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Part of the role of a public relations practitioner is to help others to build key strategic relationships. The key is that we don’t build them on others behalf. As we all know from our personal lives, the value of any relationship is in being an active participant; being a participant – rather than somebodyContinue Reading
The importance of a diagnosis in strategy development
If you visited your doctor and they started recommending treatment before knowing what the symptoms are, or what the problem you need help to resolve, you would probably leave. Quickly. But that is exactly how most public relations and marketing “strategies” are built. Treatments are prescribed before there has been any diagnosis of the causeContinue Reading
Everything is NOT Brand.
And, that’s OK.
Last week, I got into a discussion with Les Binet in the comments of a post by Thomas Verheugd about the difference between brand, company and product name. Les and I disagree – and that is OK. It challenged me to think – and it produced this post. Les asserted that Unilever was a companyContinue Reading
Developing Brand
Brand is an overused and often misunderstood concept. A brand is the sum of an organization’s core values as seen by the people that experience it. It requires a set of core values, established by the organization and communicated as a brand promise. A brand promise is a commitment to live and breathe its coreContinue Reading
Defining brand
Brand is an overused and often misunderstood term. Everybody has one and every company is one. While this is true, a brand is not determined by the individual or organization – but by those that interact with them. A brand is the perception of how well an individual or organization keeps the promise it makes,Continue Reading
A Unified Theory of Strategic Integrated Communications
For the past few years I’ve been working to develop a unifying theory that explained how each of the communications disciplines worked – both independently and as a single system. My paper, published by Palgrave in their Encyclopedia of Interest Groups, Lobbying, and Public Affairs, introduces the theory, including an hierarchy, a taxonomy and scientificContinue Reading
Understanding Marketing vs Marcomms
Marketing Marketing is the strategic process of compelling a commercially-valuable (and mutually-beneficial) action. The person or group taking the action must want to take it. The core elements of marketing are well documented by academics and practitioners — the ‘four Ps’ — Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Promotion is often called Marketing Communication.Continue Reading
Lean Communications Value Proposition Integration
As part of work to integrate communications into the core function of business, we have attempted to map Strategyzer’s Value Proposition Canvas using elements from the Lean Communications Table of Strategic Elements. A validated value proposition is required for marketing (rather than simply marketing communications) in order that a compelling call-to-action can be developed. ByContinue Reading
Visualizing Grunig and Hunt Models of Communication
For years, the NFL has been representing football plays and drives visually on their website – in real-time. By compiling the plays, fans are able to watch their team move down the field towards the end-zone one play at a time. Communications strategy should work in the same way. It should be possible for aContinue Reading
An Integrated Lean Agile Communications Workflow
An Integrated Lean Agile Workflow for Strategic Communications The biggest challenge facing communications strategists is integrating core disciplines to strategic business goals. The Lean Communications Methodology™ has been built to enable communications practitioners to use the best business tools as part of their strategy development, testing and implementation activities. Integrating business and product strategy methodsContinue Reading