@CARMA @mazennahawiCARMA.com

Tribal Relations: How our understanding of trust will change amidst the failure of political communications

@CARMA @mazennahawiCARMA.com

Overview

• Political communications is failing• Traditional stakeholder groups changing rapidly• Politicians (and businesses) failing to grasp this change –

main driver of lack of trust• Deeper look into new stakeholder groups “modern tribes”

Complex dynamic of trust in future PR & communications

Political Communications is failing

Source: HBR

Political Communications is failing

Poor Measurement & Research

• Misreading audiences• Wrong objectives, intent and priorities

Failure to Communicate

• Wrong messages• Polarizing communications strategies

Failure to Build Relationships

• General detachment• Arrogant elitism, isolation

Failure in results

• Inability to compromise• Failure to deliver

My PeopleLove Me

Lessons learned

• Dislike, mistrust of politicians is not new• Scandal has always existed

BUT

• The unprecedented scale, volume of dislike, scandal is ….accelerating• The wide-spread impact is global, local and deep rooted• We are entering an age where trust is increasingly rare• Dislike in all its forms – including hate – is on the ascendancy • Credibility of institutions is severely diminishing or dead• The collapse of institutions is being replaced by ‘Modern Tribes’

Lessons learned

The collapse of institutions is being replaced by ‘Modern Tribes’ – transient communities that now are increasingly

setting the global agenda and redefining social contracts

Modern Tribes?

• Global shift in stakeholder groups

• Moving from traditional, predictable and lasting stakeholder groups…… to unorthodox, unpredictable and temporary stakeholder groups

• Stakeholders groups “Modern Tribes” are defined far less by traditional metrics such as gender, age & location – and much more defined by new metrics such as issue affiliation, social contract, mobility and communal values.

TRADITIONAL MARCOMS STAKEHODLER MAPPING

Tories: Target Conservative Voters aged 45-60

Coke: Target youth age 18-25 in cities

Critical Flaws in the traditional model:

• The line between internal/external stakeholders is increasingly blurry – staff are customers, community leaders are on the board etc.

• People do not stay in one place anymore

• Definitions of ‘wealth’ and ‘income’ are shifting

• Issues, loyalties, preferences were the last things to be considered (if in fact they ever were)

• Slow/incapable at tracking mobility, change in circumstance

Internal Stakeholders(Board, shareholders, employees)

External Stakeholders(Customers, Clients, Voters, Media,

Community, NGO)

Age Seniority

Gender Income

Location Ethnicity

Modern Tribes?Ph

ysic

al A

ttrib

utes

Global Mobility

Low-cost travel to internet & phone

connectivity

Wealth

Most people have more money than

ever before

HealthYou are young & probably working at the age of 60

nearly anywhere in the world

Cog

nitiv

e A

ttrib

utes Contentment

/discontent

People are increasingly driven by being content

or discontent

Entitlement

All factors lead to people expecting a

broader and deeper set of

inalienable rights

Intellectual Fluidity

Decision making is quick, changeable based on quickly

moving but shallow sets of data

7 Key features of ‘Modern Tribes’/New Stakeholder Groups

Physical Attributes

Mobility Wealth Health

Cognitive Attributes

Discontent Entitlement Intellectual Fluidity

Tribal Attributes

TRANSIENT COMMUNITIES

• Modern tribes can form and disband very quickly.

• They coalesce around ideas and hopes - not places or age groups - and certainly not around institutions

• Modern tribes are not exclusive and interlock with other tribes

• Modern Tribes often have no name

What do these tribes look like?

What do these tribes look like?

What do these tribes look like?

“Hannah’s Tribe”

• Modern tribes can form and disband very quickly.

