Integrated Corporate Communication: Branding, Globalization & Labor

Introduction: From Segmented to Integrated Corporate Communication

Corporations send out messages constantly — through ads, commercials, websites, quarterly and annual reports, job postings, and memos tacked up on lunchroom bulletin boards. The audiences for these different messages differ from one another, which is one of the major reasons that companies have traditionally not worried about presenting a consistent message across all of these channels. If the memos about how to file an expense report sent out to employees sound nothing like the annual report filed with the SEC, there was historically no reason they should.

However, in recent years companies have been moving increasingly toward what is known as an integrated corporate communication system, so that all messages coming from a company are delivered in the same "language." The purpose of such an approach is to present a unified image of the company's goals and values — one aspect of the broader push in many organizations to promote a coherent brand. This research paper examines the history of this style of corporate communication while asking questions about its effectiveness and, even more importantly, about what this push toward integrated corporate communication reveals about the culture of commerce today.

Traditionally there was a distinct division between the ways in which those at the top of a corporate hierarchy communicated with insiders and outsiders. This makes intuitive sense: employees are different from stockholders, and even more different from people who purchase a company's products or services. Customers and stockholders both need to be persuaded that the company has something worth buying, while employees are concerned with their jobs, their salaries, and how these relate to the company's performance and their own work. In some ways, a company's communication with its employees is like talking to family members, while its communication with potential customers and stockholders is like talking to guests at a dinner party.

In real life, we speak very differently to these two audiences. The fact that companies have also chosen to communicate differently with insiders and outsiders reflects this basic pattern in human communication. In other words, corporate communication traditionally followed the general communication strategies used in other contexts — different dialects for different situations, just as we talk one way to our grandparents and another way to our friends.

The shift to an integrated system of corporate communication can be seen as a violation of this common-sense principle, in which who one is talking to largely determines how one talks. This is not to say there are no good arguments for an integrated corporate communication strategy: such a strategy can be extremely helpful for building a brand and a coherent corporate identity. In an era of ever-increasing globalization, such a strategy might seem — and may well be — vital to a company stretching across the planet. Assessing the effectiveness of integrated communication systems is the core of this research project.

There is, however, another compelling issue: what such an integrated corporate strategy says about larger questions of how corporations function in the twenty-first century. One of the implications of this new form of corporate communication — one that has not been systematically examined — is that corporations speak to their employees in much the same way that they speak to the rest of the world, because employees are no longer seen as part of a corporate family to whom the company owes ongoing loyalty.

This research examines the ways in which corporations have, over the past several years, shifted increasingly toward an integrated approach to communication strategy, so that all stakeholders hear the same message in the same "language." The primary reason that company managers give for this shift is that it is an effective marketing tool, particularly in the sense that it helps provide a focused image and definition for the brand. This is true in the sense that it accurately reflects what corporate managers and officers believe, and it is also likely true that integration tends to produce a more tightly defined brand — something increasingly important in a globalized marketplace where brand dilution is a real risk.

However, while this paper addresses the above issue — and especially how it applies to two large corporations, the New York Times and the Coca-Cola Company — it is more focused on the cultural and social reasons behind these changes in corporate communication styles and strategies. Marketing and branding have been central to companies for decades without prompting a shift toward integrated communication strategy; therefore, something in the current business climate has created this change.

Some of what has changed is the technology of communication. While this is vital, it is sociologically the least interesting of the changes. Of greater analytical interest — and so of greater focus in this paper — are globalization and the changing relations between management and labor.

In examining the current trend toward increased integration in corporate communication strategy, this paper covers the pragmatics of corporate communications as they have changed over the last decade, examining why corporations have begun to shift their strategies. There are three — or at least two-and-a-half — primary reasons for this.

The first is that there has been a substantial change in the nature of communication itself. Communication styles and media have been shifting since the Internet began moving communication from the personal (face-to-face or written) to the electronic. However, the early days of the Internet changed communication relatively little for the majority of the population. Access was limited and interest even more so, as the Internet offered relatively little that was compelling to most people. Even as email became more commonly used, it remained confined to a minority of the population. This has become increasingly less true, in part simply because people have become more accustomed to email and more trusting of it.

Executive Summary and Aims

At least as important has been the expansion of texting and social media in terms of software and cultural practice, and smartphones in terms of hardware. As communicating electronically has become easier and more varied, communication in all realms has been affected. Companies have been affected by this shift in preferred forms of communication, and this has tended to push them toward integrated communication. Content produced for electronic dissemination is, in a purely formal and technological sense, easier to create in an integrated form.

