Amsterdam, 6 June 2013 – FleishmanHillard was among the winners in 5 categories at the 2013 EMEA SABRE Awards in Barcelona, Spain. The Dutch office won no less than 3 awards: for work performed with clients Marktplaats and ProRail and, teaming up with FleishmanHillard Brussels, as “Benelux Consultancy of the Year”.

The awards, which are presented by The Holmes Report, one of the public relations industry’s most influential publications, recognize outstanding achievements for campaigns, agencies and people in the sector.

FleishmanHillard received awards in the following categories:

•  Avaya: Product Media Relations, Trade Media category,
• The Malaysian Palm Oil Industry: Food & Beverage, Commodity,
• Marktplaats: Web-Based Business,
• ProRail: Silver SABRE in the Blog category – Owned Media
• Benelux Consultancy of the Year

Growth in Benelux
“We are immensely proud of this distinction,” said John Saunders, Regional President EMEA of Fleishman-Hillard. “It’s a great recognition of the strong growth that our Benelux offices have achieved.” The Holmes Report noted that the Brussels office has secured a firm position in public affairs over the past years, whilst the Amsterdam office has made great strides in public affairs, digital and social media as well as internal and crisis communications. Together, they significantly contributed to the agency’s steady overall growth in EMEA.

Intellectual leadership
In its assessment, The Holmes Report emphasized that the Amsterdam office has become an important center of intellectual leadership within Fleishman-Hillard. In particular, it mentioned the role of global crisis management practice lead and EMEA business development manager Harald Simons in developing this new focal area of the agency, with the Amsterdam team also strengthening their internal communications expertise during the past year. The office, for example, executed a large-scale internal communications study based on interviews with communication directors of over 50 corporations about the impact of the financial crisis on the role, meaning and contribution of internal communications. In addition to the employee communication services that Fleishman-Hillard has been providing to global customer Philips over the past years, the agency also won major internal communication assignments with new customers including Heineken and a Dutch bank.

Digital developments
The success of Fleishman-Hillard’s focus on digital development is underlined by the ‘Digital Communication Award’ that the agency won with Philips for ‘The social heart of surgery’ project. Based on a social media campaign, Fleishman-Hillard, part of the OneVoice consortium of Omnicom agencies, supported Philips in putting the multinational on the map as innovator in healthcare. Rosalinde van de Wall, Managing Director of Fleishman-Hillard Amsterdam, added: “Digital and social take an important position within our company; in recent years we made significant investments in these disciplines which have now become fully integrated in all that we do for our customers.”

Brussels
The Holmes Report recognises Fleishman-Hillard Brussels’ continuous achievements and client base in the public affairs domain over recent years. In 2012, the office has proven its thought leadership and attracted additional senior expertise in energy, financial services, and technology. Managing Director Caroline Wunnerlich adds “Having won the Global and EMEA Public Affairs Consultancy of the Year last year, this Benelux award is the icing on the ‘geographical’ cake. It is a valuable endorsement of our ongoing leadership position in the market.”

About Fleishman-Hillard
Fleishman-Hillard Inc., one of the world’s leading strategic communications firms, has built its reputation on creating integrated solutions that deliver what its clients value most: meaningful, positive and measurable impact on the performance of their organizations. The firm is widely recognized for excellent client service and a strong company culture founded on teamwork, integrity and personal commitment. Based in St. Louis, the firm serves North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa and Latin America from its 80 own offices. For more information, visit the Fleishman-Hillard website at www.fleishman.com

The Dutch office, which has been serving the Netherlands marketplace for over a decade, caters to the needs of a wide variety of local and international clients, notably in the Energy, Food & Agriculture, Healthcare and (Consumer) Technology industries. Fleishman-Hillard Amsterdam consists of a varied and close team of experts versed in corporate reputation management, with a focus on public affairs, internal communications & change management, digital & social media, and crisis & issues management. In the area of public affairs, the Amsterdam office closely collaborates with Fleishman-Hillard Brussels. www.fleishman.nl

If you have an appointment with a member of the Lower House, you will usually be received by a secretary or a personal assistant, who will then take you to the House restaurant or the study. You will be given a plastic beaker of coffee from the dispenser and, a little while later, the Member of Parliament in question will appear. He or she will either ask you to proceed or immediately fire questions at you. A meeting with a member of the Upper House is quite different. An Upper House MP has no support system and will welcome you personally, fetch you a cup of coffee and sit with you in the chic Upper House reception room, where other members are talking to colleague lobbyists at other tables.

