Transcript for Cutting Through podcast Episode 7

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Jonathan Holt   Well, aren't we living in interesting times? In corporate digital communications at the moment, if you aren't dealing with the fallout from a trade war, an actual war, a boycott, a climate disaster, a hacking incident, and or a reputation blunder of some kind, chances are pretty good that you will be by this time next week. The good news is that the elevated risk factor means there's no shortage of recent examples of good practice to lean on if and when your own crisis comes a calling.

And is it possible that staring down risks can actually lead to somewhere better than before? We're dissecting the never-ending crisis in search of coping strategies and silver linings in this episode of Cutting Through.

I'm Jonathan Holt, Head of strategic insights at Bowen Craggs and joining me yet again in the virtual podcasting studio are Georgia Barrett, Vice President at USA and Scott Payton, CEO. 

Scott and Georgia, the global risk factor is off the scale in so many different ways at the moment. And that's exhausting frankly, but let's just jump right in on the potential reasons for optimism and go to an example that we like to cite in Bowen Craggs where our survey data captured something that was on the face of it surprising, a moment where lots of angry people were coming to a well-known company's website as part of an organised campaign. And that actually improved the company's reputation metrics. Normally, we would expect the opposite of that to happen, at least for the duration of that spike in visits. And the reason it didn't happen in this case seemed to be that this company had published so much clear information about itself and was so transparent about its reputation efforts that these site visits, which began in anger, resulted in a lot of people feeling actually quite positively about the company. What can communicators do to affect this kind of turnaround, do you think?

Georgia Barrett   Well, I think this data is just so fascinating because it shows that your company's website really does have the power to change hearts and minds and that if you're using your corporate digital channels correctly, then they are more powerful than ever as a risk and reputation management tools. So, you know, how can you actually do this? I mean, as you say, Jonathan, think transparency is a huge part of it. The corporate website should clearly state all of the answers to common questions that people have about your company, and it should also lay out your company's policies and positions very clearly and I think we'll talk more about that later because that is an increasingly important point in this time of AI search and people turning to companies for the answers really. And then while you're at it, the corporate website should not have any jargon, it should avoid acronyms and in-house terminology and that is even more important as we've spoken about on this podcast before in a polarised world where terms like ESG and DEI have been politically weaponised.

Also, to draw on the topic of our podcast episode last time about storytelling, the corporate website is the perfect place to be human and show your actions through stories and in the words of the people involved, so your employees and the CEO, for example. And stories are really effective ways to talk about these difficult or contentious topics, especially at a time of crisis. And Bowen Craggs have actually just launched a deep dive service that provides targeted recommendations specifically on this topic. And it will help you fortify your corporate website and other channels at this time of really intense global volatility.

Scott Payton   Yeah, and just I totally agree with all of those points, Georgia. All I just add, simply add that as well as avoiding acronyms and jargon and politically weaponised terms, it's also really important for companies to talk about topics related to the crisis in question in the language that is used by critics and real people in general. I think there's often a danger of a tendency for companies to divert into corporate speak, especially during a crisis. And it's important to be kind of honest and real.

Jonathan   Well, with all that in mind, historically major crises have sometimes been actually formative for the companies that were involved in them. I think it's a coincidence that the two companies that have been at the top of the corporate digital communications index for the past few years, Nestlé and BP, both had really big reputation crises a number of years back that forced them to up their communications game on the digital channels and elsewhere.

And so do we get better at addressing whatever might come their way in the intervening years. Can you think of any more recent examples of corporate crises that have led companies to, for lack of a better phrase, a better place in their digital comms?

Scott   Yeah, think Rio Tinto, the mining company, is a great example of that. It had a big crisis in Australia in 2020, five years ago, when its mining activities inadvertently destroyed some ancient rock shelters that were considered sacred by local indigenous people. Big crisis. But since then, and right up to this very day, Rio Tinto has approached the topic and the fallout from that topic, we call radical honesty. It's provided clear, transparent information on its corporate website to explain what the company's been doing to learn from past mistakes and to focus on being a force for future good. And if you go to riotinto.com, you'll see that there's not, and look at the information about this incident, you won't find the sort of stereotypical text only press statements, but you will find rich editorial material with images and videos and testimonials from the people on the ground. yeah, RioTinto.com.

