Insights for Leaders Navigating
Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.
From media strategy to reputation management, we explore the trends shaping public perception and share the approaches that drive measurable results for growing brands.
One of the most exciting parts of a survey is analyzing responses because you’re likely to find patterns in the data that help you better understand your assumptions and learn about your topic of interest. However, like many elements in the process, your analysis and conclusions can be inaccurate without research, forethought, and expert input.
This blog is the culmination of my three-part blog series, which started with Thoughtful Survey Design, on defining your population and survey purpose, followed by Intentional Query Design, on question types and tips for writing queries. In this blog, I’ll cover how to share your data.
I hope this blog can be a springboard for further study about survey analysis. Many people focus their entire careers on statistics, data science, and data visualization, so if you don’t fully understand something, I recommend seeking help from one of these experts. Ensuring accuracy is crucial because numbers have a unique power for many people as they seem to be objective pieces of evidence. However, data can easily be misinterpreted or misconstrued.
Once you’ve closed your survey, pulled the results, cleaned up the data, and comb through your data to find trends and identify outliers. Qualitative data includes labels, names, and descriptive information that can either be unordered (nominal) or ordered (ordinal). In comparison, quantitative data reflects the measurement of a quantity where the difference between integers is the same throughout the scale.
When finding trends within qualitative data, look for frequency calculations like proportion, percent, and ratio. Even if numbers represent qualitative data, you can’t calculate means, standard deviations, or other statistics because the intervals between responses may differ.
When analyzing quantitative data, there are generally three qualities that describe data.
- The range defines the possibilities of a particular piece of data.
- The central tendency, often represented by the mean, the median, or the mode, suggests an expected value for a specific population.
- The variability, often quantified with the standard deviation or with percentiles, describes where individual pieces of data end up within the range. These three elements act as a summary of that data for your sample.
One fantastic way to discover trends and convey data is to use data visualizations such as histograms, scatter plots, maps, timelines, and word clouds, among other options. Data visualizations allow you and your audience to visually see trends.
Once you have your calculated statistics, the next step is to draw conclusions through inference, taking many data points and uses them to draw a general conclusion. One key element to remember when forming inferences is that your sample’s demographics should reflect the characteristics of the population. Ideally, your sample should be random and representative of the entire population.
To effectively extrapolate to your population, it’s essential to collect enough samples. Check out this sample size calculator to ensure you have adequate responses from your population, but a sample size of 30 is generally the minimum.
When sharing your findings, you may have multiple categories of audiences, including the respondents, current and potential customers, stakeholders, or media, and each may need a different set of messaging or visuals.
In addition to understanding the key findings, stakeholders may want to see your survey methodology, population descriptions, statistical significance claims, and notes about pervasive trends and notable outliers. Others may make future decisions or pose future surveys based on your work, so helping them be as educated on the data as possible may give them confidence.
The media is likely to appreciate newsworthy information. Often this means timely survey findings, which can include information that shows conflict, is relevant to many people, has proximity to their beat or geographic location, relates to well-known cultural figures, or appeals to emotion.
Here are some final tips to keep in mind when developing the messaging for each audience:
- Share your sample size, estimated population size, any bias you encountered, and, if applicable, your self-selection bias rate.
- Think about the numeracy of the readers and how you may need to provide additional context to help them accurately digest the statistics you provide.
- Remember and emphasize that correlation does not imply causation.
- If possible, share anonymized and well-formatted data with journalists to allow them to verify your findings or potentially identify other trends.
Surveys are a powerful mode of social research. With forethought and intentionality, a survey’s conclusions can be compelling and allow stakeholders to leverage the data for future business decisions.
“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”
– Albert Einstein
Einstein may have been selling himself short, but he raised a valid point. Often, pursuing curiosity can result in successful outcomes.
How often have you dismissed something – a memo, an email, a news article, or a social-media thread – because it wasn’t interesting? Or have you been in an audience and tuned out the speaker because what they were saying didn’t connect with you?
These are all instances when your curiosity diminishes to a halt. And why not? It’s easy to disregard and ignore the mundane, or conversely, gloss over the finer details of esoteric and complex matters.
However, a lack of curiosity can be enemy no. 1 when it comes to writing, researching, reporting and unlocking creativity. A lack of inquisitiveness impedes the influx of new ideas, while a curious mind puts you on the path toward answering the ever-important question “Why?” And for PR professionals, being creative and answering the “Why?” is at the essence of the work we do.
Think about it: Drafting a press release for a new product and need to emphasize the product’s importance? Or amid a PR crisis and need to craft positive messaging to save the day? Creativity is at the heart of these tasks and is critical to achieving success in our work. And, as research has shown, curiosity breeds creativity.
