The financial crisis and changing market developments have made many companies aware of their vulnerability, with increased competition and waning consumer confidence posing new threats. In these turbulent times, it is important to stay strong as a business and to re-examine not just your strategy, but also your values.
Corporate brands can no longer just stand there: they must stand for something. What are the values and ethics that define your corporate conduct? Do you live by them and up to them?
The starting point for this journey to corporate self-awareness is inside the company. Now is the time to re-examine your internal values. What are they? How can they be defined? Do they fit this new environment and are you communicating them well enough to employees?
When defining your corporate values there are two layers to consider: the internal core values, or business principles, which must be communicated clearly to employees, and external core values, which must be communicated clearly to your customers.
A company’s journey towards defining its core values starts by answering the question of what makes your products, services and approach unique. What distinguishes you from the competition? What’s special about you? Since 1927, the guiding principle of the car brand Volvo has been safety. While other car manufacturers concentrate on design, fun or entertainment factors, Volvo has consistently focused on providing additional safety features – and communicating this. As a result Volvo has built a reputation as a safe and reliable car producer
Another important question in defining the core values is a more personal one: what kind of ‘character’ does your company have? Companies are run by people and their customers have a tendency to view them in personalised terms. They want to know your moral stance, the ethics and beliefs that underlie the way in which you do business and treat customers and stakeholders. Do you aim to be as open and accessible as possible? Is honesty important? The character dimension will also govern the way you work with business partners, employees and ultimately your customers, shareholders and regulators.
Last but not least, when creating core values it is important to keep in mind your mission and your vision of your place in the corporate universe. What is the main purpose of your business? What exactly do you want to achieve and for whom? The awareness that your company is directed by a consciously conceived moral compass provides clarity, a sense of purpose, and very often comfort, to all stakeholders.
Once you have created or reinvented your core values, you will need to translate them into external, commercial values. The fashion retailer H&M, for example, lists seven core values that include simplicity, improvement, team spirit, cost-consciousness and entrepreneurship. H&M translates these business core values into the brand core values: quality, best price and fashion. So whereas business core values are the values you communicate to employees and the basis of your business, external core values are the values that show customers clearly what makes you as a company special for them and how they can benefit from your product.
Clear core business and brand values provide a strong foundation for brand building. These values need to be implemented in every aspect of production, the supply chain and all marketing and communication activities. In word and in deed. If as a European food retailer like Prêt àManger one of your core values is to use only fresh, natural ingredients, you cannot import frozen chicken breasts from Brazil to cut costs. If as an investment bank like Goldman Sachs you claim to act as a trusted financial adviser to clients, you can’t sell risky investments without explicitly warning of the risks. Above all you must practice what you preach, or trust will shatter.
Once implemented, core values must be treated like promises and become like the blood supply of the company and its people. Chosen judiciously, applied properly and consistently, both core values and brand values will help to create a more meaningful view of your company and energise all consumers and employees who identify with them.
©Emma Robson and Susanne Lehr, 2012.
Contact the authors at: emma@mediawise.eu; susanne@mediawise.eu
In April Media Wise made the final editorial changes to a printed summary report and more extensive official online Sustainability Report for the international brewer HEINEKEN. Media Wise supported HEINEKEN during the extensive editing and copy writing process spread over five months.
HEINEKEN decided to publish the report as an online version only, thereby adhering to its sustainable business goals.
HEINEKEN has made good progress in its sustainability journey. In the last three years the company has cut the amount of water needed to produce a liter beer by more than 15 %, to 4.3 l. Its mission to make responsible consumption of alcohol aspirational is having a positive influence on drinking behaviours. The full sustainability report can be found here
In March, Media Wise helped to get media publicity for a new wealth management company called OXBY, which launched on March 5. OXBY is an initiative of the traditional Amsterdam-based Wealth Management company Velthuyse & Mulder, which offers personalised asset management at a low price. In contrast to the large minimum inlays required by banks, at OXBY you can open a fund management account with only EUR 15,000. OXBY offers three risk profiles – high, medium and low – depending on your risk appetite. OXBY then applies that to investing in trackers that follow a combination of government and corporate bonds and a broad range of European blue-chip shares, using a Momentum Strategy it has developed. This strategy aims to maximise the upside and minimise the downside by weighting asset allocation to the most promising sectors. When warning signals sound, the model triggers a switch from share trackers to safer European government bond trackers. When upside reappears on the horizon, the model triggers share purchases. If at anytime clients want to take over, with one click they can switch to do-it-yourself investing through partner Binck Bank. OXBY’s fund management services are cheaper than the traditional banks. The firm aims to be as transparent and user-friendly as possible. Click here for media coverage facilitated by Media Wise.
