You can have a great communications programme, you can say all the right things, show all the right images, make the most persuasive arguments for your country, company, products or services. But if what you have doesn’t live up to its promise, no matter what you say or do, you’re going to end up in the weeds.
As professional communicators most of the organizations we work for do have a proven quality product, or they wouldn’t be successful enough to hire a professional communications team. But from time to time we’re confronted with a product, service, company or even a country with some kind of fundamental problem or set of problems they want to try and advertise or PR their way out of.
This never works. Communications can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. What they can do is bring out the qualities of the silk purse. Or explain the reason for the ear.
Unfortunately there are enough practitioners out there who are willing to “spin” a controversy or even misrepresent an issue that our business is lumbered with reputation problems. “Spin doctor” has, alas, become synonymous with PR practitioner in some quarters.
Sound organisations, even organisations with issues, don’t need spin doctors; they need clear-headed business or government communicators who understand the organization and its issues and who can think strategically and find ways of putting their client’s best foot forward to the public.
Sound communications are consistent, clear, vivid, articulate, intelligent and honest. They reflect what an organization truly is and what it stands for, not what it isn’t or what it wants to be.
Take Dubai.
What has characterised Dubai communications is a continuously increasing sophistication, genuinely deep strategic thinking, visual and editorial eloquence and crystal clarity. Dubai’s masterful communications have played a major role in building this dynamic city into one of the world’s most exciting and sought after destinations and an evocative household name around the world.
The communications delivered on Dubai’s successful bid for the Expo 2020 were incredibly detailed and incredibly impressive: website, newsletters, features, news releases, films, everything! The work that went into this landmark project and the communication about it was absolutely mind-blowing, from the conceptual designs, rationale and awesome range of truly persuasive endorsements from thought leaders from around the world.
Watching all this made the selection of Dubai seem like an inevitability, a foregone conclusion – a no-brainer.
But there is something fundamental to this process that organisations and their communications teams can learn from. Dubai delivers. The booming retail landscape, the perpetually transforming civic infrastructure, the Metro, the landmarks, the cityscape, the expanding tourism development, the festivals, the celebrations, the spectacular events, have made Dubai a world-class destination. The hype is backed up by hard facts.
Now that celebrations have subsided, the Expo 2020 is no longer an aspiration but a big, looming fact. The hard graft of bringing this brilliantly conceived world event to life is already on course.
Much of what will be happening over the next seven years will be taking place behind the scenes, behind closed doors and behind hoardings. What we will see is what is communicated to us and there is no doubt that communications played an essential role in making Dubai the first Arab city ever to host a World Expo.
You can bet that all the planners involved in this together are focused on delivering Dubai’s promise “to astonish the world in 2020”, and not the publicity that will most certainly come later on.
Building a strong communications profile is very much like building an Expo. It takes time, investment, planning, brilliant design, the best materials and expert contractors to bring it to life.
But without a quality brand, product or service to communicate, you’re stuck with the sow’s ear. So the lesson here is, be like Dubai, and make sure you have the silk purse first and then let the world know about it.
— The writer is vice-president – network affairs and UAE managing director at TRACCS Public Relations.
