In our latest Point of View, “The Dirtiest Word In Business,” Airfoil has assembled a collective set of best practices to help technology marketers meet the communications challenges of a new digital decade.

1. Airfoil POV
The Dirtiest Word in Business
By Airfoil Public Relations

2. Airfoil POV // Innovation
Why are so many communicators these days chomping on the
hand that feeds our economy?
Bring up the word “innovation” and, in some quarters, you’re likely
to hear grumbling. You may even hear that promoting innovation
doesn’t work or is no longer “fashionable.” This, at a time when
business leaders acknowledge that innovation has been the principle
and practice that has led us away from the edge of economic
cataclysm, time and time again.
Why has innovation become such a dirty word for some audiences?
Airfoil’s point of view is that innovation as a business concept has
been the victim of bad press, hype and abuse. To our core, we
communicators recognize that innovation is crucial to business
growth and the nation’s economic health; but, frankly, on both the
public relations and marketing sides, we have done a lousy job of
cutting through the clutter surrounding the innovation story.
Back in the day—10 to 15 years ago—we drenched the stock
market in theoretical innovation. Hey, we don’t have any way to
monetize this Web site or any market for this gadget, but, boy, it’s
innovative—so invest now before you miss the boat.
Well, too often, the boat sank, and it took the concept of innovation
as a fresh idea down to the bottom with it. Today, even an attempt
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3. Airfoil POV // Innovation
to promote a company, a product, a business model, or a process as “innovative”
may cause a distrustful and hype-saturated marketplace to turn away.
Business communicators are, in effect, being accused of innovation-washing.
Pumping up the volume on innovation is causing the word to lose its credibility
as a meaningful concept for many. Misguided, noisy applications of the term have
degraded its reputation.
Just because innovation has been overhyped, however, doesn’t mean we should
ignore the fact that many businesses today are thriving because they were founded
on and continue to bloom with innovation. Microsoft, FedEx, Amazon, Apple,
Intel, JetBlue, 3M and YouTube are all big, successful names in innovation. And
all across America, much smaller emerging companies are producing valuable,
game-changing products and business models that are defining innovation in
everything from electric cars and wind power to entertainment venues and mobile
phone apps. Are all these companies doomed to shout only into the wind? Is
there any way whatsoever to make claims of innovation believable today? Can
innovation be saved?
Of course not and absolutely!
At Airfoil we believe that communicators can best project the innovation of their
software, devices or services if they stop screaming and begin engaging. The
second decade of the 21st century is about building relationships, rather than
pushing out claims adorned with “new,” “improved,” “best,” or even “better.” We
need to find and initiate conversations with today’s niche markets and then:
• Prove our innovation with action
• Validate our innovation with facts
Some time ago companies relinquished their brands to consumers. One-to-one
and one-to-many conversations among consumers now are so easy and pervasive
“At Airfoil we believe
that they have become the primary generators of brand trust and loyalty. If my
that communicators
Facebook friends like it, I’ll try it. If my LinkedIn peers are loyal to it, then they’ve
can best project the
helped me cut through the trial and error, and I’m on it in a second.
innovation of their
software, devices or How do we prove and validate our innovation to these markets, however? How
services if they stop do we enter the conversation, grab a few ears, and encourage word-of-mouth
screaming and begin among the crowd?
engaging.” One strategy that many companies are pursuing is to become publishers of their
own content. In reality, they are becoming media, with their own employees,
bloggers and freelance journalists, and they are publishing every day or every week
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4. Airfoil POV // Innovation
for consumer and B-to-B audiences. Increasingly, companies believe they can
connect with the crowd by taking control of their own content in their own media—
on paper, on screen and online.
Those companies that are most successful will establish clear, journalistic roles for
public relations and marketing in creating content. PR professionals in particular
are skilled at earning trust, developing conversations and informing consumers via
third-party credibility.
So at innovation gatherings like the Consumer Electronics Show, product
developers are just as likely to be interviewed by reporters from Best Buy and
Cisco as from Business Week and CBS. eBay has launched Inside Source, which
The New York Times described as “an online magazine about fashion trends,
written and edited by glossy magazine writers and pitching the trendiest items for
sale on eBay.” Other companies are adding, expanding and reshaping the content
of their blogs, social posts, e-newsletters, magazines, outdoor changeable LED
displays and conventional print.
By rejecting hype and adopting standard journalistic techniques, corporate media
are enveloping themselves in the mantle of factual reporting and credibility within
their business niches. They are working to prove their innovation with the act of
creating media that present information in place of booster-ism. They are seeking
to validate their innovative nature with facts from the marketplace.
Can these company-published media succeed where hype has failed? If
communications professionals are placed in editorial leadership roles, the evidence
is that they surely can prosper. Not so long ago, blogs and bloggers were viewed
as annoyances and clutter. But as their influence grew in the niches populated by
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5. Airfoil POV // Innovation
their fans, these bloggers drew the attention of mainstream journalists. It didn’t
take long for reporters and editors to begin adding blogging to their repertoire.
