The Vandiver Group Blog

The Vandiver Group has been busy the last few months with exciting client projects including building our Sustainability and Employee Branding practice areas, creating an online employee discussion group and coordinating a visit from John McCain at SAVVIS.

To learn about what the TVG staff has been up to recently, check out the latest addition of TVG Updates .

Hope you’re having an enjoyable summer!

As Andy mentioned in his post a few weeks ago, knowing how to communicate during a crisis is important for every business to have an understanding of. Based on the Nine Steps of Crisis Communication that the Center for Disease Control included in their Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication binder, we would like to provide a brief insight into how communicators can best respond during a crisis.

Communicators should first verify the situation. It’s important for you to get the facts, clarify information through subject matter experts and attempt to understand the scope of the situation.

Second, you need to conduct notifications. You should carefully consider who should be notified throughout your organization.

Third, conduct a crisis assessment. Determine what other agencies/ organizations should be involved in solving the crisis. Determine which of your stakeholders are being affected by the crisis.

Fourth, organize assignments. Determine who has various responsibilities, if they are fulfilling them and what resources are needed. Determine which partner organizations should be involved in solving the crisis.

Then, prepare information and obtain approvals. Develop messages, keeping in mind who your audiences are, letting them know what is being done about the crisis and what they need to do.

Next, release information to media, public and partners through arranged channels. Keep in mind which questions the media will likely ask. When talking with the media, ensure that you present the facts and explain how they can obtain more information about the situation.

Next, obtain feedback and conduct crisis evaluation. Compile and analyze media coverage, present results to leadership and determine what improvements should be made to the crisis plan for the future.

Then, conduct public education. Determine what changes to public information need to be made and how they could best be delivered.

Lastly, monitor events. Continue to monitor public opinions.

TVG prefers to add a tenth step to the crisis communication response process. We think it is imperative that after a crisis you reflect on the lessons learned. Consider the lessons you and those in your organization have learned and ensure that those lessons maintain their level of importance within the organization. For example, NASA learned from the 1986 Challenger explosion that Americans expect to be spoken to openly with sufficient information and for corporations and organizations to recognize when they make mistakes. NASA was better prepared with a crisis communications plan 17 years later during the Columbia disaster and was able to respond much more effectively.

There are major national news stories playing out in St. Louis these days. InBev is attempting a hostile takeover of Anheuser-Busch, flood waters are overtopping and breaching levees all up and down the Mississippi River and American Airlines is announcing major cutbacks in light of skyrocketing fuel prices. Each can be considered a “crisis.” Then there are the crisis events that we don’t see coming: tornadoes, earthquakes and, well…you get the idea. There are so many risks in this business climate that it’s vital for you and your company to always remain ready to respond.

That is where crisis and emergency risk communications become a vital part of your PR arsenal. Knowing what to say, when to say it and how you should deliver a message are vital to your company’s success. Hiding information, or even the mere perception by the public or the media that you are hiding information can, and likely will, damage your credibility. The most recent example: last fall when FEMA decided to hold a “press” conference where FEMA’s own staffers asked the questions and there were no press in sight. Still reeling from the outcry about FEMA’s handling of the Hurricane Katrina response, the fake “press” conference was another major chink in the agency’s already-thinning armor.

So what’s a company to do? The short answer is to get trained in media and crisis communications. I’m not talking about how to dress and comb your hair, although that is important—I’m talking about the prep work that companies need to weather a crisis. In a crisis it is all about communicating with your target audience(s) in a manner that is simple, timely, credible and effective.

At TVG, crisis communications is one of our core services under our practice area of reputation and image management. The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services has relied on TVG for the past six years to train their first responders to any type of crisis within our state on the process of response and how to quickly get correct and useful information to the public. TVG also helps clients who are already squarely in a crisis. Research shows that even companies who have a crisis plan, don’t have a crisis communications plan. Think about it. What do most company leaders spend the majority of their time doing when a crisis hits? Yes. They must communicate. Knowing what to say and when to say it can be the difference between positive and negative public perception.

We can help you anticipate your risks, develop appropriate communications plans, practice those plans and protect your image and reputation. Contact us at 314-991-4641 for more information, or click on this link for more of our thinking on managing a crisis and the core communications strategies you should put in place now.

As a follow-up to an earlier post about healthy communications, we would like to highlight an exciting event for Missourians and for the health care field.

On May 16, 2008, in the closing hours of the Missouri State legislative session, lawmakers came together to pass House Bill 1790. The ground-breaking legislation creates a statewide “Time Critical Diagnosis System” for stroke and ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), a particularly fatal type of heart attack. Missouri is the first state in the nation to legislatively create a STEMI and a stroke statewide system of care. The passage of HB 1790 represents the culmination of more than five years of work from hundreds of dedicated professionals, under the passionate and motivating leadership of Dr. J. William “Bill” Jermyn.

