A QUICK GUIDE TO SPEAKING CEO LINGO FOR 09
The Fin Review recently interviewed 34 CEO’s from Australia’s top companies on their views of the upcoming year and their priorities for 09. The article shone a bright light on the corporate lingo our clients will be speaking coming into the new year and if you were thinking it’s all about innovation, consumer focus, creativity, differentiation, being brave and taking risks. Think again.
The rhetoric centres on caution, risk management, cost cutting and improving productivity. Many CEO’s dwell on the time they are taking to identify and manage risks, risk reporting, reducing personnel costs, tightening costs across business, sound risk management, cost reduction programmes, managing expense bases, cost control, driving efficiencies, cutting waste, and so on and so on. Only 3 of the 34 interviewed alluded to their brand strength/value or having a customer focus as the central pillars of their business strategy coming into ‘09.
Gail Kelly, Westpac’s CEO was the only one to talk about the business focus being centred on the customer.
“Our strategy puts consumers at the centre of everything we do. If anything the economic downturn has increased this focus.” And it seems that Westpac is putting its money where its mouth is, as the ad from the Jan 9th Fin Review testifies with the bank thanking its customers for continuing to have faith. The headline “Thank you for your confidence in us”.
Maybe it’s no accident that Westpac continue to be the leading provider of home lending in Australia and the largest provider of wealth platforms.
And Foxtel’s Kim Williams. “Investment focus is on customer facing initiatives in product improvement, fresh content, sales and marketing.”
So where does that leave us going into the New Year?
Choosing our words rather carefully! Rather than speaking up the risk, bravery and audacity required to move forward with great creative ideas or connections we should be
- talking about how our depth of knowledge and experience can help lower their cost of customer acquisitions
- reminding clients that creative ideas that connect emotionally and are cleverly placed in the right place at the right time can help to reduce the need for over the top and expensive media weights.
- proving how our unparalleled knowledge of digital connections can lower the cost of contact with the consumer and be done in a way that will reduce churn, heighten frequency, deepen brand commitment and potentially sneak under the radar of the competition.
