What is in a name?

Citation

Elving, W.J.L. (2012), "What is in a name?", Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Vol. 17 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ccij.2012.16817baa.001

What is in a name?

Article Type: Editorial From: Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Volume 17, Issue 2

At the beginning of 2012 a cold front hit the Northern parts of Europe. I did not know, but brands can buy the names of the cold front for promotional reasons. So the cold front is called Cooper, named after the famous UK car, but these days owned by German BMW. This seemed a brilliant move; Cooper would come up as a brand name with all the news items concerning the weather. Unfortunately the weather system was very bad; “Cooper” led to many people being frozen to death. The government of Montenegro called in the help NATO forces to help them with the heaviest snowfall ever experienced and many people died in Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and other parts of Europe. This all under the brand name Cooper.

So what started as seemingly a creative idea to link a brand name to a weather event could turn out in a PR for BMW? It seemed that naming the weather system only cost €299, so it seemed a bargain to do this for this brand. Is it a bargain that every news program across Europe would name the brand name when referring to the current weather that of course would create big revenues, or something like must have been argued at the PR agency of marketing department when discussing this? Confronted with the many deaths and finding a way out of this nightmare a spokesperson told the Independent newspaper “that you cannot tell in advance what a weather system will do”. This would be the reason not link your name ever with uncertain events like the weather. The agency or department (whoever came up with this idea) should have realised that linking your brand name to an uncertain event can lead to uncertain results. Although I can understand that a weather institute gives the opportunity for brands to name a weather system for the money, you should not link your brand name with linkages stakeholders do not understand. In my view corporate branding is concerned with positioning the organisation. Branding and positioning are tools that can be used to promote the organisation among stakeholders, and try to load the reputation of the organisation with campaigns, and communication to become more favourable.

Maybe I am not creative enough, or I miss important insights, but I still cannot see why your brand within the automobile industry should link your name to a weather system. Maybe if you sell snow or ice related products or services, but the fit between your actions, campaigns, products and communication always needs to be there, to help stakeholders in making sense of this and to help you to load your brand with the desired elements.

An absence of this linkage or fit will lead stakeholders trying to find one. Stakeholders will try to fill in the gaps themselves, what could be the link to severe cold weather with a car? Is it because the car always runs even when in very cold conditions? Or, is it because the car is is not suitable to winter conditions and owners are advised to leave the car in the garage? Especially in the connected world these events or failed campaigns are shared by many, so the only result BMW has with naming a weather system as they did with Cooper is severe loss of reputation. Their creativity (and be honest, the naming was part of a creative process) hindered strategic thinking about what the consequences might have been (weather is uncertain, by naming an uncertain system with one of your brand make this an uncertain result as well), and what the actual link is with the activities, brands or products of the company. The analysis should have shown the risks accompanied with this naming thing, that someone should have prevented a campaign like this. Again this is an example of the importance of strategic and logical thinking which our profession needs more.

This is already the second issue of Corporate Communications in 2012. In this issue we have three papers related to investor relations. The first by Susanne Arvidsson from Sweden has the communication process between listed companies and financial analysts as its theme. Policy makers, financial market regulators and corporate policy makers in the field of corporate communication need to address the challenges new communication media make possible and all the risks involved in these as well. In the second contribution Giulio Greco from Italy presents a longitudinal study of new mandatory risk disclosures following new regulations. The main conclusion of this study is that companies do not change their disclosure policy, continuing to withhold relevant information to external users. Before and after the introduction of new regulation, the management’s behaviour appears in line with the self-interest to protect from litigation and competitive costs, as well as from possible decreases in the firm value. The last paper on investor relations in this issue is by Christian Hoffmann and Christian Fieseler from Switzerland. Of the factors important for good investor relations they found that the quality of the communication is the most important.

The increase of submissions on investor relations for CCIJ indicates that the field of investor relations is moving beyond the traditional accounting practices and is more and more seen as a corporate communication activity. This means that we need to know more about investor relations. Including more papers on this issue in CCIJ is a result of changing ways of reporting on financial issues, which seems to be much more than profit, costs and financial information.

The fourth paper in this issue deals with language in a multicultural organization and is from Jakob Lauring and Jan Selmer from Denmark. They argue that information diversity; being visible and an open attitude towards linguistics positively influence communication frequency. In the fifth paper Joanna McDonald and Isabella Crawford (UK) present a case study on post crisis communication after a helicopter crash in the UK. They conclude that the most important asset in post crisis communication is the dialogue. The sixth paper of the issue deals with relationship building within public relations. With the help of structural equation modelling techniques Eyun-Jung Ki and Linda Hon shine a light on the low involvement groups PR has to deal with.

The last paper in this issue was selected a few years ago from the Euprera conference, in Jyvaskyla, Finland, 2009. As you may know, CCIJ and the Journal of Communication Management jointly present the best papers selected from this conference. Due to personal circumstances the last paper was not published earlier. In this last paper Christina Grandien and Catrin Johansson from Sweden shed a light on institutionalizing communication management. By including three main areas, organizational structure, social capital and perceptions of the profession, combined with four levels of analysis (society, organizational field, the organization and individual) the authors present a framework for this institutional process.

We hope that you love to read these papers and you can use them in your work and research.

Wim J.L. Elving