What should we learn from Peru's country brand?

New Peru's brand in New York

Peruvian fast growing economy is a reality that is impossible to deny for international markets, after 20 hard years of terrorism and political problems, that almost destroyed the ssouth american country. The sense of being Peruvian needed new reasons to grow and express itself, after decades of some sort of lack self confidence.

Along with the economics growing, due to the fact of the metal high prices and free trade agreements signed with different countries, another phenomena was about to come out: Peruvian gastronomy. Average Peruvian started to have another thing that made him feel proud and confident.

The amazing citadel of Machu Picchu was chosen as one of the new seven wonders, and Peruvian people rediscovered its glorious past to share it with all people around the World.

In this context, Peruvian government took the decision of set-up the strategies to promote tourism, taking advance of our history, culture, biodiversity, traditions, gastronomy and many other aspects, but there was one thing left: country branding.

Although there were some previous identity logos that were used as some kind of country brands, a new branding architecture was incharged to FutureBrand, in order to apply the new marketing plan.

The project started in 2009 and the country brand itself was launched in 2011. Its first target was Peruvian people, who had to know and love its country brand as a mix of richness, opportunities, landscapes, and beautiful scenarios.

The logo itself is a clear reference to the Nazca lines, but according to FutureBrand it represents change and transformation, along with the concept that Peruvians are in search of their own path and interests.

Peru Brand

What should we learn from Peru's country brand?

1.   A brand should based on reality

You can't build a brand without a base on reality. Peru's brand represents attributes that already exist, nothing is invented. So the brand should have credibility and coherence to be accepted by our main targets.

2.   Clear message

Peru's logo has a clear message for people around the world, easy to be understood. In the same way our corporate communications should apply the same principles:

Clarity.

Simplicity of language and concepts

No abstract concepts

Repetition.

Concrete action points for our main targets

3.   Working with opinion leaders

The Peruvian marketing campaign was based on local celebrities in order to motivate Peruvians to “buy” the brand. Since they behave as a opinion leaders, it was easy to “sell” the brand: they were called Peru's brand ambassadors.

4.  Internal communications is the first task

The internal audiences has to be the first to be identified by the brand. That's why Peru's brand was “sold”among Peruvians in 2011, and it was internationally launched in 2012. Without an internal work in terms of communications, you wont be able to build a brand and an effective reputation. Now, there is a emotional and inspirational connection between Peru's brand and Peruvians.

5.   After building identity, develop image and reputation

Identity among workers is based on a brand which is sold as a lovemark among them; in order to build image and reputation. In the same way, Peru's brand, with ist own identity is launched outside to improve its own reputation among its main targets: “There is a Peru for each one”.

Claves para entender el manejo mediático del indulto a #Fujimori

La peor campaña de comunicación es aquella que se torna en contra de sus propios promotores. Creo que esto le sucede a muchas organizaciones, empresas y políticos que, intentando parecer genuinos, dejan grietas  que deja ver sus cuestionables incoherencias comunicacionales.

La incoherencia comunicacional genera descrédito, ausencia de confianza y muchos miles de dólares invertidos en publicidad yendo directamente al tacho. Pero este motivo es importante cuidar cada aspecto de nuestro mensaje y los medios a través de los cuáles de va a difundir dado que la reputación de nuestra marca está en juego.

En los últimos días, se viene gestando una campaña mediática en torno al pedido de indulto a favor del ex presidente peruano Alberto Fujimori, quien purga condena en la Dirección Nacional de Operaciones Especiales, Dinoes. Ciertamente el lobby mediático, tanto a favor,  del pedido de indulto ha polarizado al país; y cada operador saca lo mejor de sí para generar una corriente de opinión.

El gobierno de Fujimori, que duró casi toda la década de los 90, se caracterizó por la utilización permanente de estrategias de manipulación mediática y de persuasión sistemática de la opinión pública que incluía compra de medios de comunicación y la súbita aparición de prensa sensacionalista digitada desde el Servicio de Inteligencia Nacional.

Pago de Vladimiro Montesinos a Jose Francisco Crousillat, en ese entonces propietario de América TV.

Cabe mencionar que en aquella estrategia estuvieron involucrados, políticos, militares, medios de comunicación, empresarios, periodistas, agencias de publicidad, jueces, animadores de televisión, y una gran variedad de personajes que colaboraron con el régimen.

Por lo tanto, las estrategias de manipulación de la opinión pública no le extrañas al fujimorismo, por lo que este pedido de indulto no podía ser la excepción. 

Agenda Setting del fin de semana.