Jonathan   Boeing is another interesting example. They have had a string of fairly hight profile safety incidents in the past few years, which has created a reputation issue for them, and they have responded to this by creating some very visible safety and quality pages to their corporate website. Everything is date stamped, the language is very clear and direct. And if you Google, “Is Boeing serious about improving safety”, then it's their safety and quality pages that are heavily cited in the AI overviews. After the recent tragic crash of an Air India plane, those safety pages probably were getting more traffic than usual, and Boeing also put a statement about that incident right at the top of their home page. 

Let's get into some of the nuts and bolts of how a crisis response in the heat of the moment can help to improve a company's reputation. And first off, what should communicators do?

Georgia   Well, it's really hard to prepare for the unknown, but some advice that is really tangible and actionable is this idea of having your company values and purpose as your North Star. So often these things are seen as quite fluffy, but if they're done correctly, they can really guide your actions during times of crisis. So, a good preparation step is to ensure that you know your company purpose. It's clearly articulated both internally and externally, and it means that you'll have this framework in place for if a crisis hits. And knowing your company purpose can also extend to knowing where you stand on hot topics, contentious issues, so having an up-to-date policy and positions page that can be referred back to on the corporate website is also just a good preparation step. And I came across a quote recently which is:

"What a company says is synonymous with what it is and what it believes. So, taking carefully considered courageous positions is the new standard and I think that is just more important than ever really."
The quote is from Sally Sussman and she's the Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Pfizer, a company that during the pandemic and in 2022 went through quite a few crises. So, think she's quite well placed to talk about all of this. 

Scott   And all of those things are kind of baked into the new global risk deep dive consultancy service that the team mentioned earlier Georgia. Yeah, I'd add that as well as all that if you're a web team, it's also important to have dark sites and other templates waiting in the wings ready to deploy at three o'clock in the morning perhaps in the event of a major crisis or tragedy and to have draft content ready to deploy to. So just kind of be prepared.  

Jonathan   Drilling further into the nuts and bolts of dealing with risk on digital channels, what's the role of the home page in a moment of crisis or elevated risk?

Georgia   Yes, I think the home page is really interesting. It's obviously your shop window and it's the billboard that explains who you are and what you do and what you stand for to the entire world. So, it makes sense that the home page could update sometimes if a crisis is happening. And we've seen this in action. For example, when the invasion of Ukraine happened in 2022, some companies such as GSK updated their home page with statements explaining what they’re doing in response to these global events. 

And a trend that we are starting to see recently is that companies are using their home page to give really up-to-date insights into what is happening at the company and in the world. So, Verizon has now integrated social media feeds directly onto the corporate home page. So, when disasters are happening, such as the recent wildfires in California, the home page is this one-stop shop of how the company is responding, what help is available. And it's very up to date because it's a social media feed. So, if visitors are coming to your site with questions, then it can be good to answer these immediately on the home page. 

Scott   Yeah, and I think there's quite a lot of lessons from Covid here because that was a time where a lot of companies used their homepage to kind of provide their customers and other and their employees and others with up-to-date information on how the company was responding to this unprecedented event and keeping people safe. 

And yeah, I think there's the message, the lesson, one of the lessons there is, you know, if there is a major crisis, is often a kind of temptation to bury it, to bury the bad news. But it's really important to provide prominent and clear signposts to that information. And burying the bad news is going to be self-defeating if a crisis is already all over the news media. So, make it easy to find.

Jonathan   Yeah, I mean, if something big happens - and it's, you know, to do with a company - I think more and more people are inclined to go to the company's website to see what they're saying about it and it obviously would be a bit off if they're not saying anything there's a... on the home page because that's where it would be the most logical place to signal that we're on this.

