Chapter 1: What is Corporate Communication | Public Relations by Joep Cornelissen
Summary
TLDRThis video delves into the realm of corporate communication, highlighting its evolution from basic PR to a multifaceted function critical for stakeholder relations. It illustrates the importance of aligning corporate messaging with actions, using Barclays Bank's campaign as a case study. The video underscores the significance of maintaining a positive corporate reputation and the role of communication in shaping stakeholders' perceptions, ending with a call to action for viewers to explore more on the topic.
Takeaways
- 😀 Corporate communication is a management function that nurtures relationships with stakeholders and protects a company's reputation.
- 🏦 Barclays Bank's rebranding campaign in 2003 aimed to appear more humane, contrasting with their previous powerful and big corporation image.
- 📉 Barclays faced an image crisis due to closing branches and high CEO pay, which conflicted with their 'big ideas' campaign.
- 📈 The future of a company depends on stakeholder perception, including shareholders, investors, customers, employees, and community members.
- 📚 Corporate communication has evolved from simple PR in the 1900s to a comprehensive function that includes advertising, internal communication, and crisis management.
- 🌐 The term 'corporate communication' comes from Latin words meaning 'body' and 'forming into a body,' emphasizing a unified approach to internal and external communication.
- 🎯 The main objective of corporate communication is to establish and maintain a positive reputation with stakeholder groups.
- 📊 Corporate communication strategy involves creating a corporate identity that projects the desired image and reputation to stakeholders.
- 💡 Companies use various communication channels, including brochures, advertising, logos, and staff behavior, to transmit their corporate identity and values.
- 🔗 Stakeholders are anyone affected by or affecting the company, and good relationships with them are crucial for business success.
- 📅 The evolution of corporate communication has seen a shift from separate departments to integrated communication, positioning, and now stakeholder engagement.
Q & A
What is corporate communication?
-Corporate communication is a management function that coordinates all internal and external communication to establish and maintain a company's reputation with its stakeholders.
Why is nurturing relationships with stakeholders important for organizations?
-Organizations are economically and socially dependent on their stakeholders, so nurturing these relationships is crucial for their success.
What was the issue Barclays Bank faced in their communication campaign in 2003?
-Barclays Bank faced an image crisis when they promoted a 'big bank' image while closing branches and disclosing high CEO pay, which led to public anger and damaged their reputation.
How did Barclays Bank attempt to manage the crisis caused by their communication missteps?
-Barclays Bank extended opening hours at 80% of their branches and recruited 2,000 extra staff to improve their image, despite the cost.
What is the role of corporate communication in a company's overall strategy?
-Corporate communication plays a role in protecting the company's reputation, which is key to its success, by building, maintaining, and protecting its image among stakeholders.
How has the concept of corporate communication evolved over time?
-Corporate communication has evolved from separate disciplines like publicity and promotions to an integrated function focused on stakeholder engagement, positioning, and transparency.
What are the key components of corporate communication?
-Key components include corporate design, advertising, internal communication, issues and crisis management, media relations, investor relations, change communication, and public affairs.
Why is corporate identity important in corporate communication?
-Corporate identity is important as it represents the basic profile an organization wants to project to its stakeholders and helps in building a consistent image and reputation.
What does the term 'corporate mission' mean in the context of corporate communication?
-The corporate mission is a general expression of the overriding purpose of the organization, often answering the question 'what business are we in?' and aligning with its values and stakeholder expectations.
How does corporate communication aim to influence stakeholders?
-Corporate communication aims to build a favorable relationship and image with stakeholders, leading to customer loyalty and support for the organization.
What is the difference between corporate communication, business communication, and management communication?
-Corporate communication focuses on the organization as a whole and its representation to stakeholders, while business and management communication focus on practical skills like writing and presenting for individual managers and professionals.
