the rise of communications marketing

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  • 8/10/2019 The Rise of Communications Marketing.

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    VSOTD.COM

    VITAL SPEECHES OF THE DAY366

    Thank you, Gary, for your kindintroduction. I congratulate JohnOnoda on being recognized as oneof the most outstanding practitionersof this generation. I was startled anddeeply moved to learn of the Societysdecision to induct me into the Hall ofFame. It is the highest honor I have

    ever received; to be recognized by mypeers as having made a signicantcontribution to our eld.

    Seventeen years ago, Dan Edel-man, who was my best friend andmentor, received this distinguishedHall of Fame award. I am humbled tofollow in his footsteps. He is creditedby many as the father of marketingPR; he understood the potential ofearned media to enhance the market-ing message.

    He gave me opportunities beforemy time, endured my awkward mis-steps as a 26-year-old manager of theNew York ofce, critiqued my ideasand celebrated our achievements inhis understated way. For that I ameternally grateful.

    I accept this award on behalf of theentire Edelman team, but especiallymy late parents, Dan and Ruthwhose founding values of integrity,entrepreneurship, decency, hard work,

    creativity and citizenship continue toinspire our 5,000 people in 65 ofcesaround the globe. My parents workis carried on by my sister, Renee, mybrother, John, and now generationthree, my daughters Margot and Tory.My thanks to all the Edelman people,past and present, and most of all toour clients, for enabling Edelman tosurpass my parents wildest dreams.

    I have now been in the PR busi-ness for 36 years, since I graduatedfrom business school, all of them at

    Edelman. I have a very different back-ground than many of my competitors;I never worked in journalism nor haveI served in government.

    My lack of journalistic experiencewas apparent when my rst boss inNew York City, Dick Aurelio, who hadbeen an editor at the Providence Jour-

    nal, tore my copy apart on the rstand second drafts of press releases.

    However, my background alsobrought with it some real advantages:nancial and business acumen, earlyrecognition of marketplace opportu-nities in areas such as digital, and anetwork of peers around the businesscommunity. These all have helped meimmensely.

    And eventually I even learned howto write or at least to blog.

    Ladies and gentleman, over thenext few minutes I want to challengeyou to think about our responsibilitiesin a new way. It will even make someof you uncomfortable. I sincerelybelieve that we must move commu-nications into an even more mission-critical role.

    We will build from our core,enhancing corporate reputation andemployee engagement, into newareas such as customer service and

    new product development. This willrequire a melding of marketing andcommunications, grounded in data-driven insights, and taking risk withideas. Marketing can no longer do italone; the solution to every problem isnot a new advertising campaign. Weneed real action to solve todays com-plex problems, inspired by communi-cations thinking.

    I believe that we are ready to dothis because of the values we embrace,the principles of practice we have

    drawn from the work of Arthur W.Page and the skills that we in publicrelations uniquely possess.

    Here are ve important devel-opments that make this evolution anecessity.

    First: there have been tectonic shiftsin trust. Condence in government

    has collapsed due to perceived incom-petence and paralysis, while businesstrust has soared from the low pointin 2008. And yet there is residual sus-picion of business; by a three-to-onemargin, respondents in the EdelmanTrust Barometer want more govern-ment regulation of energy, nancialservices and food.

    There is great evidence of dis-persion of authority. A person likeyourself is twice as trusted as a CEO

    as a spokesperson and peer-to-peerconversation has supplanted top downcontrolled messages. The averageinformed person today has eight dailysources of information and needs tosee a story three-to-ve times in differ-ent places to believe it.

    The second trend: we are living ina world of unprecedented complexity.Globalization, technology and privacyare colliding. Such important develop-ments as cloud computing, hydraulic

    fracturing and genetically modiedcrops are being paralyzed by argu-ments that rely on emotion and indi-vidual perception of risk.

    There is a new minimum standardtoday for introducing new types ofproducts. Business must move beyondthe classic goal of license to operatetoward a broader ambition of licenseto lead, in which it earns societalapproval of innovations by listeningand adapting. Consider Samsungs*wearable product, which requires

    THE RISE OF COMMUNICATIONS MARKETINGCommunications must operate with the rigor and analytics of marketingand marketing must operate with the

    storytelling mindset and marketplace reality of communications. Tey are inextricably linked.