I came across an example that I like recently of Maersk, which has an overlay that floats at the bottom of the screen on its homepage. And that's used to spotlight sort of topical issues. And right now, or at least as of the day, as we're recording this, it's that notice is about global tariffs, which of course is a topic that has huge relevance for a company that's operating in global shipping. And then they also have a thin module that they roll out occasionally that's yellow and very visible at the very top of the homepage, which they're using for things like to note the upcoming site outages for their customers and that sort of thing. All of this makes the home page more useful and more relevant and more immediate.

What about social media? Because for a reputation crisis, social media channels often seem like the front lines. Are some channels more important than others in that context?

Scott   You need to consider social media use during a crisis in two ways. The first being using social media channels for getting the message out about your response to the crisis. X for example seems to be an appropriate because it's a news focused channel. If you're on X using kind of news oriented social channels for getting the message out is important.

But at the same time, if you're using X to provide messages on your response to a crisis and there is a big crisis happening, it's also important to kind of make sure you read the room, as it were, on other social channels. So if there's something very bad happening that you're responding to, make sure that you don't have sort of happy, clappy Instagram posts sends the message that everything's great. So, it just takes a kind of holistic look at what kind of mood you're conveying on social media as well as using social media to get the message out.

Georgia   Yeah, and think social media can be a really good place to direct questions and comments back to the corporate website as the hub or the place that has the detailed information available because social media is quite bite-sized. You're often getting a lot of questions so having the corporate website as a fallback and directing people there which as we saw from the data earlier is a good thing as well and then I think it can also be appropriate to pause social media sometimes I'm not sure what you both think about that but depending on the crisis.

Scott   Yeah, think that there's crises that in all sorts of shapes and sizes. And I think if you are using, for example, an Instagram feed to promote sort of positive, light-hearted perhaps material, then having a kind of polite pause seems to make sense in certain circumstances.

Jonathan   I never used to think so, but I increasingly do because of the fact that particularly when the company is being subjected to an organised campaign or an organised campaign has stoked some big moment where lots of people are furious at the company and leaving comments, then every post you make, whether it's about that topic or about something else, is amplifying that. 

So that, yeah, I think there's a sensible pause as long as it doesn't go on for too long because then you would start to lose trust and lose your position in the conversation. Social media clearly has a role in feeding crises and bringing them into the fore, but there's a double-edged sword aspect to that, isn't there, that social media can also potentially, by its very presence, make crisis management a little bit easier? 

I mean, if nothing else, it serves as a kind of early warning system for issues that are brewing.

Scott   There's no doubt that social media can be a powerful listening tool before, during and indeed after a crisis to see what's being said, what rumours and fake news potentially is swirling around and again what language are people using to talk about the topic and the incident and our Bowen Craggs clients, those that run our surveys on their corporate websites during difficult or turbulent times very much get hugely valuable first hand comments from customers, job seekers, investors and others during a crisis. you can kind of get, it's a similar thing for social media. 

But on the set at the same time, social media does make misinformation about a crisis easier to kind of spread. So, it's really important, my view, to provide the definitive crisis response hub, information hub, on the corporate site and then use social media channels to point people to this single version of the truth.

Jonathan   Do you think that companies were daring to actually do that? I've had my doubts that, let's just say, I certainly had seen my share of corporate social channels that were going nowhere near whatever incident was taking place.

Scott   I think it depends on the crisis, the type of crisis that it is. And if it's a fast-moving event where there are where there are important developments that people need to know about, think it absolutely is appropriate to use to use social media to provide reliable news and updates about the crisis.

Crises do come in different shapes and sizes and there can be somewhere there are all sorts of legal issues, I imagine, around what can and can't be said, or should and shouldn't be said, in the opinion of the legal team. I think it's important when your crisis scenario planning, to plan for a wide range of different types of crises and tailor accordingly.

