Driving Sales Powerfully

In 2006, food and beverage giant Nestlé acquired the iconic Australian brand Uncle Tobys, its sales team and its range of products, bringing Nestlé’s total range to over 3,200 products. Nestlé faced a significant communication challenge: How to communicate business and product priorities simply and consistently whilst merging the new sales team into the business, and, at the same time, increase sales.

Impact and the Nestlé sales team developed a strategic and highly creative engagement event, based on strong employee insight, to engage Australia’s largest field sales team in plans for the year ahead, encouraging less risk-averse behaviour which contributed ultimately to an increase in sales.

Tactically this included employee focus groups, leadership workshops, a strong visual identity and theme, dedicated SWAT teams working with over 20 presenters, as well as highly-creative delivery of messages over an energy-filled two days.

A combination of anecdotal feedback and quantitative survey results from the field revealed an immediate behaviour change across all state teams – higher productivity, teamwork and collaboration across the states.

The campaign was awarded the 2008 IABC Gold Quill Award of Excellence and the 2007 Asia Pacific PR Week best employee communication campaign.

Reducing Energy Consumption

In line with the company’s sustainability objectives and with the support of NSW’s Department of Environment and Climate Change, packaging giant AMCOR recognised in order to reduce energy usage at its Smithfield plant, a critical success factor would be shifting employee behaviour.

Employee research carried out by Impact revealed the majority of employees did not understand the environmental consequences of their behaviour and were unfamiliar with switch locations or start-up / shut-down procedures.

The subsequently award-winning Project GreenLight campaign – bright ideas for a green future – was developed providing training and guidelines around the desired behaviours. Tactics included a video with employees talking about the environment, global warming and what it meant for them, as well as reminder cards produced in a number of languages.

Sustained employee behaviour change resulted in a 30% reduction in base load energy consumption overnight and a 70% reduction over the weekends. At launch AMCOR Smithfield saved the equivalent of two weeks worth of energy use simply through employee behaviour change.

This campaign was recognised both internationally and locally in 2006, winning a prestigious IABC Gold Quill for communication and a NSW Green Globe award.

IABC World Conference 2010 – Day One

June, 9 – BY TAM SANDEMAN – This week, the home of the Blackberry (the phone not the fruit), Toronto, sees the world conference of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) which had its fill of Ogilvy Public Relations.

Scott Kronick, president of Ogilvy PR North Asia, represented us in speaking about “Brand Building in China”. Scott’s insights reflect his 19 years in Asia, complete with success stories and failures of brand building efforts. The thirst for knowledge about China was evident through a very well attended session.

However, I am here to attend sessions on employee engagement, communication and change – hear and possibly bring back new thinking.

Day one saw various themes running through a packed agenda of sessions – change management, employee communications and leadership communication.

From the first sessions, the most obvious issue presenting a significant opportunity for improvement for internal communicators, is that there is now a recognised lack of confidence in senior leadership from employees.

This problem has grown since 2003, as cited by Professor Veronica Hope Hailey, from Cass Business School in London, who has been researching change communications for over 20 years (including Australia). Interestingly, she sees real danger in 2010, that leaders will attribute the reason for this breakdown in trust to the economic downturn. And, more importantly, going into recovery will NOT rebuild trust in organisations. Leaders need to invest time in improving the way they communicate and engage, and do it better than they ever have before.

Secondly, (and unsurprisingly) all sessions I attended highlighted the strong need for authenticity in leaders. As communicators we must work with senior leaders enabling them to communicate strategy and direction in a real, authentic manner. Only then will we ensure we turn business strategy into action.

Lastly, as with all our work, driving interaction and conversation will be fundamental for success as leaders trying to engage employees in business critical initiatives.

One particular first day highlight was hearing keynote speaker, Kevin Warren, CEO and President of Xerox Canada. A leader who truly lives and breathes employee communication and engagement and one who directly attributes positive outcomes on the bottom line to their investment in this area. Even better was his inspiration – a sign he’d seen on the wall of Ford Motor Company – “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”, emphasising your strategy is nothing if you can’t get the people piece right.

Another highlight for our team must be our attendance at the prestigious IABC Gold Quill Awards dinner which saw us collect our two Gold Quills of Excellence for work with Bayer ANZ and Ford Australia, as well as a best of the best award for the Ford work. No other consultancy took as many awards and proved again, Australia and particularly Ogilvy Public Relations punches well above its weight on the world stage.

So far, Toronto has treated me well, and I’ve also managed to catch the BlueJays vs the New York Yankees before the conference started. Given Toronto is also the city of choice for this year’s very imminent G20 frivolity…  if they coped with an Ogilvy PR invasion, they’ll be OK.

More from day two to follow…

Triple Global Recognition

Apr, 16 - Today we’re delighted to share that Impact has been recognised on the world communication stage not once, not twice, but three times over.  In the year we celebrate our fifteenth birthday, we’ve won two International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Gold Quill Awards of Excellence and have also just been named best in show, winning the IABC’s annual 2010 Special Business Issue Award.  The awards are recognised as the most prestigious and highest level of professional acknowledgment within internal communication globally, and we’re ecstatic.

Our first Gold Quill of Excellence and the 2010 Special Business Issue Award were won by our change communication team for our work for Ford Australia. The awards recognised what was a complex campaign for a company in an industry facing a challenging operating environment. The work ensured crucial public employee and union support for a difficult business announcement, contributing to an overwhelming raft of positive media articles across all media outlets.

Our second Gold Quill was won together with Bayer Australia and New Zealand.  This award recognised communication excellence for the development and execution of Bayer’s B-Green project which drove and achieved measurable behaviour change across its Australian and New Zealand workforce around sustainability.  The project, steered our specialist sustainability communication team operating under our OgilvyEarth practice, led to a raft of energy, recycling and other initiatives and was also recently awarded the best internal communications program for all Bayer companies worldwide.

“These awards demonstrate Impact can compete on a world communication stage and recognise we’re delivering the highest possible level of strategic and creative counsel to gain vital employee support for business critical initiatives for companies in Australia,” says joint managing director, Tam Sandeman.

“This is the first time two top awards have been won by the same company in Australia and winning the overall Business Issues award was the icing on the cake.  More importantly, it showcases work in two areas gaining increasing importance on every Australian business’ agenda – sustainability and change,” adds Stephen Hale, co-MD.

The awards will be given at the IABC’s international conference in Toronto in June 2010.