Doug Downs (00:02):
We live and work in a world of acronyms. Some companies focus on the B2C, but for others it's B2B. What's the BR on the website analytics? Do we have good CPCs? Good CTRs. Did we focus on the SEO? Let's do a SWOT analysis before responding to the RFP and remember to build in KPIs using SMART objectives. Remind them we're a specialty SaaS firm, which is actually a verbal short form of an acronym with 10 FTEs and five PTEs. Put the right SME in front of it and build CTAs into their messaging. If I missed your favourite one, just DM me on X. But when did ESG takeover from CSR? The acronym ESG, Environmental, social and Corporate Governance, was pretty obscure only about 10 years ago, but today it's critically important and one of the most common buzz phrases. Why? Because we as consumers and as people are choosing from whom we buy and in whom we invest by more than dollars and cents. ESG encompasses a wide variety of activities from reducing energy consumption and improving waste management to supporting local communities and making it easier for employees to access healthy meals. Does the company ensure it uses accurate and transparent accounting methods? We want our faceless corporations to be more human.
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The rise of ESG is creating positive outlook strategies in the Asia Pacific region. As budgets may well rise, but underlying world tensions make the economic outlook uncertain. So today on stories and strategies, it's POS for ESG, but concerns of an SOS on GDP.
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My name is Doug Downs. My guest this week is Arun Sudhaman, joining today from Bengaluru or Bangalore. This is probably more commonly known in southern India. Hello Arun.
Arun Sudhaman (02:21):
Hi, Doug. Pleasure to be here. And very well done on pronouncing Bengaluru.
Doug Downs (02:25):
I didn't roll the R. How are things in Bengaluru today?
Arun Sudhaman (02:30):
They're fine. Actually. It is a nice and cool morning, but it's going to get quite hot later today. And that's, I guess something we're all dealing with around the world. It's just elevated temperatures it seems
Doug Downs (02:44):
And hot for you in the winter. Is mid thirties Celsius or eighties Fahrenheit?
Arun Sudhaman (02:50):
No, early thirties, so about 30, 31. But that's unseasonable. It's actually unusual for Bangalore to get past 30 at this time of the year. So I think it's just another sign of the way that climate is changing.
Doug Downs (03:09):
And I'm in Canada's Rocky Mountains and we haven't really had a winter yet, a couple of
Arun Sudhaman (03:16):
Weeks
Doug Downs (03:16):
Here and there, but anyway,
Arun Sudhaman (03:19):
That's
Doug Downs (03:19):
Worrying. That's weather. Let's hope that it's not a sign of bigger things, but it could well be. Arun, you're the CEO and editor in chief at PRovoke Media, which is the world's foremost media and events platform for the public relations and communications industries. You are responsible for all aspects of content and brand development at PRovoke media, including the PRovoke Media podcast, the Global PR Agency ranking, the Influence 100, the Creativity and PR study, and the global PR summits. You are the youngest ever inductee into the ICCCO Hall of Fame. ICCO for those who are used to seeing it by email. And you are a PRCA fellow. It is great to have you on the podcast, probably long overdue.
Arun Sudhaman (04:04):
Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to be here. That's a lot of things that you mentioned there. I really just, the result I think of just being in this industry for a long time and reporting on various things and just having a great team here at PRovoke Media.
Doug Downs (04:21):
That's awesome. Now, Arun, given the report we're talking about highlights that ESG is a critical driver for in-house communications professionals in Asia Pacific. What are some of the unique challenges and opportunities that you've observed in integrating ESG effectively into corp comm's strategies in that Asia Pacific region?
Arun Sudhaman (04:44):
Yeah, it's a very good question. So you're referring to the 2023 Communications Index, which is a survey we did with an organization called APACD Asia Pacific Association of Communications Directors and an agency Rudafin. And we surveyed over a hundred in-house comms leaders. And we found that ESG had emerged as extremely important or very important to people's roles as comms leaders. I think it was cited by more than two thirds of respondents. And when it came to the business priorities underpinning their sentiment, ESG emerged as one of the top factors. And it was the first time we'd really seen this in this study. And I think in terms of opportunities and challenges, it's important to note that unlike perhaps the western world, ESG is still really in its early stages in many Asian markets, particularly from a regulatory perspective. A lot of the directives and laws and regulations and even guidelines are only just being introduced and coming into force in many Asian markets, including China, Singapore, India.