Beware! Investing is not the same as saving. Securities price declines can erode your capital.
Armancio Ortega, founder and chairman of Spanish fashion group Inditex, understands the power of metaphor. In an article this week in The Economist, the 75-year-old Galician compares fashion with fish.
The metaphor is particularly appropriate for a man born and bred in a small fishing village next to the famous Spanish fishing port of La Coruña.
Flogging fashion is like selling fish, he says. Fresh fish, like a freshly cut jacket in the latest colour, sells quickly and at a high price. Yesterday’s catch must be discounted and may not sell at all. The article goes on to say that this simple insight has made Inditex one of the world’s two biggest clothes makers. From its base near La Coruña, Inditex’s main brand, Zara, has conquered Europe.
So one metaphor, expanded by a simile, serves to illustrate the entire business model of Inditex and to explain its success since its founding in 1975. Other fashion companies have their goods produced in China and ship them long distances to their markets. Inditex still sources over half its products from nearby: Spain, Portugal and Morocco; 70 per cent of its sales are in Europe. This enables the company to serve up the latest fashion based on what people want to wear right now. For example if rain is forecast for northern Europe on a particular weekend, Inditex will dispatch more trendy trenchcoats to its Zara stores.
Facts and figures are important in substantiating claims and arguments. But they are not as memorable or powerful as metaphors.
Of all the articles I have read this week, this one in The Economist sticks particularly in my mind. Why? And how? Metaphors paint pictures. They they talk directly to our subconscious and only indirectly to our mind. They tell stories and evoke moods. When I read that article I thought about a quayside market in La Coruña. I could hear Galician voices speaking . The fish looked shiny and firm like this besugo (sea bream). It smelled fresh – in my mind at least. That’s because metaphors evoke different associations and feelings in different people. We give them the flavour and colours we want to. We personlise them and they become ours. Which is why we remember them. And when we remember they come alive in a way that is more vibrant and credible than any stored fact. That’s because they come from within our own subconscious. And because they come from there we believe them unquestioniongly, as our own thoughts and experiences, like a faith. As the Jamaican ginger grower said in a memorable McVities Gingernuts advertisement, I knows it, I grows it!
– Emma Robson
This past weekend I was invited to give my views on the media performance of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, on Dutch national radio’s Sunday programme Vier Zeven. Did I think Rutte had been media-trained? Did it show? What did I think of his performance? Mark Rutte is a very good communicator, I said, because he is direct, he nearly always answers or at least acknowledges the questions he is posed. He is smart and funny and comes across as authentic. Whether or not he has received media training – a question that bounced around in the Dutch media this week – is not relevant. What’s relevant is that by being direct, he shows he listens and he engages. He is confident and appears to have nothing to hide.
- Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte comes across well in the media
Many politicians start answering a question by evading it entirely. The wiley ones do it so subtly we don’t notice. They might say: “This is an important question, which is why our party is calling for…” and then go on to never actually answer the question. One of the most famous examples of this is BBC Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman’s interview with Michael Howard, the UK Home Secretary. Paxman asks the same question 12 times. To this day, while opinions abound, no-one can explain why this prominent politican, aiming for leadership of the UK Conservative Party, got so bizarely stuck in this groove. In so many ways he is a master of media interview techniques. It’s as if he’s been overly trained and therefore brainwashed, to the extent that he loses his natural common sense. Similar examples abound in the UK media. Here is Paxman again on the topic of Boris Johnson’s supposed detractors (who cannot be named – see from 32 seconds on!).
The last Dutch Prime Minister, Jan-Peter Balkenende, was not as skilled a communicator as Rutte. In the run-up to the elections last year, Balkenende attempted to dodge a question he could easily have answered (which three parties do you think should lead this country?) When the question was asked the third time, he told his female interviewer: You look so cute! A comment that outraged much of the female population. Jokes and flippant remarks can so easily backfire. Balkenende, in this interview, is at least consistent in repeating his main points about the need for reform and in a way that helps his main points stick. He is also very concise. Let’s give him that. For another error commonly made by politicians is to repeat verbatim and endlessly their carefully worded key messages regardless of the question. An astonishing example of this concerns the current leader of the UK Labour Party, Ed Milliband. Milliband is asked four questions about the UK strikes. He barely acknowledges the question and calmly utters almost an identically worded message, four times! Is this a leader or a parrot, one wonders? The reason why communicators are urged to repeat their messages more than once is to ensure that the meaning gets across and is retained. The best way to achieve this is to give an example that illustrates your point. The example might be a metaphor or a simile, for example. David Pogue illustrated this beautifully in The New York Times this week, in his review of the new iPad. Pogue’s main point is that the new iPad’s Its technical improvements keep it at the forefront of desirability — just ahead of the snapping jaws of its Android competition — but don’t take it in any new directions. He backs up this assertion with very precise facts and figures and includes, as a sub point, the fact that the US mobile standard 4G consumes a lot of battery power. He illustrates this with a playful and picturesque metaphor: `4G is a notorious battery hog. It scarfs down electricity like a football team at a hot dog eating contest.” Add colour, paint pictures. That’s what we practitioners of persuasive communications mean when we advise communicators to repeat their message. And rehearse well. Don’t learn your lines off by heart, otherwise you won’t appear natural and convincing.
