1.

Who are the co’s

constituencies?
•Should not to think of them as too fixed
•At different times, it may be better for the
company to focus on different constituencies
•E.g. in a crisis , better for the co to focus on
relations with the media to manage its
reputation , although the media is not the co’s
primary constituency
 1. Who are the co’s
constituencies?
•Constituencies interact with one another.
•E.g. a department store wants to revitalize a customer
service focus to drive more loyalty.
•It needs to reinforce this mission with employees
before customers can see results.
•E.g. sears has employee-customer-profit chain model.
•Success starts from management behavior through
employees attitudes to customer satisfaction and
lastly higher profits.
 1. Who are the co’s
constituencies?
•Employees are also “brand ambassadors”
-Potential for “word-of- month” goodwill and
image building .
•E.g. Google gives its employees a good reason
to talk highly of Google
•11 free gourmet cafeterias, motorized scooters
for transport around campus, free haircuts, etc.
 1. Who are the co’s
constituencies?
•Constituencies can have competing interests
•E.g. Cutting employee may be welcomed by shareholders
but unpopular with employees.
•Also communication intended for one constituency can
reach others.
•E.g. a manger wanted to lay off some personal assistants
and asked his secretary to type his letter and pass it to the
boss of HR dept. although his secretary wasn’t affected by
the lay off plan, she told her colleagues who were and
soon those affected were revolting .
 2. What is the constituency’s
attitude toward of the Org?
•.if the company has built goodwill with
constituency , it will be much easier to reach its
objectives.
•E.g. after J & J was forced to recall 31 million
bottles of Tylenol, it was easy to recover and
revive the brand , but because it was well-
trusted by doctors , consumers and the press as
a rock- solid company , willing to do the right
thing, it was able to achieve its objective.
 2. What is the constituency’s
attitude toward of the Org?
•How does the co build goodwill and trust
within its constituencies?
•It starts form within the organization – building
trust with employees
•Listening & understanding employees;
involving employees in important company
decision ; communicating & helping them
understand the co’s goals and vision.
 3. What does the constituency
know about the topic?
•What’s their attitude to wards the
communication itself?
•E.g. especially when introducing a new
product-consumers are wary skeptical of
unknown products
 3. What does the constituency
know about the topic?
•When the Jap manufacturer introduced its candy in US it
was sure its candy (wagashi- made of seaweed and red
beans ) was going to do well because it was the oldest
candy maker in Japan and served the imperial family for
centuries .
•However ,it found that US consumers did not like the taste
and could not even pronounce the candy’s name.
•So it had to educate people about the exclusivity of
wagashi in Japanese culture .
•After this the US public likened the experience of tasting
the candy to tasting caviar or espresso for the first time
 Delivering messages
appropriately
1. Choose a communication channel
- Important to consider which channels to use
and when to use them
- E.g. if there’s a change in top management ,
a co might use a few different channels-it
might want to write a memo to inform
employees, and announce through a press
release for its external stakeholders.
 Delivering messages appropriately-
choose a comm. channel
- E.g. AOL’s CEO announced the lay-off of 2,000
employees in 2007 via letter and email to affected
“colleagues” with personal note.
- But weeks before this, rumors had already spread
through cyberspace , bu the company did not
address these rumors and “declined to comment”
- Because the employees had leaned about the lay-
off well in advance of the official announcement,
it had made them bitter and distrustful.
 Delivering messages appropriately-
choose a comm. channel
- E.g. In 2005 , GM announced 25,000
planned job cuts for the next 3 years.
- It worked fast to calm worker uncertainty
and inform workers about lay-offs as soon as
it was released to the public .
- Used multiple channels- webcast of CEO’s
speech at the meeting ; company
newsletters; a segment on GM’s daily
employee TV show
 Delivering messages
appropriately
2. Structure messages carefully
• Direct-revealing main point first then explaining why
• Indirect-explaining why first , then revealing your main
point
• Companies should usually be as direct as possible ,
because indirect can be confusing
• E.g. when Nissan introduced its Infiniti series in US it
started by showing impressions of landscapes to create
a mood without showing the car. this was totally lost on
US customers and the campaign did not sell many cars.
 Delivering messages appropriately-
structure message carefully
• A third structure, is having no message
• Today this is not a good strategy.
• Saying “the co cannot talk about the
situation until all the facts are in “is better
than saying "no comment”/ nothing at all.
 Constituency responses
• Did the communication bring the desired
results?
• Sometimes feedback can gathered
immediately after -e.g. Employees are given a
questionnaire to confirm their understanding
of the main points of the communication
• Sometimes it takes longer – e.g. determining
whether sales rose as result if an advertising
campaign
 Constituency responses
• After the results are in , you must determine
how you will react.
• Has your reputation changed?
• Do you need to re-think your communication
channel?
 Corporate communication
strategy framework
• See the chart in your fucking notes
 In conclusion
• By linking Corporate communication ,
managers can mitigate the potential loss in
reputation .