Supplementary reading

Referring to Unit 1

Corporate Communications

Corporate communications aim to maintain and build the reputation of an organization, whether it is a company, an institution or a non-profit organization. The director of corporate communications, or corporate communications officer, defines, develops and assesses the corporate communications strategy with the corporate communications team.

The corporate communications strategy involves:

• Defining the organization’s values and identity.

• Identifying and monitoring / tracking issues or potential problems – for example, rumors that mobile phones may cause health problems – which might hurt or damage the organization’s reputation.

• Communicating with the media, with public officials and with stakeholders. Stakeholders are people who have an interest in the company, such as shareholders, employees, suppliers and the local community. Employees are known as internal publics, whilst suppliers, investors and the media are examples of external publics.

The mission statement, or statement of purpose and values, is a public declaration of the way the organization conducts its business, and expresses a commitment to being responsible corporate citizens with high standards of corporate governance – the process by which an organization is directed and controlled.

Tools of corporate communications

• Corporate advertising is advertising about the organization rather than its products or services.

• Media relations involve developing relationships with journalists in order to get the company’s stories published or broadcast. This includes organizing media tours – guided visits for journalists around a factory, shop or hotel; preparing media kits – documents presenting information or products to journalists; and drafting press releases – information sent to the media to inform them of company developments. Companies often make this information available on the media centre of their websites.

• Financial communications include investor relations - maintaining relationships with people who have invested money in the company – and analyst relations – maintaining relationships with people who analyze the financial performance of the company, such as journalists or financial analysts.

• Companies often have an investor relations centre on their corporate websites, a website designed for corporate communications and not for communication to the consumer.

• Internal communications inform employees, create understanding, and aim to change behavior within the organization. Managers can act as ambassadors to pass on internal message to their teams. Organizations have a range of channels to deliver messages, such as in-house newsletters (news and information for the people who work in the organization). More recently, internal communicators – that is the corporate communications team – have started to exploit social media (web-based communications tools) to engage in a two-way exchange with employees. For example, internal discussion forums on intranets (internal internets).

Comprehension questions:

1. What do corporate communications aim to?

2. What does the director of corporate communications do?

3. What do the corporate communications involve?

4. What are the tools of corporate communications?