Georgia   I think it's very interesting at the moment. As a side note, that we're in a time where some of the richest and most powerful people are turning to social. I'm thinking about Elon Musk and Donald Trump using their platforms that whole dynamic speaks to the scrappy world we're living in.

Jonathan   The way that social media has become a place for dialogue of all kinds, including quite vicious ones. In other words, if a company is tattling along, posting shiny, happy things on their social media channels, they're probably not really using them to the full, right? 

Scott   Absolutely. I think when you're a company scenario planning, what happens, a scenario of what happens if the president of the United States or the world's richest man attacks us on a social media channel, that's a very plausible crisis scenario to plan for.

Jonathan   Yes, and possibly lining that up right alongside of the impacts of tariffs, the impact of global conflicts, of local conflicts. There's lots of different risks in the ether. And so, for better or worse, I guess right now the corporate digital communicators job has gotten real in the sense that everyone needs to be thinking about what could be coming their way. And hopefully the worst doesn't happen, of course, but and imagining how their communications and all their channels would play out. 

Well, the spectre of AI is never far from our minds. And so, I want to ask about whether AI changes anything in terms of how corporate crises are playing out. 

Georgia   I think AI search is changing the way that crises play out. So, by AI search, we are obviously thinking about Google AI overviews, AI mode, chat GPT, and just different ways that people are finding out information about these crises. We're starting to get some data around, does the fact that search is changing mean that there are less clicks onto the corporate website? 

It's not been proven that it's necessarily meaning less people go to the website. But what I think it does show is that if people are getting information from other sources that are outside your control as a company, which has always been the case, but I'd say now more than ever, then it does make it harder to stay silent as a company. So perhaps you should be making a statement, whereas in the past maybe you would avoid it, so as to maximize the chances that your viewpoint will be brought up in an AI overview or on chat GPT, because otherwise the conversation is just happening without your input.

Jonathan   I'm struck by the Boeing example that you gave of if someone was searching on the topic of Boeing and safety, is Boeing taking safety seriously? 

AI search makes it so much easier for people to see the mix laid out alongside each other of what the company is saying, what others are saying. And I'm thinking that, you know, there's been a lot of emphasis on making sure that you're getting your GEO, which is a term that started to fly around quite a bit, right, so that you're in that conversation.

And there are various tips and tricks for doing that, but just being there may not be enough. What strikes me is that the fact that you can see the whole range of voices so transparently, you would think over time, especially in high moments of risk and crisis, that the need for the company to say something substantial to actually address what is in those competing voices is going to be more and more.

Scott   I think a lot of companies really going to have to play some pretty quick catch up as a result of genitive engine optimization, the rise of AI search. And I would certainly really encourage every communications team to educate not only themselves about GEA, but also ensure that the senior executive team, the chief executive really understands exactly what you've elegantly articulated, Jonathan, which is how just how people are getting information about companies these days and how AI Search is presenting that information to people because, I totally agree, but I think a lot of its fast education about AI Search is absolutely vital for any communications function right now.

Jonathan   Well, there have been some really big and long-lasting international crises in recent years. The Covid-19 pandemic, course the Russia-Ukraine war. What are the transferable lessons from these crises? Or to put it another way, what should communicators be careful not to forget?

Georgia   One lesson that comes to mind is something we saw from governments all around the world, which is this daily briefing, like providing regular updates during the Covid-19 pandemic. People were giving these daily updates on what was happening and we see this as well from corporates as well as governments. So, Verizon pioneered their Inside Verizon channel during Covid as a way of getting information directly from the CEO out to all of the employees in a way that is like a trusted forum because I there's a lot of misinformation going around. yeah, frequent authentic communication that acknowledges that maybe we don't have all the facts right now but we're providing regular updates on what we do know. I think it taps into that transparency that people want to see from companies during times of crisis. 

