Media Outlets Outfox Comms Units Despite Weaker Negotiating Positions

Key Points:  

Aligning marcoms & corporate giving budgets & objectives

create the following enterprise-wide benefits:

• Reduces Costs

• Reduces Risk

• Increases Brand & Reputational Awareness

• Increases Efficiency

• Unlocks KPIs & ROI

Background Story:

I noticed a friendly face during our three-day return to office (RTO) at a Fortune 50. Since the gentleman and I frequently worked four or more days in office each week, we often exchanged pleasantries.

But one day, I got curious about moving the conversation beyond a simple “good morning, how are you?” So, I asked the gentleman, I’ll refer to as “Bob,” what department he worked in and inquired about the current business challenges he faced.

Within less than 24 hours, a simple question served as the genesis for the restructuring comms approach detailed within this article. 

Bob told me that he:

• Worked in Social Impact (aka corporate giving)

• Donated money on behalf of our organization

• His biggest challenge involved calculating ROI and KPI from his department’s donations.

I found this odd because my company held "purse power" as our negotiation strength was a lot stronger than the media outlets we sponsored.

Still, media outlets were outfoxing us by having one enterprise department donate while charging other enterprise departments for paid media coverage.

And that’s when the idea landed on me like a ton of bricks.

You see, part of my role was to uncover newsworthy storylines at my company and pitch stories to journalists. With any luck, journalists would bite and publish our catchy storyline. And with any luck, that’d generate favorable news attention for my company, a global behemoth with touchpoints throughout the financial services industry and beyond.

My team’s biggest challenges involved delivering exciting news and favorable coverage in a mostly pale, mostly stale and mostly male organization. For Peete’s sake, our roles required us to compete in a drama-filled 24-hour global news cycle alongside industries with truly exciting news.

Traditional corporate marcoms teams often believe that their stories are exciting but truth be told can they be?

After spending 20+ years running up, jogging up or tiptoeing up the corporate ladder and staying lightyears away from conflict, many journalists simply don’t bite on the majority of storylines they receive from corporations.

In doubt? Watch or click on news from a national outlet.

Now, my team is phenomenal—many of whom I connect with outside work. But with 200,000+ employees, organizational culture is often controlling.

Like Mick Jagger puts it, old habits die hard.

So, why do the problems exist?

Siloed operations.

"The Bank Of Doing" was literally our motto, so different enterprise departments didn't talk to one another as the organization's culture involved "keeping your head down."

Above: Organizational silos allowed media outlets to "double dip," where they received donations from various lines of business within the bank. Media outlets negotiated separately within each corporate communications unit. The silos increased enterprise risk, exposed opportunity costs, created inefficiencies and increased enterprise-wide operating costs.

Candidly, I despise pitching stories. It’s too much like sales for me—and all of the saccharine interactions resulting from transactional relationships.

But I absolutely love developing storylines, innovative problem solving and connecting authentically along shared interests.  

Since I knew pitching (ugh) was part of my role, I got creative and deployed my "Trifecta," expertise in change management, corporate strategy and journalism.

Above: Aligning communications units behind enterprise-wide goals eliminated a loop-hole that allowed media outlets to double dip. By negotiating collectively, the bank leveraged its negotiating strength more effectively—reduced risk, cut costs, eliminated inefficiencies and uncovered new KPIs and ROI opportunities.

My goal was to provide my team with an early holiday gift by providing them with a cacophony of evergreen storylines.

Now, as every marcoms pro knows, we have a feather in the cap leading to a striking mixture of media hits, the beloved PESO media model.

P: paid media = organizations pay to receive positive coverage

E: earned media = media that’s free because the story pitch was great

S: shared media = media we share on social media platforms

O: owned media = organizations’ websites, blogs, etc.

As a former TV reporter, I am uniquely aware of what stories resonate with my former colleagues’ mantra: “if it bleeds it leads.” But that’s not the type of attention most organizations want.

As you might imagine—marcoms pro or not—company budgets are not unlimited, not even within the financial services industry, so I needed to get creative… Also, not even with the financial services industry.

If you carefully explored the challenges Bob and I exchanged, they were perfectly complementary. Bob essentially paid media outlets. Sure, he did it through corporate giving but he still paid media, which fit nicely into the PESO model.

Since Bob wasn’t able to show KPIs or ROI, I could help by generating media KPIs and calculate the savings that would've otherwise been spent on paid media. It was a 2 for 1 deal.

Besides, I didn’t want to pitch stories (I wanted to develop compelling narratives) and my department “only” had $200,000 left in our Q4 paid media budget, which is considerably large considering typical American household budgets. But $200,000 paled when compared to my annual paid media budget and existing priorities.

So, Bob’s challenge essentially offered me a much-appreciated cash infusion to my paid media budget.

With this in mind, I developed solution 2 of 4 identifying shared interests between the media outlet and my company-- along with solution 3 of 4 assessing each party's Best Alternative To A Negotiated Agreement, (BATNA):

Above: A shared-interest model requires marcoms negotiators to consider enterprise-wide priorities along with the media outlet's priorities. This sets the stage for more media coverage as slide 4 of 4 highlights.

Above: Note your best alternatives and external stakeholders' best alternatives and leverage this information when exploring your ZOPA.

In solution 4 of 4, I led in the development of a "Zone of Possible Agreements," (ZOPA), to identify and activate ways to incorporate the shared interests we identified:

Above: Your ZOPA uncovers fun, engaging and mutually beneficial outcomes-- with more media coverage compared to operating in silos.

Why didn't we operate like this previously?

I was on the job less than three years and, as I stated before, creativity isn’t really how it works in a mostly pale, mostly male and mostly stale environment.

Again, the 100+ year old institution simply didn’t have the priming for out-of-the-box thinking.

Luckily, with Bob and I aligned, I emailed the president of a nationally recognized media brand, “Cher.”

My previous communication with Cher was always pleasant. We communicated with each other at galas and sponsored panels.

We shared the same news-judgment and often exchanged heartfelt belly laughs.

But the conversation I had with Cher was typically meh whenever it involved earned media for the bank.

For about two years, my team was never able to execute a long-term storytelling strategy to align with Cher’s editorial priorities.

And it wasn’t for a lack of trying.

Not only was I working on building this relationship but I also brought in a colleague, "Brittany," who previously produced national TV news shows.

We tried on the earned media front with this particular outlet—and for about two years, we failed miserably to do anything big.

But everything changed once I closed an organization silo. Remember, Bob provided donations to various media outlets, including Cher’s organization.

That leverage turned out to be monumental.  

Within about a month of first meeting Bob, we reserved a meeting in one of my company’s downtown meeting rooms. Cher attended alongside some of her executive-level staff.

The rest is history.

See how I integrated this plan and consider using it at your organization.

It’s a win-win for everyone.