Do Companies Communicate Even When They Don’t?
When are we communicating and when we don’t? Is it possible that even if we don’t communicate, we unintentionally communicate something? Is a silence also a communication? All questions lead us to more or less same answer. Yes, we do communicate even if we seem not! For example, the colour of your b
Do Companies Communicate Even When They Don’t?
Published on February 6, 2019
February 6, 2019 • 8 Likes • 3 Comments
Chaba Rhuwanya
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Strategic Communication specialist
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When are we communicating and when we don’t? Is it possible that even if we don’t communicate, we unintentionally communicate something? Is a silence also a communication? All questions lead us to more or less same answer. Yes, we do communicate even if we seem not! For example, the colour of your brand, or a location of your office, your customer segmentation, your choice of influencer and brand ambassador, the way you organise your office, the way you treat your employees are all communicating something.
Communication is both an art and a science of illuminating and transacting ideas, information and feelings be it energy, confidence, hope or despair. It is about systematically connecting dots and packaging of values. It is a strategic way of organizing smart organisation. It is why, most successful enterprises including the Fortune 500 listed companies have a sound communication strategy in place. At certain levels of success, an individual or organization can no longer scale further with no sound communication strategy.
What often comes to our minds when we think of communication are the means of communication such as advertisements, press release, speeches, statements and public relations activities than what generate the content to be communicated. Yes, tools of communication are important, but they don’t communicate by themselves. They don’t generate messages, they only pass on messages. What usually communicates, are very things we pay less attention to.
How a company select its stakeholders for instance communicates louder than any media jingle or billboard. The choice of where you place your billboard or an ad gives a certain message or speaks to certain market niche. The composition of your Board and management, communicates something about one’s product or brand. If well packaged and aligned, these variables can communicate volume about a company and go a long way to change the fortune of that company.
Understanding the above, helps CEO’s to prudently allocate money to improve the things that matters most. It helps them avoiding a repeated trap of spending overzealously on marketing, regularly with frustrated results. This is not to say that marketing role is redundant, rather to say, we can make marketing more cost effective and rewarding, if we invest more in things that communicates and generate content to market about.
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Chaba Rhuwanya
, holds a masters degree in Corporate Communication from IE Business School, is an entrepreneur with over 10 years experience in ares of Business Development, Relationship Management, and Marketing .