Transcript for Cutting Through podcast Season 2 Episode 6

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Jonathan Holt   This is Cutting Through, the podcast for corporate digital communicators. I'm Jonathan Holt, Head of Strategic Insights at Bowen Craggs. And today on the podcast, we've got something really special. For a few years now, Nestlé, the world's largest food and beverage company, based in Switzerland for anyone who doesn't know, has been overall number one in the Corporate Digital Communications Index. 

It's a position the company shares currently with consumer goods maker Bosch. And throughout this time, Ferhat Soygenis has been at the helm of the team that looks after Nestlé.com and the Nestlé social media channels in his role as Global Head of Corporate Identity and Content, reporting directly into the C-suite. We've invited him onto Cutting Through to talk about how Nestlé has been able to excel in so many areas of corporate digital communications and for his takes on how to do communications in this time of enormous flux in the world of global comms.

Ferhat, thanks so much for coming on the podcast.

Ferhat Soygenis  With pleasure. Thank you very much for the invitation.

Jonathan  Also with us is podcast regular Scott Payton, CEO at Bowen Craggs. Hi Scott.

Scott Payton  Hi, Jonathan. Hi, Ferhat. Thanks so much for joining us.

Ferhat  Good to see you, Scott.

Jonathan  Well, there's so much to talk about, but Scott, before we get into it, would you mind briefly filling in our listeners on some of the reasons why Nestlé has ranked so highly in our index for such a long time?

Scott  Sure. Lots of people do ask us regularly, how do companies like Nestlé become a world leader in corporate digital communications? Is there a secret sauce? 

And I think among many other important ingredients, there is a secret sauce which Nestlé has, which Ferhat's team has, and that is a commitment to constant ceaseless, restless, endless iterative improvement.

Never settling for second best, always moving, always evolving, always adapting, always changing, always listening to stakeholders’ needs, not being afraid to innovate, not being afraid to be bold and distinctive. And Nestlé, I think does exactly this. I hope you agree Ferhat. That's how it looks on the outside. 

And one that…  We've been out and about in the USA and around Europe at conferences and events so far this year. And one of the big things that many companies are working on right now in response to the rise of AI search is providing clear, robust, evidence-based answers to all of the big social, environmental and ethical questions that people are asking about their company via AI search tools like ChatGPT. And Nestle.com is the absolute pioneer, groundbreaker and exemplar for providing authoritative, clear, robust answers to the big questions, the difficult questions sometimes, that people are asking about that company.

There's a dedicated section of the site called “Ask Nestlé”, which I'm sure we'll talk about later. This, as far as we can see, is a hugely powerful tool for ensuring that when people ask questions about Nestlé, the answer is fed by Nestlé's own content. So a real pioneer and exemplar. I'll stop talking now and let Ferhat give some more direct, thoughts. That's the perspective from the outside.

Jonathan  I actually want to go straight to the “Ask Nestlé” topic because it really is such a standout feature. It's been in place for quite some time. And it is definitely newly relevant in that suddenly a lot of companies are scrambling to try and do something even remotely similar. There have been many attempts. I’ve certainly urged many communicators over the recent years to have a go and oftentimes those attempts have kind of led somewhere not very successful.  So now that this is newly relevant and I think we can probably expect to see a lot of teams trying this again, what advice can you give them?

Ferhat  Thank you very much. And first of all, thank you very much for the feedback on Nestle.com and on our communications. It's always great to hear these kinds of things and really also a stimulation for myself and for the team. I was blushing a little bit, I would say.

Now, “Ask Nestlé”, like you said, I mean... “Ask Nestlé” has been part of our Nestle.com and our corporate websites since a very long time now.

It has grown over the last couple of years. And I guess the best advice that I could give to someone who wants to start with an “Ask Nestlé” similar type of thing on their own corporate website is start small and grow deliberately.

Like I said, Ask Nestlé grew over time. It has built credibility within the organisation. It has become part of the process and part of the tools that we use in our department. And starting small, it really helps you to prove the value very quickly, test processes that you have, and then build that confidence internally and demonstrate that it really can work. 

So that's my high level feedback and advice that I would give. 

