Business

You’re competing with more than just your peers.

It won’t surprise people to know that I was quite full of myself at school. When I was about 13, and thrilled about a particularly strong set of results, a teacher took me to one side to bring me back down to earth. He congratulated me on my marks and proceeded to tell me that although they placed me ahead of my friends, I probably wasn’t the top 25% in the country.

That slapped me down like nothing else. I remember it vividly because it was so painful. He’d told me that I wasn’t doing that well. I was winning in the lower leagues but hadn’t realised the big leagues existed. If I wanted to do really well I had to compete against every other 13 year old in the country. I wasn’t only competing against my peers. I worked much harder after that conversation.

Starbucks vs. The Independent

Let’s fast-forward to the day after the owners of The Independent and The Independent on Sunday announced they would cease printing.

“We have always found it terribly depressing that people will happily pay £3.70 for an appalling coffee from a takeout place and yet they won’t pay £1.60 or £2.20 on a Sunday for what is in effect a novel’s worth of terrific writing,” said Lisa Markwell, editor of the Independent on Sunday, on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme.

The exasperation is evident. So is the hefty load of judgment about the way people choose to spend (or not spend) their money. There’s also a very astute point amongst the angst: Markwell understands that her paper is fighting Starbucks as much as it’s fighting the Observer.

They’re competing for not just the money in our pockets, though. They’re competing for our free time too. For many, Sundays are a day to relax. Some people might grab a coffee on their way to see friends, others might find a quiet corner and sift through the papers.

Integration

Marketing and communications has gone through huge changes in recent years. There are various narratives for these changes but we can encapsulate them all with the term: integration.

It means different things to different people, but in practical terms it means there are more companies offering the same services. For example, a fictional MegaCorp’s advisers, from its brand consultancy to its ad agency to its PR firm will be able to provide it with a new website. But how many websites does a company need?

From this perspective, it’s easy to reach the conclusion that integration means the market is more competitive than before. But it’s the wrong conclusion.

As my teacher knew and as Markwell knows, we’ve always been competing with more than just our peers. Brand consultancies, ad agencies, PR firms, we’re all chasing the promotional pound. We’ve always been competing against one another. Integration has just made the competition more obvious.

Evolving Influence, in partnership with the PRCA, recently hosted a breakfast debate to discuss Lord Browne’s new book, Connect, which is a Sunday Times bestseller.

Tommy Stadlen, entrepreneur and co-author of the book, joined Evolving Influence founder Karan Chadda and Mary Whenman, President of Women in PR to discuss one of the books most provocative conclusions: CSR is dead.

In this video, filmed immediately after the event, Tommy provides an overview of the book and its findings.

The controversial topic led to a fulsome debate with strong contributions and personal experiences shared by the panellists and audience alike. For me, there were three key points to take from the discussion:

Competitive advantage

Doing good isn’t a ‘nice to have’. Research quoted in the book has found that companies that engage with society outperform their peers by 2% annually in terms of share price performance. Moreover, that return is consistent over time. In an age where new technology, low borrowing rates and a general anti big business mood means that companies find it hard to find and maintain a position of competitive advantage, radical engagement and connected leadership offer an attractive commercial opportunity.

Authenticity

Calls for greater authenticity are as commonplace in PR and marketing as discussions of big data, disruption and integration. Its mention often leads to weary sighs and yet, as the whole room agreed, executives and businesses almost always speak in bland, homogenised and often meaningless language.

If it’s comfortable, you’re not doing it right.

The problem isn’t just about language. It’s about being more open, engaging in conversation your audience and, when mistakes happen, being truthful about it. Authenticity, ultimately, is about having an open culture and this can be scary for companies. As Tommy says, “if it’s comfortable, you’re not doing it right.”

Is CSR is dead?

I think the answer to this question isn’t definitive, but it is mostly “yes”.

If CSR is an add on, something done by a team that has little contact or influence on a company’s operations, then it’s definitely dead.

If, however, a CSR function influences a business. For example, if it helps reduce water usage or minimise waste. If it helps reconcile how a firm affects society, then it isn’t dead. It’s exactly what’s needed.

Many marketing, PR and brand experts will say that the latter is exactly what a modern CSR function should look like, but I’m not confident that we can say such modernity is the norm.

This post was originally published here at evolvinginfluence.co.uk.

Reputation is both simple and complex. At first glance, it’s very simple indeed; it’s what people think of you. However, when you try to formalise it and then try to measure it, things gets much more tricky.

Borrowing from science, it is sometimes helpful to observe a subject’s properties in order to better understand it.

I’ve listed some of the properties of reputation below. I’ve found them helpful in understanding its complexity and managing it. Do you agree with them? Would you add to them or remove any of them?

Divisible

Reputation is divisible right down to the individual – you can have a different reputation among different groups.

Connected

Reputation is connected – if you change your reputation among one group, your reputation among others might change too.

Clustered

Some people or groups have more influence over your reputation than others.

Irregular

Reputation cannot be accumulated or diminished in standardised units – it cannot be spent like money. This does not mean you cannot draw upon a good reputation during troubling moments

Sticky downward

It’s easier to lose a good reputation than it is to build one.