Innovation: The Dirtiest Word in Business

Airfoil POVThe Dirtiest Word in BusinessBy Airfoil Public Relations

Airfoil POV // Innovation

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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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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

that they have become the primary generators of brand trust and loyalty. If my

Facebook friends like it, I’ll try it. If my LinkedIn peers are loyal to it, then they’ve

helped me cut through the trial and error, and I’m on it in a second.

How do we prove and validate our innovation to these markets, however? How

do we enter the conversation, grab a few ears, and encourage word-of-mouth

among the crowd?

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

“At Airfoil we believe that communicators can best project the innovation of their

software, devices or services if they stop screaming and begin

engaging.”


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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 BusinessWeek and CBS. eBay has launched InsideSource, 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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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

demands an interconnected team with extended, diverse skills. Cross-

functional teaming will lead to efficiency, understanding and ultimately success.

3. Assert yourself into the customer-service process. Horror stories fly

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

“If you don’t envision your organization as a communicator in the future, it likely

has no future.”


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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

posted all over the Internet even before the corporate customer service

department has heard the complaint. PR professionals understand how to

monitor for these early-warning gripes.

5. Drive the content strategy. PR and marketing need to cooperate in

creating and shaping the content in the new corporate media company, with

each discipline contributing its own strengths and market savvy. Moreover, in

today’s fractionated, one-to-one-focused media landscape, content creators

must think like journalists; they must dig out and rely on the facts. These are

people you need around the editorial table for your publications.

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.

“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.”


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Contact Us

Airfoil Public Relations1000 Town Center Drive, Suite 600Southfield, Michigan 48075

[email protected]

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.

Innovation: The Dirtiest Word in Business

Technology

Transcript of Innovation: The Dirtiest Word in Business