What’s the key to corporate communications cut through?

If you are interested in more thinking on how you can take a bolder approach to corporate communications, then please join us on Tuesday 17 September for our panel event :
‘Redefining boundaries: creativity as the new competitive edge in corporate affairs’.  

The start of September often provides a ‘back to school’ feel. The days of our calendars being filled with multiple ‘{INSERT NAME} Annual Leave’ markers and getting five out of office messages when you send an email are coming to an end. People are returning, hopefully rejuvenated from a summer break.  

As minds refocus on the work ahead, many in corporate comms will be beginning the task of looking forward and asking themselves how they can take their work to the next level in 2025.  

A key challenge for corporate communicators is increasingly generating cut through and impact in a landscape that has shifted. 

Firstly, culturally in many organisations corporate communications has retreated to a place of ‘safety first’ in recent years. Things are now starting to move in a different direction but in many places teams are building from a small ‘c’ conservative position. 

Secondly, the communications landscape has become more fragmented and generating meaningful awareness and engagement has become harder than ever. Recipes that would have worked in the past and delivered positive results simply don’t get the same results today. And the competition remains fierce.  

So, how do we overcome this? 

Over the summer the team at Boldspace has been asking this question and developing a framework of five ‘A’s’ (Audiences, Authenticity, Autonomy, Ambition and Alignment) that can guide the thinking of companies that are committed to developing meaningful corporate campaigns that deliver cut through.  

Audiences 

Understanding audiences has become increasingly complex. It often takes time, investment and expertise to really get to grips where and how to engage your audience – and often as a corporate you are balancing multiple audience groups, some of whom may have competing priorities.   

We’ve also seen a landscape develop in recent years where the ways audiences behave has changed. The public has moved from being solely ‘consumers’ to actors who are often activists or quasi-citizen journalists. Politicians increasingly use their ‘bully pulpit’ to challenge businesses. Businesses take stances on political and social issues. Regulators seek demonstrate their value by leveraging their ‘soft power’. Investors take stances on social issues. And this all plays out in a non-stop media and social media news cycle. 

By embracing this complexity, companies can provide themselves with the foundation on which they can build great campaigns.   

Authenticity 

Great communications need to be authentic to the organisation they are coming from. That means understanding the story you want to tell your audience. And doing that requires values and purpose. 

One of the reasons for the trend towards a more conservative approach in corporate communications was the difficulty organisations have had in defining values and purpose. Really interrogating what your business and brand stand for is paramount before moving on to develop work that engages and excites audiences, and builds meaningful connections that drive business advantage.  

Autonomy 

Great corporate communications also requires C-Suite leaders giving their corporate communications teams the autonomy and empowerment to do their jobs effectively. 

This can take a number of forms, but most notably involves allowing comms to be an agent of change within the business. Communications shouldn’t just be about telling people what a company is already doing, it’s about counselling the organisation on where it should go next to further its reputation. This also requires resources.  

As important is creating an environment where innovation and trying new things is welcomed. Not everything will work, but in a world where cutting through is harder to achieve, encouraging an approach of doing things differently is a must.  

Ambition  

This is arguably the most pivotal point in developing bolder, better corporate communications for 2025. In an environment where getting traction for corporate campaigns is more difficult, developing plans where the aspirations are too low simply risks businesses getting caught in a ‘sea of sameness’ and does nothing to demonstrate difference. 

Campaigns should be unashamedly ambitious. They should aspire to drive change. They should be guided be the principle of making the world a fundamentally better place for everyone to live their lives. That will take different forms for different organisations – but ambition should be the guiding ‘North Star’.  

Alignment  

It’s important not to pretend that corporate comms is a utopia where everything is possible for every organisation. All businesses operate with constraints and while we can redefine boundaries, we sometimes can’t remove them completely. Risk is a good example. An inherent part of corporate comms is managing risk. In some companies that becomes an excuse for inertia. It needn’t be. 

This is where alignment is key. Aligning across the organisation to create a ‘territory of the possible’ where the business can be bold, ambitious and impactful – but without running headlong into an approach that isn’t authentic because it doesn’t align with how things are happening in practice.  

This time of year as people return to work, reenergised and ready to look ahead is always an exciting one filled with possibility. We think the five ‘A’s’ can help harness that possibility for organisations, big and small, as they move ahead towards 2025.  

If you are interested in more thinking on how you can take a bolder approach to corporate communications, then please join us on Tuesday 17 September for our panel event ‘Redefining boundaries: creativity as the new competitive edge in corporate affairs’.