Outlines
🗣️ Corporate Communication Overview
The paragraph introduces corporate communication as a critical management function for nurturing relationships with stakeholders. It uses the example of Barclays Bank's advertising campaign to illustrate the challenges of maintaining a positive corporate image amidst controversial decisions like branch closures and high executive pay. The narrative emphasizes the importance of aligning corporate communication with the company's reputation and stakeholders' expectations.
📈 Evolution of Corporate Communication
This section traces the development of corporate communication from the early 1900s to the 1970s, highlighting the transition from public relations to a more comprehensive approach. It discusses how companies evolved from viewing communication solely as media interaction to recognizing the need for a dedicated corporate communication function that includes publicity, promotions, information dissemination, and more. The paragraph also touches on the importance of corporate identity and the various elements companies use to communicate their identity to stakeholders.
🌟 Corporate Communication Strategies
The paragraph delves into the strategic aspects of corporate communication, explaining key terms like corporate mission, vision, objectives, and strategies. It outlines the importance of these elements in shaping a company's direction and how they are communicated to stakeholders. The focus is on building a favorable corporate identity and reputation through various communication channels, including advertising, logos, and staff behavior. The aim is to create a positive image that encourages stakeholders to support and engage with the company.
🔄 The Modern Landscape of Corporate Communication
This section discusses the modern approach to corporate communication, emphasizing stakeholder engagement, transparency, and authenticity. It notes the shift from one-way communication to a more interactive dialogue enabled by technology. Companies are now expected to respond to stakeholders' communications and integrate themselves into stakeholders' lives. The paragraph concludes with a case study of Barclays Bank's efforts to manage a reputation crisis, underscoring the difficulty of repairing corporate reputation once it's damaged.
🎓 Learning More About Corporate Communication
The final paragraph serves as a call to action for viewers to learn more about corporate communication. It directs viewers to additional resources, such as videos on marketing and corporate communication, and encourages support for the content creator through likes, subscriptions, and comments. The creator also provides a link for viewers to support them financially.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Corporate Communication
💡Stakeholders
💡Reputation Management
💡Advertising Campaign
💡Image Crisis
💡Internal Communication
💡Public Relations (PR)
💡Corporate Identity
💡Transparency
💡Stakeholder Engagement
💡Authenticity
Highlights
Introduction to corporate communication and its importance
The necessity for organizations to nurture relationships with stakeholders
Corporate communication as a management function developed in 2003
Case study of Barclays Bank's advertising campaign and image crisis
The impact of closing branches on Barclays Bank's reputation
The controversy over the CEO's high salary at Barclays Bank
The role of corporate communication in protecting company reputation
Evolution of corporate communication from the early 1900s to 1970s
Definition of corporate communication as a combination of various disciplines
Importance of corporate identity and reputation in communication
The concept of corporate mission, vision, and objectives
How corporate communication strategy is key to building corporate identity
The shift from traditional PR to integrated corporate communication
The empowerment of stakeholders through media technologies
The current state of corporate communication focusing on stakeholder engagement
The importance of transparency and authenticity in corporate communication
The challenge of repairing a damaged corporate reputation
Encouragement to learn more about corporate communication
Transcripts
hello communication enthusiasts and welcome to this video if you want to find out more
about what corporate communication is we will talk about it in the following
minutes so watch the video and continue learning about corporate communication
all organizations must find successful ways to nurture the relationships with the stakeholders
they have and they are economically and social dependent upon so the corporate communication
was developed as the management function that takes care of this business in 2003
Barclays a UK based Bank decided to appoint a new advertising agency so they wanted to have
a new communication campaign we would say today it was inspired to have a more Humane campaign after
the early years the bank promoted itself as a big world needs a big bank so they had such an image
of a powerful and big corporation that acted as a bank unfortunately the AdWords had good publicity
so this was the good side but the bank decided to close 170 branches within the UK so their message
was promoting the importance of big chasing ideas and Ambitions meanwhile they were closing down 117
branches the image crisis got even worse after the bank disclosed that the CEO was paid 1.3
million pounds for just three months of work you can imagine how that was for their customers well
many people were angry with the bank and the situation was aggravated even more when they
come out when they came out with a statement they said that we are an economic Enterprise we have
obligations to conduct business in such a way that it provides returns for the owners of the business
and we will continue to take value maximizing decisions we're out sentimentally excuses you
