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STORYTELLER
No offense, but really? Mirko
admitted he had deleted the mail
immediately, as he does all execu-
tive messages. But isn’t the idea to
capture the audience’s attention?
Have we as corporate communica-
tors forgotten how to do just that?
For years at SAP we have been
scratching our heads over how to
make the company’s purpose, val-
ues and strategy real and actionable,
even for an engineer or software de-
veloper. “Reignite” plans were cre-
ated. We knew we had to rethink
how we communicate, we knew
we had to move beyond the cycle
of all-hands, mails and intranet
updates. We discussed tone, voice
and authenticity. Yet it wasn’t until
recently, with the introduction of
consumer formats, that we started
to make real progress.
FRESH, NEW, SIMPLE DIS-
COURSE Now we are revolutionis-
ing the approach to communications
content. A new content team in our
global corporate affairs department
has a lofty mission: to disrupt the
The short answer is no. But the way SAP engages with audiences is shifting from
committee-approved corporate messaging to entertaining stories that appeal
to an audience disrupted by digital media, YouTube and used to quick dips
into the information world.
By Angela Dunn
CAN TALKSHOWS AND
TELENOVELAS REPLACE
COMMUNICATIONS?
A
t the New Year I was visiting a friend
in Bavaria. Mirko is one of over
300,000 employees employed by one
of world’s largest enterprises, head-
quartered in Germany. He offered to
show me the chief executive officer’s
end of year message: a 10-minute video, with a cheesy
soundtrack consisting of 1980s pop, the executive reading
from a teleprompter, covering every possible organisation-
al and strategic angle, a soft focus �lter showing someone’s
�ngers playing with what looked like holiday stardust and
jolly messages from diverse regional teams.
Screenshot:https://www.youtube.com/user/saptv/videos
SAPTV’s popularThe Spin brings colour to internal communications

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01/2015 COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR
• Nothing is internal only. Everything must be created and
posted in both internal and external channels (with the
exception of sensitive human resources topics).
• Every story should be supported with a visual element – a
video clip, chart, interactive graphic, infographic or picture.
• Preferred length of stories is 350-500 words. 800 words
is considered an analysis piece.
• Videos should be 90-120 seconds.
TV TAKES A SPIN One of the most popular series
since the team’s inception last year is �e Spin, a weekly
newscast written, produced and moderated by senior cor-
respondent Megan Meany. In less than three minutes,
Meany covers the news of the week in bite-sized digest-
ible portions, going so far as to poke fun at the com-
petition – previously a no-go zone for corporate com-
munications. Hugely popular internally, �e Spin is 100
per cent produced in-house by a small team and was the
brainchild of Meany, a former television reporter. Her
approach? “Treat videos like movie trailers. Make them
quick, snazzy and engaging.” �e reward for her knack
for turning technical content into conversational video is
lots of positive comments and hits on the internal news
portal. If the comments are any indication, people enjoy
the light approach and look forward to their weekly �x
of news.
information environment with hu-
man and personal stories in print
and visual. Recent hires from major
media outlets including Reuters, �e
Financial Times and NBC are part
of a growing 21st century newsroom
team determined to blot out blovi-
ated language in the company and
replace it with a fresh, new, simple
discourse. Sharable stories, accessi-
ble ones. It is the consumerisation of
corporate communications and re-
�ects the appeal and choice of media
channels, the allure of visuals.
Former broadcast journalist and
television producer Sam Juneau, the
vice president who leads the team,
thinks employees and external audi-
ences will consume information more
vigorously if the information feels
and looks like the content they con-
sume at home. More humour, some
drama, more fun – a mirror of the
choices they make outside of work in
front of the television, on their tab-
lets and on their smartphones.
“In broadcast television, there is
a battle for eyeballs,” he says. “It’s
a constant creative struggle to tell
compelling stories that get people to
watch your show or newscast.”
Staffers are encouraged to act like
columnists, pitching stories, doing
the research, producing a video, ed-
iting and publishing. No exhaustive
research and approval cycles. Where
possible, the team is encouraged to
develop series and to brand them.
Some are experimenting with on-
air reporting.
“A good story is a good story. It
includes human characters. What
works in the real world can work in
corporate,” says Juneau, an Emmy
award-winning television journalist.
“People want something interesting
to read and to share.”
Some of the team’s guidelines
include:
STORYTELLER
Recent hires from major media outlets including Reuters,
The Financial Times and NBC are part of a growing 21st
century newsroom team.
Screenshot:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFr4Xxj01OQ

