Corporate Eye

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Archives for October 2009

Brands Hope Virtual Gifts Can Drive Buzz

michael_mooreIf you could give someone a virtual Miller Genuine Draft via Twitter, would it make you want to buy one?  That’s what some brands are hoping for thanks to a tool from AdNectar that enables Twitter users to give virtual branded gifts to one another, similar to how Facebook users can send virtual gifts to each other.  The goal for companies is to create an online brand buzz that translates into more sales.  But will it work?

According to BrandWeek, a Twitter virtual gift campaign through AdNectar can cost anywhere from $50,000 to $150,000 depending on the social media scope and duration of the campaign.  Malibu Rum, Nestle’s Toll House, Fisher-Price, Trident Gum, and Overture Films (for Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story) have already begun working on or launched campaigns.

There is no arguing that virtual gift giving on Facebook is popular.  Both branded and nonbranded virtual gifts can be shared on Facebook, but how will the tactic translate to Twitter?  We’ll have to wait and see.  The biggest problem is the potential to clutter users’ Twitter streams as Facebook walls have become.  We’ve almost gotten to a point in the evolution of Facebook where people need multiple accounts to keep the clutter separate from the real content.

Certainly, for people who use these social media tools strictly for personal reasons, the clutter might not be a nuisance, but the problem is looming in the not so distant future.  It’s a problem that many social media users are sure to face, particularly if they use their social media profiles for work-related purposes where sharing a Tickle-Me-Elmo Ticklegram or even seeing one on a business associate’s profile might not be appropriate.

For now, giving branded gifts on Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, etc. is still in its infancy, and the ROI is questionable.  It’s certainly a good brand awareness tactic, but it remains to be seen if the investment is worth it in the end.  Of course, by next week, there will be another hot social media marketing trend, but for now, head on over to your Twitter account and send a friend Michael Moore’s virtual hat.  Or maybe not.

Image: Flickr

Naming standards and the FTSE100

So what do you think is the best term to describe businesses behaving responsibly within their various networks and communities? (See, its difficult even to describe without prejudging or loading the scales, and almost impossible without using the word ‘stakeholder‘).

Fabian Pattberg recently ran a poll, asking which of the following would be the best term to describe this:

  • Corporate Responsibility
  • Corporate Social Responsibility
  • Sustainability
  • Accountability
  • Corporate Citizenship
  • Corporate Sustainability
  • Responsible Governance
  • Sustainable Responsible Business
  • Corporate Social Performance
  • Others – Ethical Business / Business Ethics, Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility, Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability, Sustainable Business Culture, ESG (Environment, Social and Government), Business Ethics, Responsible Business.

On closing the poll, the most preferred term was Corporate Responsibility, with 21% of the votes, though as you can see it was a very close-run thing, with four main contenders and Sustainability coming a strong fifth.

fabian-pattberg-poll

(image snagged from FabianPattberg.com)

Now, when we started the Corporate Eye blog, we were unsure what to call this category of posts. We went for Corporate Social Responsibility – CSR for short – because that seemed to be what most companies were calling it, but at the time some on the team were arguing for Sustainability as a title.

But over the summer Chris MacDonald ran a series of posts on Business Ethics arguing against each of the elements of ‘CSR’ in turn. In summary:

CSR “isn’t (just) about corporations, isn’t just about social questions, and it isn’t just about responsibilities”.

So: what to call it?

This is where I confess that my vote in the Pattberg poll went to Responsible Governance, because I think it’s important that Responsibility – or whatever you care to call it – is embedded within the management and strategy of the company. (More on this another day). Clearly nobody else agreed with me, and it isn’t a term I’ve ever seen used in the wild.

So I reviewed the current FTSE 100 corporate websites, to see what was actually going on out there, and found that most companies – by a long way – are calling this section ‘Corporate Responsibility’ (no ‘social’). There are a few unusual cases, as you’d expect: companies that try to find a uniquely tailored title, or companies that don’t have a dedicated section to cover all ‘CSR’ topics, but choose to have separate sections such as Environment and Society.