Also, a greater reliance on computers and electronic communication in general has tended to serve as a centripetal force in corporate organization — one that is allied to, if not clearly causative of, greater integration in communication strategies. As other aspects of corporate organization have become increasingly integrated, it would be surprising if communication functions did not follow the same path.

The second major reason that corporate communication has shifted toward a more integrated form is that corporations have become increasingly global. The converse is also true: it is the companies that have become the most globalized that have tended to be the most enthusiastic adopters of integrated corporate communication strategies. That is why this research focuses on two companies with global reach: both the New York Times and the Coca-Cola Corporation are international companies.

The following analysis argues — and this seems a very strong argument — that an integrated corporate communication system imposes a necessary "discipline" (meaning an integrated, seamless communication style and underlying intention). Such integration helps to create "satisfactory exchanges with consumers and customers." Integrated communication programs are key to creating this level of satisfaction because without such integration it is impossible to create or maintain "positive two-way relationships with other publics who could impact organizational performance" (Kitchen and Schultz, 2003).

These different "publics" are also sometimes referred to as stakeholders. Both terms are appropriate, though neither fully captures the range of individuals who are affected by and who participate in communication with a company. Each of these publics "impacts corporate performance." The analysis continues to describe the ways in which corporate life — in the sense of how many different individuals and entities are vital to running a corporation today:

"Businesses today must be consumer, profit, and publicly oriented. Only a few years ago, the first two would have sufficed. But, in support of our dualistic argument regarding the marketing concept — that is, creating exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives more effectively and efficiently than the competition — Philip Kotler (2000) has labeled marketing as inappropriate in a world of environmental deterioration, population expansion, world hunger and poverty, and neglected, under-funded, and business-like social services. Thus, marketing as exchange has been augmented by the need to preserve or enhance consumer and societal well-being, too. Increasingly, this extends beyond 'seeming' to the needed 'substance' of corporate social responsibility."

The above touches on both the dynamics of communications strategies and the larger but fundamentally connected issue of social responsibility within a company. This latter point will be discussed further, especially in the context of the very different perspectives on this issue pursued by the New York Times and Coca-Cola.

So far the paper has touched on technological changes in communication and the globalization of corporate organization, reach, sales, and branding. There is one more key element that has contributed to the push toward integrated corporate communication — one that has been generally overlooked but is, this paper argues, a fundamentally important aspect of this shift.

The factors described so far concern the relationship of the company to the outside world: either to the general state of technology in the twenty-first century or to the general state of corporate globalization. The last major dynamic to be examined concerns the relationship of a company to itself, and specifically to its employees. One of the major shifts that has occurred in the last generation — though it had been building for at least another generation before that — is that large corporations have become increasingly less loyal to their employees.

Stephen Gill, in his writing on the dynamics of the corporate workplace, describes the ways in which the relationship between employer and employee has unraveled. He suggests that the current relationship between most large companies and most of their employees has become less and less based on commitment and loyalty, and more one of temporary convenience at best and guarded antagonism much of the time.

He notes that until the most recent generations of workers, "loyalty was the cornerstone of that relationship" between workers and employers. While employers now tend to criticize workers for their lack of loyalty, historically it has been employers who, in general, first broke the implied contract with their workers. While previous generations of workers could count on lifetime employment at a company if they chose it, that is no longer true.

While turnover was once seen as "dysfunctional," it is now the absolute norm — so much so that many workers and their managers probably could not imagine a workplace culture in which employees can be deeply immersed in the business of the company one day, only to have their desks cleared out the next.

High turnover is one of the most significant causes of low morale, which in turn tends to accelerate turnover further: "If a company has a high turnover rate, finding and eliminating the cause might reduce that turnover rate. Low morale rates and high turnover rates indicate problems within a company…. Morale is the driving force behind a company. High morale pushes the company forward and keeps employee turnover low. Low morale slows things down, reduces productivity, and accelerates employee turnover" (Morgan).

Literature Review: Technology and the Communication Shift

While there are many causes of turnover and no single solution — in part because the causes often arise from macro-economic conditions beyond a single company's control — one possible way of addressing low morale is to improve internal corporate communication. A case can be made that increasing the degree of integration in communication style and strategy is one way of doing this. By creating an integrated system of communication, managers can help foster a sense of shared culture and shared goals:

"The central idea is both simple and powerful: the job or position is a shared situation. Employers and employees face market and financial conditions together, and the longevity of the partnership depends on how well the for-profit or not-for-profit continues to meet the needs of customers and constituencies. Neither employer nor employee has a future obligation to the other. Organizations train people. Employees develop the kind of security they really need — skills, knowledge, and capabilities that enhance future employability" (McGarvey, 1998).

