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One of the essential levers for strengthening corporate reputation and brand is communication, as it allows organizations to influence judgments and attitudes among different stakeholders, prompting favorable behaviors toward the organization.
Communication reveals the full value within organizations, helping to build narratives around each of their assets. Experts agree that it is a management discipline that coordinates all communications to establish and maintain a positive reputation with stakeholders.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is corporate communication?
Corporate communication is a set of strategies and actions that a company undertakes to establish and maintain effective relationships with its various stakeholders. Through these actions, it reveals the organization’s value and builds narratives around each of its tangible and intangible assets (such as its offerings, decisions, sustainability measures, leadership, and financials). The goal is to build and sustain a coherent, positive image of the company in the environment where it operates.
Why is corporate communication important?
Corporate communication is a crucial tool for influencing perceptions, judgments, and attitudes of the organization’s stakeholders. Effective communication enhances understanding, collaboration, trust, and engagement, while poor communication can lead to confusion, misunderstandings, and conflict. Corporate communication is therefore key to exercising transparency, building reputation, and fostering supportive behaviors toward the organization (such as recommendation, purchasing, or the desire to work for the company).
How is corporate communication created? What are its components?
An effective communication strategy enables the organization to deliver clear and understandable messages passionately and consistently to all stakeholders. To achieve this, different communication elements must be considered, including the sender, receiver, message, channel, code or tone, and, importantly, stakeholder response, as effective communication is always bidirectional and reciprocal.
Beyond technical aspects, corporate communication must be fully integrated with the organization’s strategy, objectives, and purpose to be truly effective. In this way, communication ties together all areas of the company’s activities, all channels, and all stakeholders. It could even be considered the discipline with the most implications for the organization as a whole.
What types of corporate communication are there?
The two main channels of corporate communication include internal communication (targeted at employees, the board of directors, or internal audiences) and external communication (aimed at customers, regulators, society as a whole, etc.). Both should have strategies in place for crisis communication if needed and are closely linked to commercial communication. It’s important to note that good corporate communication should always be bidirectional, differentiating between simply informing and genuinely engaging in dialogue with stakeholders.
Examples of Communication – Practical Cases
Airbnb’s case demonstrates the critical role of corporate communication (both internal and external) in challenging moments, such as mass layoffs. Understanding social media dynamics is also essential for organizations, exemplified by Disney’s success with influencer moms.
Individual and personal communication from CEOs or public figures is also crucial today. Jacinda Ardern’s empathetic and decisive political communication during New Zealand’s pandemic response is a prime example.
Explore these cases and many more in our Practices in Action.
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