How To Create Award-Winning Corporate Content 2019

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Show 78 was produced in partnership with Communicate Magazine, as for the second year running, we were speaking to two of the winners of their Corporate Content Awards.

Russell Goldsmith was joined in the studio by:

• Brittany Golob, Communicate’s Publishing Editor
• Dagmar Mackett, Director of Film, Video and Motion, DRPG
• David Boardman, Director of Communications and Engagement, MyCSP – administers the civil service pensions arrangements

L-R: Dagmar Mackett, David Boardman, Russell Goldsmith and Brittany Golob

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Brittany said there was an increasing quality of content across all the award winners and an increasing use of content with the strategic communications foundation with more uses of multimedia, using AR, using Alexa and other voice assistants, using better video or better radio and embedding that really firmly within a strategic background.

Backgrounds to all the campaigns and judges’ comments are available at the Corporate Content Awards website.

DRPG & Jaguar Land Rover: ‘Let’s Have The Conversation’

Gold winner for ‘Best content targeted to the CSR community’ and ‘Best content targeted to the internal audience’

Dagmar explained that lots of very responsible employers these days have recognised over the last few years that they need to acknowledge that mental health issues are something that affects them and affects their workforce and Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), being one of those very responsible employers, realised that they had to do something about it. She said that they had some support in place but actually they found that a lot of that support was not very well publicised, so they tried to figure out how to make sure that more of their employees were aware of the support that’s out there.

DRPG worked with JLR’s internal communications team to develop the campaign that would be publicised mainly through their internal channels. Dagmar said that they called it ‘Let’s have the conversation’ because that’s really where it all starts and that it’s really important for people with mental health issues to understand that they can talk to somebody. That’s the first step.

The key to the campaign was three films that would tell the real stories of three employees, which are available to view at http://www.jlrmentalhealth.com/home

Dagmar explained that it wasn’t easy to find the case studies and to get them to open up on camera either but the ‘casting process’ for want of a better term, was actually key in that. She said that the time it took from agreeing with JLR that they were going to do the films to the actual filming starting was a lot longer than the actual filming and post-production process. DRPG therefore worked with JLR to find the right people. What they wanted to do was show that it Mental Health can affect anybody. Therefore, the three case studies included:

1. Matt, a Senior Manager who had a stress related breakdown
2. Kat, a middle manager who suddenly realised she’d been suffering from severe depression all her life and hadn’t been aware until she again suffered a complete breakdown
3. Trevor, a factory worker, who used to be in the army, was in Afghanistan, and was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder

Three very different stories that allowed JLR to show that it doesn’t really matter who you are and what your job is, it can affect you in an equal manner.

DRPG worked with the internal comms team to find people who would be willing, potentially, to step in front of the camera and it was a process of elimination. Dagmar said that they put a call out and a few people came forward, then some of them decided they weren’t ready to talk after all and in fact, getting the three final case studies to open up was not that easy either. Therefore, leading up to the filming, there were lots of conversations. DRPG’s director spoke to each of the case studies a number of times on the phone and the filming actually happened in two different sections. The interviews were filmed first in a quiet room with very little crew, effectively they only had the cameraman and the director who had been speaking to all three before on the phone a number of times, which meant that there was already a rapport there. Once the interviews had been captured, DRPG then knew what kind of other shots they wanted to get to put over the top of them on the video. So, for example, Dagmar explained that part of Matt’s recovery was physical exercise and he has actually taken up a triathlon and so, they filmed him swimming at the start of the film and the moment when he talks about being pulled under, they showed him diving on the video, which was quite powerful.

Dagmar felt that Matt was so sincere when he spoke and you hear that he pauses a couple of times and he sighs and his voice breaks in a couple of instances, which she thinks is really powerful.

Dagmar said the campaign has had a huge impact internally at JLR. It was launched on World Mental Health Day in October and the uptake of the channels of the website show that 79% of all employees watched either one of all of the films within the first month of launch, which they can measure through the IP addresses. The phone lines to call also had a lot more feedback

Brittany said that the 79 % was definitely something that the judges picked up on but that they also said it was a very powerful use of emotion and that brought the issue to life but that it also took a really strong approach to a critical business and employee engagement issue

David added that what stood was the authenticity.

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MyCSP – Pension Power

Gold winner for ‘Best copy style or tone of voice’ and ‘Best use of content within an existing external community’ plus ‘Best Corporate Storyteller’.

David said that MyCSP carried out a lot of research to identify what the barriers were to the Civil Service Pension Scheme’s members becoming engaged with their benefits and this was really a strategic objective. They wanted to make sure the members engaged and understand their benefits, that they value them as well from a reward point of view and they make informed choices.  However, when they went out to do the research, they found was there were a number of barriers that stopped people from doing all of those things, including the fact that the topic was perceived as dull and boring, and all members wanted to know was how they were worth. David added that previously there was a lot of hyperbole around the topic with lots of big words and lots of syllables and when the research said, ‘I think the pension is really important, but I really don’t understand it’, that was the key to MyCSP wanting to go big, bold and colourful, to use alliteration and to be ‘tabloid’, because they understood their audience engages in that way.

The term ‘power’ was used because David explained that you need to have the power to make informed choices. The create treatment included and online quiz called ‘Are your pension savvy?’, that included four characters, one of which would match the personality of the player.

David said that they don’t expect people to visit the website fourteen times a week – it’s not a retail site and you’re not transacting there. However, you can be informed to then make choices and can use a Retirement Modeller to find out what you’re worth.

The campaign also had a live element to it, as it was presented around the country at Civil Service Live.

David said that they have already seen over 100,000 people use the Retirement Modeller from a standing start in June/July last year when it launched.

Brittany added that in terms of being ‘Best Corporate Storyteller’, one of the things was taking a multi-platform approach, but some of the things that the judges also pointed out were ‘Big bold tone of voice, with eye catching visuals’, and ‘knowing your audience’ and that, in terms of tone of voice, ‘it felt more like a snack brand’, which for Brittany was great because it’s supposed to make you want to hear from them rather than ‘oh god, pensions’.  She also added a final judge’s comment was: ‘Bold striking and assertively challenging in expectations of what pension communications can look like. Great outcome measurements and delivered with a refreshing boldness’.

Budgets

When it comes to budgets, Dagmar said that they did have a healthy budget for their JLR campaign and that knew from the start what that was. However, she added that you can do something with any budget and that it is really about finding the right solution.

Other campaigns that stood out

Brittany picked up on a couple of other winners.

Best Use of Video (Gold) – Leeds Playhouse, which recently rebranded from the West Yorkshire Playhouse, where they filmed a video talking through some of the things that they do at the Playhouse using someone from Leeds with an authentic voice sharing those stories. The judges loved it in terms of authenticity and getting to the heart of the brand and its position in the Leeds cultural landscape

Best Use of Audio (Gold) – Audere Communications and ADAMA Agricultural Solutions UK, which Brittany felt was such a simple solution, looking at farmers who spend a lot of time in their vehicles and how they can reach them and that podcasting was a great way to do that because they’re driving, they’re working but you can listen to the podcast.

Best Use of Video (Bronze) – Gett UK and DRPG – Brittany also liked the ‘Gett UK’ series of films that DRPG worked on as she felt they built a connection with the people behind the black cabs on an emotional level and it showed how the app worked without having to take you through it, which was therefore creative, simple, effective work.

Entries to the Corporate Content Awards 2020 open in May 2019

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