What’s Decorating Your Corporate Tree?

A symbol of the holiday season, Christmas trees are ubiquitous this time of year. With decorations ranging from colored lights to monochromatic themes to earth-friendly and sport- inspired decorations, one just doesn’t seem complete without lights, ornaments, and of course, a bright star on top.

Abstractly, a Christmas tree is shaped like a pyramid—a wider bottom yields more decorations than the top. However, it’s that top star that is the showpiece of the display. Accordingly, a public relations plan takes into account each layer, making sure levels building up to the apex are balanced and support the top star.

A strong PR plan builds up strong base layers: charitable giving, media placements, strategic planning, and crisis management. Each of these components is an “ornament” of sorts that adds aesthetic and functional value to the tree.

Remember Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree? It was sickly. It wasn’t that Charlie Brown didn’t follow the proper steps of finding a Christmas tree, it was that he chose a tree lacking structure and stability—the necessary components to be sustainable. So when he placed the single ornament on top of the tree, it caused the entire tree to droop toward the ground.

Likewise, a corporation without a public relations plan to address all of its needs lacks fullness and stability. A healthy corporation will make sure it has a crisis communication plan, brand management, and all the public relations components essential to healthy and luminous corporate image.

By building up a strong base, the tree topper—an organization’s image—will be able to shine brightly.

The Company That Gives Also Receives

'Tis the season for giving. Accordingly, a vast majority of the consumer population turns their hearts toward donating and volunteering during the winter holidays. Not only do consumers act, they want to know the businesses they support are doing the same, in particular mega businesses banking in the millions and billions.

Most CEOs and business owners know this and, in keeping, factor charitable giving into their annual budgets especially for this time of year. However, during the holidays should not be the only instance of corporate goodwill. More so, strategic philanthropy should be part of a public relations strategy to create or evolve brand identity and structure corporate reputation.

When a company is in peril or even faces an issue, what they do every day is under the microscope. A solid public relations strategy should reflect what causes are important to its stakeholders—leadership employees, and customers.

Consider Belk, the nation’s largest privately-owned retailer. When they acquired Parisian in Birmingham, AL, it wasn’t an easy brand sell to the consumer market. One strategy they employed (with our help) was the bi-annual charity sale, which has raised more than $26 million for non-profits since 2007.

In a nutshell, a company that invests in “doing good” builds invaluable goodwill.

"In giving, a man receives more than he gives, and the more is in proportion to the worth of the thing given." —George MacDonald