And then of course, if you then start to work on something like that, I think that a couple of things that you need to bear in mind is:

one: listen. Really start with the questions that people are asking. And don't shy away from the tough questions, because you want to have the answers on those tough questions because if you don't give them, someone else will give them.

And then I think a very important one, and that links also up with AI, is the plain language. Do write how people ask the questions, write the words that people use. Think about AI from the start when you work on that...

And then ultimately also have a very solid process from day one for updating and for ensuring that the answers that exist in those “Ask Nestlé” sections or modules that they are up to date.

Jonathan  One of the things that a feature like “Ask Nestlé” sort of reveals, I think, is that a lot of the typical mode of corporate communications is to not directly address things that people really want to talk about. And that's perhaps why it's so difficult, why it's been so hard for others to try and achieve something like this. Particularly around the questions that the company, the company leaders don't want to talk about because they're uncomfortable, they're unflattering, they're difficult.

Do you have any advice specifically around how to get stakeholders on board, you know, the decision makers who can either block or green light these sorts of direct answers? 

Ferhat  So I would say, I would say again, what I said before, start small, take the topics that feel a bit more comfortable in your organisation and then slowly step up so that you have built the trust, have built the confidence in the process.

And of course, if you see certain articles, if people on social media are asking questions about certain topics, as an organisation, you need to give an answer because if you don't give it, someone else will give it.

And you need to make, you need to ensure that your answer is out there. And that may be on a topic that is perhaps a little bit less comfortable for you as an organisation. But if you don't do it, someone else will give the answer.

Jonathan  Scott alluded to and we've already alluded to the big changes that are happening as a result of AI search. How is that changing your approach at Nestlé, if at all?

Ferhat  Of course, I mean, it changes a lot. And I think it will change the role of the corporate website also a lot. Where in the past, people would ask a question and then will take an action, go to your website, people don't come to your website anymore. And in a way, it's a bit contradictory. Yes, you have less visitors. So one could say, okay, the corporate website is less important than it was before.

But no, in this context, the corporate website is even more important because that corporate website can be that that source of truth and can give the answers that need to be given.

I see it a little bit like the new era of the corporate websites. And when you step back, in a way, I see two things:

• One is, OK, a bit more short term. It's how do you ensure that your answers show up where people are looking for information about your organisation or quite a certain topic. So a bit more short, midterm, and that's really about GEO optimization, etc.
• But I think a more fundamental and a more strategic question is, what is the role of the corporate website in an AI-first environment? And how does that website need to look like? 

So I see three different things in here.

• One is indeed making sure that wherever someone looks for information about your organisation, ensuring that your content is… that your information is there.
• But then those people that still come to your website, need to add… you need to give them something. You need to add value. What will they get by that visit to your corporate website?
• And then in the case of Nestlé, where we have over 70 corporate websites, it's also about managing that network and ensuring that you have that ecosystem between the corporate website, the global corporate website and those market websites, that they work well together and that they give also authority to the global corporate website.

Scott  Ferhat, I find that so fascinating that the evolving role of the corporate website, we're absolutely seeing a growing number of senior executives across the world, recognising that the corporate website is more strategically important than ever before in the AI search age.

And that dual role of that the new dual roles of the corporate website to both feed the AI beast to ensure that if people ask questions about Nestlé using ChatGPT, it's your content that feeds the answers. 

But I totally agree, as you say, that you also want to persuade as many as people as possible to click through to Nestle.com once they've got the AI answer. So that is how do you kind of evolve a corporate website to become an attractive, immersive enticing destination in its own right that provides something above and beyond the AI search answer, which I find fascinating.

Ferhat  No, exactly. And I think that's probably also the difficulty. In a way, what it also indicates is that, yes, you have your existing audiences. Think about investors, media, consumers, job seekers, but there is an additional audience that has joined the club. And that's the AI agents and the LLMs. And we need to ensure that we satisfy all their needs. 

And yeah, how will that website… what do you need to offer then as this added value? That's the big question. And that's then again also where the data and the insights come in to really ensure that you bring the best that you can give to those users.

Jonathan  Well, speaking of data and insights, there's a lot of talk recently in the world at large and within corporate communications about whether AI might be replacing human jobs or not. What human skills do you think will, are going to remain in high demand as AI develops in the years ahead?