– Emma Robson
Click here to listen to the Radio 1 interview (in Dutch).
Media Wise Managing Director and media trainer Emma Robson explained what media training is all about on the leading national Dutch radio station Radio 1, on Sunday. The live interview aired on the popular youth broadcaster BNN’s breakfast programme Vier Zeven, hosted by Luuk Ikink. The news hook for this item was the allegation in the Dutch media this week that Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has received media training, which he had earlier denied. Emma questioned why a politician would deny or be ashamed of receiving advice on creating and telling in their story. Media training is useful in helping individuals to focus and get across what they want to say in a short space of time. It can help them achieve their business, not just their communications goals, more effectively
Listen to the interview (in Dutch) here 
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Corio NV, Europe’s largest listed retail property manager Corio NV today published its 2011 CSR Report.
The report was edited by Media Wise. Corio operates shopping centres in prime locations in five countries in Europe plus Turkey.
Germany became its sixth home market in 2011. Corio centres welcomed 410 million visitors in 2011 and the company achieved net rental income of € 396.5 million, up nearly 80% on 2010.
Read the report here.
Visiting the NMSBA neuro marketing conference in Amsterdam recently gave my brain a lot to process. This science of why people buy provides us with numerous ways of literally reading people’s minds. Neuro scientists view surveys and questionnaires as a very limited way of conducting research as participants over think their answers and unconsciously rationalise them. The pure truth can only be discovered by looking at the source: our thoughts.
Even though neuro marketing sounds very abstract, it’s an oasis of valuable, practical information. For instance, it answers one of the most prevalent questions in advertising: what defines the memorability of a commercial and why?
According to Richard Silberstein, a conference speaker, an ad’s timing is everything. When people sense the end of an event, they ‘tune out’, because they need to process what just happened to them. So if you place your key message after you’ve signaled the close, you might just as well not say anything at all. People will simply not be listening anymore.
Another practical lesson was taught by Diana Derval. She showed how we can classify all people into four groups of men and four groups of women, based on differences in their prenatal hormones, and use this as a basis for product design. She gave the example of dinosaur robot toy, the colour of which was changed from green to blue in order to appeal to the Chinese audience it was destined for. Before someone is born, testosterone, estrogen and other hormones influences their sensory traits. This determines many things, such as how many taste buds that person will have, which will influence their food preferences. Or how far or nearsighted one is, which affects their observation of colour. Basically our hormones influence our perception and our perception influences our behaviour. Understanding these groups makes it possible to predict needs. Therefore, fitting your product to peoples’ traits will bring you and your brand a lot further.
Lots of other neuro scientists agree with Derval when it comes to the idea that we are more alike than we would like to admit. Victor Lamme claims to only need to look at five people’s brains to predict the behaviour of an entire population. This creates endless possibilities for manipulation and persuasion for the people who have mastered this science.
No matter how practical all this knowledge is, the advances scientists have made in this area also seem somewhat scary. When Christophe Morin showed how brain movies’ can be made that depict what a person is seeing, the idea of my brain being used as a camera was unsettling.
For more insights on neuro marketing, contact Charlotte Kroon. To find out more about the NMSBA conferences, click here: www.neuromarketing-association.com
Having indulged in the world of social media for several years now, it is quite astonishing how I managed to avoid answering the question: “What is the return of investment on social media?”
This question was raised at a social media seminar we held recently . It’s a logical question because in this digital age, everything can be measured, right? Well, no. We know that social media helps to support public relations. But how do you measure the value of a good press release? This can indeed be done, but there is no meaningful scientific way to do so. But why not? Time to take a closer look at social media’s potential return of investment.
