Culture and PR have many links, but communication is arguably the most important one. Culture shapes how people communicate, and effective communication is essential to successful PR. There are many ways to define culture, but I use the definition of shared values, beliefs, and norms that shape how people think, feel and behave.
In this context, PR manages the spread of information between an individual or organisation and the public. PR practitioners use various tools to influence how the public perceives their clients.
Today I explore both and how this is linked to good issues management.
Let’s dive in!
Links mentioned in this episode:
https://henbe.co.uk/2021/10/07/ep-43-six-steps-to-help-manage-potential-reputation-issues/
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Culture and PR have many links, but communication is arguably the most important one. Culture shapes how people communicate, and effective communication is essential to successful PR. There are many ways to define culture, but I use the definition of shared values, beliefs, and norms that shape how people think, feel and behave.
Full transcript (unedited)
In this context, PR manages the spread of information between an individual or organisation and the public. PR practitioners use various tools to influence how the public perceives their clients.
Today I explore both and how this is linked to good issues management.
Let’s dive in!
An important part of strategy creation should always include ensuring the strategy is aligned with the organisation’s culture. Not just in a strategic sense, though. We cannot change the culture through a PR strategy, just the perception of it, arguably, but it would be tricky, for example, to have a plan that contains newsjacking if the organisation is risk-averse.
We have to, therefore, find multiple ways to engage the audience without conflicting with the culture of where we work or clients’ businesses.
I came across this recently, and the brief was to announce something – as it usually is. Once we had picked away at the surface, I realised this was a fascinating not-so-little company that was risk averse and creating a PR strategy that just looked at column inches, and the volume of comments wasn’t going to work.
We discussed various ways to gain traction and meet their objectives without actually creating concerns around control and risk. So, instead, we looked at how to take the best of what they did and cleverly repackage it to profile it in a way that worked with their culture. This was an interesting and challenging project, as we had to think hard about getting our message across without causing too much of a stir.
Now, arguably, there could be a separate piece of work around understanding their culture better and encouraging them to embrace some risk and be bolder, but that’s not the current brief.
From a different angle, customers can call companies out if the external communication and the values and beliefs are not aligned.
On International Women’s Day, for example, quite a few companies got called out for doing loads of content around how they supported IWD. Still, they had poor reputations for diversity and inclusion, very little diversity on the board, and were not transparent about equal pay in many cases. Not such a great look on IWD.
It may be easy to say from the outside looking in, but as PRs, we need to be the voice of reason in these circumstances and point out the potential risk of reputational damage if content is being produced that does not align with the life operation of the business.
A similar thing has happened recently with a well-known member body being called out on ethics policy and complaints procedures as the body is well-known and also trains people in these areas.
Walking the walk and talking the talk are always essential, but even more so, there is nowhere for businesses to hide from this stuff.
So, back to culture.
How often have we heard that ‘we don’t do this or ‘this activity isn’t for us?’ Not so long ago, many businesses and public bodies were saying this about social media – and now look. But as part of this, the culture has had to embrace potential risk, which comes down to being informed and having a potential issues strategy to ensure that we don’t end up in a situation on the back foot.
I see this a lot in the housing sector, where some companies are classed as riskier, push the boundaries on campaigns and communication, and are quoted as ‘having less to lose.’
But without really embracing culture and PR together, businesses are getting into a bit of a hole and potentially falling behind competitors in terms of profile. Going back to this company I spoke with recently – it turned out they were probably second in size in their market in terms of customers. So huge, really, but the number one spot company does way more marketing and PR and are almost a household name because of this.
So the message is clear;
- Embrace your culture, but don’t let it cripple your PR efforts so that no one knows who you are until it’s too late and the job becomes much more expensive and much harder.
- Create a reputation issues log so that you are running a proactive PR campaign you are aware of what might come up and can be prepared in advance, plus it will inform your thinking on timing and content, too.
- Set a programme of events – not just a one-off piece of coverage, as PR is a slow-burn and takes time to get traction for most B2B businesses in particular, although there are notable exceptions, as always.
I hope you enjoyed this episode; make sure you listen to episode 43, which highlights my six steps to issues management.
Links mentioned in this episode:
https://henbe.co.uk/2021/10/07/ep-43-six-steps-to-help-manage-potential-reputation-issues/