So, in the realm of PR, how do we harness curiosity to unlock creativity? Here are a few tips that might help.
Practice Active Listening
Learning to listen is truly a skill, as active listening is critical to understanding vital information. Maybe you need to connect with a corporate leader or subject matter expert to obtain essential details about a company announcement, a new product launch, or an upcoming event. Active listening helps you secure all the information you need.
It can be easy to regard the importance of active listening as cliché, but to successfully listen requires effort. One must concentrate on absorbing the information and respond to it appropriately. Focusing on the speaker requires the listener to tune out their physiological noise, distractions, and wandering thoughts. It also requires the listener to digest the information without letting their own biases interfere.
The successful practice of active listening will not only result in understanding another person’s message, but it will also help broaden your knowledge with the perspectives of others.
Read and Write Frequently
Reading a wide range of material is essential to cultivating ideas. For instance, when working on news stories, reporters often immerse themselves in reviewing source material such as public records, financial reports, and other relevant articles. Additionally, reading reviews and soliciting the input of others can help spark ideas and result in gained knowledge or insights. Maybe you agree with what’s being said or written – or perhaps you think a counterpoint is needed.
Writing also can help you process the information you digest and stumble upon new ideas to write about or pursue. These ideas can come while researching a topic for another project you’re working on and result in many avenues for you to explore.
Follow Your Curiosity – and Stay Curious
For those who remain curious, the good news is that they will never run out of ideas. Curiosity leads to input for the creative well; there is always something new to explore or another perspective to consider.
If you stumble upon something that intrigues or surprises you, don’t hesitate to explore it further. When your curiosity is piqued, it increases your creativity. Follow your interests and maintain a curious mind. In doing so, you will attain the knowledge you need to be successful and maybe even surprise yourself with what you’re able to achieve.
If you’re looking for resources on the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, or how to prevent workplace harassment, below you’ll find a series of articles from Kantola Training Solutions.
These articles cover a range of topics from workplace harassment in the remote environment to how to create a DEI program that contributes to employee retention.
- Business.com, Workplace Harassment in a Remote Environment – YouTube, May 7, 2021
- Business Law Today, Understanding the Costs of Harassment Prevention and DEI Training, May 13, 2021
- Compt.io, How to create a DEI program that unlocks employee retention, May 18, 2021
- Risk Management Magazine, The Case for Effective DE&I Training, June 23, 2021
- HR.com, Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion: A Bridge From Risk Mitigation To Culture Change, June 29, 2021
- HR Daily Advisor, Remote Sexual Harassment: It’s Happening. Are You Ready?, July 15, 2021
- HR.com, 10 Ways To Uncover The Power Of Generational Diversity, July 19, 2021
We hope these resources are helpful, and, if you’re a journalist writing on this topic, please reach out! We’d welcome the opportunity to connect you with the experts working for Kantola in support of your reporting on these or similar topics.
You can also read about Kantola’s CEO, Sarah Rowell, in an interview she gave to the Boston Consulting Group here.
The Tokyo Olympics are in full swing, and news is breaking constantly. With nearly every mainstream news outlet covering the 2020 Tokyo Games, AP Stylebook published a topical guide for writers. It also held a special Olympic-themed #APStyleChat on its Twitter account.
During these chats, the AP team shares tips for writing and answers commonly asked questions about AP Style relating to a specific theme, topic or event. The team’s guidance compiled in the topical guide and the Olympic AP Style Chat are from the “Olympics” entries in the AP Stylebook and from common usage in AP sports stories.
Before diving into some nuanced tips, it’s important to cover how AP Style suggests referencing the Games.
- Games or games? According to AP Style, writers should capitalize all references to “Games,” even when written alone. In the topical guide, AP Style specified that this rule changed from past years when “Games” was only capitalized when grouping it with the host city or year. The editors made this change to be consistent with the International Olympic Committee (IOC)’s widespread usage.
- 2020 or 2021? Although a likely well-known style preference by now, it’s worth noting that the IOC uses the year “2020” to reference these Games, even though it is 2021.
- Where to place the year? According to AP Style, the year should always precede the host city and the word “Olympics.” Further, writers should not reference the Games as “Tokyo 2020 Olympics” or “Tokyo 2020 Games.” “Tokyo 2020” is a marketing term and does not align with AP style. Instead, writers should use the phrases “Tokyo Olympics” or “2020 Tokyo Games.” “Summer Olympics” is also acceptable.
Now that the naming is out of the way, below is some of the other AP Style guidance that the team discussed during the “Olympic Style Chat” on July 21.
- “USOPC” is acceptable on the second reference for the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee. The ampersand is part of the formal name. Writers should not spell out “and.”
- AP Style directs writers to use “Olympic” and “Paralympic” as adjectives to identify an athlete and their respective sport, e.g. “Olympic swimmer” and “Paralympic events.” Further, the adjectives “Paralympic” and “Olympic” should be written without the terminal “s” and always capitalized.
- When referencing Russian athletes competing at the Games, writers should use “Russian Olympic Committee” or “ROC.” This edit is necessary after the Court of Arbitration for Sport banned Russia’s flag, anthem and team name.
- Writers should capitalize “Olympic Village.” According to the AP Stylebook’s topical guide, the phrase “athletes village” is acceptable but should remain lowercase and without an apostrophe.
- Although it is tempting to say “opening ceremonies,” AP Style writes the Olympic opening ceremony and closing ceremony as singular events. If writers group the two ceremonies, it is OK to say “Olympic ceremonies.”
The Olympic Games are exciting to watch, but many individuals find themselves reading about the events given the time difference. Keep these style rules in mind as you read articles or write stories about the Tokyo Olympics.
For more updates on all things AP Style, follow @APStylebook or check out some of Communiqué PR’s past AP-themed blog posts:
As one of the most highly publicized sporting events in the world, it should come as no surprise that companies use the Olympics to truly capitalize on advertising and brand awareness. From Visa’s Go World commercials, which grossed over 28 million social media impressions before the 2012 London Games, to P&G’s Thank You, Mom campaign, which earned $500 million in global increment sales during the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, corporations pour millions into multimedia content in efforts to support their country’s athletes while simultaneously promoting their businesses.
After the COVID-19 pandemic postponed the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, however, the international marketing game went through a big change, too. As citizens of the world and Japanese locals continue to boycott the Tokyo Olympics as COVID-19 cases carry on in the host nation, spectators remain torn between whether or not the summer games should be happening at all this year.
Leading up to the Tokyo Games, many voiced their stance on the matter in passing and, naturally, on social media. As a result, these outcries of concern and confliction infiltrated advertising for the 2020 Olympics. Particularly, in the U.S. and Japan, companies are approaching their marketing roll outs in very different manners, sparking a large industry question: Should brands advertise in support of the Tokyo Olympics?
United States: The number’s game
NBCUniversal, the exclusive broadcaster of the Olympics in the U.S., has moved full steam ahead with advertising roll out for the Tokyo Games. In fact, the company is expected to surpass $1.2 billion in national advertisements for this summer’s Olympiad. According to Variety, more than half of the companies taking part in these efforts have never advertised during the Olympics, an example of the push U.S. companies are taking to be involved in the games despite the backlash.
Dan Lovinger, executive vice president of ad sales for NBC Sports, revealed that NBCU sold packages that range in price from $1 million to $100 million, sums that are dependent on the amount of inventory and the scope of the advertiser’s goals. The heavy investments NBCU is making toward the Olympics shouldn’t come as a surprise: Variety further reported that the conglomerate raked in approximately $250 million in profit from the 2016 Rio Games alone.
Japan: A different approach
For the host country, however, things look slightly different. Back in May, the New York Times reported that a staggering 83% of Japan’s population do not want the Olympics to happen as the country continues to grapple with the pandemic.
As the Financial Times reported, Japanese brands and companies are re-evaluating their advertising and marketing strategy for the Tokyo Olympics. In fact, many are turning to advisors for advice on how to best advertise during the summer games amid the controversies.
For the Japanese advertising company Mr + Positive, they are going ahead with advertising for the Olympics. However, they are scaling back their original plans and refocusing the message entirely. In an interview with Reuters, Peter Grasse, founding producer of Mr + Positive, explained that they are shifting their advertising away from triumphant Olympic moments to focus more on Japan and its citizens.
Reuters also reported that top-tier global sponsors who have contracts with the Olympics until 2024, are scaling back their plans. For some, they are deferring their budgets for their Tokyo promotions and advertising for the 2022 Beijing Games and the 2024 Paris Games, anticipating that the outlook on the Olympics will change following the end of the pandemic.
So, what can brands do?
Listen to consumers
As a result of the pandemic and the number of COVID-19 cases in the Olympic Village, Toyota, one of the top sponsors of the Olympics, pulled all of its television advertising efforts in Japan. A spokesperson for Toyota reportedly told the Business Daily that, “Various aspects of this Olympics aren’t accepted by the public.” As a result, the Japanese company felt that advertising its products in the host country would distract from the ongoing pandemic happening there. Toyota also reportedly felt that emphasizing its connection with the Olympics would cause backlash among Japanese citizens.
Switch advertising focus
For some brands, they reframed their advertising efforts to remind the public why the Olympics have gone on for so many years. Rather than focusing on their own products and brand messaging, they put the spotlight on the inspiring stories behind the athletes participating in the games. New Balance has been celebrating Sydney McLaughlin, who broke a world record in the 400m hurdles in June. Meanwhile, Athleta has been covering its social media with Simone Biles, who is set to compete on the U.S. women’s gymnastics team for the second time.
Eliminate the Olympics from the equation
Etsy, which is not an official sponsor of the Olympics, took the Tokyo Games completely out of its advertising efforts. The online retailer unveiled a 30-second advertisement that highlights the parallels between creatives and professional athletes without ever mentioning the Olympics by name. The strategic commercial shows support for craft makers and Olympians alike without directly supporting the controversial games, allowing Etsy to capitalize on the exposure opportunities the Olympics offer while still remaining distant from the event.
As a decided introvert, I’ve always been reluctant to raise my hand or interject in conversations, and I’ve always valued time alone to think deeply and process thoughts. My experiences at home and school compounded my introversion, and I eventually learned to speak less frequently and proactively.
There’s nothing wrong with introversion or being soft-spoken, but it’s certainly hindered my familiarity and excitement for speaking in front of groups. Even having the spotlight on myself for a moment can be nerve-wracking.
Now, as a public relations intern at Communiqué PR, I’m seeing where confident public speaking skills are essential to the work of public relations professionals. For example, simply reporting updates to clients, moderating panel discussions, or presenting at new business meetings are all instances where strong presentation skills come in handy.
There are ways to overcome the discomfort of public speaking in everyday life and work. Recently, I came upon Susan Cain’s TEDTalk, “The Power of Introverts.” Cain, a former Wall Street lawyer and author of the book, “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking,” is a self-described introvert and decidedly not a people-person, but I found myself admiring her presentation style.
As I’ve learned from watching Cain’s TEDTalk, great public speakers don’t have to be extroverted or outgoing. Rather, a crucial of captivating a crowd occurs when speakers are passionate and compelling. Cain’s speech was not about being in the limelight—it was about delivering the message. And while Cain acknowledged that she was scared to be on stage in front of so many people, she still delivered a powerful talk that earned a standing ovation from her 1,500-person audience. Her speech has been viewed at least 29 million times online.
What makes a strong public speaker?
Here are some key takeaways I’ve gleaned from Cain’s performance and preparation process:
Channel excitement and passion. A study from Harvard Business School has suggested that physically rephrasing your stage fright as excitement can improve your performance. While it may be hard to ignore feelings of nervousness, being able to verbalize excitement for a speaking event might help you overcome them.
Per Cain’s example, a genuine passion for your topic can help you feel and sound more confident. Though she was able to spend seven years in quiet research on introversion, she describes the irony of having to present her findings at a TEDTalk and overcome her fear of public speaking. Her passion and urgency towards introversion fueled her speech and it resonated with viewers like me.
Tell a compelling story. Strong public speaking skills are often synonymous with strong storytelling and organizational skills. Cain’s speech uses the classic anecdote, or story approach, to draw in audiences and make them invested in her message. Telling a succinct, moving story will help the audience remember your points and engage with your presentation.
Be authentic. Be true to your personality, values, and spirit by incorporating them into your material. For example, instead of pretending to be comfortable on stage, Cain admits that she was terrified of having to present to the TED audience. However, this confession only makes her a more relatable speaker and a credible figure to speak on introversion.
Cain uses other examples to develop her message on the power of introversion, like her soft-spoken grandfather who delivered moving sermons. These help us as audiences to understand where she came from and why we should also believe in the power of introverts.
How to prepare for public speaking
Below are several tips to consider when preparing for public speaking opportunities:
Know your audience and connect with them. Besides being knowledgeable about your topic, understand your audience. Try creating a list of questions to better understand your audience. These questions could include: Who is the audience and what are their values? Why would they be interested in what you have to say? How can you provide value by way of new information, insights, and solutions? Answering these questions is a helpful tactic to ensure your audience can connect and engage with your message.
Identify the best practice methods for you. There are several ways to practice for a speech, depending on your strengths and weaknesses. As Susan Cain described to the New York Times, in preparation for her TEDTalk, she met with a TED coach and joined a local Toastmasters chapter to become more familiar with public speaking and to receive valuable feedback. Although you may not opt for such an intensive process, direct feedback from a trusted individual can be an honest reflection of where you are.
Either way, practice with the goal of becoming highly fluent with your main points, which will allow you to fuel forward even when you slip up a word or two.
Finally, learn to embrace nervousness throughout your public speaking experiences. Although the anxiety might never go away, give yourself time to prepare for speeches and take pride in your growth each step of the way.