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Branding
& PR
By Michael Alan Hamlin
April 21, 2003
Public relations practice, like
every other business process, is evolving according to brand guru
and best-selling author Nick Wreden. Wreden is the author of Fusion
Branding: How to Forge Your Brand for the Future and a "brand
futurist with more than 20 years experience branding products for
Fortune 500 and other firms." For Wreden, PR is first and foremost
a branding tool, and like branding, doing PR effectively means adjusting
to new, largely technology- and globalization-induced change.
His perspective of PR is both strategic
and tactical, and Wreden argues that the strategic role of PR is
changing in three important ways. First has to do with focus, or
purpose. In the past, PR's principal purpose was attracting new
customers. Now, the focus is shifting to keeping customers and developing
better, more profitable relationships with them. Wreden says that
the standard of measurement for customer acquisition is what he
calls customer equity.
Customer equity of course has to
do with the value over what marketing guru Philip Kotler calls customer
lifetime. What is different about Wreden's perspective is that customer
value should increase over time as a closer, more intimate relationship
is built that enables the company to respond - and articulate that
response - to the customer's developing, and maturing, needs and
desires. Of course, that job is not just up to PR practitioners,
but they play a central role in making it happen.
The second strategic role of PR is
building credibility. The Enron-Andersen, Citigroup, Worldcom, and
other management and financial scandals over the past two years
very clearly suggest that building corporate and management credibility
- or rebuilding - is not just a priority, it's also extremely difficult.
But for Wreden, trust and loyalty are two fundamental components
of brand building that senior management ignores only at extreme
peril. Of course, PR can't help an executive live up to a credible
image. He has to do that on his own. But PR can help assure that
the effort is noticed and rewarded.
Credibility management also has to
do with risk management. In other words, if a corporation is not
minding its corporate brand and the goodwill - or lack thereof -
associated with it, it is leaving itself largely defenseless in
the event that something bad happens, even if the company isn't
really responsible for that bad thing happening. In other words,
expect a disaster, and plan ahead. One way to do that, Wreden argues,
is to have mechanisms in place for regular feedback on customers'
perceptions, including formal surveys as well as informal online
feedback functionality. Then, put that information to work building
the goodwill that will help inoculate the corporation from negative
public perception as a result of a crisis.
Competitive intelligence (CI) is
the third strategic role of PR. "CI is not about cloak-and-dagger
rummages through trash cans," Wreden says, "Rather, CI
seeks a beyond-the-headlights look at the forces that could impact"
a brand. "The goals are to identify opportunities, minimize
surprises, and speed reaction." Doing that involves two processes
not traditionally associated with PR: collecting and collating information.
The kind of information PR should concern itself with falls into
three categories: strategic, focusing on competition; tactical,
which concerns such things as promotional activities; and counter-intelligence,
which involves security, constituent education, and even legal strategies.
Wreden cautions, however, that the
advantage of CI involves what the organization does with the information
it collects and processes. "A complete CI program must provide
insights on what needs to be done to shore up an internal weakness,
exploit a competitor's oversight or, most important, serve customers
better," especially better than the competition, he says.
The tactical role of PR also involves
three areas of focus, according to Wreden. First has to do with
that widely - and wildly - hyped new management tool, customer relationship
management (CRM). However, "customer" is more than "the"
customer for Wreden. Key constituencies that should receive regular,
meaningful communications from the corporation also include employees,
media and analysts, investors, suppliers, and even competitors.
Each of these constituencies is also a communication channel for
building credibility and goodwill. It's important that they have
favorable impressions of the corporation, and that they in term
communication those perceptions. To do that, they need a regular
flow of relevant, credible information.
Of course it's interesting that competitors
are an important constituency. As in any competition, convincingly
communicating to the competition that you're prepared and capable
of turning them into toast is an important tactical asset.
The second tactical role of PR is
to provide two-way communication with customers both as a means
of measuring impact as you go forward with a communication program,
as well as to provide insights into ways to improve efficiency and
effectiveness before a post-project review when opportunities may
have disappeared. Finally, Wreden argues that PR is responsible
for what he calls system integration, or in effect making the communication
process continual, seamless, and accountable for results. There's
no beginning and end, rather, continual refinement based on results.
Wreden is an important voice in the
emerging field sometimes called the new marketing or the new branding.
His insights are both ground-breaking, and highly relevant to building
strong corporate brands in competitive environments.
And what environment isn't competitive
these days?
(Michael Alan Hamlin is the managing
director of consultancy TeamAsia and the author of three books on
Asian economies and companies. His latest book is Marketing Asian
Places, of which he is a co-author (Wiley, 2001), and he is
currently at work on High Visibility: The Making and Marketing
of Asian Professionals into Celebrities. Write him at mahamlin@teamasia.com.).
Copyright © 2003 Michael Alan
Hamlin. All Rights Reserved.
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