But overall, the picture is clear:

ftse100-names

Perhaps this isn’t surprising; standardising the names of sections on corporate websites makes it easy for the visitor to find what they’re looking for. What is interesting, though, is the difference between what the FTSE100 companies are actually using, and what the people taking the Pattberg poll thought. The poll results were much more evenly spread among the four front-runners, which aren’t the same as the four front-runners of the FTSE100 usage.

Possibly this comes down to a difference in what terminology people use in speaking or writing about a topic day to day, and what terms people expect to see on a corporate website.

But it is difficult to choose a term that doesn’t carry unintended baggage, because all those phrases mean something slightly different. I think this is why we see FTSE100 companies tending to adopt the same term, so it is easily recognisable by visitors, but people working within that sector will use the term that means the most to them. The corporate term will tend to become bland and inoffensive, and may lose its specificity because of being stretched in many different directions; individuals will use – and will argue vehemently for – the terms that mean exactly what those people want to convey, because the terminology matters.

So, given that we aim to parallel the corporate site, should we change to ‘Corporate Responsibility’ to follow the majority? Or – being pragmatic – to ‘Responsibility’ because it is short, and will fit well on one line in our navigation? I’ll accept that Responsible Governance doesn’t mean enough to enough people to be a sensible choice.

What do you call this on your website?

HSBC CEO Leaves London for Hong Kong

HSBC_Hong_KongThe HSBC brand is steeped in British culture and tradition.  But what happens to the brand when the CEO moves to an office in Hong Kong?

That’s exactly what’s happening at HSBC.  The reason for the move is simple — Asia is where the money is, and HSBC is following it.  The company’s focus has shifted from Europe and the U.S. to Asia, and the CEO’s move shouts that new strategy to the world loud and clear.  But what does that do to the existing HSBC customer base and the brand promise overall?

To many consumers, the HSBC CEO move and clear message of new focus and new direction could be perceived as a slap in the face — a “you’re no longer our priority” message.  Of course, HSBC isn’t the first company to shift its focus in order to keep growing and remain profitable.  And don’t forget that HSBC was founded in Hong Kong and Shanghai over a century ago.  However, recent history has tied the company closely to the United Kingdom, a fact the company has promoted and even used as a fundamental component of its brand image.  HSBC’s message in recent years has been one of differentiation.  The company’s slogan, “the world’s local bank” didn’t come close to reflecting the company’s broader brand image that adamantly differentiated it from other finance companies of the world.

I’m sure HSBC will succeed with its new strategy of focusing on Asia and the East to continually grow shareholder value, but are there lessons to learn from this story?  Is moving a CEO to another part of the world more symbolic in terms of changing the brand image than anything else?

It’s not surprising that HSBC is returning to its roots and following the money, but the CEO move makes the strategic shift more visible and “real” than any press release or executive speech ever could.  I’m certain HSBC knew this when the decision was made.

The lesson to learn from this story?  Sometimes actions speak louder and spread farther than words.

Image: Flickr

Twitter Brand Mentions are More Informational than Critical

twitter_tshirtA new study by Pennsylvania State University reveals that more brand mentions on Twitter are made by people seeking information about those brands than to praise or criticize them (as reported by eMarketer).

By studying almost 150,000 tweets that included brand mentions, it was found that nearly 50% of them were “comments”, which the study defined as tweets that mentioned a brand but were not about that brand.  18.1% of tweets that mentioned brands were posted by people who were providing information to others and 11.1% were made by people who were looking for information about a specific brand.  Nearly one-quarter (22.3%) of tweets that mentioned brands included an opinion about that brand, and most of those were positive comments about the brand.