From bastion to political organ

It may be rather anecdotal, but the above sketch does, in a nutshell, illustrate the difference between the two houses of parliament. The Lower House: Hectic, hurry-hurry-hurry, a place of work. The Upper House: relative peace and quite, reflection. But is the Senate still the proverbial chambre de réflexion: a bastion where (generally old and wise) ladies and gentlemen critically examine laws? Or is it increasingly a political organ with which you can wheel and deal?

Occasional coalitions

The Upper House has always constituted a certain power factor: Consider Wiegel’s Night (the corrective referendum), for example, which led to a cabinet crisis, and Van Thijn’s Night (about the elected mayor), which resulted in the resignation of Thom de Graaf as minister. It is indisputably true, however, that the spotlight has been necessarily focused clearly on the Senate since the Rutte II cabinet came into office.

I say necessarily, because although the VVD liberals and the PvdA labour party have a comfortable majority in the Lower House, the two parties have only 30 of the 75 seats in the Upper House. There will be no change in that situation until 2015, at the earliest, at the next Provincial elections. Naturally, it is highly uncertain as to whether the government coalition will still be able to count on at least 38 seats going to their own members. At least until then, but perhaps also thereafter, the cabinet will have to form occasional coalitions with other parties in the senate.

Subtle lobbying

We have already seen a taste of this recently. Housing Minister Blok concluded an agreement with an unusual combination of parties including, in addition to the governing parties, the D66 liberals, the Christian ChristenUnie party and the reformed protestant SGP party. Good for… exactly 38 seats in the Upper House, just enough for a majority. But we also know that the desired support should first have come from another Upper House party: the CDA Christian Democrats. With its eleven seats in the senate, bigger than D66, ChristenUnie and SGP put together.

It looked initially as if Stef Blok was home and dry. Based on intensive contact with Elco Brinkman, chairman of the CDA party in the Upper House (and chairman of Bouwend Nederland, the association of construction and civil engineering companies, more about that in a moment), he had concluded that the CDA would go along with his proposals to boost the housing market. He was counting his chickens before they hatched, though: Brinkman’s sympathisers in the Lower House did not agree with Blok’s proposals. What followed was an example of subtle lobbying led by VNO-NCW (Dutch employers’ federation) , after which the cabinet changed course towards the liberal-Christian axis.

Lobbying lessons

The above topical example teaches us at least two lobbying lessons. One: never leave out the Lower House; it remains the most important political organ in the country. Two: expressly include the Upper House in your lobbying strategy; sometimes the senate can make all the difference. Remember that, unlike their colleagues ‘across the way’, Upper House MPs are part-timers. The Upper House meets, in principle, one day a week, on Tuesdays. There are also the occasional Monday discussions, but that is more the exception than the rule.

Most Upper House members combine their senate work with a (virtually) full-time job and are only in The Hague on Tuesdays. Going through parliamentary documents is evening and weekend work. Getting an appointment with one is therefore no mean feat. It’s certainly not impossible, though, as long it’s clear to them which interests you represent and you have a good story. As with Lower House members, the combination of a clear position paper and a compact oral explanation works best.

Double functions

I already mentioned Elco Brinkman’s double capacity: in daily life (up until 1 July this year) he is chairman of Bouwend Nederland and one day a week he works as a senator. Brinkman is certainly not alone in having such a double function. Visit the Upper House website, take a look at the list of members and you will find that various senators are also chairman of a sector organisation, professional association, health insurer or university. In other words: they also serve – and perhaps primarily – the interests of that organisation.

There are frequent social debates on the (un)desirability of that combination of functions. Is it all right for senators to wear two hats, or can that lead to a conflict of interests? I won’t get into philosophical contemplation here; I’d rather keep it practical. My tip (and lobbying lesson 3): for Upper House MPs, too, charity begins at home. Approach them primarily in their role as a politician, but don’t forget that they are not only concerned with the public interest, but occasionally have the interests of their sector organisation, professional association, company or university at heart…

Haugen, who will assume the new role effective March 4, will be based in London. He brings more than 25 years of experience, working with multinational clients in the areas of planning, branding and strategy development. He will report to Richard Kanareck, managing director of the London office, and to John Saunders, president of EMEA, working closely with teams in EMEA as well as around the agency’s global network.
“We’re delighted Paul’s joining us,” Kanareck said. “He is an incredibly smart, creative and strategic thinker with a broad range of experiences that will help us continue to deliver more ambitious and effective integrated campaigns for our clients in the U.K. and across the region. He has an outstanding track record working for first-class brands at several top agencies.”

