The branding consultant Martin Roll says that Danish companies can use their “Danishness” to their advantage. In an interview with the Danish business newspaper Børsen, he advises Danish companies to stand up for their Danish values.

Denmark has many great values that can be relevant to people outside of Denmark. The challenge as I see it is communicating them in a way that the rest of the world can understand.

It’s not about imposing these values on others, but more about putting them in the context of what is important. Companies are experiencing that, yes, they can use Danish values - but they just shouldn’t call them “Danish values”. Instead, these Danish values need to be described specifically and in context using clear, concise language. This is the big challenge facing many Danish companies.

This was one of the questions asked during our seminar yesterday, “Boost your brand with great writing”. At the seminar, we looked at how messaging platforms, tone of voice guides and style guides are essential tools for marketers and communicators. As communications managers, everyone could see the value in these. But afterwards, a few people asked me basically the same question: “How do I convince company management?”

I can see the problem. To someone who doesn’t prioritize communications, it seems like a lot of resources to allocate to preparation and planning. “Can’t we just get this campaign rolling next week?” management may ask.

The point is, of course, that it’s much easier to produce any campaign if you’ve done the planning and set specific, long-lasting guidelines. For each campaign, you’ll greatly increase your chances of success – such as increased response and more sales opportunities. It also ensures your company’s communications remain ‘on message’ and that no rogues appear from different corners of the organization.

With a firm eye on the bottom line, top management wants to see financial benefits. Yes, investment is required upfront, but in the not-so-long term, there should be savings as marketing materials are produced faster and more consistently. A challenge for communications and marketing managers is to document results and, wherever possible, show the numbers.

Another important argument is that the leading brands do it. Why is it that GE’s ads, website and other external communications continue to build a homogenous picture all based on the same story? You can say the same about Apple, Microsoft, LEGO and many others. Look at the effort that goes into communications planning – and look at the value of their brands.

Burning issues
At our seminar yesterday, there were lots of other interesting questions. We always learn a lot hearing about the real issues facing companies today. And with company sizes ranging from over 90,000 employees to less than a hundred, we heard a fascinating mix. Some of the issues that spring to mind are:

Are a company’s values the same as the company’s tone of voice?
We use our style guide, but no-one else in the company knows it exists
When we have the tools in place, how do we make sure they have the right effect in our local offices around the world?

We’ll be holding more seminars about these and other communications topics, so let us know if you’d like to be kept in the loop. And we’ve also written a WordSpin article on a similar topic. Check out Who’s telling your brand story?

A couple of days ago I came across this vision from iStone. And it’s amazing how quickly I turned off as soon as I saw the word vision.

The vision of iStone is to become the customers’ obvious partner concerning everything that involves their business system. We want all our customers to be highly satisfied with our products and services. In order to achieve this we offer a cooperate agreement.

My reaction - glazing of the eyes, idling of the brain - leads me to believe that one of the biggest issues with vision texts is how they are presented. Visions are sterile things and we’ve become immune to them. To catch a reader’s attention, the vision has to be rephrased and represented in a compelling way. Instead of starting a sentence with Our vision, it would be better to kick off with something like:

We want to see…
For us, the future is…
We can see a time when…

But this still won’t work if the vision isn’t…well…visionary. Wouldn’t it be nice if a vision created an amazing future picture of the world that taps into the reader’s imagination? I would read, and care about, the iStone’s vision if it said:

Imagine a world where business systems run automatically, doing all the administration tasks for you so you have time to concentrate on the work you love.

But of course, vision still need to be presented internally. To do that, you could simply start We work towards creating a world where…

Perhaps a pharma company could phrase a vision something like this:

We want to live in a world where intestinal pain is a thing of the past; where everyone has access to affordable medicine that treats intestinal illness instantly.

(Internally, this could be presented as: Our goal is to create affordable medicine that…)

I guess I have a vision: Think of a future where company vision statements are truly exciting statements of the possible future of our world.

Walking into a pre-sales meeting armed with a complete and comprehensive power point presentation can be dangerous. Not dangerous as in something to fear. But dangerous in the sense of missing something important – such as an opportunity to provide an important client with something they need.

Marketing is no longer about persuading your prospect to see things your way. Modern business communication is just too advanced for that. Try it, and your audience will almost certainly get restless, if not outright hostile. Dangerous. Something more open-ended and interactive is needed so your prospect becomes an active and more engaged part of the process.