Looking at the Covid crisis and looking at lockdowns and so on, think for me, one of the big lessons from that was that level headed, comprehensive, clear and regularly updated information, including simple things like FAQs is something that companies can and should do on their corporate site, because I think during a crisis there's a lot of almost by definition fear and uncertainty. So, the very fact of providing regularly updated detailed facts is intrinsically kind of trust building and reassuring. And I think looking at a crisis like Covid, it's not just about the corporate side and a growing number of many companies during the Covid crisis, they were putting their Covid information hub with FAQs and so on the corporate site. They were providing clear signposts to that hub, information hub on the customer sites or retail sites too, if they have them. it's really to in a during a crisis, corporate communications in becomes more urgent and relevant to other corners of communications. 

Jonathan   I want to ask about the role of storytelling in rebuilding trust. read a review recently of Rebecca Solnit's new book, No Straight Road Takes You There, in which she's quoted to say, every crisis is in part a storytelling crisis. It made me think of some of the things that we were saying last time in the podcast when we talked about the role of authentic stories and affecting reputation. What do you think?

Scott   I think that's one of the big lessons from the Rio Tinto example we talked about earlier, that in the aftermath of the crisis, it did use storytelling. It used editorial articles, mini documentaries. And I think that is the key because they can humanise the response. They can add nuance and colour and detail to the response. Rich editorial and storytelling is such a much more powerful and humanising way of talking about this kind of thing above and beyond the text only press statements that many companies have traditionally used.

Jonathan   That reminds me of an example that has now faded into the past quite a bit, but from a few years ago when Duke Energy, a large power company in the US, had an environmental disaster, coal ash spilling into a river, it was really, it shook their reputation, and I was reviewing them for the Digital Communications Index, and was really quite blown away by the degree to which, with the confidence they were using video storytelling of all kinds to bring their people front and centre and talk about all the different things they were doing to correct for this problem. It really makes you feel differently about the company. You can no longer think of it as just a nameless, faceless, evil entity that's doing horrible, horrible things in the world. 

Jonathan   Well, all the way through our cutting through conversations, we've had some fun drawing parallels between corporate cons and popular culture and companies are obviously not the only ones that have crises. Politicians do, celebrities do. Are there political or pop cultural examples of people or organisations that have staged a comeback after a crisis that could easily have spelled the end? And if so, what can we learn from those instances? 

Scott   I had two people came to mind when I was thinking about this, two very different people. One is Bill Clinton, who had his fair share of crises in the 90s when he was president. And the other one is Martha Stewart. And I was just trying to think about why they have, those two people sprang to mind. I think with Bill Clinton, he in the years after his presidency, he established the Clinton Foundation and I think it was a kind of slow road to rebuilding credibility. I think... I guess a lesson from Bill Clinton is it can take time. 

Martha Stewart is a slightly weird and wonderful and interesting one. Georgia, did you have any thoughts on Martha Stewart?

Georgia   Her come back, if you will, is down to her self-awareness and I she's not afraid to use humour when she's talking about her story and kind of embrace what happened. There's a Netflix documentary that recently came out. Like she's kind of acknowledging it, talking about it. It goes back to these points about authenticity, people's stories, transparency. Like, people want to hear from people.

Jonathan   For anyone who doesn't know, Martha Stewart went to prison for tax crimes and had to relinquish control of her company for some time wasn't in the public eye. And this seems to have been formative for her. There are stories about her teaching the other women inmates how to cook eggs in a microwave, know, and doing all sorts of things while she was incarcerated. 

But the fact of the matter is Martha Stewart, while being, sort of home cooking decor person extraordinaire, know, a person who embodies the good life and very sort of sensible, accessible values has also always been a little bit out there. I found a compilation clip of all of her appearances in the 90s with Miss Piggy.

And Miss Piggy was always sort of like saying irreverent things to her. And once something bad has happened, like going to prison, you it does change a person's persona. She's been able to be conscious of that. And it kind of picks up the badass aspects of Martha Stewart. And that's what carries forward. I think there's a parallel perhaps for companies your reputation is going to be a little bit changed and you need to be aware of and conscious of how people are thinking about you so that you can, I don't know, play up the aspects of the company culture that are plausible and viable in relation to that. 