Haugen added: “I’m hugely excited to join Fleishman-Hillard. I admire the firm’s global network, its client roster and obvious investment in creativity. I have witnessed the tremendous growth of Fleishman-Hillard’s presence in EMEA in the past eight years and very much look forward to spearheading planning in the region.”

Haugen joins Fleishman-Hillard from MHP Communications, where he established the agency’s client service framework and led MHP’s recent branding. Haugen also has held roles at Edelman, Burson-Marsteller and Hill & Knowlton.

About Fleishman-Hillard
Fleishman-Hillard Inc., one of the world’s leading strategic communications firms, has built its reputation on creating integrated solutions that deliver what its clients value most: meaningful, positive and measurable impact on the performance of their organizations. The firm is widely recognized for excellent client service and a strong company culture founded on teamwork, integrity and personal commitment. Based in St. Louis, the firm operates throughout North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa and Latin America through its 80 owned offices. For more information, visit the Fleishman-Hillard website at www.fleishmanhillard.com. Fleishman-Hillard is a part of Diversified Agency Services, a division of Omnicom Group Inc.

About Diversified Agency Services
Diversified Agency Services (DAS), a division of Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE:OMC) (www.omnicomgroup.com), manages Omnicom’s holdings in a variety of marketing communications disciplines. DAS includes over 200 companies, which operate through a combination of networks and regional organizations, serving international and local clients through more than 700 offices in 71 countries.

About Omnicom Group Inc.
Omnicom Group Inc. (www.omnicomgroup.com) is a leading global marketing and corporate communications company. Omnicom’s branded networks and numerous specialty firms provide advertising, strategic media planning and buying, digital and interactive marketing, direct and promotional marketing, public relations and other specialty communications services to over 5,000 clients in more than 100 countries.

The question of whether the financial crisis has had an impact on the role, significance and importance of internal communications was answered with a clear ‘yes’.

Wealth of information
Led by Marcel Baas, head of the internal communications practice group, Fleishman-Hillard started a quality survey into the new reality of internal communications in May 2012. Nearly fifty in-depth interviews were held with communications directors and managers. Businesses from many different sectors wanted to take part in the survey, as many people endorsed the expected changes within internal communications and wanted to give their opinion on the subject. Leading companies like KLM, Philips, Rabobank, PwC, KPN and many others talked at length about their experiences with internal communications over the years.

Great changes in internal communications
The interviews with all the communications professionals have provided insight into the multitude of factors that have influenced the present nature and character of the field of internal communications. It was necessary to find a different way of thinking, and this has been achieved.

Five themes were identified that have an impact on developments in the field – both separately and in combination:

• the role and engagement of the CEO,
• the commitment and contribution of the line management,
• the wishes and needs of the employees,
• the alignment of internal and external communications, and
• the necessity of accountability.

You can download the complete results of the survey in Dutch here. Please note that we are still working on the English version of the report.

Obama campaign driven by big data
As part of his European tour of the Fleishman-Hillard offices in Brussels and London, Bill also called in at Amsterdam. Using his strong network within the Democratic Party and his many years of experience in communications, Bill Black has succeeded in producing a blueprint of the Obama campaign. Bill outlines the impressive way in which the new Obama campaign deploys big data to activate potential voters. “The Obama campaign is highly data-driven, unprecedented in the history of political campaigning,” says Bill Black. The Obama campaign team uses advanced volunteer activation dashboards as a smart tool for targeting hesitant voters.

Public affairs as a campaign
There is a great contrast in professionalism between the US campaigns and those in the Netherlands, according to Marjolein Kampschreur, Digital Public Affairs strategist at FH Amsterdam. “The Netherlands still has a long way to go, particularly when it comes to integrating digital channels into campaigns,” says Marjolein. “There should really be a digital campaigner in the strategic core team for every campaign.”

