Trigger 10

Investor relations

(PBL session 11, closing trigger 10. 3.12.2014)

Investor relations (IR) is the strategic management term, and a marketing tool, used to describe the actions of companies communicating with the investment communities. IR is required for publicly-traded companies. IR is a mixture of regulatory and voluntary activities integrating finance, communication, marketing and securities law compliance to enable the most effective two-way communication between the company, the financial community and other constitutes. IR is interacting with existing stakeholders, potential investors, analysts and journalists. Basically, IR functions provides company information to investors to help them make informed buy and sell decisions. 

The investor relations department reports to the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) or Treasurer. It might also need to report too the CEO and Board of Directors/ President of the company. The department need to be able to understand and communicate the financial strategy and the broader strategic direction of the company and ensure that the image and reputation of the company is maintained.

In some companies the IR activities are managed by the public relations or the corporate communications departments, and can be referred to as financial public relations / financial communications. 

The primary target of IR are individual and institutional investors and money mangers and analysts. The secondary audience is the company employees, customers and communities.  

The responsibilities of an IR person are developing an overall strategy, setting goals and objectives, developing key messages to support the strategy, overseeing the program development and execution and providing feedback on the investment community to the management team. These tasks can be done using the communication tools like new releases, conference calls and webcasts, fact sheets, annual reports, IR websites, annual meetings, presentations and media relations. 

Turnaround strategy 

CRS Turnaround management (2011)

The goal of a turnaround strategy is to return a poorly performing company to normal in terms of acceptable levels of profitability, solvency, liquidity and cash flow. The objectives of a turnaround strategy are managing, stabilizing, funding and fixing the poorly performing or distressed company. They're applied over the natural stages of the strategy and achieved by reversing the cause of distress, resolving the financial crisis, improving in financial performance, regaining stakeholders' support and overcoming internal constraints and unfavorable industry characteristics. 

Kalyan City (2012)

Sources 

CRS Turnaround management. 2011. Turnaround strategy. Accessed: 30.11.2014

Trivedi, M. 9.11.2013. SlideShare. Investor relations. Accessed: 30.11.2014

Vollrath Associates. 30.11.2011. What is investor relations. Accessed: 30.11.2014

Wikipedia. 13.11.2014. Investor relations. Accessed: 30.11.2014

Trigger 9

Subliminal messaging

(PBL session 10, closing trigger 9. 26.11.2014)


Subliminal = affecting someone's mind without them being aware of it. 

Marlboro ad (2010)

These are forms of messages which escape our conscious perception, but reach through to the brain unconsciously. The most normal presentations of subliminal messages are visually or by audio. 

The first known subliminal advertising is from 1957 when phrases "Eat popcorn" and "Drink Coca-Cola" were shown in a movie. James Vicary, a market researcher came up with an idea to insert the words to a movie and show them only for a single frame, just enough for the subconscious to regognise it, but too short for a person to be aware of it. It was said that the ads increased Coke sales by 18,1 % and popcorn sales by 57,8 %. The results and the whole campaign later turned out to be false, but in some more recent experiments there are results of subliminal messages affecting people's behaviour in smaller ways. 

The author of The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty, has spoken against subliminal messages in movies after the movie adaption of his book was accused of containing subliminal messaging. He said, "There are no subliminal messages. If you can see it, it's not subliminal."

An example of a subliminal message in an advertisement is an AT&T ad where an unsuspecting viewer thinks to be just watching a sequence of random scenes when actually all the scenes are references to the bars showing the internet or cellphone service strenght in the given location. 

AT&T advertisement (2011)

A study from 2005 conducted by researchers in Utrecht University, demonstrated how subliminal messages affect people. The participants were subliminally primed with the words Lipton Ice were more likely to choose a Lipton Ice beverage when given a choice between two options. The effect only happened when the participants were already thirsty, though.  