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�e team has been bombarded with requests for �e
Spin to report from special locations and for Meany to be
the special correspondent from their events. To date, she
has reported from the Super Bowl, where SAP has a tech-
nology sponsorship with the National Football League,
and from Singapore and Mexico.
Meany’s background as a lifestyle correspondent for
US television series has helped her be �exible and quick:
“�roughout my entire television career I was produc-
ing new franchises. Television pieces were dreamed up
in my head one minute and quickly
executed with a branded look and
put on television the next. �ere is
constant pressure to create content
people would be interested in.”
BLOG THE NEWS! Admit-
tedly, when it comes to using tech-
nobabble and acronyms in press re-
leases, SAP has been hard to beat.
But media relations is no longer
about churning out press releases,
as Nicola Leske, head of global
media relations at SAP, knows too
well. During her time as a technol-
ogy correspondent for Reuters, she
routinely sent press releases to the
scrap bin. “�at’s not how journal-
ists get their news,” she says. “�e
way they are presented and written
is of no use to a journalist.” At �e
Henri Nannen School of Journal-
ism in Hamburg she learned if you
can’t shout your headline to a chef
in a noisy kitchen and make your-
self understood, your message is
too complicated. Real news from
modern corporations is captured in
a blog post and penned by the top
executive. SAP is not quite there
yet, but Leske is on a mission to
drastically reduce the number of
press releases the company pro-
duces.
Admittedly, not everyone loves
the infotainment approach to com-
munications and not every com-
pany is ready to explore its inner
stand-up comedian. Some people
– even some team members – prefer
long-text journalism. Sceptics see
the trend towards Huff-Po-ism as
an indication of the Americanisa-
tion of the company. Indeed all of
the people mentioned in this article
and driving the change in the team
are either based in the New York or
have worked in the media industry
in the United States. Most signi�-
If you can’t shout your headline to a chef in a
noisy kitchen and make yourself understood, your message is
too complicated.
SAPTV also has room for in-depth conversations
Screenshot:https://www.youtube.com/user/saptv/videos;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_xoAXiZ9LQ(2)

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executives’ voices – accents and all – the team built a cast
of characters that had the audience in stitches with its por-
trayal of quarter end drama.
�at’s not to say that humor was always lacking. �ere
were the annual April Fool’s jokes. But the pivotal mo-
ment came in 2014 with a tongue-in-cheek video inter-
view titled Between Two Schnitzels. A spoof on the inter-
net interview series Between Two Ferns, the interviewer
(an employee) nods off in mock boredom during the inter-
view, asks silly questions about clouds rather than cloud
computing while the executive – or “technology genius”
– explains how SAP has nothing to do with maple syrup,
pancakes or trees. �e video has received over 7,600 hits
on YouTube.
It wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. �at is offered in a more
serious interview series with senior executives called Tea
for Two. Hosted by British journalist Paul Taylor, these
interviews take a more high-brow approach to content. It’s
a question of balance and audience segmentation. Most
executives want to be positioned with a Wall Street Jour-
nal angle while the HuffPo approach works well in many
locations for employees.
TIME AND MONEY Big budget? �ink again. �e
majority of the team’s work is produced in-house or on a
shoestring. Freelance photog-
raphers, designers and camera
teams are our best friends.
Very rarely are agencies in-
volved. �e team is invited to
work quickly and deliver daily
outcomes, an operating prin-
ciple that de�es the involve-
ment of an agency. Similarly,
Sam Juneau has strong opin-
ions about the corporate com-
municator’s nemesis – internal
approval processes. “Input can
be gathered, quotes veri�ed,
due journalistic diligence but
no one rewrites our stuff.”
If this team had been asked
to produce the chief executive
officer’s holiday message for
Mirko’s company, the brief
would have been: keep it
short and simple (two minutes
max). Surprise the audience.
Be disruptive.
cantly however, the team has the
full support of senior management.
LOCALISATION: IT’S OK TO BE
FUNNY In Latin American, where
the serial dramas or telenovelas are
a popular form of entertainment
and where most global companies
have a business presence, it might
be smart to communicate the cor-
porate strategy or the cloud strategy
in telenovela form. How better to
get the attention of the staff? �e
team is just waiting for the right
opportunity to pursue this idea. It
calls for an additional talent from
the corporate communicator – that
of scriptwriting.
In France, comics and cartoons
are de rigeur. Using a 250 euro in-
vestment of Go Animate software,
one team built an animated cartoon
that was part of the regional presi-
dent’s keynote address at the annual
kick-off meeting. Working from a
script and using recordings of the
Photo:Private
Angela Dunn
Global Corporate Affairs,
SAP, SAP SE
Angela Dunn is a 12 year
veteran of global communi-
cations at multinational soft-
ware corporation SAP SE. She
is currently on assignment
in New York City where she
leads communications for the
chief marketing officer and
SAP Marketing. Having joined
SAP in 2002, she has occup-
ied several positions at SAP
including as editor-in-chief of
the employee magazine SAP
World.
Communications in a spin
Internal communications can mirror
that of the outside world, meaning
more humour, drama and fun
The human touch, visuals and brev-
ity are attractive to easily-distracted
consumers and employees alike
Long form content can be used to
supplement lighter pieces in informa-
tion streams
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Freelance photographers, designers
and camera teams are our best friends.
Very rarely are agencies involved.