    Address by RICHARD EDELMAN, CEO,

    Edelman Public Relations

    Delivered upon induction into the Arthur Page Societys

    Hall of Fame, New York City, N.Y., Sept. 21, 2014

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    NOVEMBER 2014

    367RICHARD EDELMAN

    new standards for protection ofhealth information, with users decid-ing which applications have access totheir data.

    Third, brands are now also act-

    ing as representatives of theircommunities.Brands are built not only through

    the tangible benets they offer, butalso in inspiring people through causesand content sharing. As activists andorganizers of movements, such as theDove* Campaign for Real Beauty, thebrands are forcing change.

    The new role of brands as leaderswas best displayed in the rapid deci-sion from the 13 sponsors of the LosAngeles Clippers basketball team.

    They discontinued their relationshipupon learning about the disgracefulracist remarks by former owner Don-ald Sterling, making it easy for newNBA commissioner Adam Silver toinsist on the sale of the team.

    Fourth, the very nature of mediahas been transformed. The reader isnow also content creator and advo-cate. The born-digital brands suchas The Hufngton Post rely heavilyon contributors and on comments by

    informed readers in an ongoing dis-cussion. Publications such as The NewYork Times now offer high-quality,high-performing sponsored contentthat runs alongside earned media.And media companies are now addingshort-form video alongside other con-tent, which is evidence of the need toshow and tell.

    Smart companies are creatingtheir own newsrooms, with verticalsub-brands that focus on R&D, policy

    debate and innovation. With morepeople now discovering content viasocial media than search, our mate-rial must be both substantive andsocial by design.

    Fifth, technology is causing theintegration of corporate reputationand brand marketing. Consumers donot differentiate an engagement with acorporate call center from an interac-tion on Twitter. This means that greatcompanies are making change, notwaiting for it.

    A case in point: Nestl* is adoptinganimal welfare standards that affect its7,300 suppliers. Why? Kevin Petrie,chief procurement ofcer, said Con-sumers today care far more about

    how the components in their food aremade, and since they all have smart-phones they are willing to share theirknowledge everywhere.

    So given these ve trendstrust,complexity, brands acting for com-munities, the transformation of mediaand technology tying together repu-tation and brandhow should wereconsider the challenge of inter-acting with consumers and otherstakeholders?

    We need to start by shifting our lan-

    guage from talking about marketingcommunications to using a new para-digm: communications marketing.Wait a moment, Richard, you have itbackwards; its always been market-ing communications. That is exactlythe point. Communications must bea full partner with marketing, beyondjust building credibility to becomingthe change agent.

    This simple act of reversing twocommonly used words reects a new

    environment where classic, image-driven marketing is giving way to anew focus on long-term relationships.

    Brands must evolve into LivingBrands, operating with a clear missionand purpose, inviting participationfrom the community, being responsivein real-time and offering an ongo-ing value exchange. Living Brandsembrace todays complexity and areresponsible for the supply chain, thewell-being of customers and help-

    ing to solve societal challenges. TheLiving Brand utilizes creative story-telling that relies on actual consumerexperiences vs. idealized, 30-secondspots. Consumers are connecting therational, emotional and societal dotsof a brandand brands need to dothe same.

    There are three governing princi-ples of communications marketing:Evolve, Promote and Protect.

    Evolve is to enable serious changeinside the enterprise or to introduce a

    product that is a discontinuous, largestep forward. We help our fellow execu-tives lead the organization, not man-age perceptions. We see around thecorner to predict what will happen,

    make alliances with partners such asnon-governmental organizations, listento community feedback, then adaptthe strategy to meet the needs of themarketplace. A good example of thisis CVS*, which boldly stopped sellingcigarettes and walked away from $2billion in sales, but also renamed itselfCVS Health last month as a clear sig-nal of its path forward. There is now a13 percent likelihood that U.S. adultswould consider shopping at CVS, up 4points from the beginning of the year.

    Promote is grounded in our story-telling heritage. However, its not tiedto campaigns as in advertising, butrather designed to create movements.Our job is to be alive 24/7 with con-tent and immersive experiences thatare true to life and add value to rela-tionships. GE* recognizes that everycompany can be a media companyin its GE Reports, Technologist Blogand Ecomagination sites. Productsunder the Ecomagination brand now

    account for an increasingly importantpercentage of sales.

    Protect is well beyond crisis man-agement. We need to hold the organi-zation to its promises where it mattersmost, on issues as diverse as humanrights, tax and product safety. Global-ization and transparency are perma-nent game changers; brands can nolonger try to suppress or divert. Wenow must be publicly accountable andaim to prevent problems, not solely

    repair them. Pepsicos* Performancewith Purpose initiative has a numberof goals for portfolio improvementand sustainability, with annual publicreporting of results and connection tonancial incentives for management.