Here is the breakdown of tweets that included opinions about brands:

Money and Happiness: It’s Complicated…

Greener Pastures 3

According to this story from CIOZone, a recent study by staffing firm Robert Half asked 150 senior executives (from among the 1,000 largest U. S. companies) how they would be most likely to spend money on employee-related priorities.  New hiring was the top choice for 31%, followed by salary increases (21%), bonuses (15%), and training (9%).  Just 5% chose enhancing benefits.

But is it really all about money?  In a related blog post, commentator Ellen Pearlman says:

It’s time for managers and HR executives to identify the various needs their employees have and to craft reward systems that are more personal . . . One worker may need a flexible schedule to take care of an aging parent, another may need to leave early on Wednesdays to get to a class, and still another may want to work four days a week and have a day off to pursue other interests. Some may welcome a special assignment overseas or the opportunity to work with a skunkworks group researching a new product.

As Pearlman points out, this personal approach is much harder than just adding a little to everybody’s paycheck.  It may carry a lot of added value, though, especially among employees who have lost their passion for the company.  And that group is apparently growing.

CIOZone notes that the annual U.S. Strategic Rewards survey from consulting firm Watson Wyatt  and HR non-profit WorldatWork finds employee engagement levels falling 9% from last year’s survey—and “top performers” were even more likely to be disengaged (a 25% topple).   There was also a 14% increase in the number of employees who have already started a new job search.

With so many people unemployed . . . it seems like having a job is a reward in itself.  But in many cases, pay cuts or freezes, shrinking opportunities, and/or increasing workloads are sapping employee satisfaction.  When hiring picks up, these folks may bolt for greener pastures–so now may be the time to find ways of rewarding them without spending more money.

Relevance for the corporate Careers site?  Employees disengaged from their companies are perfect passive candidates.  If they aren’t actively looking, they may start any minute, and if they stumble across an interesting opportunity (or receive just the right email) they may be persuadable.  So it’s a good time for the Careers site to highlight content that promotes engagement—rewards, opportunities, culture, and support for the pursuit of happiness.  It’s also a good time to enhance communications and work on building connections.  When the hiring money flows again, having a good candidate pool will be a significant competitive advantage.


(Thanks to eye of Einstein for our greener pastures.)

What Makes for Effective Investor Relations Sites? Part 2: Provide a Roadmap

Having started with the premise that an effective investor web site should give a clear and concise description of what your company does, the next logical thing to do is to provide an easy-to-use roadmap of where the relevant information lies. Most companies choose a format that places a column of links or tabs in either the upper left or right hand side of the main investor relations page. Set forth below is an example of this type of layout as used by Standard Life.

Standard Life investor relations

In looking at a number of websites, I could discern no standard list of what linked sections appear or in what order they are listed. Given that the objective is to enable investors to get the information they need quickly with a minimum of hunting, I would suggest that effective websites think in terms of priorities.

First, certain things are essential to investor relations and an understanding of the company and therefore access to your share price, financial statements annual and interim reports and press releases should be considered a first priority and go to the top of the list.

Of next importance are more discretionary disclosures such as investor presentations, Webcasts, upcoming investor events and the company’s financial calendar. Links that help answer questions for specific groups of investors, such as debt holders or information for individual shareholders administrative items are the next priority that should be included.

Finally, depending on the inclination of the company, the composition of its investor base, and a myriad of other factors, there are links to more specialized information that may prove helpful, such as Corporate Social Responsibility (often seen as a section on its own), corporate governance (also often seen as a separate section), links to the Annual General Meeting materials, and, in the United States, links to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Because the subject headings are not uniform and information is often buried two or three links deep, I am a proponent of the use of popup menus as you scroll over the list of links. This enables a visitor to quickly see where information has been placed. It also helps avoid the back and forth hunting for information and waiting for web pages to load that often happens when you click on a promising heading only to find that it doesn’t lead to the information you want. It turns out, that on the web, as in life, you can’t tell a link by its cover.

In this series:
Previous post: What does the company do?
Next post: Share price information