The next online lecture was devoted to corporate communications and was delivered by Maja Stojanović, Executive Director at the full-service communications agency Olaf & McAteer.
Maja started her presentation with the question of ‘Why do companies, brands, organisations, performers, politicians, and others communicate with the public?’ Having given the participants time to respond, Maja went on to say that this effort preserved and maintained brand image and helped improve performance and contact with consumers. As such, any brand, organisation, or public figure had to devote special attention to corporate communication. Maja also spoke about the Serbian media scene, stressing that there were a large number of media outlets for such a small country and that public opinion was influenced primarily by online, broadcast, and print outlets.
The second part of the lecture was devoted to the importance of storytelling, a strategy increasingly adopted by brands that entailed telling an honest story that underpins a product. For this purpose, businesses often employed historical facts or sustainable ways of doing business, which consumers have been finding more and more important. Another frequent strategy was ‘guerrilla marketing’, she said, which involved using unconventional methods to attract attention and seeks to leverage minimum investment for maximum effect. Maja also noted the importance of online influencers, who have greatly contributed to brand promotion and growth worldwide in recent years.
At the end of the lecture, the AmChamps could engage in discussion and give their own examples and observations of corporate communications, and talk about how their companies did business.