Techie trickery - or not…
I recently made a presentation to give some feedback on a project we’d run with a major client. Unfortunately, we had some technical difficulties – not uncommon when I’m involved. To cut a long story short, I couldn’t access the slideshow I’d put together.

Rather than shout, ‘Look, a baby wolf!’ and run out of the room, my colleague and I sat down and began asking our clients questions. We knew what we wanted to talk about, but by asking questions, we quickly found out what they wanted to talk about. And we had the responses to hand without needing a single bullet point.

Your client will always get the point - if they made it themselves
When we did finally hook up the laptop, we’d already covered most of the points - or our client had covered them for us. As a result, we raced through the slides while everyone in the room nodded their heads in agreement. How could they do otherwise? They’d made most of the points themselves. And there they were, on the screen, as if by magic. It was clear that everyone was onboard: when we all walked out of the meeting together, we were still talking.

In fact, the conversation made it through reception and into the kitchen. The result? Two further meetings have been scheduled already - one of them with top management. It would seem that the ‘Best parties end up in the kitchen’ rule could also apply to business meetings.

While a loose, informal approach may not be appropriate in all business meeting scenarios, when it comes to finding out what your clients need, it never hurts to listen.

Last week, The Danish Chamber of Commerce (Dansk Erhverv) held its 2008 annual conference. These conferences can be deathly boring and it’s always a question of what value they have to my daily work. But I’m happy to say that this was well worth attending. The theme was Corporate Social Responsibility, or “Doing well by doing good”, as they called it.

It was good to see that the overall standard of communication was high. Also interesting that two of the guest speakers were writers – Zac Goldsmith and Tor Nørretranders. Who else but a writer would tell a story about “One man’s crap is another man’s food” as Nørretranders did? That aside, they kept excellent company alongside the Danish Prime Minister and an Olympic gold medal coach.

The highlight for me was Ulrik Wilbek’s talk. He is an exceptional sports coach whose handball teams have won Olympic gold medals, World Championships and European Championships. He spoke for half an hour on “Management and Winning”. At the top of his agenda was communication, and this actually anchored his entire talk. Wilbek reckons communication is a vital management tool.

The fact that Wilbek himself is a communicator made his claim all the more believable. He delivered his talk fluently – without notes – and with skill, confidence and assurance. His winning mentality came across loud and clear, and there wasn’t a hint of the famous Danish modesty. Take note, Danish companies out there!

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish Prime Minister, delivered his talk with little modesty. Key points in his talk were that Denmark needed to be more competitive in the global market and that Danish businesses need to continue acting responsibly. He claims that CSR is a branding parameter for Denmark. We’re keeping a close eye on that, Mr Rasmussen.

His claim was however backed up by Zac Goldsmith from The Ecologist magazine. Goldsmith had apparently read the Danish Government’s newly released action plan on corporate social responsibility. He referred to the style and tone of the writing, which made it positive and interesting to read. (I’m not sure how he managed to read it because I haven’t yet found an English version.) After his positive words, I look forward to reading it myself.

So there were several highlights and it was an afternoon well spent out of the office. However, I do have one major gripe. What’s with the tagline “Doing well by doing good”? Why does it need to be in English? The entire conference is aimed at Danish businesses and all the speeches were in Danish (except of course Goldsmith’s). It’s all about Denmark, so it makes no sense to have an English tagline. Did they fall into the trap of wanting to appear hip?

One of the big problems was that it sounded out of place when people said it in the middle of a Danish sentence. Especially when pronounced “Dooing vell by dooing goood”. This was one of the few instances where the high communication standards of an otherwise good afternoon slipped.

Sounds good, huh? But is it possible when it comes to copywriting? Many of our customers seem to think it is - and are using long-term service contracts to achieve it.

In short, this means creating centralised supplier contracts with fewer suppliers. Because the supplier builds up a relationship and knowledge of your company, you get a better end product and use less time on briefings. And you don’t spend time negotiating a new contract for each job.

Here’s what our managing partner, David Hoskin, has to say about it. “More of our customers are looking to solidify their relationship with us in this way. It allows them to build up trust over a number of jobs until we’re viewed as an extension to the marketing department. We can be called upon when things get busy – and guarantee to always have writers available to get the job done on time. Also, with this level of trust and insight into the client, we’re able to support other agencies who offer a unique service on a project but don’t know the client so well.”