Scott   I read somewhere about there was a crisis management expert who was one of their pieces of advice – not an online crisis management expert, just actually a political crisis management expert – who was saying their main piece of advice to people who are preparing for crises is that when you're in the crisis, you need to remember and keep in mind that crises are finite, there will be an end.
And I think that's a kind of similar point that crises are finite and then when after the crisis, as with the Martha Stewart example, these, it's important to acknowledge if appropriate that things might never be quite the same again. But people like a redemption story.

Jonathan   Let's take a short break. And when we come back, we'll turn our faces towards hope and talk through a few good reasons for corporate digital communicators to stay optimistic, even if it feels like the sky is falling in.

[Interlude: Jonathan   If you're new to Bowen Craggs you might be wondering "Bowen who?. In a nutshell, we help large companies measure and get better at online corporate communications, whether it's websites or social media channels. And we do it through benchmarking, consulting and visitor research. We also have a global knowledge sharing network, with both online and in person events to help corporate digital communicators all over the world connect with each other and the information they need most. The digital corner of corporate communications is specialised, but it doesn't have to be lonely. If you'd like to know more about us, or get our take on the biggest challenges in corporate digital communicators right now, look us up. We're at bowencraggs.com.]

Jonathan   So, this is the seventh and final episode of the first season of our podcast. And one of the themes we've been exploring the whole way along has been how to maintain clear-eyed optimism in the face of plenty of reasons to fret, worry, be anxious, and just generally to quote the 1980s children's TV persona, Pee Wee Herman, who's back in the public eye thanks to a new HBO documentary "Scream real loud". 

And you can sort of guess how I spent my Saturday morning in the 80s. One could even go so far as to suggest that the times of mass crisis historically are the very times when new ideas are born and bold new futures take shape. For this final segment of the season, I thought we could maybe ramp up the hope and optimism even more and just go all in on brightness and light. I had to look back at some of the reasons to be hopeful that we flagged up past episodes and thought we could revisit some of those just to take stock and see if we can wring out even more hopefulness.  

First up has to be AI. I know that you are both big believers in AI's potential to bring all manner of good to communications and to life itself. This was the subject of our very first episode back in October. And Scott, back then you said you thought AI was going to free up communicators' time so that we can all focus more on being creative and engaging. Six or seven months is a long time in AI years. So, do you still see it that way?

Scott   To me, it's clear that AI among communications teams that are using it, it is freeing up time, communicators time in some respects. It's making things like copy editing and proofreading and style checking quicker and easier. But at the moment, so far in 2025, that freed up time hasn't been used to, for more kind of big picture thinking and creativity because that freed up time has largely been taken up by urgent responses to regulatory changes, political changes, trade wars and culture wars and other turbulence. But in the spirit of optimism, Jonathan, AI is freeing up loads of extra time to deal with tricky things. Hooray.

Jonathan   I think that's optimistic. Georgia, what's your current take on the potential for AI to make life better in the corporate digital space? Among the clients you talk to and the people you network with in communications more widely, are you encountering evidence that AI is delivering on its promises?

Scott   Yeah, thanks.

Georgia   Yeah, I think you can see a big difference from October even to now. I think a few months ago there was a lot of excitement, but I don't know, it was quite small things. People were using AI to write the alt text on their images on their website, for example, or it started with translations, that kind of thing. But now most big companies do have their own version of chat GPT or something similar, which is completely safe and walled off. It's fully trained on their own style guide and tone of voice and it can just help do these mass audits of an entire website's copy, spell check, turn things into from very regulatory legal language and to be more friendly. 

So, it's doing a lot of the I guess the boring work which does give writers and editors more time to do the fun stuff. So, I think it is starting to deliver on its promise. But yeah, there's also the Mark Twain quote of "I didn't have time to write you a short letter so I you a long one". think AI is really helping with this smart brevity infographic way you know it's like easier than it ever was before to be more effective in your communications. Yeah. 

