Overzichtelijke samenvatting corporate communication

Corporate communication
Lecture 1: Defining corporatie communication

Importance of corporate communication  CEOs and senior executives of
many large companies and multinationals nowadays consider protecting
their company’s reputation to be ‘critical’ and as one of their most
important strategic objective.

A company’s success depends on the reputation (how it is viewed by
stakeholders, people that are relevant to the company)

Change in corporate communication:
 First: Public relations (PR):
- Tactical support
- Communication with the press
 Corporate communication:
- Holistic: Focus on organisation as a whole
- Stakeholder presentation: How an organisation presents itself to
key stakeholders (internal & external)

Corporate communication: A management function that offers a
framework for the effective coordination of al external and internal
communication, with an overall purpose of establishing/maintaining
favourable reputations with stakeholder groups.

Two types of tasks for CC-specialists:
 Managerial activities
- Planning, coordinating, counselling CEOs and senior managers
 Tactical activities
- Producing/disseminating messages

Factors that make corporate communication more complex:
- Different disciplines
- Wide geographical range
- Wide large products/services
- Corporate headquarters and various divisions and business units.

Range of disciplines of corporate communication: Corporate advertising,
corporate design, employee communication, issue and crisis management,
media relations, investor relations, change communications, public affairs,
etc.




,Key concepts:
 Missions, visions, objectives, strategies
- Missions: The overriding purpose in line with stakeholders’ values
and expectations.
- Visions: The desired future state of organisation
- Objectives: Overall aims in line with overall purpose
- Strategy: How the vision is realised.
 Corporate identity, corporate image, corporate reputation
- Corporate identity: Profile and value communicated by an
organization
- Corporate image: Set of association in response to
signal/message from or about a particular organisation at a
single point in time
- Corporate reputation: Collective representation of past images of
organisation over time.
 Stakeholder, market
- Stakeholder: Group/individual who can affect/are affected by the
achievement of the organisation’s objectives
- Market: Defined group for whom a product/service is or may be
in demand (target group)
 Communication, integration
- Communication: Tactics and media that are used to communicate
with external and internal groups
- Integrations: coordinating all communication so that the
corporate identity is effectively and consistently community to
internal and external groups

Trends in corporate communication:
 1980s: Consolidated departments
- More integrations between disciplines and more strategic




communication
 1990s/2000s: Positioning (corporate branding, corporate identity,
reputation)
- Gave the impression stakeholders could be controlled
 2010s:

, - Stakeholders became more active (voicing, self-organising,
advocating)
- Empowered by new media (Interactive, dialogue-based)
- Stakeholders sharing their experiences, opinions, ideas about
organisations
- Electronic word-of-mouth (EWOM) and peer-to-peer influence
- Media wisdom: Credibility became more important, stakeholders
were less likely to be influenced.
- Stakeholder engagement: advocacy, transparency, authenticity,
interactivity

Communication went from a tactical tool to a strategic tool




Chapter 2: corporate communication in contemporary
organisations
Historical developments:
 Industrial revolution (18th century-1930s)
- Mass production/consumption
- Increased competition rise of marketing communications.
- Publicity, promoting and selling was not controlled, the press
exaggerated
 Muckraking journalism (early 20th century)
- Rise of public relations
- Raised awareness of ethical
 Economic depression (1920-1930)
- Development of expertise on PR and marketing
- Were seen as separate external disciplines
 Integration of 2 separate disciplines (1980s)
 Marketing communication: Effectively bringing products to the
market (markets and products)
 Public relations: Rise of branded content, appealed to people’s
interest (Publics and issues)

, 5 models that characterise relation PR and Marketing communication
(Kotler & Mindek):




Drivers for integration:
 Organizational drivers (efficiency, accountability, positioning:
strategic direction and purpose, overlap between disciplines)
 Communication-based drivers (enormous communication clutter,
message effectiveness: through consistency and reinforcement,
complementary and multiplication of media: cost inflation)