• They coalesce around ideas and hopes - not places or age groups - and certainly not around institutions

• Modern tribes are not exclusive and interlock with other tribes

• Modern Tribes often have no name

Measuring Modern Tribes: Refining Stakeholder Mapping

TRADITIONAL MARCOMS STAKEHODLER MAPPING

Tories: Target Conservative Voters aged 45-60

Coke: Target youth age 18-25 in cities

Internal Stakeholders(Board, shareholders,

employees)

External Stakeholders(Customers, Clients, Voters, Media, Community, NGO)

Age Seniority

Gender Income

Location Ethnicity

Physical Attributes

Cognitive Attributes

Mobility Wealth Health

Discontent Entitlement Intellectual Fluidity

Measure: Connectivity

Travel

Measure: Real PPP

Affinity to Share

Measure: Activity &

Contribution

Measure: Sentiment by

issueperson,

Organization

Measure: Demand intensitySocial positioning

Advocacy

Measure: Data availability,

Accuracy

Measuring Modern Tribes: Refining Stakeholder Mapping

TRANSIENT COMMUNITIES

• Modern tribes can form and disband very quickly.

• They coalesce around ideas and hopes - not places or age groups - and certainly not around institutions

• Modern tribes are not exclusive and interlock with other tribes

The big re-alignment in audience measurement

• Before setting an objective - understand if it’s in fact the one your stakeholders/customers want! – let them decide your agenda.

• Understand all the ‘tribes’ related to your business: Monitor, analyze and simply list their leaders, followers and issues.

• Do not stop at traditional/primary audience models - make the effort to build in the ‘tribal’ nature of these stakeholders groups: measure the tribe’s physical and cognitive attributes

• Understand the engagement and messages that will foster trust with these ’tribes’

….Now you can start a serious PR/Communications campaign

Understanding Trust in the Tribal context

• PR is foremast about relationships (not outputs/activity)• Modern Tribes are based on trust • How do we engage - ethically and scientifically - on a basis of trust?

Trust

Character Competence

• Tribes are easy to find and reach – so find them!• Meet he tribe: Nothing beats human contact• Let them talk first; you listen• Build objectives, products, services, policy – with

their views in mind• Engage, update, adapt

• Deliver the value you promised on time, with the right qualities

• Challenge yourself to see if the value you are delivering is making a difference

• Always have excellent, accurate information • Measure…measure….measure• Be ready to change at a moments notice

Measuring Trust in the Tribal context

Refine your Monitoring/Listening Program

• Cool off on the keywords, strengthening broad data-mining

• Monitor what matters: Do not go for all clips/mentions – focus on People, issues, themes

• Integrate your monitoring across all channels: Digital, traditional but never forget/leave out grey literature

• Jump on any opportunity to listen in person to the “Tribe”/Stakeholder group

• Scientifically capture, tabulate and correlate your monitoring information to match analytics with your objectives

Modern Tribes/Stakeholder groups are transient communities: They are cross border, multi-everything, fluid and change place, ideas and positions very quickly – you must be able to adapt at their speed.

• Let Science guide your strategy, Let ethics mark your engagement• Rebuild your stakeholder map: Go easy on primary metrics & invest in identifying tribes/groups that matter to

you. Keep it simple: focus on people and issues

Measuring Trust in the Tribal context

Primary Leadership: who is in charge of the tribe

Secondary leadership

Key internal, external influencers

Members of the tribe

Inter-locking tribes

Your relationship with this group

PEOPLE ISSUES

Core & secondary drivers

Key messages by advocates &detractors

Trust/credibility metrics for you and for them

Forums of engagement (media, events)

Definition of success

Measuring Trust in the Tribal context

• Are Trust barometers helpful? Yes, but don’t over do it – more importantly have a trust index for each stakeholder group and their associated issues.

• Always remember to measure misinformation: Often ignored in an industry which is slightly too optimistic by nature. If you are only measuring positive content and engagement then you are not seeing the whole picture - which means you do not have the whole truth.

• This sounds complicated? It will be when you set it up, but once you have done so it’s easy to maintain and adapt

Conclusions

• We have always known about mistrust in politicians, scandals…..what is different this time is this is now impact global society as a whole.

• Discontent is diminishing traditional institutions and they are being replaced by “Modern Tribes” - new stakeholder groups that are transient communities primary coalescing around ideas, and less around income, location, gender….

• PR and communications professionals, especially in public affairs, must re-think stakeholder mapping and create new models to engage and measure with these communities

• Measuring is key to understanding and engaging these audiences

• As with all great PR, keep it simple – let science guide your strategy and let ethics mark your engagement

Thank you!

@CARMA @mazennahawiCARMA.com