How are forms of corporate and product communication evolving with the onset of new technologies in our everyday lives?
Conventional methods of redressing identity problems are becoming progressively less effective because the traditional focus has viewed corporate identity and corporate communications as functional rather than as strategic. In “high-tech” sectors, the job of communicating on image and product is becoming even harder. Jakki Mohr of the School of Business Administration at the University of Montana, Missoula, underlined this when she said, “Despite its increasing importance in today’s business environment, the marketing of high-technology products and services is not covered in many marketing curricula”, underlining that “marketing must be modified in a high-tech environment, where market information can be hard to come by at best and potentially misleading at worst.” Strategies long used to deliver selling messages to a mass culture through a single medium are now obsolete. Businesses today need to think of innovations they can use to help with communication between suppliers, contractors and customers. In this sense, the targeting of communications plans has to change to take into account the fact that people don’t have a good understanding of what they’re being sold, meaning traditional models are obsolete. The old mar-comm concept was simple: Message sent. Message received. Message acted upon. This concept applies to mass market advertising, which aims to incite purchases for products that are generally known and understood (i.e. – buy this new soap powder because it’s soft on your hands, drink this new, improved soft drink – it just tastes soooo good… etc etc.). This is a simple concept, but the reality of getting the message to the client is far from simple today. The new Mar-comm concept has a couple of extra preliminary steps added in that are now really essential … those steps are: Sales Channel Informed and Educated. Potential Customers Informed and Educated. In other words, in this particular market, two primary steps are now essential before the selling process can be effective.
But isn’t this the role of the PR agency? Yes and no. The PR agency generally has the role of looking after publicity of this kind, however their role is often not very clear in this respect and in many cases, we act as a strong support for agencies (either internal or external). We are able to assist an agency in structuring specific information in a credible, logical manner in such a way as to make it “palatable” and truly informative for the target readers, inviting and tempting them to want to find out more about the company’s offering. While agencies generally have a terrific grasp on the conceptual thrust of a campaign, we can really help here on the technical front.
How are information distribution models changing and how is the SPECIALreport evolving in this respect? It is clear that the internet is constantly gaining momentum as a means of information distribution. While hard copy is still important there are more and more people gravitating to our website to download PDF versions of our SPECIALreports. At time of writing there are more than 10,000 downloads a month from our website www.cleverdis.com. When one considers the fact that the target is entirely in the professional domain, is quite extraordinary. I believe this trend will continue and we are consequently further developing this service as part of an overall communication plan for those commissioning SPECIALreports.

Extract from Cleverdis SPECIALreport "At the Heart of ANY Marketing Plan"