In some countries, like the UK and Australia, subliminal advertising is completely banned. In the United States there's no specific laws addressing subliminal advertisins, but the advertising and broadcasting regulatory agencies are the ones ones dealing with the topic and its impact on the public. There are some court rulings on subliminal advertisement cases,  but because the nature of subliminal messaging is subconcious, where the viewer is not aware of receiving the message, it's extremely difficult to spot them. 

Subliminal messaging on the long run allegedly helps boost learning capacity and has a positive effect on the memory. It is a "good" way for companies to advertise their products/brand without being too direct and "pushy" about it.

There's no direct "bad" side to using subliminal advertising as part of your marketing strategy, however, the morality of it is questionable. Is it ethically right to indirectly manipulate one's mind to your liking?

Sources

Explorable.com. 15.1.2009. Subliminal messages

Dane, D., Johnson, K. Pauli, B., Philips, N. & Strausz, J. 2014. Subliminal messaging 

Dube Dwilson, S. 2014. Laws on subliminal marketing

Love, D. 26.5.2011. The shocking and incredible Coke history of subliminal advertising

Trigger 8

Social media

(PBL session 9, closing trigger 8. 19.11.2014)


Social media use has grown rapidly during the past few years. It has become one of the most important communication - and marketing - channels. Companies can use social media to create awareness and conversation and form relationships with consumers. The ROI can be difficult to see but social media is indeed effective method to reach consumers. 

J. DeMeres lists the Top10 benefits of social media marketing on Forbes.com:

1. Increased brand recognition
2. Improved brand royalty
3. More opportunities to convert 
4. Higher conversion rates
5. Higher brand athority
6. Increased inbound traffic
7. Decreased marketing costs
8. better search engine rankings
9. Richer customer experiences
10. Improved customer insights

Some companies might have prejudices towards social media as it is still so new and complex. But the longer they wait to join the more they have to lose. Their competition has probably already done that. Social media marketing, when done right, can lead to more customers, more traffic and more conversations. 

Social medias

Social media is not just Facebook. It's versatile, constantly changing online world. There are several different channels a company can use. The most important thing is to find the right ones for you. The content posted to LinkedIn is different than the content produced for Instagram. This is the reason it's important to find the utilise the most efficient and convenient channels for your company. 

Using social media requires constant updates and presence, otherwise you might get lost in the constant information flow and people'll forget you. There's not really any real disadvantages in social media, but of course there are some risks involved. When there's conversation with the consumers, there's also chance for negative issues to come up. Negative or bad reputation grows fast in eWOM and can harm the business for a longtime. 

Facebook is usually the first channel that comes up when talking about social media. It's the widest used platform in the world and an efficient marketing tool. for companies it is not completely free if you want to reach all the consumers, but it easy and simple to use. There is some talk that Facebook will lose its "power" and in a few years it'll be useless. For now though, it is still the biggest channel. 

Twitter is one of the most important ones, too. The hashtag (#) was created by Twitter and has now spread to most of the other channels. With the hashtag pictures and messages can be connected with ones with the same hashtag and also searched for. Twitter is used for short messages and is efficient for "breaking news" of commenting something. 

Youtube has become more and more used channel as video content has increased its popularity. Videobloggers, vloggers, are very popular with millions of subscribers and fans. They're channels are widely used for marketing. Just last week, few of the UK's biggest youtubers were chosen to take part in Bob Geldof's Band Aid 30, charity song "Do they know it's Christmas". They are not professional artists but they have more than 10 million subscribers between them which gives the song a huge audience. 

LinkedIn is a "professional Facebook", a platform for business users. LinkedIn is used in b2b-marketing, job seeking and other professional matters. 

Blogs, like vlogs, are more and more used by companies, either by their own blogs or via bloggers who promote products etc. 

Sources

DeMeres, J. 8.11.2014. Forbes.com. The Top 10 Benefits of Social Media Marketing.

Band Aid 30. 17.11.2014. Do they know it's Christmas

The Hubb. 21.4.2014. How to market your brand on every social media channel.