can imagine how their message was there is a widespread belief in the management world
that the future of any company this depends on how it is viewed by stakeholders such as
shareholders investors customers and and consumers employees and the members of the community within
they operate corporate communication is important because the main and the most important objective
of a company is to protect its reputation and the corporate communication practitioners do is
to build to maintain and to protect the company reputation let's have a look of how Corporate
communication developed itself starting from the early 1900s up until the 1970s so at the beginning
in 1970 people used to think of the term public relations it is also known as PR you've probably
heard about PR and they use that to describe the communication with the stakeholders and
back then all the communication of a company was seen as the communication with the Press with the
media so nothing about people nothing about the stakeholders just the communication with
the Press with the time stakeholders internal and external to the company started to demand
more and more information from all companies they were interacted with so therefore companies took
into account and developed a new function of the corporations with a whole range of specialized
disciplines so they included or publicity promotions information and dissemination these
were all ranged all disciplines that were further on involves in corporate communication as we will
see so we can Define that corporate communication as a corporate design corporate advertising
internal communication to the employees issues and crisis management media relations investor
relations change communication and public affairs these are all functions that were Incorporated
under the name of corporate communication and in the end it means how an organization presents
itself to all its key stakeholders both internal and external let's see actually how the metaphor
of corporate communication was formed so corporate communication started with the Latin words Corpus
which means body and corporate which means forming into a body which emphasizes a unified
way of looking at internal and external communication disciplines you can look
at corporate communication like the management of media relations public affairs and internal
Communications if we would have to provide a very fancy and clear definition of what corporate
communication is well this is it corporate communication is a management function that
offers a framework for the effective coordination of all internal and external communication with
the overall purpose of establishing and maintaining several reputations with the
stakeholder groups upon which the organization is dependent every company has to create for itself
find direction towards the they go to so therefore we have the following key terms corporate Mission
Vision objective strategies identity and many others if you don't know about them we will
go into which one of them if you don't like to watch an ad length video such as this one in the
description below and in the links up here you will find shorter videos that Define all these
Concepts you can watch them or you can watch the following video as it goes so the mission of a
company is a general expression of the overriding purpose of the organization which ideally is in
line with its values and with the expectations of major stakeholders and concerned with the scope
and boundaries of the organization it offer it often answers what business are we in the
vision of a company is the desired future state of the organization it is an aspirational view
of the general direction that the organization wants to go in objectives are more precise so
with Define objectives as short-term statements of Direction in line with the formulated Vision
which are to be achieved by strategies so following on we will Define the strategies
which are actions and Communications that are linked to objectives and are often specified in
terms of specific organizational functions such as Finance Human Resources operations
Etc the key to having a corporate communication strategy is to build and the notion of corporate
identity so going on the corporate identity is the basic profile that an organization wants
to project to all its important stakeholder groups and how it aims to be known by these
various groups in terms of corporate image and reputation to achieve all these companies need
to go at Broad with their communication they have to do massive efforts in communication in order
to cover brochures for where advertising logos tones that they use on their website colors logos
so everything they communicate through including their service what they staff say how their staff
behaves these are all messages that the corporate communication uses in order to transmit one main
message that they want to build their identity with so through their identity they transmit you
their values and how they are and how they want to be seen by you the consumer and hopefully the
customer corporate communication is geared towards building and having a favorite relationship and
a favorite image in the eyes of the important stakeholders so they want to have a good image
and reputation with all the stakeholders groups that are important to the success of
the organization basically what they say is that the stakeholders are everybody who is affected
and who affect the company so they want to have good relationships with these people with these
groups of people so they can have a successful business of course so in other words companies
that have a favorable reputation and image in the eyes of their stakeholders will hopefully lead to
its customers to purchase products and services they know that the members of the community will
appreciate the organization and in its environment and there is one more aspect we need to talk about
