Event report: The Challenges of Brand Loyalty

Our special guest speaker at last week’s directors dinner was Owen Valentine Pringle, Director of Digital Communications, who said this is the best job he’s ever had- and he’s had some good ones!

“Advocacy, Accuracy and Access” are the watchwords of Amnesty International, and Owen informed us that its  2.5million supporters, the media, governments and other NGO’s. They are involved in 50 websites and now think that content is no longer king but that conversation is, so they take seriously the importance of social networking sites, blogs and all forms of virtual communications. 

Amnesty sees itself as an influencer and informer on the wrongs committed in the world and it’s apolitical. It’s It’s not after financial gain, other than fundraising to support its work towards basic human rights for all. They never get involved in political lobbying or have political viewpoint so they will campaign for the human rights of citizens in Iraq that are affected by war but will not say that they oppose the US government and its decision to go to war.  

Therefore it conducts or facilitates lots of research and then informs the general public and powers that be of what it discovers, The recent arrest of Radovan Karadžic for crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina is a case in point. It was Amnesty's research in the 90s which, in part, lead to the discovery of his involvement in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Srebrenica.

The Amnesty brand is well respected and its brand advocates will fight tooth and nail for the cause but they will also be the first to criticise if they feel something has been handled or communicated poorly as they take the relationship they have with Amnesty very persoanally. It is due to this that Owen truly understands the importance of digital in the communications mix.

They also need to behave with sensitivity to certain situations and access issues around the world, for example, in China their sites are outlawed and citizens can be sent to prison if found to be accessing Amnesty sites so they do not capture any IP addresses or personal data so as not to put them at further risk. They also understand that in Africa and India the mobile phone is more prevalent than internet access and endeavour to adjust the way they communicate. 

Amnesty would like to move into new territories and although in 80 countires presently they would like greater presence in places such as Sotuh America and with 1.4 billion internet users worldwide they see this as the best way to achieve their goals. 

Recently there was a PR whohah involving TBWA Paris when they designed an online ad campaign for Amnesty about the Bejing Olympics. It had a visual of a Chinese guard dunking the head of a prisoner under water and Amnesty felt it was too controversial as they do want to condemn the Bejing games just highlight that there are goals for human rights still to be met. Although the campaign never ran publicly TBWA Paris still entered it for an award at Cannes Lions and it won. This, of course brought it to the attention of the press and the New York Times broke the story. Amnesty had to go into damage control and distance itself from the campaign by putting out a statement making it clear it was not a condoned message.  

Owen said there are pretty much 2 lawyers for every civilian at Amnesty anyway so they have plenty of this type of resource to draw on. What they do need though is for compnaies to take CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility seriously and also to offer donations of time and expertise to the fight for human right. 

As part of a broader campaign, Amnesty will be focusing on economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) too, and it was interesting to have Bryan Smith of Rio Tinto as a guest so that he could put the point of view of the worlds largest fossil fuels company. Rio Tinto take CSR very seriously and if they have permission to open a mine they put together a 120 year plan where they will build a town with roads, schools, hospitals and try to ensure that in 120 years time when they shut the mine that there are other businesses to sustain the town into the future. They also get involved in smaller ways by giving up personal time to projects orgainsed through Westminister council such building a garden in a local school.  

Rio Tinto are careful about when to disinvest in certain areas, such as Zimbabwe too and its not always solely financial as they are concious of other factors such as more unscrupulous parties buying up the mine, shutting down the town and stripping all the assests without regard for workers or local citizens. Bryan said that often movements like Greenpeace or Friends of Earth campaign for these mines to be shut down but have not considered the bigger picture, the impact on the local town and the possibility of worse to come from other quarters. 

We then chatted about online communications and Alice Malick of agency, Harvest Digital, said there is software on the market that can track online conversations and themes that can help to monitor all the blogs and social networking sites that might refer to your brand or topic. Felicia Jackson of Carbon International agreed this was a good way to be aware of what's being said, but that it's vital not to get sucked in to online conversations that won't affect your brand - you need to be aware of which issues, and which bloggers, to take seriously. 

I then turned the discussion towards green credentials for your digital business and we discussed what these could be. Suggestions included recycling your print cartridges, paper (printing on both sides first, of course), food waste, plastic and bottles. Always offsetting the carbon impact when booking business flights for staff members. Switching your energy supplier to one that uses only renewable energy sources such as Good Energy. 

It was also felt that encouraging more clients to conduct more business online is another way to aid in the green effort as its uses less resources generally and saves money. Even putting your compnay reports online rather than printing and posting them reduces the impact on the world. This is good for business all round so Netimperative support this message and are happy to showcase any case studies submitted that prove the benefits to clients. 

Hopefully along with digital businesses being green themselves we can help further by commiting some time and effort to charitable projects and if anyone has feedback on how best to achieve this or wishes to put themselves or their company time into the pot then let us at Netimperative know and we’ll coordinate with Owen Pringle at Amnesty International and Craig Hill at Digital Outlook. Email me on davina@netimperative.com about this or if you would like to attend our next directors dinner on Wednesday September 10^th with Sean Phelan of Multimap fame.  

Thank you to our sponsors Weboptimiser and if you are interested in sponsoring the Directors Dinners from September onwards then please contact davina@netimperative.com for more information.