So, could this be the death of supplier juggling? Read the full article to find out more.

Berlingske Business recently pointed out how few PR agencies have a Corporate Blog - something they all strongly recommend to their clients. One of their arguments against corporate blogging is lack of time – another is that it’s hard to find something relevant to write about.

These were also our fears when we decided to set up a corporate blog about a year ago. And yes, one year’s experience with our blog has shown us that it does take some time to get it rolling, to find the “corporate blogging voice” and to catch people’s attention.

But the fact is that now that our blog is up and running, even our most regular bloggers hardly ever spend more than 30 minutes a week on the blog. Now, it’s true that we’re professional copywriters and writing is our thing. But even so, our staff is split into two groups – the bloggers and “the others”. Some people are natural bloggers and quickly latch onto a debate – others are simply not.

I believe that every company or agency has at least one natural born blogger. And that every company has something interesting to share with it’s stakeholders. An opinion on where the industry is going. Comments on new products or ideas. The blog is a great place for your audience to get to meet the “real people” behind the corporate facade – and they would like to hear what you have to say. So maybe it’s worth investing 30 minutes a week sharing your thoughts and ideas with your audience?

So grab your pens (keyboards) and BLOG ON! Of course you’ve got something relevant to say. So say it. Out loud – and proud.

A while ago we had a company meeting outlining our goals for 2008. They were divided up into Business, Brand and Work goals. One of our Work goals this year is to do more high-profile projects with premium companies with the aim of having more fun.

And that’s exactly what we’re doing with FLSmidth. Our retainer agreement with FLSmidth means we get involved in some really interesting projects, work with many different departments in the company as their copywriting resource ‘on tap’, and essentially be an extension to the marketing department.

Working with the guys at FLSmidth means we are getting closer as a team, united in our efforts to ensure their international communications carry world-class messages.

Check out our press release to find out more.

I hate supermarket shopping. The aisles are always crowded. I have trouble finding the things I want. There’s always someone who wants to jam their trolley right up my behind. The overhead florescent lighting is too bright (I guess that says something about my Saturday mornings, or rather, Friday nights). I could go on. But the worst thing is how stressy it gets when I put my shopping on the belt at the checkout.

The nicely firm avocados, perfectly round tomatoes and painfully-fragile bouquet of flowers are thrown down the chute - along with bulky apples, the sharp-cornered carton of milk and a nice bottle of wine that just rolls down over everything like a boulder, crashing to a halt at the potatoes.

But the fun doesn’t stop there. Oh no. Then I have to cram everything into my bags as quickly as possible, packing the awkward heavy items on top of the light, squashy things. If I don’t do this quickly enough, my shopping will be relegated to the smaller, secondary chute where it all gets siphoned off and compressed together by a big metal bar. Then the process starts all over again for the next psyched customer.

So imagine my delight when I see that Danish supermarket chain, Føtex (or Funtex as I like to call it) is advertising that they will pack my shopping for me on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Although I don’t shop at Føtex that often (I suppose you guessed that already), this new service is pulling me closer to them. I’m going to check them out.

When a company offers pretty much the same as everybody else, it’s excellent customer service that makes them stand out from the rest. By introducing an intuitive customer retention programme (I expect Føtex to introduce a club card soon, if they haven’t done so already), you’re locking people onto your brand. And, unless you do something really stupid, you’ve got them for life.

I feel quite excited that I could be witnessing somewhat of a revolution in Danish supermarket customer service. It’ll be interesting to see how the other chains respond - and what the marketing executives at Føtex have up their sleeves.

Sometimes the simplest ideas are just the best. And here is a great one. Visit FreeRice.com and you can practice your English vocabulary and learn new words.

And at the same time, you generate grains of rice to food programmes through the United Nations. The connection between English vocab and rice isn’t clear to me - but it doesn’t matter because the site is addictive and for a good cause.

It’s simple, you are given a word and have to choose the correct synonym from four options. And the site adjusts to your abilities, so the more you get right, the harder it gets. And each time you get an answer right, the site donates 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Programme.

The concept is simple, too. The rice comes from sponsors who advertise on the site.

Go and try it! If you already know the answer, someone gets some rice. If you don’t know the answer, you learn a new word. It’s win-win.