Corporate Eye

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Archives for July 2008

Proctor and Gamble Realize the “Mommy” Strategy

Ask a typical stay-at-home what she does all day long, and she will likely answer with

  • “change diapers”
  • “watch Elmo”
  • “wash dishes”
  • “pay bills online”

Or a myriad of tongue-in-cheek answers that would indicate that mom’s value is likely within the four walls of her home. But all of that is about to change, has changed and has started with Proctor and Gamble.

In a recent strategic move that, in my opinion, elevated the public relations quotient factor at P&G by at least 30%, Proctor and Gamble decided to get the opinion of some folks who affect their target buying market and is a significant influence on them…

Mommy Bloggers.

“It’s official: Mom bloggers are the new influencers,” said Bryan McCleary, director of external relations for P&G baby care.”

The baby diaper folks had 15 of the Internet top bloggers flown into their office in an all-expenses-paid trip to pick their brains, gain their assessment on their product, help tweak some things and hopefully impress them enough that they will blog about them, and do so quite favorably, on their blogs.

Many corporations and organizations like Proctor and Gamble are beginning to see the intrinsic value in what these Internet bloggers and high-influencers have to say. Blogging is slowly becoming a respected and even sought-after method for marketing and client attraction because it provides a first account of a product, service or idea that directly affects the customer. Bloggers tend to tell it like it is.

Bloggers are also effective because they establish relationships with their readers through their blogs and slowly but surely become a source of influence for their readers. When the community needs advice, seek reviews or compiles information, they will look to the expert on a topic and will almost always go with whatever the “opinion” of the blogger is since they have been in the trenches themselves. This is why mommy bloggers are popular and in high demand – they know what the customers want AND how to articulate that through their opinionated review blogs.

Proctor and Gamble and others who have used this strategy have not been so concerned as the mommy bloggers being celeb-moms (high profile names), but more interested in the voice they have over the Internet.

“In and of themselves, they’re not huge websites,” said Tina Sharkey, chairman and global president of BabyCenter. “But they were voices we felt were representational of the different moms online. … BabyCenter partnered with them so we could have a blog network not just for our consumers but also for marketers who wanted to get the reach of the influentials.”

As for the effect that this type of exposure has for P&G, results will be seen soon and visible in their bottom dollar. However, it was a very savvy business move on their part to embrace what is going on in the blogosphere and to capitalize on it without reserve and without apology.

Good Governance Needs an Ethical Culture

The Concepts of Ethics/integrity are not as difficult to grasp as quantum physics and yet corporate leaders just don’t seem to get it when in comes to Corporate Governance.

“… that since Enron, businesses are focusing more on compliance with the law than on building cultures where lying isn’t tolerated.” Patricia Harned, president Ethics Resource Center December 2007

This must be reversed, Boards and C-suite management must now go beyond compliance and build a culture in which ethics is the norm.

Open Compliance and Ethics Group

While employees generally can be expected to be honest, corporate governance matters can be involved and must be provided with the context and motivation to do their work with the highest ethical standards. This falls to the Board and C-suite management.

An organization’s culture includes the formal and informal norms that guide how people behave at work. The Board and senior management set the “tone at the top” regarding establishing an ethical culture. This is more that crafting a credible code of ethics. An essential starting point is that Directors and the C-suite need to focus on good ethical practices not as a cost of business but as an investment in building the firm’s reputation that in turn will lead to enhanced financial performance.

The Board and the C-suite, through their words and actions, establish the expectations that provide guidance for crafting and maintaining an effective ethical culture. This is an example of what can be done to promote ethical cultures.

Finally, here is an Ethics Quiz that may be useful to highlight areas that should be considered.

Branding Lessons from David Beckham

I’ve talked about how businesses can learn from celebrity branding before on Corporate Eye, and today, I’m going to discuss lessons to learn from the David Beckham brand. 

The online buzz this week centered around David Beckham and his apparent fading brand image.  The David Beckham brand reigned supreme while Beckham dominated in Europe.  Despite his strength on the U.S. Major League Soccer (MLS) playing field, his brand has dimmed a bit since his Los Angeles Galaxy jersey became a regular sight in U.S. stadiums.

[Read more…] about Branding Lessons from David Beckham

Applying Through Company Websites

Sourcing strategies for companies should always be innovative and also up to date in order to ensure that these strategies would really work. Sometimes, companies don’t realize that the things that they already have could be enhanced which could help in them in sourcing efforts.