To conclude, Jacques Bettelheim, Director Public Affairs in the Netherlands, gave the audience two pieces of valuable advice. “Always aim at all parties in your public affairs strategy, even if there are two ruling parties”. At the same time – reflecting on Bill Black’s presentation – Jacques advised that public affairs is most effective when you treat it like campaigning. “Know what you want and stay focused on it; that’s what gets results,” says Jacques.

For the audience, one thing was certain, whether Obama wins or loses: his 2012 campaign will be reflected in communication in the years to come.

You can download Bill Black’s presentation here.

Amsterdam, 19 September 2012 – Along with communications agency Fleishman-Hillard, as part of the global Omnicom consortium OneVoice*, Philips has won a Digital Communication Award in the category ‘Twitter Profile’. The parties collaborated with the Catharina Hospital in Eindhoven on the social media project ‘The social heart of surgery’, to put healthcare innovation firmly on the map in the Netherlands. The project beat its competitor in the same award category, ‘Curators of Sweden’ (by VisitSweden with Volontaire), which won a Grand Prix in Cannes earlier this year.

The social heart of surgery
Through the unique social media project ‘The social heart of surgery’, OneVoice supported Philips in spotlighting healthcare innovation and increasing awareness of heart rhythm disorders. In realizing the project, Philips Healthcare collaborated with the Catharina Hospital in Eindhoven. The public – and heart patients in particular – was able to follow cardiologist Lukas Dekker and heart patient Ad Langendonk on social media in the run-up to a heart intervention.

The story focused on patient and cardiologist, rather than on technology. The public could contact the two men via @hartpatientAd and @cardioloogLukas. During the heart operation, the public could even ‘watch’ live on Twitter. One of the cardiologist’s assistants twittered about Ad’s status, while the heart specialist carried out the intervention.

Healthcare and digital & social media
This mediagenic project showed that social media can turn a difficult healthcare topic into one that can be discussed easily, while bringing patients into contact with one another. The focus on the patient, the smart use of storytelling and the interactive elements linked to the story were all success factors in this case. This case made clear to the public how valuable healthcare innovation is to mankind and society. The improved quality of life for heart patient Ad after his operation created enormous engagement with the community and with followers of the project.

About the Digital Communication Awards
The Digital Communication Awards are organized by the Quadriga University of Applied Sciences, an international graduate school for Communications Management and Public Affairs. They are the first awards in the European PR and communications industry to exclusively review projects in online communication. A total of 36 awards are presented in various disciplines, ranging from social media communication to digital public affairs. The jury comprised 30 communications experts, from both the professional and the academic sector. You can view all the winners and nominees in the various categories here.

From fresh…
First a little bit of historical background information: Some 10,000 to 20,000 years ago, people started settling in one place and we turned from hunters into farmers. We spent our days gathering food, at first chiefly fish, game and vegetables, and later grain entered our diet. It was only much, much later, at the beginning of the twentieth century, that we started producing food industrially. From then on – here, in the West, in particular – our food came primarily from factories. One major incentive was progressive insight into preservation methods.

To can…
With all the new developments and techniques, we were able to keep food ever longer. A boon for the continuity of our food supply, but there were drawbacks. Apart from the fact that we had less and less knowledge of what was actually being put in our food, we were becoming increasingly distanced from the source. Growing ambiguity was enhanced by the fact that the food sector failed to realise its responsibility to provide information and neglected to inform us of production processes and sector-wide technological developments (such as genetic modification) that nevertheless had a high impact on our diet.

To fresh?
In recent years, there have also been serious food crises, such as the EHEC bacteria and the dioxin crisis. Combined with diet-related epidemics, such as obesity, and a lack of communication from the sector, this has put food and food safety higher than ever on the social and political agenda. The sector is aware of this and has therefore been demonstrating initiatives for making its offering more natural and healthy again, with fewer additives and less salt, for example. There is still a long way to go, though, before consumer confidence is regained.

Growing pressure
This is all grist to the mill for NGOs. It presents opportunities for getting consumers to do their dirty work and they have become skilled at framing and claiming issues. The Kiloknallers (supermarket meat loss leaders) and the Gouden Windei (a ‘prize’ for the most misleading food articles) are good examples. Just to refresh your memory: In 2010, the animal rights organisation Wakker Dier started a campaign against supermarkets promoting cut-price meat. The objective was to break the downward spiral for meat prices and ensure there is more money available to spend on animal welfare. Social media, bus shelter posters and radio adverts were used to encourage consumers to buy meat from the competitors of supermarket chain C1000. As a direct result, the number of animal-friendly special offers in the chain’s flyers rose that year by 20%. The Gouden Windei is a FoodWatch initiative. Every year, consumers are asked to vote for the product they find the most misleading. Last year, 19,000 consumers voted.