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Interestingly, Japan is often viewed as being ahead of the curve. Companies are much older there, they've always had quite a strong social component. They haven't necessarily been seen as great in terms of governance, but because of some of the governance scandals that the ESG regulations and criteria have been taken more seriously for a little bit longer. But overall, I think the biggest challenge is just that it's in its early stages. So compliance is something that organizations are only just waking up to. I think in this part of the world, I think there are still concerns around things like greenwashing because there hasn't necessarily been that rigor and that scrutiny in terms of some of the claims that companies and organizations make. And I think overall, there's perhaps something of a skills deficit just in terms of being able to find people who are able to balance an understanding of ESG criteria with business strategy and of course with kind of the need to communicate authentically. And those are some of the challenges. I guess in terms of the opportunity, I mean, I think the opportunity here is probably the same as it is anywhere in the world, which is that if organizations do take ESG seriously, then I think it demonstrates that they are committed to their role in society, that they understand that being a successful company is about more than just returning profit to shareholders. It's about having that license to operate and even that license to lead on a kind of broader societal level.
Doug Downs (07:50):
Is it generally understood that the communications team needs to at least be a major part of this in the region? And if so, what do the comms teams need to do to demonstrate that they are a valuable part of pursuing ESG goals?
Arun Sudhaman (08:10):
Yeah, it's another really good question. I think it can be something of a double-edged sword because I think sometimes the comms team have in this region, I think sometimes comms teams have maybe raced ahead a little bit when it comes to trying to showcase a company's ESG or sustainability credentials. And that points to what they need to do. What they need to understand I think, always is that ESG is about action and impact and not just words and not just a report and not just the mission statement. And I think sometimes bridging that gap is a challenge. We've seen companies face challenges when they make, or they have flowery marketing rhetoric about their sustainability credentials and their accomplishments, and these aren't always born out by the evidence and by the actions on the ground. And so I think for communicators, it's really important to remember that their roles are about action and impact. And that is always I think, a challenge for communicators, not just when it comes to ESG, but it's become very glaring in that space.
Doug Downs (09:25):
That just naturally leads to the next question about measurement. Maybe therein lies the opportunity that because we have not universally proven ourselves capable of measurement in each plan, that there is an opportunity to somehow do so. How can comms teams prove the measurement on this? You got to set the benchmark and then show how your efforts led to a progression here. How do we do that?
Arun Sudhaman (09:53):
I wish I had an easy answer for you. I think if I did, I'd be a very rich person. I think measurement has always been pretty complex in the public relations world because there's so many aspects to it and there's so many different types of things you're trying to measure. Yes, perhaps you're trying to measure the success of your ESG efforts, but you may be talking about various different stakeholder groups. You may be looking at the impact on a company's reputation. You may be looking at top line, you may be looking at bottom line, you may be looking at how it has protected a company in terms of reputational risk. So all of those things I think are valid metrics in terms of how you might measure, there is no, I think silver bullet and there are various different ways I think you can measure all of these things, but I think the most important thing is to understand that any kind of realistic, credible measurement has to begin and end again with action and impact and concrete outcomes rather than what I would call outputs process oriented metrics.
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Things like likes or impressions or shares. These are not metrics that will tell you, or these are not things that will measure how successful your ESG activities are. And unfortunately, we still see too much of that. I mean, we run the SRE rewards and we see a lot of campaigns entered and many have ESG as a kind of core component in their thinking, and yet when it comes to the measurement, they're being measured on vanity metrics as opposed to, okay, what was the impact on the societies, for example, in which you operate the objectives of your campaign have absolutely nothing with the metrics that are being presented. And that's really difficult. I think I would not say that's always easy, but I think it's really important that communicators get this right, because again, the risk is that if measurement is being viewed in these shallow terms, it can encourage this kind of climate of greenwashing.
Doug Downs (12:22):
What I'm taking from that is you're seeing simplistic metrics like we landed this many stories in the traditional media and placed our key message, look, here is our key message within it.
Arun Sudhaman (12:34):
Yeah, lots of people visited our sustainability website and
Doug Downs (12:41):
They stayed for 30 seconds. Hey, great,
Arun Sudhaman (12:44):
Yeah, they stayed, then they left. But what was the actual outcomes? How did you change behaviour? Behavioural change is the ultimate, I think, metric for public relations campaigns. I don't think there is always one way to measure behavioural change, but what is the action that you wanted people to take that you wanted stakeholders to take? Is it to behave in a certain way? Is it to buy a product? Is it to view a company differently? Is it to get regulators to understand a particular point of view about specific legislation? And that requires a level of honesty as well, I think, in terms of what a campaign is trying to achieve.
