An internationally active German company in the field of automation technology had developed a product innovation that was pioneering for the company and groundbreaking for the market - but also required a lot of explanation. As the company had been successful for many years with products (commodities) that required little explanation, marketing and corporate communications had to realign themselves for this disruptive change. The interim manager was hired as Director of Corporate Marketing to develop a global marketing strategy for the product innovation and to realign the communication of the corporate strategy along with it.
Vision & Mission: Implementing the strategy in internal and external communication
When the interim manager joined the project, external consultants had begun to coordinate a new, global corporate strategy with the management. Among other things, the interim manager played a key role in developing a new vision and mission from the strategy and implementing these in marketing and corporate communications.
Driving cultural change in marketing and corporate communications
The company's product innovation consisted of a technology that can be seen as disruptive. This disruption - for customers as well as for the company itself - required a complete cultural change for external and internal communication, in which all customer and production-related departments of the company had to be involved.
Communicating disruptive change without damaging the high brand value
The challenge for product communication was, on the one hand, to involve all internal stakeholders in the transformation process. On the other hand, it was important to convince the market - but without irritating existing customers.
In order to overcome this challenge, the interim manager worked with an external agency to develop maritime motifs as key visuals for the product campaign: a lighthouse, for example, does not force anyone to follow it, but it makes sense to follow the beacon. The background to this idea: the motif gives viewers the opportunity to follow their own reason rather than feeling ordered around.
Communication goals redefined and project plan developed
In the meantime, the interim manager had determined which communication goals needed to be achieved (communication needs analysis) and developed a corresponding project plan.
In order to reduce internal skepticism, she worked with the agency to develop a targeted information campaign tailored to the countries. The workforce was "captured" step by step. This included intranet pages, staff meetings, family and staff parties, as well as notices and screens (e.g. in the lobbies and canteens): Consistent internal communication ultimately ensured that the new corporate message reached all employees - and strengthened the workforce's confidence in the new corporate strategy and product innovation.
With social media promotion and media presence to branding success
Social media played a central role in external communication. Under the leadership of the interim manager, the corporate marketing and PR team developed content and used the relevant social media channels. The result: within a short space of time, the five-digit number of LinkedIn followers grew by more than a third.
Based on her excellent network in specialist media, the interim manager also succeeded in launching a far-reaching PR campaign. She placed employees of the company in target group-specific interviews and prestigious compendiums and initiated interviews with experts from the company as opinion leaders. For the first time in decades, the company had a media presence, including front pages and stories.
In parallel to the social media promotion, the media presence was fundamentally built up. In the first quarter alone, the presence corresponded to a media performance (Equvialent Advertising Value, EAV) of more than 250,000 euros: "merit based", i.e. without having invested this amount in advertising.
Employees won over to the change | product becomes sales driver
The communication initiatives of the interim manager and her teams had multiple effects. The product innovation has since developed into one of the client's key sales drivers. Thanks to the quickly implemented marketing strategy, it was also possible to get ahead of similar products from the competition - and to defend this lead.
The mood in the company also benefited. As awareness grew, so did pride in being part of a success story. More and more employees became active on social media themselves and thus became ambassadors for the company - which also had a positive impact on the company's employer branding. Applicants sometimes got in touch to say that they were "impressed and wanted to join in."