Jonathan   And we're just the start, aren't we? Really, it's early days for this AI revolution. So, no doubt we'll continue to talk about it in many different ways as time progresses. 

We did an episode on social media back in February, which we called a new era for corporate social media. Okay, we had a question mark at the end, so I guess we were sort of hedging our bets. But that notion felt almost prescient to me the other day when two social media managers from major companies came along to a Bowen Craggs Club webinar and spoke passionately about how social media is, in their view, in fact, entering a newly creative and impactful phase. What does the new, more creative social media look like in practice?

Georgia   I think it's all about what we've been saying the whole way through, which is that human stories win every time and social media is a great place to be really human and relatable with your communications. 

And yet another thing we're seeing is that there's just so much happening in the social media feeds. You have to really stand out to get any kind of attention. So, something really innovative that Unilever are doing is experimenting with influencer style TikTok formats, but for non-traditional audiences. So, they're using these TikTok-esque green screen videos where you have a floating head that kind of talks to you to talk to their investors. So, it's kind of an IR tool, which yeah, I just think it's very different than before. But the proof is in the pudding because their most creative video for the Unity of a Team was also their best performing video.

Jonathan   Interesting. I mean, yeah, investors are one of the areas where you least expect there to be a lot of creativity going on. 

And finally, back in November, we did an episode on how to navigate the culture wars. I asked you both for some reasons for optimism in the face of all the conflict. And Scott, you memorably quoted the American political commentator, David Brooks, saying that people can be up in arms only for so long and that if history is a guide, then just over the horizon, there is some new cultural moment coming. My question for both of you now is six months or so later and with seemingly no eminent end in sight in the array of crises and discord are we any closer to the new cultural month?

Scott   Well, I think perhaps I've been surprised by how much stamina people have at having being up in arms because they are being up in arms. This does continue. But I think we we might be moving towards what I would call a post misinformation age in the sense that there are some areas of political and cultural discourse, not least on X, for example, where people seem to have essentially given up even pretending to be presenting the facts, the truth, and people seem to be therefore giving up believing what they read or, thanks to the rise of deepfakes and so on, given up believing what they see. I genuinely think this is an opportunity because it's leaving a growing majority of people of majority of job seekers, customers, investors and others increasingly thirsty for the truth. 

And companies, businesses are better placed than they ever have been before to quench that thirst for the truth. In the age of AI and post misinformation, corporate communications must be at its core about positioning the company as the source of that truth that people that truth that people are increasingly thirsty for and they need to do it authentically and clearly and with humanity. And when I was thinking about this podcast episode, I remember that about 15 years ago, I interviewed the the founder of Brunswick Group, which is a big international Public Relations and Reputation Management Company advises many of the world's biggest companies, advises the senior leadership teams of many of the world's biggest companies on reputation management, including during crises. And he said then that his key advice to the chief executives that he works with is to assume that anything they say or write anywhere will end up in the public domain. So therefore, it's vital for them to be honest and consistently honest. And this was 15 years ago and here we are in 2025 and I think that that advice is truer than ever. But now there's a bigger truth vacuum in the world which companies through their corporate websites and social media channels can fill.

That's optimistic, isn't it?

Georgia   Yeah, it is.

Jonathan   That quote that we mentioned earlier from David Brooks, I'm pretty sure that was put out into the world very shortly before a presidential election that, you know, rocked people's understanding of, you know, where things were going and that perhaps David Brooks was imagining a time when, you know, Donald Trump was not the new president and that something would happen beyond that. So there is this possibility that for the time being, in fact, it's the reality that for the time being, the new phase is something seemingly that is just going to be a more sustained disruption of crisis making and tearing up the rule book and that people are gonna have to get used to that I feel like David Brooks must be one of the patron saints of cutting through because literally last night as we're recording this, a new column posted from him on the New York Times in which he talked about all of this. Some of things that he said really struck me as being relevant, and it's about being conscious of that we're in a really big shift right now and that we all have to adapt to a new historical era. And then he says, that's only accomplished by visionaries and people willing to shift their entire worldview. So, you know, here we are in this very disconcerting time. Big, scary things are happening. Big, scary and wonderful things are happening. I'm thinking about AI. And perhaps each of us, you know, has to ask ourselves, where do we sit in this? And are there opportunities bubbling up out of it all to be visionary, to think in completely new ways?