Ferhat  You know, I don't see that so negatively. I think it's, our jobs will change. Our jobs will change.

I think when you, we will have to be more strategic. 

I think we will have to have better judgement on things.

So I think these are the skills that remain or that will become even more important. Strategic thinking, judgment, but also creativity, storytelling, that authentic storytelling. And then indeed, AI literacy in itself.

I think everyone, each of us, need to be able to work with the tools, to understand the tools, because if we don't, then we are at risk.

Jonathan  Another area that seems to be in flux right now is to do with the global estate, you know, how large companies structure and approach providing information across lots of different countries and languages. Nestlé, you've been working to transform global communications by streamlining and scaling them. And I wanted to ask what do you think communicators need to be prioritising if they want to follow your lead on that?

Ferhat  I don't think that the country website will go away. I think they will remain highly relevant, but their role might change.

So they might become just a way to give also authority to the global website whilst keeping their local relevancy and flexibility. I call it a little bit of freedom in a very tight frame, with a predefined, centrally defined structure.

What is the global content or the common content that needs to be across the market websites and what are the parts and the things that markets can adapt? Because of course, the website also needs to remain locally relevant and needs to add value to that local organisation and to the local users. 

So it's... probably going more from a standalone site to more interconnected sites, interconnected experiences, supported by a very strong governance. Because I think that's very key, that you have a strong governance between that global website and those market websites.

Jonathan  What does strong governance mean to you? How does that actually play out?

Ferhat  Strong governance for us, that means having a very clear model market website.

• What does that market website looks like? 
• What is the content that goes on that website?
• What is the content that is then locally relevant?

I think it's also a matter of clarity between global and local accountability.

And then it's also about building that global community of web masters and training and listening to them, listening to their needs so that you can also then make adjustments that are needed in the markets.

And ultimately it’s about making sure that your corporate websites are aligned with the business strategy and are supporting the business.

Jonathan  Do you think AI translation will replace human translation anytime soon? 

Ferhat  I mean, we have to admit AI translations are getting very good. So we don't just rely on AI translations. There's still a human review that we do. Let's see. I don't know.

But I think you open another question, and that's much more about, we talk a lot about AI in search and how it's impacting the role of the website.

But how can AI also help that governance piece, for instance?

Or how can AI help us be more efficient in managing the corporate website?

And these are all things that we as a team are looking at. And we're still really early days in that. But we also know that, one, if we want to be a high-performing team, we also need to bring AI into how we work and how we manage a corporate website.

Jonathan  One thing that seems to be happening is that AI and the pace of change is forcing internal departments to talk to each other more, to be more... By all accounts, looking at it from outside, that seems to happen naturally, maybe, within Nestlé.

I specifically wanted to ask you about corporate communications and marketing and whether you think they are converging more now, whether the pace of convergence is picking up and what that means, if so.

Ferhat  You know, if the question is that's often asked, does corporate affairs need to sit with marketing and things like that? I don't think so. I think these are very distinctive disciplines, very distinctive areas that need their own expertise and that has their own expertise.

But I do think, though, that in corporate affairs, there are areas where that overlap is perhaps a bit clearer and bigger than in other areas like public affairs or media relations. And that's digital marketing.

There's so much that we can learn as corporate affairs people from our marketing teams. And that's also why we, in a way, we are very privileged within Nestlé. We have in our marketing team, digital marketeers, people who work on websites, and we connect with them on a very regular basis. And we tap into their expertise also to help strengthen and help evolve and develop our corporate web estate and also how we do social media communications.

And that's also one of the reasons, for instance, when I took over the role, I brought in digital marketeers in my team, because we have a lot of corporate affairs specialists in the department, but I thought there was that need to bring in those digital skills really in the heart of corporate affairs.

Jonathan  Do you marketers are just sort of naturally more innovative or more risk-taking than communicators or is that no longer true?

Ferhat  I don't necessarily think so. I think it also has to do with the culture of the organisation, with the ambition level that you set and the people that you have in your team.

Jonathan  Well, let's take a short break at this point. We'll continue our conversation in just a moment. 