La agenda setting, vamos a decirlo así, es el menú que los medios de comunicación nos ponen a nuestra disposición y tiene un efecto inmediato en la mente de la audiencia. De acuerdo a Wikipedia, la agenda setting ocurre a través de un proceso cognositivo denominado accesibilidad:

"Accessibility implies that the more frequently and prominently the news media cover an issue, the more instances of that issue become accessible in audience's memories" 

• Este fin de semana aparecen sendos titulares en la prensa local con porcentajes que, aparentemente, avalarían una aprobación del pedido de indulto de parte de la opinión pública dentro de zonas urbanas a nivel nacional. Cabe destacar que en el gobierno de Fujimori también manipularon encuestas y es una herramienta tradicional en el marco de las estrategias de persuasión.

• Aparece en los medios una fotografía de Alberto Fujimori que tiene la intención de generar lástima entre la opinión pública. Fotografía 

• Un nuevo ataque terrorista en el departamento del Cusco hace cuestionable la estrategia antisubversiva del actual gobierno. Cabe destacar que uno de los argumentos más usados por los simpatizantes del régimen de Fujimori es precisamente haber ¿terminado? con el terrorismo. Cabe destacar que el brazo político del movimiento terrorista Sendero Luminoso, Movadef, está a favor del indulto a Fujimori debido a que la misma lógica podría aplicarse a su líder, Abimael Guzmán.

Evidentemente, todo responde a una estrategia comunicacional apoyada por un sector importante de la prensa para generar algún tipo de apoyo de parte de la población, para que se presione al actual gobierno a favor del mencionado indulto. Ojo, mucha de esa prensa apoyó el fujimorato y, apoyó decididamente a su candidata Keiko Fujimori en las últimas elecciones presidenciales.

Sin embargo, como mencionamos en el inicio, toda campaña comunicacional debe tener un respaldo en la coherencia; cuando no es así el mensaje empieza a naufragar.

#Fujimoring

Y algo de eso ha sucedido en las redes sociales con el tema de la foto de Fujimori, la misma que ha generado una serie de parodias de todo tipo, acrecentando la sensación de fraude mediático. El hashtag #fujimoring se convirtió en trending topic.

El actor peruano Jason Day también hizo lo suyo desde su cuenta en Twitter:

Más memes aparecieron al respecto de la mencionada foto:

Aparentemente está campaña mediática recién inicia, y los actores mediáticos tendrán que ser lo suficientemente listos para evitar que sus campañas se tornen en contra de ellos mismos. Si tienen éxito o no, lo sabremos en poco tiempo. Mientras tanto, nos queda analizar los mensajes y los canales utilizados para movilizar a la opinión pública hacia sus intereses políticos, como lo hicieron en el pasado.

4 key ideas from PR to improve your social media strategy according to Judi Huck

Being a community manager means an effective communications with your audiences in terms of added value, but it is also related to good results. According to Judi Huck, an American Social Media specialist, a community manager has to work hard in order to plan his PR strategy, in which bloggers are an essential factor.

I will share with you 4 ideas that can help to improve the planification and application of a Social Media Strategy for community managers.

• Bloggers networking

There are many bloggers around, but a few of them shape public opinion and set the trends in the market. Try to get in touch with them, for they to talk about your work. This will empower your social networking. They can be considered a sort of secondary target. If they know what you do and your product, they will engange other people to your brand.

• Traditional media, why not?

Nowadays, there are many journalists on Social Media; and they are always looking for information and valuable stories to tell. Tell your story to them, attract them to your field, they could publish your information and help in your PR networking. 

Remember, a journalist wants two things:

• A good story: Work hard in an articulated and interesting story of your brand or product.
• Exclusivity: A journalist wants to be the first to tell. So choose carefully who is going to help you.

• Social Networks really work!

Join to LinkedIn, there are plenty of groups in which you could share your news and ideas, in order to strength your social community. Also, there are specialized groups in other social media, like Facebook or Twitter. 

Try to get in touch with other community managers, and exchange ideas about your work. And learn form the succesful ones.

• Write a press release

Choose a couple of journalists and send a press release with your product or service. Tell them about the advantages, and why they should talk about it. It has to be sold by itself, in a plain and clear language. Rememnber, journalists wants cuantitative information, and added value; you have to be an important source for them.

This Land is Mine, an example of viral marketing.

In these days a mix between an animation and a documentary production is being shared on Internet, which is a clear example of a sort of viral marketing example.

This Land is Mine is a Nina Paley's production, who tries to describe the conflicts that have happened in the Israel territory during the las 5 thousand years. There is a sort of black humour around the message

This animation is a mix between stylized cartoons and a Tim Buston's like song, which is really apropriated to the context ; and it is an interesting research briefly detailed about the different ethnic groups that have fought for this Promised Land during thousand of years

Nina Paley

According to Nina Paley, this video should not be taken as an exact document about the things that have happened in this territory due to the fact that the information was taken from Wikipedia, which is not alway an exact source.