Hewlett Packard

A company website could actually be a very good way to attract applicants especially if they are really interested in applying to the vacant positions that are advertised. What are the elements of a good website? Well, these things should always be present in a company website:

  • Company Profile
  • Job Openings
  • Career Growth
  • How to Apply

These factors could actually attract applicants and making sure that you have the instructions on how they could apply could really speed up their application process! A good sample website could be HP’s website that specifically has a page which pertains to information that interested applicants could use when applying. Having space for applicants to send their resume or questions/queries shows that the company is indeed reaching out to interested people and are implementing ways on how these people could reach them.

Writing formally could work in two ways: the applicants could be attracted or they could be turned-off because of the formality involved. Just remember that the image of the company is affected in this one so it is better to be consistent meaning that if the company is conservative, a formal approach would be okay while a very young and hip company could actually use an informal approach.

Being visible online is a good sourcing strategy and you have to make sure that you maximize it in a positive way.

Branding and the Silo Effect

In marketing terminology, the silo effect occurs when a lack of communication or coordination of efforts between or within business units, departments, teams, etc. has a negative impact on overall performance in terms of meeting goals.  It’s important to be aware of the silo effect as it affects branding, because the negative affect to your brand could hurt your business and bottom-line in the long term. [Read more…] about Branding and the Silo Effect

Front Seat Sustainability

I’m a bit of a DIY throwback, more inclined to bodge my own solution than use hardware provided by well known home improvement stores.

Most things which go up are usually held together by a bit of cardboard wedged in just there and I seem to have developed the use of badly fitting screws into something of an artform.

Then there’s the issue of tools. There’s many I don’t have so I regularly rely upon a strange concoction of screwdrivers and chisels to get most jobs done. Occasionally I use a sledgehammer, when the frustration gets too much.

It’s taken DIY many years to reach the stage where every shed contains a toolbox of the properly calibrated tools and each home a person with the knowledge to use them properly.

Business is embarking upon a similar cycle for the development of sustainability practices. At the moment it’s in bodge mode, with everyone patching things independently of each other, hoping that that’s what’s needed.

A Socio-Economic Assessment Toolbox
However some businesses are taking the lead and publishing the methodologies which underpin their practices, making the tools they use available to all.

Recently Caisse d’Epargne released their financial products certification methodology, as described in Squirrels of Sustainability. Similarly, Anglo American have released their Socio-Economic Assessment Toolbox (SEAT) into the public domain for any company to use.

Its primary purpose is help individual Anglo-American operations to measure and improve the impact they have upon the communities within which they operate.

To achieve this, eight steps are identified for an organisation to go through:

  • Profile the current operation
  • Profile the community and identify key issues through dialogue with key stakeholders
  • Identify and assess current impacts, management measures and social initiatives
  • Share results of the assessment with stakeholders and get recommendations for management action
  • Develop Key Performance Indicators and associated management and monitoring plans
  • Improve contribution of non-core activities to local community
  • Post operation closure planning
  • Prepare report and feedback to the community
Anglo American SEAT
Social Investment Programme Chart

The toolbox itself consists of 23 tools which can be deployed to fulfil these steps.

Many of them are fully comprehensive, such as the one to follow when establishing social investment programmes (pictured). This tool alone consists of over 30 steps spanning the three phases of planning, implementation and monitoring.

Sharing is Better
The most praiseworthy part of the whole venture is that Anglo American has chosen to publish their toolbox without restraint for downstream use.

This flies in the face of accepted business practice where companies either don’t share their solutions, or they seek to licence them and so generate further revenue streams.

Conversely, the need to establish sustainable business practices in a critically short period of time demands that companies collaborate freely and openly with one another.

The publication of toolboxes such as this is one way of achieving this. There is nothing particularly complicated about the tools and much of what they describe is pretty straightforward.

However, other companies also need to change their approach so that they understand the inherent value toolboxes such as this have within them. The basic planning and identification of considerations and outcomes is common to most industries and sectors.

In this way companies across business sectors can start to work together to build sustainable business practices, refining processes and methodologies and creating genuinely broad based foundations for the future.

Thankfully, DIY is not my profession otherwise my bodging ways would quickly lead to future customers hearing how inept I am and seeking other people to put up their shelves.

Similarly, businesses who don’t engage with one another in a true spirit of co-operation may find their reputation failing, and with it their ability to continue in business.