By Jonathan Winch, Partner & Co-founder

The telecom provider Telia has spent a lot of time and money on such statements. But their customers rate them at the bottom of the customer satisfaction scale (Markedsføring magazine, 23.03.10).

I visited a Telia store recently and became highly irritated with their service. They refused to bend a harmless rule to help fix a problem they themselves had created for me. The difficulty was one of having the wrong attitude toward their customers.

Leaving that store, I decided to sneak into another Telia store to see if they might be more flexible and the girl behind the counter helped me immediately. Her attitude made all the difference.

When people ask me to create a vision/mission that consists of a bunch of statements (something they often do), I just can’t see the value. And I typically advise them not to do it. Unless they do it right, that is…

There are essentially two types of vision/mission projects: The first are highly creative efforts that result in something most people like and think was worth it. They are the results of big, expensive processes and get implemented in companies like Carlsberg, LEGO or Nike. I can recommend them if you have the cash and time.

The second is the text-by-the-meter model where you write a lot of stuff from the company’s “We” perspective. That always results in paragraphs that you yourself would never read and which you therefore can’t expect others to want to read, either.
Without the big process, the only thing you can do is to string a lot of clichés together in prose – i.e. the second type. And that’s what we can do for you if you want us to, of course. It would take about 4-5 hours. No input is required – we just pull the clichés out of a rather worn old hat. Of course, I believe that it would be against any good brand to do so.

But there may be other internal or external pressures that require it to be done this way. The reason I’m so tough on this is that times have moved far away from long paragraphs of blowing the company’s own trumpet. People don’t believe it like they (maybe) used to. It’s just another sign that the company is not a leader – because leaders are action-focused, have a simple but powerful attitude, show that they know the customer’s time is short. Employees don’t get behind this stuff, either. They get motivated by the excitement of working with a company, not by management statements and rules.

It’s not about looking like everyone else, but about looking different in an interesting, exciting way. So let’s cut to what is really important. Let’s drop those stiff corporate statements that waste management time and no one can remember anyway. And let’s focus on expressing and living an attitude instead. So the answer is? Create an attitude with edge and express it via text, images and interactions. That works much better!

If you want to see how, just ask us.

If you haven’t yet read ‘A Technique for Producing Ideas’, I suggest you buy it today. At 48 short pages, it’ll take less than an hour to read - and it’ll be worth every minute. Written more than 60 years ago, the book is a step-by-step guide to generating ideas by legendary advertising man James Webb Young. The beauty of the concept is it’s simplicity, so here goes:

1. Gather the information
2. Work the information over in your mind to give it structure
3. Incubation - do something else for a while
4. Eureka
5. Shape the idea into something that works

Obviously, the book explains each step, but that’s the basic concept. Oddly, after reading it, I realised that both the good ideas I’d ever had in life followed that same structure. The key is to apply to your everyday life and work.

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?

It’s always exciting to find a new tool that gets you out of your creative rut and helps you see things a bit differently.

For me, the tool du jour is Thinkmap’s VisualThesaurus.com. Sure, I’ve used Thesaurus.com and Dictionary.com for years, and can’t complain - I generally find what I’m looking for. But I’m not often inspired.

With VisualThesaurus.com, you’re inspired - and educated, and entertained. It uses a dynamic technology to map words that are related to one another. So they happily bounce to their rightful place on the screen, let you move them around and find out what they mean - and discover completely new directions for creative concepts.

Every day, I get a new “word of the day” from VisualThesaurus. I’ve signed up for these before but have always found them pretty stiff and formal. VisualThesaurus, however, defines words with fun examples and anecdotes. So you never get a definition full of yet more words you don’t understand.

So the tool is great fun, but I’m finding that the best thing VisualThesaurus.com may be its website. They’ve got blogs. They’ve got articles. Tips, tricks, and advice. Something new every day for marketing and communications people.

And most importantly, they are an outstanding example of how brands can expand, engage their audience, and give the sense of being THE hub for the latest and most useful knowledge. Something we can all learn from.

(If you’re curious about VisualThesaurus.com, you can download a free trial on their site.)