisters Doris and Bertie in mind when penning the annual report of his investment company, Berkshire Hathaway. They're not experts in finance, so he asks himself if they'll understand what he's writing.
Call it corporate messaging, brand identity or a writing standard, it’s possible to put a value on clear expression. Plain speaking strikes a chord with the reader. Unambiguous communication can help a company win trust, enhance the bottom line and avoid bad press. Over the past decade, as scandals have rocked the business world, it’s become essential for companies to build credibility with customers, communities, the press and the public. In a worst-case scenario, those relationships – and that credibility – will pay off in times of crisis.
Successful companies tend to have a bias towards simplicity, allowing a good story to tell itself, whereas failing firms are more likely to disguise bad news with vagueness and euphemisms. Have you noticed that when commenting on poor results, a lot of media managers are guilty of saying very little at very great length? Ironically, such obfuscation often lengthens the media life of such a story.
In an era of corporate enforcement, paper communication has taken on an even greater significance. Since the passing in the US in 2002 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act – which requires chief executives and chief financial officers to attest personally to the veracity of their firm’s accounts – it has become crucial for senior managers to keep tabs on what they’re signing, lest the words they verify return to haunt them. Honesty is now the only policy.
Your company’s writing objectives
Be it on your website, in your annual report or a company memo, begin by asserting your immediate purpose. Tell your reader you’re setting out to do and how you intend to achieve it. Whatever template and guidelines you select for a house style, whether it’s from This Business of Writing or the Chicago Manual, never patronise your audience. And ban the following from all written material:
-Expressions such as ‘going forward’, ‘geographies’ and ‘platform’ (the new ‘solution’, apparently)
-Words that have become meaningless through overuse such as ‘deliver’, ‘significant’, ‘driver’, ‘facilitate’, ‘enable’
-Vagueness and blandness, unchecked punctuation and careless grammar
An example: Shell has taken flak in recent years, and not just in Ireland, for its commercial activities and corporate objectives. Although it has launched serious communications counter-offensives, how’s this for a piece of gobbledegook from its Meeting the Energy Challenge report:
We are also talking real partnerships: Shell and others in the private sector innovating affordable locally relevant solutions; local customer and civil society groups being deeply involved in local energy distribution approaches that ensure both access for the poor and conservation; and governments, often with limited administrative capacity, that nevertheless create a policy environment that both keep energy affordable for the poor consumer while ensuring the energy producer the return necessary to stay in business.
So now you know. Or don’t. Small wonder the group suffered an international media crucifixion. Why would anyone engage positively with a company that is too clueless or self-serving to explain itself in plain English?
A plan and a message,/b>
A communications strategy needs a message – a strong, concise assertion that defines the company’s top goals. It should mirror any mission statement and be geared towards customer expectations. This message should be used whether an employee is talking to a business reporter, writing a news release about corporate expansion or delivering a speech at a local prize-giving. Every employee, every client, every customer and every shareholder should know that message – and, in an ideal world, believe it – because your corporate communications are inextricably linked to your most important market tool – your brand.
Delivering a brand
In most markets, there's relatively little to choose between products and services in purely functional terms. So a strong brand - what a product or service stands for - is of real value in providing differentiation. It can:
-Justify a price premium - people will pay more for a name they trust
-Attract talent - who would you rather work for? Kia or Mercedes?
-Win new business - or help you extend into virgin territory
Brand identity goes further than logos, colours and typefaces. It reflects a company’s philosophy and determines how it communicates. That said, it’s important that quality visuals support the written channels and be implemented across the public spectrum – website, intranet, publications, newsletters, events and media relations – and even in stationery, business cards, PowerPoint presentations and merchandise.
But brand and its delivery (with their implicit or subliminal guarantees) must be more than lip-service. No matter how strong a brand is, it's surprisingly easy to damage. A single lapse in quality of service, for example, may change a customer's view of it forever. And, over a period of time, a lack of consistency in the way a brand is presented and communicated can dilute its strength. Protect your brand with clear messages – be they written or spoken – and you will not only safeguard your professional reputation but clarify your business strategy and increase your bottom line.
Terry Prone is Ireland’s best-known business trainer and media commentator. A director of Carr Communications, she is the author of 20 fiction and non-fiction books. She is a weekly columnist with The Irish Examiner. Kieran Lyons is director of publishing of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland.