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.
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.
As we enter year two of the workplace evolution brought on by the pandemic, it’s important to take stock in what has worked well and what could be improved.
If you haven’t done so already, establishing personal office norms can help you be as effective as possible when working from home. Norms can vary widely based on personal preference and work cultures, including your Zoom etiquette, maintaining healthy work life balance, staying active, etc.
One such norm gaining mainstream attention is the idea of wearing shoes, once a common practice for in-person office life that in most circumstances did not require further thought.
With so much attention placed on protecting ourselves from infection and mental health, many are overlooking foot health. With an increased amount of time being spent indoors during quarantine, podiatrists Dr. Mark Weissman and Dr. Tamer Younan suggest that going barefoot around the house is leading to soreness and, in many cases, injury.
“Walking around barefoot, with socks or house slippers can put you at increased risk for foot problems, including plantar fasciitis, tendinitis and metatarsalgia (pain and inflammation in the ball of your foot),” says Dr. Weissman.
While this may feel like you’re giving your feet a rest from constricting work shoes and the daily bustle of pre-COVID-19 days, not wearing shoes puts increased stress on the foot. Thus, experts are encouraging people to wear proper shoes that provide adequate foot support. Wearing supportive footwear indoors may be the solution to quarantine foot.
It may seem silly, but I have a strict no-shoe policy in the house. So naturally I welcomed the bare foot approach initially, especially on hot summer days. It eventually caught up with me as I started to experience some foot pain, so I decided to buy a new pair of comfortable slides with some additional support for indoor use only – foot experts note it doesn’t have to be a traditional closed-toe sneaker, sandals with a good amount of support will suffice.
Foot care experts indicate that not wearing shoes puts increased stress on the ligaments, tendons and around the ball of the foot, which need support and cushioning. Without proper shoes and arch support, people are putting more strain on their arches and leading to foot conditions and maladies. If you are prone to those, or if you’re experiencing foot discomfort or pain, experts recommend wearing shoes in the house.
I can report that after a consistent commitment to wearing house shoes, the heel pain I started to experience in the mornings has dissipated and I also feel like I upped my remote professionalism, even if you can’t see my feet on our next Zoom call.
I’m fascinated to learn how others are approaching foot care while working remotely. Have you embraced the house shoe?
Public relations is critical to brand awareness and reputation, and partnering with the right PR agency can directly impact awareness of your brand, helping you achieve essential business and communication objectives.
But how do you know if it’s time to recruit a team of PR professionals? Outlined below are four business needs that indicate it might be time to consider a long-term solution to your PR needs by outsourcing to an agency.
An Upcoming Announcement
Your company might have to write a press release to announce new products, launches, campaigns or internal team member movements. Not only can PR pros develop the press release, but they can also distribute it to targeted media contacts they know will be interested in receiving the news. They can also arrange and facilitate interviews, help shape editorial coverage, and track coverage results generated from the release. A PR firm can also help extend the life of a press release, so it doesn’t get lost amid dozens of other announcements being made on the same day, and they can lead strategic planning to help companies tell a bigger story – perhaps by teasing future announcements or utilizing core messages from other company content.
Supporting Inundated In-house Teams
Managing PR activities is not an easy job; there are often several moving parts and competing deadlines to juggle. If a company finds that crucial areas of PR are falling through the cracks, it may be time to hire a PR firm. Business leaders can choose what they want their PR firm to manage. For example, they might delegate media relations and blogging to an agency, but continue to own newsletters, speech writing, event planning and social media in-house. PR firms can support these activities and remove much of the burden from the shoulders of in-house team members.
Moreover, PR teams should feel like an extension of your own. They can go beyond weekly calls to offer brainstorms or ad hoc advice. Then, as the needs of your in-house team evolve, you can adjust the work delegated to the PR firm.
Increasing Share of Voice (SOV)
Word of mouth is a powerful tool, but often it is not enough to build a solid brand. Whether you’re a startup or an established company launching a new product, your PR team will be the go-to experts in strategizing the best plan for the campaign. They’ll work closely with your team to determine the proper messaging and develop content and other important pieces of the project such as social, design, video and media relations. Rather than relying on word of mouth, PR pros leverage their long-standing relationships with reputable media and other influencers. As a result, they can help secure articles in high-ranking publications. Media articles generated through PR activities with high readership or viewership help boost brand SOV significantly.
Spokespeople Need Media Training
Media training is a tactic public relations firms use to help spokespeople deliver consistent and compelling messages. If your company utilizes employees to address the public, each person must be on the same page regarding key messaging. PR firms are media-relations mavens. Therefore, they understand what practices work well when talking to reporters and the public. Agency professionals can help company spokespeople prepare for interviews and press conferences by outlining common reporter questions and tips for best answering those questions. They can also lead preparation sessions with spokespeople to practice answering questions and provide real-time feedback.
One final but important note. It would be best if you considered PR as a long-term business investment, not because it takes a long time to generate results, but because it involves creating a presence, developing relationships and maintaining those relationships. In addition, one press release isn’t likely to move the needle. Just like if you want to run a marathon, running one time isn’t going to set us up for success. instead, you need a training program that is maintained over time.
I hope these thoughts are helpful as you consider whether it’s time to invest in a relationship with a PR firm.
In the past 18 months, we’ve all been through significant change. The pandemic disrupted our work and personal lives with work-from-home requirements, laws around wearing masks, supply chain issues, childcare issues and more.
Given this, it seems like the perfect time to consider how good one is at handling change. And, while I like to think that we as a company are pretty good at it, there hasn’t been a way to quantify this ability until now.
In the July-August 2021 issue of Harvard Business Review, David Michels and Kevin Murphy, both partners with Bain, introduced “a new system for measuring (and improving) your ability to adapt.” It’s a nifty rating system that identifies nine essential traits that companies should possess to succeed at change.
And before you dismiss the importance of possessing an institutional change-management skillset, consider the following:
The Significance of Change Power
According to the research done by Michels and Murphy, “Change power is a strong predictor of performance. Companies with high change power scores are more profitable, grow revenue faster, offer better shareholder returns, have leaders and cultures that are more highly rated, and are home to more engaged employees.”
The authors share the example of Delta Air Lines’ response to the pandemic and point out that its change management acumen led to its decision to remove the middle seat in plans. This decision had a significant impact on the airline’s operations and business. One outcome was on revenue. In Q4 of 2020, “Delta’s revenue was 12% higher than the average of American, United and Southwest combined – a difference management sees an indication that its customers were willing to pay for the extra space.” The airline also saw its Net Promoter Score (NPS) reach an all-time high during this period (see below).
Calculating Your Change Profile
To determine a company’s change profile, the authors designed a system in which employees are asked to provide a score “on statements related to each of the nine traits.” The survey is then scored and compared to an index, and the research found that organizations who score in the top quartile of the index have a more robust capacity for change.
They explain, “Each move into a higher decile on the index (from, say, the 50th to the 60th percentile) correlates with a margin of improvement of 150 basis points and an increase in total shareholder returns of more than 250 basis points.” And this shareholder return is just one benefit.
Companies with higher capacity for change also tend to have employees who view their leaders and cultures more favorably and state they feel more inspired and engaged than companies in the lower half of the index.
The Connection to the Net Promoter Score
If you’ve worked in PR and marketing, you’re probably familiar with the Net Promotor Score (NPS), but you may not know it, too, was developed by Michels and Murphy’s Bain colleague Frederick Reichheld. Today it is a very popular predictor of business success, so much so that we often included it in our clients’ press materials.
Consider one of our clients, Kantola Training Solutions, as an example. During its 35 years, Kantola has focused on continuously improving its platform and client service approach to drive superior levels of customer satisfaction. As such, it has achieved a world-class Net Promoter Score of 70 with its clients.
With the Change Power Score, I soon predict more of our clients will want to include it. I also wonder if Bain has additional research planned to determine a correlation between these two scores or systems.
The article is written by Dr. Clāra Ly-Le, Managing Director at EloQ Communications. It was originally part of the blog “Using social media during communication crisis in Vietnam”, which was published on EloQ’s blog.