Transparency and the power of social media
What can food manufacturers learn from this; where can they gain or, rather, maintain profits by winning back consumer confidence?

First of all, the sector has to understand how social media have given citizens a loud voice and therefore power. As citizens and consumers we want – no, we demand information on products and ingredients. This has made dialogue even more important and that means food manufacturers have to listen, and they have to become better at explaining the developments that have a direct impact on what ends up on our plate. Transparency is the key. So that means talking about the drawbacks of certain production methods, too, and telling us what is being done to reduce or alleviate those drawbacks. And if they do enter into dialogue, they would be well advised to start talking to the NGOs and the other parties involved, too. So they get a better understanding of each other and find common ground. And, with a bit of luck, a joint objective: healthy food produced in a responsible manner!

Seeing as I was sent this news item about a hundred times in various shapes and guises (“No extra seat through social media”!!), I set about sifting through the research again. And to my amazement I discovered that it was a totally outdated paper, focusing on an extremely small area of campaigns, and moreover that the results showed that social media actually do seem to have an effect on voting preferences.

Lesson
Hereby then a lesson in interpreting research for the journalists of the Dutch nation:

• The research was conducted in May/June 2010. (I probably don’t need to tell you how much the use of social networking has grown in two years’ time and all the changes that have taken place in the online landscape. Just take, for example, the emergence of Facebook and the decline of Hyves).
• The research only deals with candidates’ use of specific social media (Twitter and Hyves). There is no mention at all of a broad online campaign as party strategy. (Take, for instance, the webcare by @D66, direct mailings from the PvdA and the VVD Facebook Page, etc.)
• The question put by the research was: ‘Does candidates’ use of social media make a difference to the number of preferential votes they receive?’
• The results of the research were: ‘There is a small, but considerably significant direct effect of the use of social media on preferential votes for candidates.’

Nonsense
So in my eyes, it is absolute nonsense to draw conclusions from the implications above. A good campaign consists of many components. Paid (Commercials and Adwords), Earned (newspaper articles and TV debate appearances), Shared (retweets on Twitter and shares on Facebook) and Owned (own website, direct mailings and own Facebook Page) media are all used strategically in order to get the message across as well as possible to your target group. These communication channels all reinforce and boost one another in an interplay of strategies and messages. The research only looks at a miniscule part of this larger whole of digital communication, namely the candidates’ activities on social media, whereas you actually need to look at a much larger range of online activities.

Bandwagon Effect
Stimulating and nurturing the debate taking place on various social media and forums really is a way to win seats, even if only through the Bandwagon Effect that occurs when others say, for example, that they are considering voting for the PvdA. We have all seen this happening over the past few days. And a good Google AdWords strategy is worth its weight in gold, as is the smart purchasing of Facebook ads. It is also incredibly important to be easily found through themes that are relevant to your party. The number of visitors to party websites went through the roof this year, surpassing all the figures from two years ago.

Mix
The conclusions drawn from this research by the media totally ignore the power of Twitter as a public debating space. Campaign teams try to tell their stories in such a way that they do not only end up in the papers, but also become a popular topic of discussion on social media. The discussion about the ‘ZZP’ tax (tax for self-employed people) is an excellent example of this. Parties’ plans for taxing self-employed people were outlined on a separate site (owned media, D66), which turned into a trending topic (shared media) in no time, and it was the first item on the eight o’clock news (earned media). Though you can never say just how many people switched their vote there and then, this example makes it absolutely clear that it is all about the mix of communication channels.

Online communication
There is so much to say about online communication in campaigns, and the believers are sure to go much further in their deep-rooted faith than researchers looking at their calculators. But this research does not merit being used as an argument in the discussion about the effect of social media. And all – really all – the research points to the fact that we are communicating more and more online, and that this trend is still growing. In a month’s time, let’s look at the real figures of these campaigns and decide what mix of communication channels is the most suitable for which target group. Joining in the outcry of the anti-social media news is just too easy.