Dr. Bill Jermyn passed away on May 15, 2008, the day before his unwavering dedication came to fruition in the passage of House Bill 1790. Dr. Jermyn was a teacher, an inspiration and a friend to many. His legacy is the Time Critical Diagnosis System, and Missouri will benefit from his passion and conviction. His leadership and vision will continue to guide this process.

TVG is proud to have worked with Dr. Jermyn and to be a part of the move toward quicker treatment of loved ones having severe strokes or heart attacks.

It’s a given – we all communicate visually. We’ve moved from a text-based society to one where we take direction, find meaning and get information from pictures. The visual part of a brand is the key element in presenting the personality and value of your organization.

It all starts with your logo – a simple shape or form that captures the essence of who you want to be. It is the heart and soul of an organization in a small, powerful package. The best logo designs begin with the target market, including what this all-important group of people finds most compelling about you. How can you tell them about yourself – visually – in a way that will appeal?

A succinct understanding of your place in the market is key. What are the things that make you different? The more clarity you have about the needs of your audience and how you deliver, the better the brand and logo will be. The information gleaned from the branding process is a guide for the logo design process. A designer uses the information when forming the shape or image, which will become the first layer of the logo that the audience notices.

Next, your audience will take in the color scheme. The scheme of three or four colors should reflect the personality information clarified in the branding process. Colors communicate emotions and can be a powerful tool in tapping into the motivations of consumers. It creates a place in the mind. Strong and powerful. Soft and gentle. Fresh and vibrant. Or traditional and secure. All have a myriad of color schemes that will communicate these descriptors for you without using a single word.

Next, the human eye takes in the details of the logo including the name and/or tagline. This is where typography comes into play. Fonts, just like colors, can be communicators of personality. Serifs, proportion, weight and style of a letterform can cause your audience to feel a connection with your brand and assist in making you part of their decision-making set.

Visual branding doesn’t stop with a logo. Visual branding is about creating consistency in all communications. The same elements that came together to make a logo will also come into play as the visual design style takes shape. Imagery, color, type and graphic shapes build upon each other in every layout, in every medium. The key is to find that balance between creativity and consistency. The result is a look that is solidly consistent and continually intriguing – a visual brand that can shape opinions about your company in a single glance.

If your company needs help developing a branded personality as an essential part of your strategic communications, please contact us for a consultation at tvg@vandivergroup.com.

The Vandiver Group recently conducted a global sustainability strategy survey, sponsored by Pinnacle Worldwide, a consortium of independent public relations firms. The survey was conducted online between April 15 and May 5, 2008. The 337 respondents represented six continents, 25 countries and 40 different industries. You can see the results of the survey by clicking here. A news release is available in our press room.

At a time when “greening” is more popular than ever, there’s a great opportunity for organizations to innovate beyond greening and build healthier links between the environment, social needs and revenue growth. At TVG, we offer a powerful strategy definition and communications program that will maximize possible outcomes from your environmental initiatives. A TVG Sustainability Overview flyer is available to provide more information about our services.

Meanwhile, please let us know if you have any questions about the survey or the results.

Wherever your organization is on the pathway toward sustainability, TVG can help. For more information contact Donna Vandiver or John Osthus at 314-991-4641, ext. 103 or 130, or email us at TVG@vandivergroup.com.

TVG’s Vision takes current events and refocuses those issues on topics that affect the business of communication. The June 2008 edition on electronic media discusses how smart companies can generate online conversations with various publics, particularly employees, to help better align organizational values and objectives. To read this month’s edition click here.

Contact us at tvg@vandivergroup.com or send comments to blog@vandivergroup.com.

A strong brand is a priceless commodity for any organization, but it can be a difficult asset to fully understand and develop.

It is vital to first understand your company and its goals in order to build a successful brand which achieves authenticity and consistency in message—a look and tone for every interaction with your audience, every time. There is a complete process involved in revealing a brand’s strengths, along with its weaknesses, and then creating a marketing strategy to leverage those strengths.

It is more than just a company logo or tagline, a strong brand does many things:

• Increases corporate, product or service value.
• Differentiates you from competition.
• Elevates your organization into the consideration set.
• Simplifies purchasing decisions.
• Positions a company, item or idea for higher awareness.
• Creates a better opportunity to receive funding support.
• Reduces risk and anxiety for buyers, builds trust.
• Enhances the self-image of consumers who select this brand.
• Establishes an emotional connection between companies, products and people.
• Establishes a trajectory for corporate growth.

The brand statement—the promise that you make to your customers—is the foundation for the brand. This statement serves as the springboard for communication plans, visual and messaging standards that will keep communications consistent across all touch points to reach your audiences effectively. The brand profile also creates “umbrella” messaging that can be used across multiple platforms and organizations within your company.

