I’m Kwesi, the Digital Marketing and Social Media Assistant here at Verity London. I’ve done a lot of things, but I’ve never worked in the responsible business space before, so I decided to take a few of my colleagues aside to get a better grip of where their roles fit into this industry. In this series I take a peek behind their monitors, get a look at what their day-to-day truly looks like, and find out what they do to support our clients.
I always knew that copy and the written word were of course important within a communications role. Working alongside my colleagues at Verity London has shown me just how vital other forms of communication can be too – in ways I hadn’t thought of before. Good visual content can be the cornerstone, the difference between messaging that connects with audiences and information that can fall flat. Film, podcasts, infographics all help articulate and bring narratives to life, providing emotional engagement and giving greater depth to sustainability stories and goals.
I sat down with Julie Sander, our Head of Production, for her thoughts on getting this type of content right for your organisation. Here’s what she had to say.
When it comes to responsible business, the production element often happens at the end of a long road. There will have been a whole process of planning and getting a strategy in place first. My part is to oversee the creation of any film and other content needed so that we really help communicate the key messaging and get the story across in meaningful ways – to help inspire and get people involved. With all the work that our clients have put into getting their sustainability agendas and approach in place, sometimes over many years, I feel a real responsibility that we’re able to bring these to life authentically and clearly in really engaging ways.
I chose to work for an agency with responsible business at its heart because I think organisations have real power to make a difference in the world. By helping them to do that I can make a difference too. It’s no good having ambitions and a plan to drive positive change for people and planet, without being able to communicate these successfully.
I worked in TV for many years and I take from that the ability to disseminate information and produce editorially strong content that’s really interesting, creative and entertaining, which lands with different audiences. Content for businesses needs to be entertaining too. We need to get important messages across and for people to listen to them, so I’m able to use the skills I gained working in television to tell stories that people want and need to hear.
Our clients come to us at different stages on their journey to become responsible businesses. Some will have a clear strategy in place already and know exactly what it is that they now want to communicate, others might be at an earlier stage in which case we can help them to develop their approach and positioning, work out what they need to communicate and how best to do that.
I work mostly across our film production and related content though it’s often all interlinked because a good campaign won’t be about the individual film. It will be about producing a joined-up content plan where everything works together to give people multiple touchpoints and ways of engaging with the information. So, the film or series of films may bring particular key messages to life, but it will always be part of the bigger picture and approach.
I think it’s critical that we don’t greenwash and that any content we produce is authentic and honest. We will challenge our clients to ensure that any claims being made or targets being set are able to be evidenced, measured or that there is a tangible, shareable plan in place to achieve them.
No one minds if a company holds their hand up and says, ‘we aren’t there yet, but we’re trying and these are the things we are putting or have put in place to make sure that we get there. Or, these are some of the things we have already achieved but we know we still have a way to go’. That’s what we’d suggest to a client. But there always has to be a roadmap for implementation and success metrics set, which we can help with, in order to ensure full transparency.
At this point, we can support an organisation to communicate their goals and their successes by way of great content as they move forward.
We’re actually about to start working with a client who are at the start of their journey and very keen to put a responsible business strategy in place, though it’s very early stages. It feels like a real opportunity to be involved from the beginning and help to shape their aims when it comes to engraining sustainability into the DNA of their organisation and across their people, culture and operations. We’ll be doing some initial workshops with them and we envisage an early film where colleagues talk about their hopes, the issues that are important to them from a social and environmental point of view and what positive change they feel their company can uniquely drive. It’s lovely to be able to be there at the start and to help initial plans develop into something meaningful.
Great content can have a huge impact on a company’s goals. If it has the right messaging and ensures high levels of engagement then it can help to get people involved and win over hearts and minds, whether staff, clients, stakeholders or the general public.
Verity London is the strategy and communications agency for responsible business. If you would like to know more about the services we offer, and how your responsible business story could be developed and shared with your stakeholders, learn more about what we do at https://veritylondon.co.uk/services
