Mix up your media for powerful IR Steven Tolley

What do we mean by mixed media communications?

Well, in essence, it is looking to leverage the best aspects of each media type to the best possible effect.So, for example, you have the option of creating a video for your website which clearly is not possible in print. It is, however, a challenge to achieve given the need to meet rules and regulations, as well as deciding how best to engage each segment of your target audience. To achieve clear communications you need to be able to evidence audience expectations and, creatively, devise a media strategy.

We have produced many articles on identifying the needs of your audience, the particular needs of specific medias and the future of reporting, so this article will focus on media strategy.

Audience

The first stage would be to identify which stakeholder groups you are targeting. The Annual Report may well focus on the shareholders; however, there is general agreement that it needs to cater for a wider audience. This is particularly relevant since there is now a requirement to comment on social and employee matters in various sections. Arguably, the second most important audience the organisation will be looking to influence after shareholders will be debt holders, whether that be the obvious bond holders (if the issuer is sufficiently rated to issue), but in almost all cases the trade creditors of the company will be crawling over the report (looking for similar reassurance to that of a bond holder).

You could perhaps summise that shareholders will get an annual report in printed form and be referred to other sources. However, trade creditors won't always send for one, so are likely to be researching you via risk rating agencies, filed accounts and your online annual report.

Structuring your message

Having clarified who you are trying to communicate with, there is the complex process of structuring the message appropriately. At the fundamental level it will come down to shareholders looking for evidence of contemporary and future value generation, whilst debt investors will be looking for operating liquidity and may have no value generation needs.

Whilst both categories will have varying time horizons for assessment, any other interested parties will generally have longer term interest.

The growing need to be articulate and engaging with forward looking narrative is also an area attracting much interest. When you consider the expanding gap between book value and market cap, the importance of strategic narrative seems at an all-time high. Research over the past few years indicates a correlation between well-structured strategic narrative and market cap. Investment in good planning and communications is increasingly attractive, regardless of whether you are a large main market company or smaller alternatively listed organisation.

Media choices

With this in mind, it is worth considering how narrative can be leveraged through media choices. This is not to say that we are looking to 'over-egg' the story, simply to use the most suitable form of communication to get your message understood quickly and fully.

At a recent internal training session, we were looking at the preferences of staff for particular media. The first question was, 'If you are given a choice of reading a novel or watching the film which would you choose?'. There was some variation in the answer, but much of the debate was around how some felt the book was much better, in the sense of detail and engaging with your own imagination. The film certainly allowed you to reach much of the same understanding, but much faster than reading a book. This is a simple illustration but is indicative of the realistic challenge in engaging with potential shareholders. If you only have a limited time to engage someone in your business model, then it may be better to produce a short video to stoke interest, then enable them to investigate the next level of detail in printed form.

Let's examine this a little further.

If you think about all of the media options now available it is complex, but that doesn't mean it needs to be complicated. It may be possible to design a message delivery strategy for a single entity or narrow segment of the audience, which communicates well in one single media. Pinch yourself, and you will find you were dreaming, as it's seldom the case that such a narrow group is targeted in the corporate arena.

The 21st century

So, how do we approach our stakeholder outreach programmes, considering all of the possibilities, in the 21st century?

The next step is probably to get past all of the jargon and realise that, laid bare, all of the choices are actually quite simple propositions. This is not the place to compare your RSS to your Twitter feeds, or your blogs with letters traditionally posted, but we will happily run half day overview sessions to give you the bigger picture. The key is to examine the features and benefits of the core categories and hold those as a backdrop to media planning at the latter stages. (This is an ongoing review which helps to build the company marketing function into a resource to encapsulate outbound messaging, as well as devising rumour response plans.)

Legislation

This media knowledge then needs to be overlaid with contemporary knowledge of any legislative collars which may have been passed. It is interesting to note comments by many of the 'standard setters' about how disappointed they have been at times with the rigid approach issuers have taken in complying with guidance. They are effectively saying that issuers haven't really understood the reason for the regulation. When writing the communication, for example, the people responsible for writing corporate governance statements don't address the principal concerns agency theory puts forward in the context of contemporary market conditions.

Anyone who has read European Union directives on engaging stakeholder groups will have seen many well drafted and eloquent documents. In my opinion these are generally well constituted from sound principles. They seek to create stakeholders who are sufficiently well informed, enabling them to make decisions on any future relationship with the organisation in question. If the detail and meaning seems lost in the implementation created by the UKLA or exchange listing rules, it's worth going back to the original thinking for direction.

So what are we suggesting?

Communication in this century offers a multitude of choices, which allow your corporate communications team to engage far better with the full range of stakeholders. This vast array of choices can be both dangerous and daunting, but only if you lose sight of the fundamentals. Stick to basic principles, review the media choices for what they offer, remain clear about message and audience and you will create powerful communication which encourages the market to recognise your real value potential.

If you want to talk about your options with mixed media IR communications please call me on 0121 309 0022 or email me. Alternatively you can talk to any of our Account Directors by calling our switchboard on 0121 236 9007.

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Jones and Palmer is focused on the development and delivery of corporate and investor communication media.

Established in 1906, Jones and Palmer has, for the last 40 years, printed annual report and accounts for public listed companies and currently has over 150 plc clients. We are the UK’s largest on-site manufacturer of investor websites and printed annual reports.