Chatroom: Weber Shandwick Chairman Jack Leslie

Technology may change how we get our information, but Weber Shandwick Chairman Jack Leslie says human creativity is still the key to a successful corporate communications strategy.

Weber Shandwick, a public relations and communications firm owned by New York-based Interpublic Group of Cos., has more than 75 offices internationally and clients that include General Motors Corp., Microsoft Corp. and American Airlines.

For Leslie and other top strategists, the Internet has changed the game. The speed at which consumers around the globe become aware of issues and events makes effective crisis communications even more imperative. And consumers are more engaged than ever, looking to nontraditional sources like online consumer reviews for information.

Communications strategists are also contending with globalization, an economic downturn, consolidation in the media industry and a growing focus on corporate responsibility.

Earlier this month, Leslie hosted a forum with top communications officers for Siemens USA, MasterCard Inc., Lazard Ltd. and the U.S. Army. He hopes the event was the start of a series of conversations among communications officers about the challenges facing their industry.

"The role of the chief marketing officer has really come to the fore of late," Leslie said. "They now have a seat at the table among the most senior players in the company and they frankly need to be much more strategic in how they behave and how they see their role."

What follows are edited excerpts from a recent Associated Press interview with Leslie.

Q: What are some of the challenges and opportunities that the Web offers to corporate communicators?

A: We're really seeing a sea change that usually only comes around once or twice every generation. (It's) a little reminiscent for me of 20 some-odd years ago when I started in the business as a political media consultant and saw a technology _ then it was television _ totally change the communications dynamic. And now (the Internet) is changing it because people are looking to others like themselves for the most trusted information on what they should buy or how they should vote or what cause they should support, rather than traditional information sources. All of our research shows that this kind of peer-to-peer communication is far more effective. And so everybody is grappling with this.

Here at this office, I used to have a sign that said, "It's not the technology, stupid." It's not the technology itself, it's what it allows you to do. Creativity is still the single most important thing that we can offer our clients because that's what's going to come up with the ideas _ no matter what channel or platform is used _ that are going to engage consumers and get them excited.

Q: What about the growing focus on corporate social responsibility (CSR)?

A: Because it's become so widely adopted, we're reaching a point where consumers' antennae are really up for ... inauthentic corporate social responsibility activities. And some companies are doing it because they think they're supposed to do it, not because it's really embedded in their values. The companies I think who really get their whole organization to believe in it and act in the right ways will succeed, but there will be many who will be a little more cynical in their adoption and I think they'll get busted (laughter) by consumers who can see through that kind of stuff.

Q: On a different topic, how is the downtown in the U.S. affecting how companies are communicating with Americans?

A: Number one, this is not the time, which is the natural inclination, to duck and cover. It's not the time to put your head in the sand and wait for things to blow over. In fact, it's a time for sophisticated marketers to engage even more, because there's market share up for grabs. And if you are really careful and listen to people and their anxieties and you relate to them in ways that show sensitivity, you can win customer loyalty in bad times arguably even more than you could in good times. Now I probably have less credibility as the chairman of Weber Shandwick (laughter), but there have been studies on this. And it makes sense that companies that continue to run aggressive campaigns are the ones who come out of these tougher times in better shape.

Q: Can you tell me about the concept of "Brand America" and how that might be changing?

A: What is troubling ...is that since the end of the Cold War, we have cut back tremendously on spending for public diplomacy. And the reasoning was, you know, we won the war. So why would we need to spend anymore? But I think we're paying dearly for not having kept those programs up. This is partly a communications problem, but mostly a policy problem and we shouldn't mix the two. This happened in the early days after September 11 where there were a number of appointments made in the State Department, for example, of various marketers and the kind of belief was that if we get the right kind of marketer in there we could solve "Brand America." Well, I think this is naive. The fact is that there's a reason why we have difficulties around the world and we need to address those from a policy standpoint.

Q: If the American brand is declining, how does that affect U.S. companies that are marketing abroad? Is there a shift toward a more global identity?

A: Yes, I think there's more, if you will, global branding. But more than that there are efforts to embed the brand in local markets and cultures so that it has real local identity. (Weber Shandwick was hired by some American companies after the 2001 military operation in Afghanistan, when they faced boycotts in the Middle East.) We were hired by companies like Coca-Cola and McDonald's, two of the most iconic American brands around _ and the most effective message was to remind people that they're really local companies. You know, the bottlers are locally owned, the franchisees are local. You're only hurting yourselves when you boycott them. So I think a lot of companies are responding to this by correctly pointing out their roots in local communities.

Q: How is media consolidation affecting the way you do business?

A: What's happening is that we're getting fractionalization on one end _ that is, so many more channels that you can communicate through _ and on the flip side of the coin we're getting this consolidation that's happening with big media companies. If we're smart about it, they can both be opportunities. The fractionalization just gives us more ability to target a clearer channel to get our message out. Consolidation helps us package together content that can then get leveraged through lots of different channels much more efficiently.

At the core of both of those things, though, is creativity. (Our clients) expect any good-sized agency like ours to be able to execute pretty well. What differentiates the agencies, I think, are their creative abilities. The right kind of creative idea can get communicated in lots of different ways. But the trick is finding that creative content.