there is a big difference between Concepts such as corporate Communication business communication and
management communication the difference between these Concepts is that the corporate communication
focuses on organization as a whole so and the end important tasks and how an organization
is represented to its key stakeholders in the same time business communication and management
communication focus more on practical skills such as writing such as presenting and they
look towards individual managers and professionals so going on with our corporate communication and
how it was created let's say the history at the beginning of 1970 we had this concept publicity
promotions information and dissemination and what this means is that in a company everything
was separated they had individual departments that were taking care of all these aspects and at that
time Specialties such as media relationships advertising sales and promotions and product
publicity were separated within the company in 1980s they realized that this fragmentation of
all these departments were also spreading responsibility because if something was not
working well well you had to ask the responsible of that department and they were through the blame
on another department so this was going against them this was counterproductive and the companies
realized that this is why going with the time in 1980s to 2000 we had positioning so this
means that the companies some of them not all of them back at that time the developed procedures
guidelines manuals and some integrated aspects that they integrated all these departments into
one and that department was called corporate Communication in 1990 the companies realized
that by communicating with the stakeholders they can talk about positioning so positioning right
here is about how a company is positioned in the mind of their stakeholders and remember that all
companies want to have a favorable position in the mind of the stakeholders because if you see the
company in a good way then you will become their customer and continue buying and contribute to
the SEC to the success of the company so they were talking about positioning in the mind of
the stakeholder in 1990. what happened in the recent years is that stakeholders so you you
the customer you're the consumer and everybody around the company so not just the consumers
such as suppliers investors share shareholders all of these they started to interact more
with the companies and this means that they were empowered by the media Technologies so nowadays
you can reach a company you can DM on their social media you can write on their website you can call
them you can interact with the company and you can have a dialogue with them in this view the
current state of corporate communication is how organizations communicate with their stakeholders
so they realize this fact and they realize they have a discipline and a responsibility
to communicate back with the stakeholders as a response to your first communication and not only
this is why in 2000 and up till present you have stakeholder engagement so what companies want you
to do nowadays is they want you to engage they want to engage you with their company so you
become an advocate so you represent the company you recommend it to your friends you can continue
buying from them and you also have integrativity so you integrate them you integrate them in your
life because companies want to become part of your life and you they want you to think about them if
it's possible every second so you remain their customer and then they came up with the idea of
transparency and authenticity they realize that nowadays corporate Communications it's not only
about promoting their services that it was in 1970 they realize that corporate communication is not
only about positioning themselves favorably in your mind and now they realize that they have to
cooperate communicate so they have to communicate with you transparent in an authentic manner about
what it is that they do so about their actions and about their Direction and about their Vision
as a company which were previously only for themselves so they were not disclosing this
kind of information the focus of the engagement is not only shaping opinions and perceptions but
an organizational being transparent and acting in their character to bring its distinctive identity
so they want to Foster individuals to become genuine advocates in and act in their favor
this is how Corporate communication was developed starting from 1900s as separate disciplines within
a company they became integrated under the mission of positioning themselves favorably in the mind of
the stakeholders and nowadays from starting from 2000s to present now they want to do engagement
with the stakeholders so this is basically corporate Communication in a nutshell going
on after all the disastrous announcements made by Barclays Bank the Barclays Bank in UK in order to
manage the crisis that they had they extended the opening hours at 80 percent of their are branches
so they recruited 2 000 extra stuff and actually ended to cost them more than they reduced in order
to have a favorable image in your mind however once damage the company reputation it's very
hardly to be healed and repaired in the mind of the customers this is why you should learn about
corporate communication because once damage the corporate reputation is very hard to repair once
damaged you will have to do a lot of communication a lot of advertising a lot of branding so you can
get in the mind of the customers and change the positioning of your company there so you have
to learn about corporate communication thank you for watching the video if you want to learn more
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you will find their videos about marketing and corporate Communications with definitions with
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