I envisioned This Land Is Mine as the last scene of my potential-possible-maybe- feature film, Seder-Masochism, but it’s the first (and so far only) scene I’ve animated. As the Bible says, ”So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

In her blog, Nina attached a brief explanation of the characters who have fought for the control of this lands

This Land Is Mine from Nina Paley on Vimeo.

6 reasons why a communications professional should be a backpacker

A backpacker has many skills we can take advance of

One of the things I love the most is simply the fact of traveling. Traveling around different places is not just a geographical journey; but cultural, historical, social and even gastronomically. 

But traveling as a backpacker is even better (at least for me), just because you have to manage different aspects in order to get a goal, and this goal is not a matter of getting to some place, but the fact of enjoying the way that lead you to it.

Backpacking shapes some important skills that can be useful as a PR professional, just because we have to face similar problems while dealing with clients as a consultant or working in-house for a big company.

I’d like to share with you some of these skills I am talking about:

1.- Independence

Independence understood as the lack of dependency. A communications professional need a ratio of independence to air his ideas in order to land them as well as a backpacker can decide the best way to get to his destiny. Independence could be the freedom of set up a new project or idea, as if you were deciding to begin a new journey.

2. – Autonomy

Thanks to the independence factor a backpacker can move with autonomy, which means taking decisions freely. Even while working for a big company, people working in communications need to be able to choose the best options and alternatives in his work, without any other sort of intervention.

3. – Planification

Before you travel as a backpacker, you choose a goal; you choose the best way to get that goal, which means money, time, resources, etc. As a communications professional you need to make a plan according to you communications goals, and decide you strategies, audiences, messages, and media mix before you start, this is planification and this is learnt while traveling.

4. – Energy

I understand energy as the passion to do the work. Even when you are tired, energy is what makes us move. This energy is necessary to get our goals, even when there are lots of troubles we have to cope with. Energy is the fuel of our communications engine.

5. – Creativity

While energy is fuel, creativity is magic. While traveling we often have to wonder how to solve daily problems on the road; and the heavy rain of new experiences recreate our ideas that feed our creativity.

6. - Uncertainty management 

When you are in the middle of a journey, moreover when you are backpacking around, you frequently have to face with the unknown, the uncertainty. In the same way, working in the dynamic world of communications means to face different scenarios.

Finally, a social communicator could improve his abilities to interact with different cultures and ways of living by going backpacking and bring these skills to the daily work as a communications and PR professional.

How to develop a successful internal communications plan to improve corporate reputation?

Internal communications is probably one of the less explored fields in the world of corporate communications but it is one of the most important elements in the process of building a strong reputation and corporate image.

From my personal experience, I had the opportunity to know some companies keen on improve their image without working in important aspects of their corporate identity which means an effective process of internal communications.

But, what is internal communications?

Internal communications is the process of generation of messages throughout the whole company as an holistic perspective, and it is always present in every human actavity.

There is always internal communications from the beginning of the company, and it is shaped according to the business culture and its core values.

These insights are very important for us to understand the necessity to manage the flow of messages around the organization as a way to develop a strong identity that will be later the base of a successful reputation.

Why is important internal communications to build a strong reputation?

Workers and employees of the company are the most important ambassadors of the company. They know the business, the good points and their dirty little secrets. People outside will tend to believe what they say about the brand, the company and its leaders, no matter how millionaire our advertising campaign is; workers build the business reputation from inside the organization.

If you people are not happy, believe me, there is no way to develop a good reputation among you key stakeholders.

How to develop a successful internal communications plan?

• Where are you?

To develop an Internal Communications plan, first of all you have understand what is your position inside the company organization. It look pretty obvious, but it is extremely important to identify your possibilities and future resources in terms influence among the leaders of the organization, as well as the board of managers.

• Looking for key information

At this point you need information about the company operations, history and important milestones in the past. You also need information about its present activities and a prospective vision about the future. You also need information about your managers board: who could be you ally when you “sell” your ideas, who could buy your projects easily.

• Analize the business corporate culture

How is your corporate culture? What are their main core of values? Not only the written ones, but those which are put on practice every single day. Look carefully how is the company behaviour facing internal and external troubles. To do that, you need to develop your observation skills, this is a must.

• You need a strategy

I mean, you need a strategy about the strategy. What are you going to to first and how it is going to be presented. You are already supposed to know your allies and main listeners. You are also supposed to know the best moment to attack. So, it is important to design a little strategy to present you communication strategy.

• Tools of investigation.

Now you have the manager's approval to start working, what kind of formal investigation you need? Primary information? Secondary information? According to that you will choose the appropriate kind of tools of investigation: Focus groups, interviews, surveys, direct observation, etc.

• Identification of main audiences.