Many businesses may have a solid social media presence with a high volume of engagement, but the quality of their engagement is mediocre. It is important to remember that engaging widely does not mean engaging wisely. Especially during crises, a good social media crisis management plan can help guide a company’s outreach efforts to ensure it’s engaging with relevant audiences and using influential channels to better manage its message. This social media strategy can be categorized into three groups: people, platforms, and preventative actions.
Connect the people
Managing an organization’s social media platforms requires more than one person. A crisis management team is the first thing to consider in a crisis plan. Since a company’s social media presence can be largely connected with its brand value, the management of social media platforms needs to be a joint effort by management, the marketing team, as well as the digital experts.
Besides the crisis team members, it is also helpful to include strategies on internal communications within the plan. Internal communication is a two-way relationship within an organization, enabling an exchange of information management and employees. If reporters or other people ask an employee for opinions on a crisis, and the employee does not know what happened or what s/he can or cannot say, a misstep can sensationalize the story. Therefore, a company should strive to keep employees in the loop at all times.
Identify the platforms
This is one of the most overwhelming steps in social media planning, as there are so many channels to choose from. Crisis managers, or social media managers, must first identify the target audiences, in order to determine which platforms are ideal for effectively reaching those audiences. Target audiences can include – investors, shareholders, suppliers, customers, employees, and even the government. One single message cannot be suitable for all those audiences. The company must decide which target audiences are of higher priority, or another option is to use social media so it can customize and tweak its messaging accordingly.
Much research suggests that it is better to use an “owned channel,” such as a blog, forum, or organization-generated community, than to apply a third-party platform, such as Twitter or Facebook. An owned channel is believed to be a more effective way to build a credible and meaningful online presence than relying on the communication flow and audience of an existing platform. Moreover, if the crisis is minor, it is easier to broadcast the response on these channels, as the company can control the statements, tone and material.
However, communication channels dimension does not include only the owned channels. Conclusively, there is a plethora of channels out there, and a company must always ask itself which social media channels should be used and why, and how it will use these channels effectively.
Work on the preventative actions
The first preventative action to consider is pre-draft updates. While an online crisis can hardly wait for a response to be approved by many levels of management, crisis managers can pre-draft templates for Twitter messages, Facebook posts or blog entries, with blank sections for the case details. The templates can be approved by the legal team beforehand so that the crisis team can disseminate the message on the appropriate platforms as soon as the details are confirmed.
The next action is creating a terms-of-use policy, which is outlining how people can or cannot behave. This is a way to guide the conversations and prevent people from taking the issue too far on the company’s owned channels.
Scooping up the negative domains and usernames is a proactive way to control the easy to remember names that can share destructive stories about the company. Norton (2013)’s example was if a hateful party owned the ihatestarbucks.com domain and started distributing negative stories about Starbucks, people tend to remember the domain and spread the stories more effortlessly. If the company gained control over the names first, they cannot be used against its campaigns [1].
Another action is dark sites, which are online hubs that remain in the dark until a crisis breaks out. They contain pre-made resources, such as message from CEO or hotline contacts, and the blank parts to be filled out with the crisis details. These sites are used to respond to a crisis in the most professional and timely manner.
The last preventative action is targeted advertising, which is used to control search results to make sure Google or Bing shows the correct and suitable messages when a searcher types in a relevant keyword. Beside its preventative characteristic, this action can also be used for responsive purpose. This tactic has been employed by BP during its Deepwater Horizon crisis, when BP tried to use PPC advertising to tone down the news of the disaster. Crisis managers should consider a list of potential keywords, as well as a search landing page (such as a dark site) to prepare for the upcoming crises.
Conclusion
While the application of social media during a crisis may still be up for debate, it is still important to develop a social media crisis management plan in advance to manage the information flow. In a time of crisis, social media can be an effective tool for companies to inform and engage target audiences and better control the message in real-time.
[1] Norton, C. (2013). Online crisis management. In R. Brown & S. Waddington (Eds.), Share this too: More social media solutions for PR professionals (pp. 159-168). Cornwall, UK: John Wiley & Son, Ltd.