Some of TVG’s brand development tactics include: branding sessions, building a positioning pyramid, developing a brand map and main messages, training employees on verbal communication of your brand, and creating graphic elements such as a logo or web site which consistently delivers your brand.

Contact us at tvg@vandivergroup.com or send comments to blog@vandivergroup.com.

I also recently attended the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s “WOMM-U” conference in Miami FL (May 8-9). I joined several hundred other attendees who benefitted from senior practitioner “perspective pitches,” case study presentations, and a half-dozen or so breakout sessions, all full of the latest in WOM information on research, trends, best practices, measurements, and so on.

But beyond the PowerPoint decks and the flip-charts at the conference, as a first-time attendee I heard a drum beat of three themes that seemed to arise and be sustained throughout the event, in activities both on the agenda and off. I’ll call these the “3 C’s” for Community, Conversation, and Continuous.

Community: Using the technology involved in social media, like blogs, web networking sites, chat rooms, etc. Participants identify and define themselves according to their interests and “affinities.” They form communities with others of shared interests and characteristics. They form relationships with each other via the social media, and these relationships involve many, if not most, if not all of the same characteristics of other communities—common language, pride, trust of those like them, distrust of those who are not, vigilance about strangers, and willingness to help their neighbors through input, advice, and suggestions regarding what’s worked for them, among other characteristics.

Conversation: In the parlance of social media, communicating means “having conversations.” From what I could tell both in formal presentations at the WOMMA conference, as well as in side chats with fellow attendees, “conversation” is basically the ONLY way one refers to a communication that occurs in social media. This seems to make a lot of sense, given that people who exist together in a sense of community tend to “communicate” with each other, vs. “target key audiences with well-honed messages.” As people, they converse in a transactional way—about things that are of interest or concern to them. There is a sense of trust involved where participants converse with each other openly, expecting that it’s safe to do so because of the sense of community they enjoy.

Continuous: The nature of the social media technology and the way members develop and participate in their community means that their conversations are relatively continuous. Community members don’t just come in to sell something…they are there…day in, day out, week after week. Expressing a continuous interest in the community through continuous engagement, continuous learning and continuous sharing. Continuous participation in these communities builds trust, and credibility, and makes it more likely that community members will see a communicator as someone who’s trying to add TO the community, vs. take FROM it.

These three themes, the “3 C’s”, caught my attention because they represent a stark distinction from the way we communicate via traditional media, and the way we structure our marketing efforts and measure success in traditional media. While I sat in session after session at the conference, I kept thinking over and over, that communicating through WOM, and using social media, means re-thinking most marketing communications approaches top-to-bottom.

Contact us at tvg@vandivergroup.com or send comments to blog@vandivergroup.com.

This past week, Miami and the Word of Mouth Marketing Association kicked off its first-ever WOMM-U formatted conference. The beautiful Intercontinental Hotel was the location and several hundred people, from some of the world’s strongest brands, attended.

Repping TVG was Kelly Ferrara (me) and Larry Cox from the Executive Leadership Team. The conference focused on how to add value in the message delivery process for a brand by using word of mouth tactics. What I learned is that WOM, while it can be described as a stand-alone practice area, really is part and parcel of all good marketing. Don’t we do media relations not only so that the reporter covers a story about a client, but also so that someone says to someone else: “I was listening to KWMU this morning and heard the most interesting thing…”? We want to give these messages life!

There are some intentionally crafted campaigns that were highlighted in the conference as WOM, yet I found it interesting that each one included tactics from direct mail, advertising, PR, facilitation skills, strategy, internal communications and research. We heard from Houlihan’s Restaurant on how they created HouliFans to assist in their entire rebranding process from menus to silverware. We heard how O.P.I. relied on She Speaks to generate conversation among a targeted group of influential women in an online community who have volunteered to receive client pitches and then pass along the information they get through samples or experiences. And we learned how Carnival Cruise Lines became The Fun Ships mainly because of a crisis experience when a ship ran aground, and the bars and clubs reopened to keep their passengers busy and happy. They now have shifted nearly all their traditional (TV) advertising to an online community-based marketing process to capture market share and help people plan “fun” trips.

My favorite part of the conference were those all-too-fleeting conversations between sessions when you could have a “real” conversation with other professionals who, like me, are trying to figure out how to provide the best counsel and the best value for our clients or our companies.

Oh, and in addition to all that, the conference actually inspired me to write my first entry on the TVG blog, and I’ve joined Twitter as well as started my own blog. Follow me at www.twitter.com/kellyferrara or at www.kferr.blogspot.com! Who knew!

I’ve got another conference in June - - I wonder what creative muse will appear there?

Contact us at tvg@vandivergroup.com or send comments to blog@vandivergroup.com.