PARSONS GREEN — There’s a lady in a business suit sitting reading The Guardian.  The Media Guardian is tossed on the bench beside her.  Untouched.

It’s maybe symptomatic of a larger issue. And then again maybe I am just getting old. [Cue rant.] Why do the media need sections dedicated to… the media? 

I find myself hanging [...]]]>

PARSONS GREEN — There’s a lady in a business suit sitting reading The Guardian.  The Media Guardian is tossed on the bench beside her.  Untouched.

It’s maybe symptomatic of a larger issue. And then again maybe I am just getting old. [Cue rant.] Why do the media need sections dedicated to… the media? 

I find myself hanging around late in cinemas just to stare in awe at the screen. Why do we need to have “credits” for the caterers assistant?

Why do the arts and the softer sciences need to be so self-congratulatory?

It does none of us any good.

Can you imagine a great big banner being pulled behind an aircraft: “And the guy who polished the wing was called Gus…”?

/df

DISTRICT LINE — I love the way that the mainstream of public discourse can so easily reject different approaches as silly.  I didn’t see the show on John Lewis last Wednesday — Inside John Lewis.  A friend of mine did though.  And he says they were painted as a bunch of numpties.  And a bunch of [...]]]>

DISTRICT LINE — I love the way that the mainstream of public discourse can so easily reject different approaches as silly.  I didn’t see the show on John Lewis last Wednesday — Inside John Lewis.  A friend of mine did though.  And he says they were painted as a bunch of numpties.  And a bunch of numpties who don’t know how they’ve got so lucky.  Which is ridiculous, obviously.

It is, right!?

You’re not so sure?

One of the great charms of Great Britain is the complexity of its history and the variety of narratives that can emerge.  In this century, so far, we are all committed to the Dickens narrative:

• We used to work in coal mines, our bosses were mean and nasty, but the world was worse,
• Then the benevolence of man created commercial enterprise — overseen by faceless gods in expensive shoes — who made everything right.

It’s a capitalist fairy tale that insists that the Corporation is what built Britain (and therefore the world).

But the truth is far less clean and consistent.  Companies like JLP and Cadbury and The Co-op did it very differently.  Their approach to business was closer to socialist than to our capitalist democracy.  And they succeeded.

We read in Fast Company and other coffee-table management magazines that ABC Co offers free dog washing to employees who show up on a Sunday, or all you can drink from the booze cart on a Friday afternoon.  But when compared to the approach of a John Lewis Partnership or a Co-op that is as parsimonious and fatuous as could be.

Maybe John Lewis are not numpties.  Maybe they’ll still be here when the rest of us have folded up our tents.  Maybe we can learn something from them.

/df

Don’t invent symbolic events.  Just look out for them.

Some of us (consultants) will happily tell you that a symbolic event is tremendously important in [...]]]> KNIGHTSBRIDGE — We have worked on a couple of very prominent instances of this recently.  Indeed we’re doing one now.  And there’s one single message that has emerged as the most important:

Don’t invent symbolic events.  Just look out for them.

Some of us (consultants) will happily tell you that a symbolic event is tremendously important in sealing and unifying a great change. But what we often get wrong is how that event comes about. Let me give you two examples.

THE GOOD – Mandela and the Springboks.  I won’t belabour this, as it’s been all over the press with the Clint Eastwood film Invictus.  But essentially when the new black President put on the jersey of the traditionally all-white rugby team, the country could see old wounds beginning to heal.  It was good enough to turn into a film.  But it was a culmination of lots of hard work and it was a natural extension of the characters involved.

THE BAD – “Mission accomplished!” it said on the aircraft carrier where US President George W. Bush landed a fighter plane and swaggered down the runway.  And it wasn’t.  The mission wasn’t accomplished. He was nowhere near the scene of the mission.  He had learned to fly while sitting out the Vietnam War.  There was so much about it that smelled wrong that Americans don’t even like to talk about it today.

There is a great deal of work to be done to determine how to bring brands together and how to unify company cultures.  And most of that spade work is real hard graft.  Planning, studies, system changes, restructurings, communication, coordination, etc.

It is only when all that work is done and starting to take effect, and when real change is happening that events occur and/or opportunities emerge.

Don’t lead with it, don’t invent it, don’t force it.  It won’t come that way.

/df

ON THE BUS — My friend Chris sent me a link to yesterday’s blog by Yahoo’s new CEO .  He said even he was inspired, even though he didn’t work there.  (Although if they were smart he would.)

It’s a good read.  Not least because it’s a great example of how senior executives can use blogging [...]]]>

ON THE BUS — My friend Chris sent me a link to yesterday’s blog by Yahoo’s new CEO .  He said even he was inspired, even though he didn’t work there.  (Although if they were smart he would.)

It’s a good read.  Not least because it’s a great example of how senior executives can use blogging for both internal and external communications.  And lots and lots of companies and communication professionals will look at this with envy.

I have done work for Yahoo! in the past, so I need to be careful.  But I am particularly interested in her call-to-action around the brand.  Because we have a strong view about that, and I think it’s hard to dispute:

1. Too many people see brand communication as purely external, when it needs to be equally, and even more, focused internally.

2. Brand is viewed as being about attitudes and state-of-mind.  But it’s not.  It’s operational.  And until brand is viewed as a tangible, operational priority no business will get as much out of it as they should.

On top of that operationalising your brand isn’t expensive.  In fact, it should be cheaper than some of the other communications plans you have.  And far more effective.

And that’s the truth!

/df

LONDON — We think it’s time to talk about it.  So next week we are going to run a free seminar on how to communicate bad news.  If you would like to come, please drop us a note and we’ll tell you where it is being held and when.  (First come, first serve.)

JUMEIRAH BEACH HOTEL — It’s only 830 in the morning and just sitting outside, waiting for the car, I have got a sunburn and my clothes are almost soaked through. You don’t mess with the weather out here.

You never know what the day holds in Dubai. Yesterday was rain. And I didn’t think they did [...]]]>

JUMEIRAH BEACH HOTEL — It’s only 830 in the morning and just sitting outside, waiting for the car, I have got a sunburn and my clothes are almost soaked through. You don’t mess with the weather out here.

You never know what the day holds in Dubai. Yesterday was rain. And I didn’t think they did rain in this part of the world.

—

11 HOURS LATER — I am back now from a full day of conferencing. I think it’s one of the best I have been to. And it was all about marketing. Normally our line of business and marketeers don’t entirely see eye-to-eye. But that didn’t feel like the case today.

There were speakers from big brand firms, from to highest heights of corporate communications companies. There were CMOs and statisticians. A whole mix!

But a surprising number of them talked about employees.

There seems to be detente.

My speech was titled “Building brand value from the inside”.  And it was great fun to deliver. I like to challenge people at their own game… And I seem to have survived.

I had three main points:
1. Brands are stronger if they are built from the inside out.
2. Employees can build brand value and they can destroy it. You can affect which they do.
3. Treating employees like other stakeholders, as trusted partners, will help you and your brand.

Except, I wasn’t really that concise.

/df