Together with a couple of others, I have recently launched a campaign called Apology Clause, which we have conceived, created and will run on a pro bono basis.
The campaign aims to make it easier for businesses to behave with compassion when things go wrong, and thus for victims to have better recoveries.
Research from Ipsos Mori, the market research company, indicates many in politics and the media believe that businesses have a licence, or even an obligation, to speak out on important, and perhaps controversial, socio-political issues.
But if companies are considering taking a stand on a big social or political issue, what do they need to consider to get it right?
Read More “Taking a stand: the risks and benefits of corporate activism”
The printing press dates back to 1440. Before that hand-written manuscripts were only for the privileged few.
The press did more than make mass communications possible. It was one of the foundations of modern democracy. The press enabled people to share what they knew and discovered, to build on each other’s work. They didn’t have to start from scratch each time.
Capitalism is under threat and companies now face a more hostile environment in which to do business than at any time in the last 40 years.
A study by the Legatum Institute, a think tank, and Populus, the market research company, found that there is widespread support for Labour’s nationalisation agenda and much less support for free enterprise. For advocates of free enterprise, anyone who runs a business, and, as should be the case, is merely employed by private enterprise, the report makes sober reading.
Populism is on the rise, tensions are high and the case for business is not being made.
Companies now face a more hostile environment in which to do business than at any time in the last 40 years.
The past decade has traced a decline in trust in formal institutions. Recent studies show across almost every issue – whether regulation or ownership – that the public is losing patience with private business. Even travel agents do not escape the wrath, with a quarter of people wanting them nationalised.
Businesses are under threat, some terminally so.
But companies are the UK’s principal wealth and job creators. They support 82% of all employment in this country. They provide the taxes that essential public services depend on.
It has never been more difficult, nor more important, to make the argument for business. Correctly, responsibly and with conviction.
But for too long communications has failed to keep pace with the changing pressures businesses face. Business communication has lost touch with the need to be human and understand how humans behave.
Rather than shrink from the argument, business must communicate with conviction throughout conflict. We must now understand and influence behaviours, networks, echo chambers, activists and even propagandists.
Businesses must win the argument by having better, more compelling stories. Told in more human ways.
This is why we’ve launched Fourteen Forty.
We believe it’s time to reset the relationship between business and the public.
We believe it’s time people recognise once again all that businesses contribute to society and the economy.
It is time to make the case for business.
Communications measurement should help inform future activity, not simply count what has happened in the past.
That was one of the conclusions from the Measurement Practice’s recent podcast that I took part in.
Read More “Communications measurement should look forward, not back”
The big bad wolf is the archetypal menacing predator. Preying on the weak and vulnerable, he has few, if any, redeeming features. For many, this is how they see big business. Recent research by the Legatum Institute showed that the British public holds an unfavourable view of ‘capitalism’ as a concept, viewing it as ‘greedy’, ‘selfish’ and ‘corrupt’. A vast majority, according to the research, would like to see many industries, and the big businesses within them, nationalised.
Fourteen Forty Communications 