Even conventional media began reporting on such extended journalistic blogs as
“The Daily Beast”, “Huffington Post”, “CQPolitics” and countless blogs written by
other news networks and publications.
Long ago, public relations practitioners learned that the hype once associated
with their own profession might produce headlines, but in the end it didn’t produce
loyal customers. Today’s communications professional understands the massively
compelling value of facts, of validation drawn from the marketplace, of enabling the
truth to speak for itself.
In Airfoil’s view, marketers and public relations practitioners within businesses
should be launching seven crucial initiatives right now if they expect to be
successful in communicating innovation:
1. Incorporate communications into your company’s vision statement. If
you don’t envision your organization as a communicator in the future, it likely
has no future. For PR and marketing professionals to have the right place at
the right table, the fundamental value of communications must be recognized
as a foundation of all the company’s actions.
2. Make integration happen. Assembling, verifying and communicating
“proof of innovation” must be a team effort, generated from the collaboration
of public relations, marketing, advertising, research and customer service.
Simple alignment of these disciplines is no longer enough; saving innovation
“If you don’t envision
demands an interconnected team with extended, diverse skills. Cross-
your organization as
functional teaming will lead to efficiency, understanding and ultimately success.
a communicator in
the future, it likely 3. Assert yourself into the customer-service process. Horror stories fly
has no future.” across the ‘Net regarding businesses that supposedly try to ease the way
for business customers and consumers to ask questions, issue complaints
or seek more information through toll-free phone numbers, e-mail, online
forms, FAQs, live chat and a host of other methods. Invariably, however, a
large proportion of these companies simply blow it. They answer every
question except the one the consumer has asked. They don’t respond to a
form or they neglect an e-mail. They insert a phone tree between customer
and company that could block a barn. Customer service should begin, not
with hyped innovative technology, but with listening to consumers and better
understanding the impact of business decisions. How a customer is treated
must reflect the company’s brand promise. In the past, PR became involved in
customer service only when a problem threatened to escalate and consumer
reporters were knocking on the door. With today’s realities, public relations
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6. Airfoil POV // Innovation
must be engaged at the front end of the customer service process, providing
strategic counsel and influencing policy to ensure that brand integrity is
maintained in the way that customer service is executed.
4. Position PR to monitor the ‘Net for early warnings. Another reason to
position PR pros at the portals of customer service is that customer service
has become an influential, if not universally welcome, medium of its own.
Problems with products or services may be blogged, tweeted and otherwise
“Listening is
posted all over the Internet even before the corporate customer service
crucial, but to be
department has heard the complaint. PR professionals understand how to
worthwhile it must monitor for these early-warning gripes.
lead to actions.
Communicators need 5. Drive the content strategy. PR and marketing need to cooperate in
to push for actions creating and shaping the content in the new corporate media company, with
each discipline contributing its own strengths and market savvy. Moreover, in
that align with their
today’s fractionated, one-to-one-focused media landscape, content creators
company’s brand
must think like journalists; they must dig out and rely on the facts. These are
promise and adjust
people you need around the editorial table for your publications.
current practices
that don’t.” 6. Demand more money and resources. While conversations are two-way
discussions that often start from the bottom up, budgets are stubbornly
top-down creatures. We need top management to commit dollars, people
and technology resources to create consistently meaningful content that will
stimulate engagement and maintain the level of continuity in conversations
that is essential to building trust, preference and loyalty. Use measurement
tools to prove the value of your content-driven media, demonstrate their
value—both wide and deep—to the entire company, and fight for your right to
the financial support you need to make it all work.
7. Listen and take action. Communicators make careers of listening. We
invest ourselves in hearing what people are saying about our company or
clients. We analyze dialogue, conversations, research and surveys and
conduct listening labs. Listening is crucial, but to be worthwhile it must
lead to actions. Communicators need to push for actions that align with
their company’s brand promise and adjust current practices that don’t. For
innovation in your business to survive, the company’s actions must respond
to the truths in the marketplace. You can lead the consumer in new directions,
but, when you do, ensure that you keep your promises. If you need to change
the features of a product or a customer-service policy to do so, then make
that action paramount. The greatest value of listening to business customers
and consumers is to hear where you are going wrong. These stakeholders
can be an early warning system for small corrective actions now that can
prevent your CEO from appearing before a Congressional committee later.
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7. Airfoil POV // Innovation
It’s okay to talk dirty again. You can talk about innovation when you put your
motion where your mouth is. Cutting the hype, digging for the facts like a reporter,
and holding over-the-fence conversations with your customers may seem
counterintuitive to some but, truthfully, this updated approach to communications
may be the most innovative change your company can make.
For more information on communicating innovation, please visit Airfoil at www.
airfoilpr.com, or contact us at 866-AIRFOIL.
Contact Us
Airfoil Public Relations 866-AIRFOIL
1000 Town Center Drive, Suite 600 higherthinking@airfoilpr.com
Southfield, Michigan 48075
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