The first insight: Social media and return on investment are very different things. One is a communication instrument and the other a financial measurement instrument. Of course companies need to know the value their social media activities will eventually have for their businesses, and whether their newly founded social media departments are worth the money invested. But measuring social media’s return on investment is a very complex and long-term equation. 1. It should start with defining an actual baseline, which is used as a comparison before and after social media activities. 2. Next, it should go on to measure social media reach, as well as frequencies of interaction. 3. The final step – determining the value of the financial return – is very hard to pin down. How do you find out how many of your actual customers use your social networking sites? Calculating this value is a science in itself, for which there are currently very diverse formulas of dubious merit, in my view.
So let’s start with a different approach. Let’s resist the urge to put a number on social media efforts. Above all, it’s a communication and customer relationship management tool. “How do you measure the value of someone wearing a t-shirt with your name on it?” Asks Dennis Yu, someone who has put a lot of thought into how to meaningfully measure the value of social media impacts. It is almost impossible, because you do not know who he might meet and thus influence. And that is exactly the problem – social media does not generate sales directly, what it does is enhance relationships with your customers, displaying your brand and business in a more human way and thus extending your customers’ mental brand equity.
What makes measuring all the more complex is the fact that social media networks like Facebook are recruiting your customers to do the marketing for you. Success is virtually pre-programmed, for who wouldn’t rather listen to a friend than to impersonal advertising? In times when almost all media channels so over-saturated with advertising and marketing messages that people tune out, social media takes us back to good old word-of mouth marketing. It worked for centuries and it certainly does now – even if deciphering that success into numbers that mean anything is rather difficult.
Consider, too, the information advantages that social media gives your company: you get to know what your customers are talking about, what they don’t like and do like about you, your products or your brand.
Ultimately, social media is what it is – communication from you to your customers. It might not directly drive people to the stores to buy your products, but it paves the way for those beloved loyal customers who, in the long run, are much more beneficial than potential one-time buyers.
Now, if you are still unconvinced and still want to attempt to measure the effects of social media, be aware that do it thoroughly will require setting up an extensive monitoring and measuring system. And before talking about a return on investment, you will have to designate time and resources to design not only social media presences, but the baseline situation you are starting from.
For more information please contact: Susanne Lehr, social media strategist. Susanne@mediawise.eu
A group of 30 young professionals and students on a three-month leadership programme perfected and presented their vision of how to make the world a better place during an afternoon session of storytelling and presenting with Media Wise in Amsterdam. Backed by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Leaders for Economic Change programme aims to ensure that the mistakes that led to the current world financial and environmental crisis will not be repeated. The programme has attracted young professionals from countries including China, Italy, Romania, Spain and the Netherlands. Their task is to answer the question of how to adapt our current economic, social, political and environmental systems to ensure sustainable development. The group is being educated and coached by sustainability experts, organisational specialists and top economists including former Rabobank CEO Herman Wijffels. They will present their vision to a professional jury on March 16. 
Dutch marketing bureau VODW predicts the five main consumer and marketing trends of 2012 in its 2012 FuturEyes Outlook. The dominant themes are: 1. the power of the group, 2. killing complexity 3. blurring boundaries (between virtual and real worlds), 4. vintage is virtuous and 5. green is good. For the second time Media Wise produced the English language version of this influential annual marketing trend barometer, which you can browse here:
In the second week of 2012, Media Wise held a Social Media Seminar for a small group of close contacts to exchange experiences in this rapidly developing area. Media Wise’s social media specialist Susanne Lehr gave an overview of the social media landscape and presented ideas on how to integrate social media into existing corporate communications, marketing and public relations.
The seminar drew communications professionals from a wide variety of companies: the environmental and civil engineering company, online retail investment bank Binck Bank, property manager Corio, pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly Europe, wind turbine blade producer LM Windpower, fashion label O’Neill, and food producer Unilever. Despite the sector diversity, attendees often had similar view on the charms and challenges of social media.
Cultural differences pose major barriers in taking a consistent global social media approach. The Chinese may have the same tools as the French and Dutch, but their way of using them varies greatly. Getting the right tone of voice is also very culturally determined.
Compliance remains a big challenge and delegates agreed that having a general code of conduct is not enough. What works better is a detailed social media policy that spells out exactly what employees can and can’t do and reminds them of the penalties.
A burning question for all was that of how to measure results. Has anyone devised an effective, accurate return on investment formula to calculate the value of your social media efforts?
We will be reporting on that very topic in our next blog. So stay tuned!
To see a short impression on the seminar, click here.
If you would like to take part in a future Media Wise Social Media seminar, get in touch by sending an e-mail to info@mediawise.eu.
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