Joined up: communicating a clear and consistent corporate narrative
Almost half of marketing teams restructured in 2023. As companies Santander and Pinterest have followed suit this year, we explore what’s motivating this trend and how it reflects a need for companies to tell ‘a joined-up story’ across channels and outlets.
New research from Marketing Week has found that almost half of marketing teams (46.5%) restructured in 2023 – a five-percent increase on the previous year.
To add to a growing list, Santander hit headlines earlier this year over plans to restructure its marketing communications operations. As of 1 April, the UK bank will be merging its marketing and communications teams, with the newly unified department looking after the firm’s marketing communications. The team will be working alongside media relations, public affairs, internal comms and other segments.
So, what’s motivating this shift? According to Santander’s marketing director, Dan Sherwood, it’s the perfect chance for teams to “join up” the brand’s story “for maximum impact”. Sherwood says that this fusion of teams “reflects the already intrinsic links between the two teams” to ensure that they work effectively to deliver strategic priorities.
Santander is not alone. Retail company Frasers Group and financial service provider MoneySupermarket are just two examples of companies that have announced internal team shakeups in 2024. Social media company Pinterest also shared that it was overhauling its comms function in 2024, creating six new roles in this department as a result of updated leadership. This news comes almost a year after Pinterest merged its marketing and comms teams to align its communication channels and unify its brand storytelling.
The closing gaps between these teams may be expected, as the rise of social media and the rapidly changing digital content landscape has blurred the lines between public relations, communications and marketing sectors. This has led to an even greater need for communicators to have the tools and insights to connect with a broad range of audiences engaging with their organisations across channels.
By combining the storytelling prowess of comms teams and the creative skills of marketing teams, brands can capitalise on the crucial talents that will help to promote their key messages – and tell the stories that matter.
A ‘content-first’ approach
The disjointed structure and (somewhat ironic!) lack of communication across different comms teams, which we so often encounter in large organisations, tend to result in inconsistencies, inefficiencies and fragmented messages across platforms.
Not only does this waste time and impact content quality, but your brand risks confusing its audiences with its lack of cohesion. Does this issue sound all too familiar? Help is at hand.
Last month, Speak’s head of content, George Wright Theohari, ran a ‘One Brand, One Voice’ webinar focused on coordinating content operations. Offering support to executives responsible for corporate communications, the session delved into why the ‘channel-first’ approach is ‘broken’ – and shared how a ‘content-first’ approach can help comms teams to solve these pain points.
“If you’ve got two teams that have been given a similar strategy from whomever is responsible for dictating the business narrative,” George said, “they’re interpreting the brief on their own channels, in their own teams and with their own ways of working. What you can find is these people are working on similar stories or deliverables, but if they’re not communicating, they don’t know that they may be duplicating effort.”
We advocate for this content-first approach at Speak. This means that the focus is on developing a corporate narrative that is applied through a single process on one editorial calendar. Content can still be tailored for different channels and audiences, but all of your organisation’s output will have a clear and consistent message behind it – and hit those all-important strategic narratives.
Marketing and comms teams may have joined forces at Santander and Pinterest, but that’s not to say that others should or will follow. What’s most important is that your teams are communicating and looking beyond a channel-driven approach – to focus on the bigger picture of your brand’s overall content strategy.
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We know overhauling your content strategy may seem like a daunting task – but that’s what we’re here for. To learn more about how we can help you find and tell the stories that matter for your audiences, in the most effective and efficient way, get in touch on LinkedIn or email gabriellebridle@speakmedia.co.uk.