    Communications marketingreturns marketing to its roots. In 1959,Northwestern Professor Philip Kot-ler dened marketing as, Creating,delivering and communicating valueto customers and managing customerrelationships in ways that also benet

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    VITAL SPEECHES OF THE DAY368

    the organization and its shareholders.This matters because the goal must beto enable change. Consider what Uni-lever* CEO Paul Polman told me lastmonth: One third of our sustainabil-

    ity plan of doubling revenue withoutraising resource consumption has beenachieved by xing our supply chain.Now comes the hard part, the other2/3 of the change, to alter consumerbehavior, to take shorter showers anduse cold water wash.

    This will happen only with superb,creative work. It is a false choice to saythat our programs need to be substan-tive instead of brilliant. I attended theCannes Lions for the rst time thissummer. What was clear to me was

    that the lines have blurred. Brilliantideas can come from everywhere: adagencies, digital rms, media buyersand PR rms. A great story will win ifit is brought to life through powerfulcreative, with immersive live and vir-tual experiences and by leveraging thefull force of earned, owned and paidmedia.

    We must be brave enough to makeorganizational and cultural changes,to welcome planners, digital and social

    media experts, creative talent, mediasuperstars, developers and quantitativeanalysts who can do this kind of work.They will create the stories that aremeant to be talked about in the social-ized, democratized world, that givepeople a reason to engage with yourbrands on an ongoing basis. They willdesign apps that make it easy to par-ticipate in a brands future.

    The value of communicationsmarketing is already being recog-

    nized by leading senior executives.Consider these words in a HarvardBusiness Review interview with KeithWeed, CMO for Unilever: In a

    joined-up, social, digital world, I dontthink that you can separate commu-nications from marketing. If you do,youre talking out of two sides of yourmouth as a company.

    Or consider what Rick Goings,CEO of Tupperware Brands* toldEdelmans Global Leadership Teamin June: Get marketing behind com-munications. We have abdicated whatmarketing can be. The soul of thecompany is authenticity, purpose andlocalization of your offer.

    Smart corporations are reactingalready to this new reality by givingcommunications and marketing lead-ers a much broader set of responsi-bilities. Consider Andy Pharoah at

    Wrigley*, who added the role of ChiefStrategy Ofcer to his CCO dayjob. Or John Iwata, formerly CCO,now CMO and leader of the strat-egy group at IBM, who conceived ofa partnership between IBM Chinasresearch laboratory with the BeijingMunicipal Government to forecastand control air quality in real-time sothat factories could be closed on badair days. These executives recognizethat their role is to evolve, promote

    and protect their companies, alwaysdoing what is right for the enterprise.

    To make communications market-ing not just an ideal but a reality:

    We EMBRACE new skills andcapabilities that are predicated onsystems thinking, a global view, and arelentless pursuit of innovation.

    We ADVOCATE for substantivechange in a brand or corporate strat-egy tied to competitive advantage andsocietal benet.

    We ENABLE business to be seenas a force for good, a values-basedapproach in order to change con-sumer behavior.

    We PARTNER with civil soci-ety, for the capacity to deliver serviceson the ground in a credible manner,while business offers the capital andexpertise.

    We OFFER outstanding cre-ative ideas that catalyze communitiesthrough storytelling that is useful andincredibly simple to share.

    We PARTICIPATE in the revolu-tion in media by embracing earned,owned and paid media.

    We PROVE that our ideas andprograms drive substantive impactby connecting the results to key busi-ness metrics such as consideration,demand generation, loyalty, image andreputation.

    Communications must operate withthe rigor and analytics of marketingand marketing must operate with thestorytelling mindset and marketplacereality of communications. They areinextricably linked.

    Thus, Communications Market-inga powerful way to re-imagine theopportunity staring us in the face.

    This is public relations creatingoutcomes that change the path ofthe corporation while also improving

    society. This evolution is the consum-mation of the dream of Dan Edelmanand is entirely consistent with the PagePrinciples. In the end, we are advo-cates for truth and prove it throughour behaviors and actions. No otherdiscipline holds these values as closely.

    For you as communications andmarketing executives and for those ofus in the PR agency world, it is ourtime to lead.

    Thank you again for this incredible

    honor.

    *Edelman client