Axios Event: Reimagining corporate communications means "nothing is off the table"

NEW YORK – Companies are rapidly evolving their communications strategies — including tapping into influencers or creators — to get their message across and engage with their audience, several communications leaders said at an Axios event.

Why it matters: Companies are facing turbulent times in their industries and in the media landscape, so adopting new methods to reach their audience is a key priority for their communicators.

Axios' Eleanor Hawkins and Sara Fischer moderated conversations on Dec. 5 with OpenAI head of public relations Lindsey Held Bolton, NFL senior vice president of communications Katie Hill, comedian and media entrepreneur Kareem Rahma, and Google vice president of communications and public affairs Rob Shilkin. The event was sponsored by Burson.

What they're saying: "For us, everything starts with our on-field product, which is the game," Hill said.

• For the NFL, that laser focus on their product brings ratings, viewership, audience engagement, and a big responsibility as a brand with a wide-reaching platform, she said.

Shilkin said Google is in their "Reimagine Era" as the company introduces new initiatives and rethinks their communication strategy.

• "Nothing is off the table, so that encompasses a whole range of different initiatives that we have around how we communicate: Trying to get a ton more punchy and quick and fast; who we communicate to; investing in creator relationships; going direct; [and] building new tools with AI and other systems," Shilkin said.

As a communications leader at one of the biggest tech companies of the moment, Bolton said her team at OpenAI is focused on educating the public about AI.

• "We really want to go out there and demystify AI. I think sometimes there's mistrust if you don't understand how the technology works," Bolton said.

Rahma, a creator behind the online "SubwayTakes" series, said their branded content regularly gets the same if not more views as their organic content.

• "Making content, whether it's short form or long form, partnering with creators or format producers … it's just really the only way to deepen the conversation and the engagement with an audience that is bombarded with stuff all the time," he added.

Sponsored content:

In a View From the Top sponsored segment, Burson global CEO Corey duBrowa emphasized the multi-faceted nature of brand reputation in today's communications landscape.

• "Certainly when we think about reputation and the kind of toolsets that we're developing to help clients to be more predictive about their reputations in a very volatile marketplace, we're thinking about multiple dimensions," duBrowa said.
• "So not just trust, which is important, but also things like your financial performance, the quality of your products and services, the way that you are seen as an employer of choice, the quality of your management team, all of those factors with some degree of variability or weighting applied to them, the sum of those things is reputation," he said.