Brave New World for Corporate Communications
PR used to deal with relatively few but highly recognized media outlets. Today, they may have to deal with “citizen journalists” who they never heard of, but who may have a massive number of followers.
From alternative powertrains to mobility services, new technology is disrupting the automotive industry. It’s also disrupting how automakers communicate with the media and the public. The good old days of newspapers, snail mail and “film at 11” have given way to media sources churning out an unending torrent of sound-bite- sized information.
It’s a very different world for professional communicators. But at the same time this new technology is disrupting the old ways, it’s allowing them to target their messages more accurately and measure their effectiveness almost immediately.
I learned all this from sitting down with three communications professionals for my television program Autoline This Week, including Tony Cervone, SVP-Global Communications, General Motors; Chris Hosford, Executive Director-Corporate Communications, Hyundai Motor America; Stuart Schorr, VP Communications & Public Affairs-Jaguar Land Rover North America. Despite working at different automakers, their viewpoints are remarkably similar.
Here are some major takeaways from that conversation:
In the old days the PR staff had to wait until a newspaper was physically delivered to them the next day to see whether an interview with an executive went well or not. Today, they know within minutes. The interviewer typically tweets or posts about it almost immediately.
In the old days the PR staff dealt with relatively few but highly recognized media outlets, and over time they could develop a rapport with those journalists. Today, they may have to deal with “citizen journalists” who they never heard of before, but who may have a massive number of followers.
In the old days, PR would compile a clip sheet every morning of media coverage about the company. Today, they have to constantly follow the coverage. “Monitoring the media went from 5% of my time to 40%,” says Hyundai’s Hosford.
In the old days they invited the entire automotive press corps to their major model launches. Today they are matching up the different kinds of media outlets with the kind of vehicle they’re launching. “The Malibu customer is so different from the Tahoe buyer,” notes GM’s Cervone.
In the old days they would compile news stories about their company and try to determine if their message was getting out. But that was time-consuming and expensive. Today, they can quickly aggregate data from a variety of sources, track what parts of the message are being used, how it’s trending and accurately gauge public reaction. “We used to make assumptions, now we can really find out,” says Jaguar Land Rover’s Schorr.
They all agree a key change has been the arrival of integrated marketing, where the communications department works hand-in-hand with the marketing department. It wasn’t always so. “We hated marketing and they hated us,” says Hosford. “The belief was the pie was (only) so big and the more one side got the less the other got.”
With integrated marketing they believe their messaging has become far more sophisticated and now is focused on who the customer is for any given message. “Who is the customer? What are their needs? What makes them tick?” asks Cervone. “What stories can be told through communications and dialogue, and which can be told through merchandising?”
The combination of communications with marketing can produce a multiplier effect. For example, if they are going to place a television ad during the Super Bowl, they’ll now build a public relations campaign around it. They may put out teasers or even release the entire ad online a week before the game. “JLR actually got more media coverage that it was doing a Super Bowl ad than the ad delivered on its own. When you put the two together it can be very powerful,” explains Schorr.
At a time when the automotive industry is struggling to bring young, new talent on board, it was refreshing to hear that these communications executives don’t have that problem. “We have a somewhat undeserved reputation as being the ‘fun department,’” says Hosford. One reason why it’s fun is that corporate communications gets involved in almost every aspect of the company, so it’s not pigeonholed into only dealing with, say, financial or engineering issues.”
Communications people can find themselves diving deeply into topics they never dealt with before. They almost have to become private investigators to find out what’s really going on inside a company so they can craft an authentic message that will be credible to the media and the public. That kind of work can be highly attractive to a new generation that might otherwise eschew working in the automotive industry. “Communications is one of the most exciting places you could ever work,” says Cervone.
So while these communications executives have seen tremendous change in their careers, by and large they welcome it. Even though some of these changes can make them uncomfortable, it has made them far more effective than they were in the past.
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