A leading animal nutrition company was facing greater pressures from its customers and NGOs around issues ranging from deforestation to animal welfare. Having previously been somewhat insulated due to lack of visibility it now needed to prepare to adjust its approach or lose customers.
In consultation with the communications director and based on previous materiality research, new external horizon scanning and issues mapping, we arrived at a shortlist of top 10 core material issues the company needed to address. The top 5 immediate priority topics were explored in depth through internal evidence collection, leadership sessions and deep dive external research.
For each issue, a dynamic issue document was created. This provided both in depth insight into the competitive positioning, key stakeholder pressures and future trajectories of the issue. Woven in were credible facts from science, and commentary from experts.
Company key positioning statements were crafted alongside easy to digest Q&As. The issues papers were an internal guide both for consistent communications by communicators, reference guides for specialists and executive ready briefings. Regular updates were made to ensure constant relevance of the information.
The deep data driven insights and tailored corporate positioning points and evidence were instrumental in ensuring all leaders and communicators consistently communicated on material issues either proactively through all channels, or reactively when approached by stakeholders. This helped the company overcome previous reputation risks, ensured consistent improvement in its reputation and supported medium term success in retaining customers and minimizing regulatory harm.
Director of Corporate Communications
