Larry D. Lauer

We have been discussing the role of group process in strategic communication and integrated marketing. Last week’s post described the use of brand clarification groups.  This process not only produces more precise mission, values and vision statements, it also produces lists of competitive advantage characteristics which can then be prioritized into powerful branding themes. The challenge now is to communicate this clarified brand identity to every individual in every constituent group in today’s extremely complex media environment.

My first suggestion here is to have these statements and themes on a single sheet of paper on the desk of everyone on the communication staff.  In this way whenever they are preparing official statements or editing official materials they can make sure they are including consistent brand identity reinforcing messages and stories wherever possible.

My second suggestion is to form an ‘editorial priorities committee” that uses this “branding sheet” as a guide to brainstorm a list of compelling institutional stories that will reinforce these statements and themes. This committee can have both inside and outside the institution membership so that all constituent perspectives are represented. It can then meet periodically to review and refine a master story list. Repeating key reputation defining stores creatively using a current “news hook,” or a new angle, rarely gets old with audiences that have a natural interest, or even potential interest, in a particular organization.

All corporate magazine editors deal with the issue of whether or not institutional “information” publications exist primarily to report the organization’s news, or to focus primarily on promoting positive achievements and distinctions. My experience suggests that the most popular institutional publications achieve readership credibility only by doing both. They report the news, including all sides of controversies… and they rigorously reinforce brand identity.

We live in a world of information clutter. Imaginative repetition is precisely what is needed to cut through that clutter and establish sustained brand clarity and reputation. And this clarity is precisely what is needed to achieve long-term institutional goals.

This post continues a series about the role of group process in planning and managing a strategic communication program. What differentiates strategic communication from traditional public relations and advertising is bringing the subject matters of organizational behavior, integrated marketing, and group dynamics into the field.  And group dynamics tools are key to clarifying competitive advantage, brand identity, and to mobilizing  and motivating people to go out and tell the institution’s story.

The most successful brand clarification projects begin by forming small brainstorming groups within each constituent category. For example, university executives might commission several small homogenous groups of students, faculty, administrators, alumni, donors, community leaders, and parents simply to come together to list those features that make the institution special or unique.  Experience teaches that they will list prominent fields of study, outstanding student opportunities, unique experiences or traditions, internal culture characteristics, commonly held and articulated values, campus landscape features,  colors, textures, and even geographic location differentiators. Brainstorming will produce a long list. The next task, then, is to put them in priority order, and finally to identify the top 4 or 5. Most of the time these groups will produce very similar lists.  It may surprise you how often collegiate as well as other institutional experiences turn out to be very similar.

These priority ordered lists should then be given to a smaller representative committee to review. These people should merge them into a final list of 4 or 5.  A good writer, should now be able to write mission, vision and values statements based on them. These statements, along with the branding points list, can now be officially approved by the institution’s executive committee and board of trustees. They then become the foundation guidelines for all official institutional communication.

This is a widespread institutional listening exercise. Everyone who participates always enjoys it.  It takes time, but the buy-in is critically important. People love to talk about the experiences they had in college, or with any institution where they have been involved. Everyone can end on the same page, and are now in agreement with respect to what makes the place so special.

The final outcome of this project will be accurate positioning statements and brand characteristics that volunteer and professional leaders helped produce together. And the resulting consistent messaging is what eventually will cut though today’s mind-numbing media clutter, and clarify the institution’s distinctive competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Following last week’s post, one of my readers said: “Tell me more about how task forces work in integrated marketing. I think most readers least understand the group process aspect of integration, and yet you suggest that it is a critical component.”

I have described the way I view the strategic communication subject matter as bringing the substance of marketing, organizational behavior, and group dynamics into what many still call the public relations and advertising field. And in doing this, the additional skill of group facilitation becomes a key part of professional practice. Where many managers are too impatient to use group process in decision-making, I assert that significant organizational transformation and advancement becomes possible though informed, empowered, and inspired groups.

Institution-wide task forces have the potential to get a critical mass of informed people on the same page with respect to  competitive advantage.  I have found this to be the case even in very large institutions. And when “inside” people are telling the same story on the outside, their “word-of-mouth” impact can be extremely powerful.  Today such messages find their way into social media, and when they go “viral” they become what we call the “buzz.”

An effective task force is made up of representatives from the major program areas inside the institution. These should be people who have some instinct for, and/or interest in, marketing communication, not necessarily the administrative heads. The primary agenda topics should be (1) the identification of the institution’s brand identity, (2) the clarification of how each program’s distinct sub-brand identity connects with the overall brand, (3) keeping each other informed about what the others are doing, and (4) helping each other solve problems and address issues.

Getting people on the same page with respect to competitive advantage requires facilitated group process. Therefore, it is a significant aspect of “integration” in today’s integrated marketing and communication practice.