Public sector behind with branding amanda swinburn
Public sector organisations are lagging behind the private sector when it comes to establishing a strong corporate brand, according to a new report.
The study by SDA Strategic, titled ‘Corporate Communications Benchmarks’ shows 40% of public sector organisations failed to achieve their benchmark in evaluating communication, 25% failed to meet targets for issue management planning and 21% failed to provide visual brand consistency.
The report also found that to effectively manage corporate communications, public and private sector organisations must be skilled in the fields of marketing and advertising, issue management, public relations and stakeholder management.
Reputation management is also a weak point for many organisations. While 90% of organisations questioned said they would publicly defend their reputation if it was threatened, only 38% have concrete benchmarks to compare their reputation to the competition’s.
SDA Strategic general manager Scott Hargreaves said one of the drivers of unsuccessful branding in the public sector is a lack of commitment to it at top levels.
“The public sector spends hundreds of millions on advertising but does not understand the audience. The challenge is to move up in terms of branding because no-one wants to deal with a faceless organisation.”
