Posts Tagged ‘communication strategy’
Tactics in Search of a Strategy
OK. This is a Friday AM vent.
How much time in any given marketing group is wasted executing knee-jerk tactics, just because the client demands it?
Too many.
How many high performing, exquisite campaigns with measurable metrics have a strategic communication plan?
All of them.
I heard the phrase “tactics in search of a strategy” at a recent IABC Heritage Region conference where we all had an emotional group hug, because it is a common frustration in any communications group.
Whew. I feel better. Onward and upward.
Comprise, Strategy and Getting It Right
Lee Hamilton, director of the Center on Congress at Indiana University and former U. S. Representative wrote[1]:
“Compromise is not easy, especially in today’s contentious atmosphere….Compromise…requires values that are hard to find these days: respect for one’s idealogical opponents, a willingness to listen hard and to understand what they have to say, and recognition that no one has a monopoly on what is right.”
To my way of thinking, this is the essence of human communication and often the missing element, not only in politics, but in the communication arts as well. I have looked at a great deal of advertising in recent months where Hamilton’s three key points are conspicuously missing:
- Respect for one’s idealogical opponents – or-competing departments defending their turf
- Listening hard for what others have to say
- Recognition that no one has a monopoly on what is right
In communications, we are overwhelmed with technology, channels, strategies and competing interests for time, political positioning and budgets. Communications cannot be integrated without compromise. Effective IMC cannot take place without respect for the organization and the firm resolution to continuously seek to develop the best possible outcomes for the organization as a whole, or it is not integrated.
Getting it right to me is including all competing interests into a communications plan that promotes the organization as a cohesive whole. This requires both creative thinking and compromise, particularly in a highly fragmented media environment.
What does getting it right mean to you?
[1][1][1] Hamilton, Lee (22 May 2011) “Embrace comprise, don’t insult it.” The Meadville Tribune: Meadville, PA. A4.