[interlude] If you’re new to Bowen Craggs you might be wondering… Bowen, who? We help corporate digital communicators in large companies measure and improve their website and social media communications saving time and avoiding costly mistakes along the way. And we do it through benchmarking, visitor research and consultancy. Now, more than ever, digital communicators need to know the decisions that will boost rather than damage the company’s reputation. Bowen Craggs offers a lifeline backed by our constantly updated ranking of the world’s best, the Corporate Digital Communications Index. To learn more about what we do and how we can help, check out our website. We’re at bowencraggs.com [end of interlude]

Jonathan  Your background is partly in media relations and that's a key audience for corporate digital communications and also one that in our experience at Bowen Craggs, a lot of communicators tend to sort of neglect. Do you think the media relations role of corporate websites is getting more important or less important?

Ferhat  So, there I see actually two things.

On one hand, I think the media relations role of the corporate website continues to increase and stays... important because we are moving away from being that repository from media press releases, media backgrounders and everything, to much more this  source of truth because the LLMs, the AI agents take the information from your website where media professionals are getting a lot of their information.
So it remains important.

And then of course, again, when these journalists come to your website, you need to offer them something and you need to give them an added value and a reason to come to your website.

And I also think that the relationship between the digital teams and the media relations teams are becoming more important and that collaboration should become even closer. Because often when we think about AI optimisation, GEO, AI optimisation, etc, we're looking at the digital team.

But actually, it's everyone in the corporate affairs team that plays a role here. And it's sometimes in simple things. You need to work with your media relations team that the news feeds, the news alerts that we have, that they have bullet points at the top so that it's easier to read for AI agents. You can distribute your press releases on other platforms so that your information also pops up in the LLMs, etc. So I think it's really that collaboration that will also ...

Scott  We’re certainly seeing that. As we said so many companies are trying to play and catch up with Nestlé with trying to kind of provide comprehensive answers to the big questions, including difficult questions on their websites.

That sounds really easy to do, but suddenly these… many companies are thinking, right well this requires serious collaboration with public affairs, with media relations, with investor relations, with corporate communications, and it also requires enthusiastic buy-in from senior management.

So I really do, can completely, what we're seeing in other companies,  totally echoes with that point that the rising importance of collaboration across all areas of traditional corporate communications in the broadest sense seems to be really, important. 

Ferhat  Yeah, and that's also why we, in a way, talk less about departments, but what is the job that needs to be done? And how do we all work together to achieve what we need to achieve? In my case, for instance, the corporate identity and content team is a transversal team that crosses across the entire corporate affairs department at the head office.

Scott  And I guess thinking aloud, the LLMs, they don't care whether content comes from investor relations... It's just devouring everything.

Ferhat  Where it comes from? No, exactly. And in a way, and I think we were very fortunate at Nestlé that we have it in a way, we have already been working very closely together, because all the different departments, they touch on a section of the corporate website. So we already have a very close relationship with them and making sure that we have a top notch website. And then now with the LLMs, we even need to work closer together.

And then we just say, OK, what's the job that needs to be done? How can we ensure that our answers are there? And each of us plays a role in that. And of course, as a digital team, you play that coordinating role, play that bringing the people together. But then it's up to each of us to do what has to be done.

Scott  A new secret sauce. I thought that's an additional secret sauce to success. Collaboration across teams and thinking about the jobs that are needing to be done rather than departments. I'm going to add that new Tabasco.

Ferhat  Exactly. It's breaking the silos. And you know, this is beneficial for the corporate website, but it's beneficial for so many other things that we need to do. 

Scott  And just one more point on this. I think looking at media relations, I always think as a former journalist, a good… a website that serves journalists well is going to be serving LLMs well as well, because journalists, you know, AI search is looking for facts, figures, authoritative, credible information. So that's interesting, too.

Ferhat  Exactly. 

Jonathan  I'm glad the conversation has gone a little bit towards what goes on behind the scenes because obviously a great deal of what contributes to successful digital communications is the stuff that nobody sees, what happens behind the facade of the channels themselves.

And you've said a little bit about how you think about structuring your team. Can you say a bit more though about what it is about Nestlé’s structure that you think that primes it for success and for being able to deal with governance in a fruitful way? 

Ferhat  I think it really starts already with the organisation realising the importance of the corporate website and believing that the corporate website has a very important role to play in building trust in the organisation.

