The extremes of communication have been replaced with shades of gray. Reaching stakeholders is a combination of risk-taking, innovation, technology and a little bit of luck. Thus, building and
maintaining strong brands is an art form that many PR and marketing professionals are continuing to perfect. However, a new strategy book published by Booz Allen Hamilton in July 2007, entitled CMO
Thought Leaders: The Rise of the Strategic Marketer, highlights the philosophies of communications managers who are redefining integrated communications. According to them (and everyone else), a new
age is upon us, and new rules of engagement apply. Thus, consider the following 10 Communications Commandments, culled from the insight and wisdom offered in CMO Thought Leaders.
1. Thou Shall Love Thy Consumer. It's not news that digital communications platforms have shifted message control from organizations to their constituents, and that marketing and PR professionals
have been required to shift and integrate their strategies accordingly. According to John Hayes, CMO of American Express, "Today's generation of media consumers is the 'I'll-Decide-Not-You'
generation... We really want to understand their needs. Without engaged customers, we are not going to get what we need in terms of business outcomes."
To engage consumers, then, Hayes urges readers to look beyond awareness as a measure, and instead focus on engagement. And when it comes to engagement, Beth Comstock, president of integrated
marketing for NBC Universal, recommends turning back to the instigator: the Internet.
"Consumers are telling us that they want to be in control of the storytelling. And, as a part of that desire, they want to engage in advertising in different ways... Digital is just such an
opportunity from a marketer's perspective. It really does engage you in a different way: It gives you this one-to-one connection. Everything is in the engagement."
According to Keith Pardy, SVP, strategic marketing, brand management and consumer relationships for Nokia Corporation, "Because our business is so complex and competitive, it is difficult to
maintain success. The answer lies in becoming laser-focused on the consumer."
2. Thou Shall Love Web 2.0. "The value of the Web is phenomenal," Hayes says. "It has become essential to our business model ... [At American Express], we're shifting to the Internet for our
acquisition efforts in a significant way."
Pardy seconds this notion, saying, "Mobility is fundamentally changing the way people live and work." Simply put, love it - or else.
"Brands will be made and destroyed on MySpace and YouTube," Pardy says.
3. Thou Shall Love Thy Organizational Structure. As has been suggested many times over in the pages of PR News, organizational structure is a key influencer of the success or failure of an
integration effort. For the CMOs who spoke to the subject, their organizations' structures reflected this, despite having to undergo transformations to do so.
"Over the past several years, our brand has become a core strategic asset, and it has been elevated to the corporate level," says Pardy. "We have a very tight governance structure for the brand
and the strategy; brand metrics are reviewed quarterly by the brand board and group executive board."
But beyond just elevating the importance of brand (and communicating it) to the executive level, communicators' roles and responsibilities must be altered, as has been the case at Procter &
Gamble. "A communications specialist role is becoming critical in the new marketing environment," says Jim Stengel, CMO of P&G. "It's someone who is a bit of a consumer researcher and a bit of
an advertising agency planner type - someone who is an integrated thinker; someone who understands the communications world. And I think someone who also understands the content world."
A communicator can't just possess these skills alone and light the sky on fire, though. He/she must be able to build intra-organizational partnerships with strategic leaders.
"Marketers need to align key thinking and objectives with the CEO," Hayes says. "It is also crucial to keep senior management informed on the initiatives and the outcomes of marketing efforts ...
They need to have an understanding of marketing in order to respond."
4. Thou Shall Love Thy CFO. Not all communications executives are luckily enough to find a PR ambassador in their CEO. Under these circumstances, Comstock underscores the importance of finding
other C-suite support systems.
"If you don't have [a marketing zealot in your CEO], your CFO is your next stop. You make it clear what you're trying to accomplish: 'Here are the goals. And here's how we're going to judge the
success of our program.' I can't imagine doing a marketing job without connecting with the CFO. Marketing must be a finance team partner."
5. Thou Shall Love Thy Metrics and Analytics. If measurement was once the Holy Grail of communications, then nowadays it has some stiff competition. However, that doesn't minimize its importance
to integration strategies. Plus, these marketing mavens say, measurability has skyrocketed in the context of digital communications, so there is no excuse not to do it. But how do you do it?
"On the practical level, there is a simple calculation you can do on your income statement to compute [ROI]," Pardy says. "Take your gross profit and subtract your marketing investment. That
leaves you with what we call marketing contribution. Divide that figure by your marketing investment. You come up with a number that tells you how much gross profit you spin off for every dollar
investment of marketing. This is a first indicator, but just as financial analysts don't just look at the price/earning multiplier when they evaluate a company, we also look at a broad set of
metrics to determine how we are performing."
6. Thou Shall Love Thy Research. Thanks to digital technologies, analytical behavioral tracking offers insights into consumer habits. Stengel recommends investing in both validation research and
consumer-knowledge research, as a combination of the two will drive integrated communications strategies.
7. Thou Shall Love Thy Agency. Agency-client relations have grown increasingly complex in the current business environment, but that doesn't mean that partnerships aren't viable - they're just
changing.
"Web 2.0 and the convergence of communities and social media changes everything," Pardy says. "New channels and partners for execution are emerging and will transform the way agencies monetize
their services...It's next to impossible for one agency to have expertise in all those different channels."
Thus, work with a diverse group of agencies and ask a lot of each of them. Then, when it comes to the "creative agency" question, remember what Comstock says: "Creativity unfettered is chaos."
Balance your creative thinkers with structure. Finally, abandon the agency-of-record rhetoric for a more balanced, dynamic communications teams.
8. Thou Shall Love Thy Innovators. When applicable to your industry, the research and development team should be one of communicators' greatest advisors. "The role of marketing in innovation is
to partner with R&D," Stengel says, "not to catch something at the back end, but to be there, up front, co-creating."
9. Thou Shall Love Thy Internal Culture. As the 10 Commandments begin to come full circle, it's essential to communicators to embody the internal culture and then let it live within their
external messaging - that's what consumers want to feel. Have culture on your mind all the time, and make consumer understanding part of that culture. Have an egalitarian mentality in which
contributions are valued above ranks. Most important, have your culture mirror your brand.
10. Thou Shall Love Thy Brand. Finally, it's all for naught if your brand isn't your core strategic asset. Leadership must have a tremendous commitment to the brand, and employees must embody
the role of brand ambassador. Don't relegate brand-building to one corner of the company - it should be a part of every operational and strategic action.