Trigger 7

Media agency

(PBL session 8, closing trigger 7. 12.11.2014)


A company's marketing can be outsourced to a media agency, whose job is to make sure that the message appears in the right place at the right time and reaches the right people with the best possible price.  

A media agency are supposed to understand the consumers more deeply, understand the media landscape better and have better relationships and more power with media owners than others in order to deliver better deals for their clients.  

Originally media agencies were focusing on buying media space cheaper and more efficiently than the mainstream advertising agencies. Later when the sector has developed planning skills and understanding the customer behaviour has been added the their skill set. By understanding what motivates a target group, the medias they follow, watch, read or hear, the media agencies became a vital source of communciations advice for all types of advertisers.

Media agencies ensure that the marketers truly understand the behaviour of their consumers; they make sure messages are targeted correctly and the marketers see the potential of the latest technology. Media agencies work with social networks, brands that produce their own content or communicate regularly with customers as well as the traditional media; newspapers, TV and radio. 

Research is the most crucial element of understanding how different countries behave in media. Each country have their own cultural behaviour, humour and ways of communicating etc.

Statistics show that of the entire marketing budget, on average 25% is spent for online advertising and 75% for offline advertising like print media. In B2B advertisement, business events are the most important channels. According to Mediacom.com 67% of companies consider event marketing to be the most effective marketing strategy. Also newsletters are important within the same industry. 

Media can be divided in three different sections, paid, owned and earned media. Owned media is the content the company creates themselves, their websites or social media profiles, for example. Earned media is word of mouth, articles written about the company or campaign, social media posts and shares. This type is considered to be more credible in the consumers’ eyes. As the name suggests, paid media is bought, which raises suspicion in consumers’ minds. Volume wise, paid media reaches a bigger audience. Not every company invests in paid media, for example Atria relies and invests more on earned media, which as worked for their benefit. 


Sources

Media.com. 2014. What is a media agency. 

Media.com. 2014. How does a media agency work.  

Media.com. 2014. What expertise do media agencies have. 

Media.com. 2014. What benefits does a media agency deliver. 



Prospects. 4/2014. Media planner job description. 

Trigger 6

  Communication plan

(PBL session 7, closing trigger 6. 15.10.2014)

 How to develop a communications plan? 

A communications plan is an important part of an organisations daily operation. It sets the standards for how and when communication takes place, internally and externally.

The steps of creating a communication plan are:

•  understanding of the target audience and how to reach them 
•  research past media coverage and public opinion
•  defining messages to be delivered and materials to be produced 
•  financial resources 
•  a written work plan 

A plan is never complete, it should adjusted when ever needed as the situations change. A good plan frames the media activities, clarifies the priorities, target audience, resources and staff assignments. It is important to identify these steps and elements and plan them carefully before implementing them into daily activities. In marketing the plan can and should include advertising, PR, direct response, interactive and sales promotion plans and event&sponsorship and personal selling plans.

The interactions can be verbal, written, electronic or face-to-face. The flow of information is important in order to be successful. If someone misses the information when something changes, there is a risk for mistakes or delays and failing to meet the requirements. 

The manager should set a tone for all communications which allows to maintain control of a certain project and ensure all stakeholders receive all the necessary information. When the standards of how participants communicate are set it's easier to controll and manage and communication stays consistent. When the communication is regular and consistent, the employees can work productively and the manager can lead the team to the the desired outcome.

 Why is a communication plan important for a company?

A good plan affirms the goals and outcomes of a organisation, its vision, mission statement and values and beliefs. 

Effective project communications require consistent, credible, and concise reporting of progress and status.  The sender is responsible for making sure that information is clear, concise, complete, and presented in a timely manner.  The receiver is responsible for providing information needs, media, timing, format and forum.  Of the facets of project management, communication planning is one of the most critical to success

Sources

Bonk, K., Griggs, H., & Tynes, E. 1999. Designing a Communications Plan, Chapter 4. 

Frost, S. 2014. Chron.com, How important are communication plans for project managers?