And you might think, Nestlé, biggest food and beverages company in the world, that we have a very big team. We don't. We have a very small web team, but we are very clear on what we want to achieve.

And it's like you also said in the beginning, Scott, we take little steps all the time, and we continuously ask ourselves the question, is this good enough? Can we do better here? 

And I think that is really showing what you can do with the website. It's continuously evolving, listening to the needs of your audiences, but also listening to the needs of your, let's call it clients, internal clients. What does Investor Relations need? What does... and ultimately, what does the business need? Trying as the team managing the corporate websites, giving answers to that. Always staying close to the business need, to the business strategy, and really trying to support it. 

And I think that's probably part of the success that we have. And then continuously evolving, continuously pushing yourself forward, and trying to get the best of the setup that you have.

Jonathan  Do you have specific strategies and tactics for how when you're trying to do something new to make sure that it's going to succeed?

Ferhat. So like I said before, we first start:

• What is the business need? 
• Does what we want to do?
• does it fit the business strategy?
• Does it answer a certain business need?

And then it's really about data and insights. We look at different aspects of the corporate website. How is it performing?

We listen to our internal stakeholders, but we also reach out to external stakeholders like Bowen Craggs. Get your insights in what is our competition doing or what are other organisations doing, how our visitors responding to the things on the website and then test and learn, A-B testing, user testing, etc. And then evaluate and if you need to correct, correct.

Jonathan  What about the role of agencies and how to manage those relationships? How do you approach it?

Ferhat  When you think about agencies, you need to think about them as an integral part of your team. It's not us and them. They are part of the team.

Be open to them. Share with them. Make them understand or help them understand what the needs are of the organisation, what the needs are of the website.

And challenge. I think that's also what we as the client side are for. Challenge the agency and celebrate also the successes together. They are part of the team. And try to build that long-term relationship with an agency. That's for me really key to success.

Jonathan  Speaking of relationships, what about the relationship between corporate websites and corporate social media channels? Do you think that these need to function as a single team?

Ferhat  There are advantages for them to be one single team, but for me it's less about structure. It's much more about attitude and being aligned behind the same vision, being aligned behind the same direction and having then that strong collaboration again between the website team and the social media team.

Scott  The relationship between the corporate website and social media. One thing that we, as I understand it, one of the cornerstones of being highly ranked and highly rated by in LLMs is consistency and coherence, ensuring that what you say on the corporate website is aligned with and not contradictory to what is said on Instagram or Facebook or other channels.

So I think to go back to your points, Ferhat, about the importance of good governance, not just, think one of the, I think the AI, the rise of AI search turbo charges the importance of good governance, because consistency is a trust indicator, and that includes across social media, not kind of duplicating content, but ensuring that everything is harmonious.

Ferhat  Exactly.

And that's why that link between the two of them and that collaboration, having the platforms where we discuss, where we plan alignment on language, etc, is crucially important.

Jonathan  Well, I have one last question, which is a sort crystal ball question. But what do you think the corporate website is going to look like two, three, four years from now?

Ferhat  Very good question and if only I knew and I think a lot of people would like to know that and earn a lot of money with that. I don't know. I think the change is happening so fast at the moment.

It was quite difficult to already say what is the corporate website in three years time. Look how fast AI has changed everything for us. But I do think though that the corporate website will continue to play a very important role. I don't see that going down. 

So I'm quite positive, quite optimistic for the corporate website.  And I think, yes, they will perhaps move a little bit from these static destinations that they were in the past to more dynamic platforms. But there's certainly a role for corporate websites.

I mean, I suggest that we meet up again in three years time, have this conversation and then see what happened over the last three years. And exactly also the question that we are asking ourselves at the moment. How will that look like? What is the evolution that we need to take with our corporate websites?

Jonathan  But will podcasts still exist in three years? That's the really big question in my mind. If they do, hopefully we'll see you there. And if they don't, we'll find some other way.

Ferhat  Who knows? knows? If podcasts still exist in three years time, I'm happy to jump behind the mic again and have this conversation.

Jonathan  Well, we'll hold you to that and thank you so much. This has been really informative and it's just been good to talk with you.

That's it for this episode of Cutting Through. As ever, you can find show notes on our website, bowencraggs.com.

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