Doug Downs (13:32):
So the report also mentions that diversity, equity and inclusion is important, less than a third though of those who provided feedback report effective DEI policies within their teams. So what are the barriers that are preventing the implementation of these policies and what steps can we take to overcome those barriers?
Arun Sudhaman (13:56):
Yeah, this is a big and complex question in this part of the world because there are a few different strands to it. I think the first of them is that many of the respondents to this study will come from multinational corporations where DEI policies are often set at hq, and HQ is often in the us. And what we know and what everyone in Asia knows is that DEI in Asia is very different to DEI in North America, for example, and a DEI policy that's built for the US or even for Canada for example, may not necessarily translate as well to Asian markets where you're talking about different demographic groups. Often, for example, if I'm in the uk, we talk about black and minority ethnic groups, we talk about people of color in Asian markets, the groups and the minorities we're talking about can be very different in India, for example.
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Maybe it's about caste, maybe it's about education, maybe it's about colorism, right? So it's about understanding that and localizing these policies. And I don't think enough multinationals are doing that, and I think that's reflected in the responses. The other thing that I think we also have to be honest about is that I'm not convinced that DEI has been taken as seriously in Asia as it should be, and that's a bit of a generalization, but I've had many, many conversations with people in comms departments and even DE and I heads in companies in Asia over the last few years, and there has been something of a mentality of, well, DEI is just a US thing. Why does that impact me? I'm in a market where everyone is Asian, and you kind of think that's not really the
Doug Downs (16:01):
Wow.
Arun Sudhaman (16:01):
Yeah, that's not how DEI works, obviously. It's about ensuring everyone has an equal opportunity, an equal franchise. And every single country in Asia, I can guarantee and promise you has disenfranchised groups that are not included in the mainstream business world or mainstream society. And every country in Asia requires rigorous DEI policies. So I still think there are remnants of that kind of thinking. I think it is changing, especially in terms of the younger generation in Asia Pacific, and I hope it continues to change, but I think we have to be honest that that's a factor as well.
Doug Downs (16:53):
How is the younger generation different in that Asia Pacific region more? I mean, when I think of Gen Z or Alpha, I think of more interconnected and probably much more globally savvy than I was when I was that age.
Arun Sudhaman (17:09):
Yeah, I think it's broadly the same in this region actually. I think people are very savvy. They have seen a lot. They understand a lot. I think they're far more aware of DEI challenges actually. They understand that there are lots of groups in different Asian countries that are not seen, that are not recognized, that don't have equal rights, and I think they're much more willing to speak up about those kinds of things. And I'm glad because it's not something my generation necessarily was able to do.
Doug Downs (17:58):
And one more piece that stuck out to me from the report was that with a significant portion of respondents indicating their communications functions are not effectively structured to meet the future challenges that their businesses are going to face, what recommendations do you have for restructuring or evolving those teams to better align with where the future is going to be for business?
Arun Sudhaman (18:23):
I start over. I think many comms functions were built around this. The notion of comms is just media relations, and of course it's a significant part of comms still, but I don't think it should be the starting point really. I think any successful modern comms function has to realize that media relations is kind of one channel, one aspect of broader stakeholder engagement. Absolutely.
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So I don't see why comms functions don't start over, particularly when you consider the impact of technology. And we're seeing the rise of course, of generative AI and how that is going to reshape how comms functions work. And the other thing is many comms functions in this region are really small, so there are fewer barriers to starting over. Of course. I think their size, their relative size is one of the reasons why people say they aren't structured effectively, because it's very difficult to structure a two or three person regional comms team to effectively meet all the challenges and demands of communicating in the 21st century.
Doug Downs (19:48):
Really interesting, and I'm glad we get a chance to go over this. Appreciate your time, Arun today.
Arun Sudhaman (19:55):
No, I appreciate yours, Doug. Thanks so much. These were great questions.
Doug Downs (20:00):
If you'd like to send a message to my guest, Arun Sudhaman, we've got his contact information in the show notes, stories and strategies is a co-production of JGR communications and stories and strategies, podcasts. We've got a new website specific to this podcast. The link is in the show notes. Or to make it easy, just Google Stories and Strategies. We'll come up at the top and click the podcast tab. Top right, it's a bounty of good stuff about the podcast, and we would love it if you follow this there. Lastly, as always, do us a favor. If you like this episode, forward it to one friend. Thanks for listening.