You have to determine who are you primary and secondary audiences. Remember, in the frame of an Internal Communications project, your primary audiences are those who you want to influence in order to change, or even maintain, a behaviour. Your secondary audience are those who can help you to do it: managers, middle managers, supervisors, team leaders, etc.

• Identification of communications problems

You need to identify your problematic frame. What are the elements that are part of you communications problems inside the company: motivation, values, rules, organization, lack of identity, etc.

• Setting communications goals.

Communications goals are about change of behaviour, and include the wished behaviour, the time it will be reach, and the way you will measure it. Remember, communications is about influence, and change of attitudes and behaviour.

• Setting messages

Communications messages are one of the most important part of your strategy, and they have to reach to your primary and secondary audiences. Communications messages are composed by:
A promise.
An evidence.
A tone of communication.

• Media selection

What is the best way to reach your audiences? Workshops, Social Media, TV, Radio, Emailing, Face2Face, etc. There are lots of options, but you have to choose the most effective according to your goals.

Once you have these elements clear, you can develop your internal communication plan, according to the established time that you have scheduled previously. Remember, the core of you communications plan is to get coherence, motivation and identification; without this you can't improve your external communication and corporate reputation.

5 essential insights to build a strong corporate reputation

In the last days I have had the opportunity to talk to some colleagues about the importance of corporate communications and the best way to build a strong reputation among our main stakeholders. I would say that there is not a unique recipe to do it; there are many factors that we have to take account when we face a communications project dealing with corporate reputation.

Since every company is a different world and has its own triggers, they have to create their own way that lead them to a good reputation strategy, nevertheless, there are some standard keys that can be applied to almost every company.

1. - An organization depends on other organizations to survive. Personally, I believe that managers have to understand that they are not alone as a company sailing in a quiet blue sea. It is indispensable to develop a good and strong relationship between them, looking after them and identifying the key players for the business.

2. - It is also important to generate corporate coherence. Maybe it is the hardest thing to get because not always our messages are related to our corporate behaviour. The lack of coherence generates lack of credibility and respect among our audiences.

3. - Internal Communications are essential. To create a powerful reputation it is necessary to begin with a good internal communications program. This program has to generate communications skills among managers, supervisors and workers. A good internal communications program has to create a sense of belonging among people so that they can tell the story as well.

4. - PR as an important part of our communications plan. Public Relations has the responsibility to support the management board in order to identify the main external audiences, choose the correct media, and publish the best messages to tell the story of the company. PR is more important than ever because of the Social Media growing, and this means that there are new challenges to deal with.

5. - Planification is the keyword of the reputation building. Every single step in communications must be previously planned, this means investigation and research, setting communications goals and implementations from the basis of the company to the top. Without planification we cannot create a solid and powerful corporate identity and reputation.

Finally, reputation is a matter of decision, a management decision in which the communications strategy is a indispensable key of success.

Keys of corporate communications in Andean Communities in Peru

Cosmovisión Andina by Alberto Miranda

One of the most complicated things to apply is a communications program in a different cultural environment, where there are other sort of values and beliefs, and the impact of our strategies could be less effective.

In the case of Andean cultures living in the Peruvian Highlands, we have to study carefully their most important values according to the way they understand the world in which rivers, hills, the sun, the moon and the rest of natural elements has a special place in their cosmovision.

Extractive industries and Andean communities

It is not an easy relation. Extractive industry such as mining sector comes up with occidental procedures and ways of working that are distant to the Andean working style and the way they “feel” the nature.

Andean people understand the world as a whole; this means that elements are closely related so if we produce a change in one of those elements, the whole environment can be altered as well.

Another important characteristic of this world, is that those elements are not only related but living. Elements, like the earth itself, are living entities able to feel and ready to react as a puma living in the mountains.

People who live in communities are part of the same family, but they are part of the nature too; I mean, part of the rivers, vegetation, mountains, etc.

Since nature elements are living, they have their own feelings and necessities; they dance, dream, suffer, and have human experiences.

Keys of communication

• Extractive companies must understand that they are making changes in a living world, so they need a “social permission” to work, which means being a member fully integrated of the Andean society.

• Communications must be face to face. Communities has their own social  structure and leadership. So the communications should maintain the same level, in which the most important managers can participate of the social meetings.

• Managers “must” participate in traditional celebrations and community parties. People living in Andean communities would love see the CEO of a mining company drinking some beer along to the leaders of the community.

• Collaboration and participation are important part of Andean structure. Extractive companies must understand they cannot be seen as powerful multinationals operating in this place, but as another member of this world, ready to collaborate with people.

• As good communication strategy must to take account that Andean audiences are orally developed, since that have to choose the correct media to transmit messages, and this, have to get the main characteristics of the Andean culture.

This is the only way to get an effective communication between people and nature, in which open communications is essential, as well as corporate coherence.