So yes, I think what you said, Scott, is absolutely optimistic and that we should be sort of shouting it from the rafters that we're not all hostages to the situation that we can start to imagine a way forward out of all of this smoke and mirrors and chaos the quote that you had, about CEO comments being in the public domain, arguably, it's all part of this. And what was true of CEOs 15 years ago is now true of everyone. Virtually everything everyone does is traceable. And so, there's kind of nowhere to hide. And that's either a scary thought or a liberating one. You know, that let's just go with the truth. Let's tell new truths. 

Let's finish off with a round of "ray of effing bright sunlight roundabout" in which we each share some parting thoughts around reasons to be hopeful, or at least hopeful-ish, about the state of communications and install the churn that's happened.

As usual, I'll go first to avoid having the last word. And I want to shine a spotlight on what's happening this Pride Month. June is traditionally considered to be Pride Month in the world. And in recent years, that's been a time when rainbows galore have appeared on corporate channels. And I think that's happening a great deal less right now. And as someone who sits under the LGBTQ umbrella myself, I have sort of mixed feelings about that because pink washing is real.
A lot of that sort of bonanza of rainbowishness was performative and superficial. And it's not great, you know, that companies are scared to put that out there. But the inflection point, this moment of, you know, let's think about what all this means and what we do with it is possibly a very helpful thing. There was a CNN article recently that delved into this, and they quoted someone from GLAAD, a media monitoring and advocacy organisation, as saying that this moment is leading to a deepening and broadening of efforts to engage with LGBTQ communities in companies, and that that will ultimately be perhaps a very good thing.

So, I think there's a message there for anyone in our audience who cares about this to be conscious of that possibility and maybe try to stoke some of that in their own organisations, and also be ready to tell those stories when the time is right. 

Georgia   So the purpose of Bowen Craggs is "leading the charge for clearer and more trusted communications", and I think that is a reason to be optimistic and to your point about dialling back pink washing and hopefully leading to a more genuine and authentic support from companies of LGBTQ plus... I think like we're heading in a good direction towards authenticity towards transparency and it's driven by you know all the stuff we're seeing with AI search and everything that we've spoken about today, but I think we're heading to a better place from companies so that's my ray of optimism.

Jonathan   Thank you.

Scott   And I've got a related point, which is the thanks to the as a result of the rise of misinformation, I think the need for the truth, the desire for the truth has become greater and the value of the truth has become greater because it's become scarcer.

All of this does mean that high quality, honest, detailed, clear online corporate communications is more valuable and more attractive and more needed and more important to the world than it ever has been before. And it reminded me of towards the end of 2024, we held one of our roundtable events with online corporate communications professionals. And we were talking about misinformation and one of them said – the Head of digital communications at one of the world's biggest multinational companies – he said, "This is our time. This is our time. Our job is more important than ever". And I think that is a reason to be optimistic: that online corporate communicators are more important to the world than ever before.

Jonathan   Well, what a powerful thought to end on. This has been, as ever, such a great and stimulating conversation. Thank you both. 

That's it for this episode of Cutting Through. As always, you can find links to articles and best practice examples discussed in today's show, plus a variety of further reading at bowencraggs.com/podcast. If you liked what you heard today, please consider sharing the podcast with a colleague. All episodes of Cutting Through are available for download on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back later in the year with yet more conversational forays into the questions and challenges facing corporate digital communicators today. But for now, have a good summer and thanks for listening.

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