Without the traditional (albeit slightly noblesse oblige) dynamics of employer loyalty, employees have begun to feel more and more like outsiders to their own firms. This is a significant shift from a corporate style that endured for generations after the onset of the Industrial Revolution, in which a quasi-familial dynamic governed company culture.

In a corporate culture in which employees were seen as almost part of the family, communications from managers or owners to employees were marked by a different tone — even a different dialect — than communications with the external world. Now, with the ties holding workers to their companies growing ever more tenuous, managers have begun to communicate with employees more and more as if they were stakeholders as temporary as customers.

Companies once promised to be there for their employees, as well as for their customers and communities. Those loyalties are now all too often seen as quaintly anachronistic. This is likely to be even more pronounced in the absence of an integrated communication system — though, as will be developed below, it is also possible that an inept implementation of an integrated communication system can actually damage a sense of cohesion and shared goals.

When communication systems create a sense of shared goals between workers and managers, the company is likely to perform better. In 1996, when personnel expert Ethan Winning surveyed 742 employees in six different industries — from high-tech to insurance — a staggering 67% told him their loyalty had decreased: "There's no doubt that loyalty is in trouble…. Managers could scarcely expect other results…. It should come as no surprise to management that employees feel unconnected to companies that have seemingly shown little regard for their well-being" (McGarvey, 1998).

While many employees do feel some loyalty to their employers, this is far less true in general of employees in larger corporations than in smaller companies. Moreover, the degree of loyalty felt by employees is diminished — and is only likely to be further diminished — by a corporate communication strategy that increasingly treats employees as if they were outside stakeholders.

This research examines the relative strength and importance of these different forces with respect to the shift in corporate communications strategies and style, describing in brief the historical precedents, examining the future state of the field, and making predictions about the near future of corporate communications and the consequences of each force for both the nature of the corporation itself and its relationship with all of its varied stakeholders.

This section examines the work that has been done in the area of integrated corporate communication, focusing on the three areas outlined above. The first can be referred to with the shorthand of technical innovations — the entire range of electronic communication forms that are central to twenty-first-century life. As noted above, while this technically includes the full range of computer hardware and software applications, certain forms of electronic communication have been most important in shifting the dynamic of corporate communication. These include social media (including LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter) and, most especially, email.

Such forms of communication could not have been developed without the broader innovations in computer technology that have occurred over the past half-century — not simply in the obvious sense that email requires a computer, but in the larger, essentially epistemological sense that the idea of individuals and groups being linked instantly to one another is itself a product of this era. We are so accustomed to talking about a computer "network" that we no longer see the word in its original sense — a net of connections tying individuals together in numerous permutations. The same is true of the word "web" in "World Wide Web": we no longer pay attention to what the word meant or why this particular metaphor was chosen.

Computers create connections. And having given us the capacity to make numerous, complex, and essentially instantaneous communications, we feel a certain obligation to do so. We are all familiar with this dynamic in terms of cell phones — how nearly impossible it can feel to avoid answering a call or a text, no matter what else we are doing. It is therefore important to note that one of the most important impetuses for an integrated (that is, centralized) communication system is simply that every company now has the capacity to build one.

There has always been a tension in human society between using technology appropriately and letting technology climb into the driver's seat. This tension certainly exists within the context of the ways in which corporations communicate with both internal and external stakeholders. It is even more extreme when one considers the tension between the technologies employed at large within the corporate world and the stresses that can arise from them within wider society.

Integrated corporate communication systems can be seen as a merger of integrated marketing systems — a method through which a company's marketing activities are assessed and analyzed. This can be seen as one of the disciplinary aspects of an integrated communication system and is linked to the larger practice of integrated corporate communication in that it helps connect internal stakeholders with external ones.

An integrated communication system does not arise simply in an after-the-fact fashion; it also serves in a formative manner. This is another way of stating the point made above: the technology available to us determines the options available to us, or at least the options most easily seized upon. In this sense, the technology itself can push policy rather than serve it, which can be problematic. It will not necessarily result in poor policy — in no small part because of the high quality of much of the pre-packaged software available today for these purposes. However, as a point of general principle, technology should not be the driver of policy, since each company's policies should be guided by the specifics of its structure, needs, and products.

Such specificity can be accommodated by any number of software programs if IT departments tailor their software as closely as possible to their needs. There is, however, an enormous caveat: this presumes that corporations do in fact want to differentiate themselves from each other. The most immediate response is likely to be: "Well, of course they do, because branding is based on differentiation." Depending on which economic theory one adheres to, this statement is either patently true or absurdly false. One argument holds that all consumerism promotes all other consumerism. An alternate explanation for the tendency of large companies' communication strategies to resemble one another is that these designs reflect the same larger cultural and economic forces — much as the same physical environment selects for organisms that look alike.