In this blog post, Harsh Moorjani, a student pursuing his final year LLB at Government Law College, Mumbai and a Diploma in Entrepreneurship Administration and Business Laws from NUJS, Kolkata, discusses the importance of corporate communication with respect to media and advertising relations. 

Introduction

“Corporate Communication” the term refers to the voice of a body corporate, which essentially conveys the current or future ventures/status of a company.

Imagine an institution without a voice or effective communication mechanism and the corporate scenario will turn chaotic. As a company has to face a lot of turbulence during its lifetime, i.e., perpetuity in most cases, it constantly requires a flux of capital, the young, intelligent talent that delivers, happy investors, stable, progressive balance sheets, etc. The representatives of the company, i.e., the CEO, Directors or at times the employees make sure they attract the best and represent the voice of the institution unambiguously.

The communication can be external or internal, where in the former the afore representatives will try to deliver the path or vision of the company to current/prospective investors, vendors, media/advertising agencies etc., whereas in the latter they will try to communicate the working, day to day structure, perks, the motivation framework of the company to its employees. The communication can further be divided as top-down, bottom-up, horizontal, etc.

Importance

Corporate communication is a rudimentary practice and has certain generic benefits/importance.

Effective and unambiguous corporate communication plays mammoth importance as it helps the company to generate more sales, retain or acquire further clients, it enables to build a brand image of the company which enables the company to maintain dominance in its field based on its face value/market value. It further gives impetus to create a global presence in the field and also allows interested parties/institutions to extend a helping hand at the time of crisis. These are the standalone important characteristics/traits of effective communication which every corporate should aim to achieve via oral or written communication.

Media and Advertising Relations

Corporate communication mainly dealing with the media or advertising agents to further relations is a subset of external communication.

Corporates via the medium of media and advertising influence the market economic meters, which in turn affects their stocks, affecting investors, in turn leading to a chain reaction of events. Most of the times media and advertising agents are a subsidiary group of corporates whereby the representatives of body corporate enforce to create a homogenous dominance for the body corporate through their subsidiary media groups and lobby mechanisms.

To illustrate the same: A product based corporate shall lobby and influence the economic policies/framework via media and advertising agents to gain market dominance to clear its inventory.

The control of media and advertising agents by body corporates to promote and satiate their needs ultimately leads to a global corporate culture with no diversity whatsoever based on their geographical location.

Most countries restrict the corporates to certain regulations while marketing in ad agencies. Corporate communication can be destructive if falsely advertised and can be highly constructive if rightly utilized.

A company via media and advertising agencies can let investors know where their money is being appropriated; it can share their future reshaping plans, the current projects, the future projects and can build a brand that people can place reliance upon.

To illustrate the same: The recent event held by Facebook where their CEO Mr. Mark Zuckerburg laid down the plan for the next ten years of the company lead to investor satisfaction and reaffirmed the faith of investors in the company which is evident by the stock prices of the leading social company.

But at the same time, there is a downside as corporates use media to influence consumer culture and falsely advertise their products for further monetary benefits.

For example, in countries like Pakistan, there are no consumer protection norms which allow corporates to leverage this loophole.

Corporate communication importance is required at each stage of a company to let the masses know the path the company is set to embark upon but if arm twisted to misrepresent and lure investors/consumers into a trap can be highly dangerous.

Conclusion

The Global influence and penetration of advertising and media cannot be ignored. The force of media comes from the creation of a marketplace and consumer d