December 9, 2024
December 10, 2024
This Q&A is part of our Communications Turning Point series, which examines the biggest issues shaping strategic communications today. Amid big shifts in technology, information sources and media, and new pressures on budgets, this series helps leaders adapt to the changing landscape with advice from some of the world’s top communicators.
During my 25-plus years working in communications, change has been constant if not a little dizzying. This is particularly true for early stage startups that are navigating an ever-evolving, increasingly complex and fiercely competitive landscape for earning trust with their audiences. I recently caught up with marketing and comms veteran Allison Braley, who is currently a Partner and Head of Marketing at Bain Capital Ventures, where she advises their portfolio companies on all aspects of strategic communications – from seed through to IPO.
Allison previously held roles with Playground Global, Ford, Zoosk, The Information and Conde Nast, to name a few. But you might know her best for her musings about communications through the lens of HBO’s “Succession.”
What follows is an edited version of our discussion.
To kick us off: You have some really varied experience in marketing and communications. So, do you consider yourself a communicator or marketer first?
Both of them are loaded terms. Communications often gets reduced to this idea of ‘just being PR’ by people who don't understand it, and marketing can be thought of as ‘just sales enablement.’
I think of myself as a communications person first, and one who has a double major in brand.
We’ve both been at this for a while. Change has been constant. What are the biggest issues shaping communications right now?
To begin, there’s just such a high ratio of comms people to reporters. That’s compounded by AI making it incredibly easy to draft pitches – and not particularly good ones – and then bombard reporters with them. The bar for earned stories has always been high. This makes it higher and even harder to earn their attention.
I’d also say that over the course of my career, communications has gone from doing specific, even fairly basic things like faxing pitches to broadcast newsrooms (to date myself a bit), to now encompassing almost everything a company does to communicate to important stakeholders. It’s so much more than earned media.
The nebulousness of this profession worries me. Some companies recognize how important the role is, and others say, ‘I don't really know what it means. So, I'm not sure I need it.’
Given this ‘nebulous’ nature of communications, what are your first principles? What are the fundamentals that you always come back to?
I actually thought about this a lot while working on my personal mission statement in my LinkedIn profile. Basically, I want to help startups become known and understood. That’s our role as comms people – helping both brands and individuals. Step one is getting the word out about them and step two is sharpening and shaping their narrative. It all sits on a strong foundation of your story.
What do startup CEOs often misunderstand about comms, and how do you help them ‘get it’?
Some CEOs want to treat our work very transactionally. Here’s a recent case: An exec said, ‘I want to control the headline of this story, and I'm not going to be happy unless the headline says this.’
Well, the reporter doesn’t write the headline, the editor does. You have virtually no control over it. That said, we need to make sure the CEO tells a great story in their interview and that the story leads the reporter to act on it.
Startup CEOs accustomed to more binary choices are uncomfortable with this uncertainty and want these relationships to be more transactional than they are. But relationships like these aren’t binary, nor are they transactional. They’re earned and developed over time.
Also, more broadly, I’d say they sometimes don't know how hard it is to build a brand – both a company and their personal brands. There’s often a timeline I recommend to help them be as efficient as possible while still leaning into the work:
- Begin by putting out more social content on the issue you want to be known for.
- Then go on some niche podcasts to talk about that issue.
- Then pursue speaking opportunities at smaller conferences around that same topic.
- From there, you may get in a trade publication or two or three.
- Then progress upwards once you’ve established your personal brand.
There's this bubble-up motion that you have to do now – you can't shortcut from A-F. You need to do steps B, C, D, E. It’s a flywheel that keeps on turning because there’s a zillion people that would like to comment on that subject, and you must earn the right to do that. And the things you say have to be interesting!
<split-lines>"You can't shortcut from A-F. You need to do steps B, C, D, E. It’s a flywheel that keeps on turning because there’s a zillion people that would like to comment on that subject..."<split-lines>
Where do you start your process with earlier stage CEOs to get them on board?
Nobody likes someone who comes into a discussion and is immediately saying, ‘You can't have anything you want.’ I try to build trust during my narrative workshops. I ask the CEO a series of targeted questions over 90 minutes to understand their vision and the business. Sometimes they have the co-founder there and realize that they don’t agree or are not on the same page. This is really an alignment building exercise.
Then, I come back with about a nine-page document – their brand narrative – with insights on voice and tone. This earns me the right to have deeper conversations because there’s now a level of trust. It’s different than coming in swinging.
Ultimately, you’re painting a picture over a long period of time. One action isn’t going to lead to being known and understood.
Can you share a few examples of the questions you’d ask during this workshop?
I’m so glad you asked this question.
‘You’re at an IHOP with your grandmother. She asks, “What are you doing with your time?” How do you respond?’
I want to get to the most basic level of what you’re doing. This will touch on the importance of your work, since you wouldn’t tell your grandma, ‘I’m just doing this to make money.’
Another one…
‘It’s 10 years from now, you have a Super Bowl ad. Who’s narrating it?’ This gives me an interesting sense of brand and tone – we could be talking about Reese Witherspoon or TARS from “Interstellar.” There’s a huge difference.
<split-lines>"‘It’s 10 years from now, you have a Super Bowl ad. Who’s narrating it?’ This gives me an interesting sense of brand and tone – we could be talking about Reese Witherspoon or TARS from 'Interstellar.' There’s a huge difference."<split-lines>
Let’s get to AI. It’s a crowded space and there's a real downside to miscommunicating about AI. So, what’s your advice to startups and communicators trying to stand out and build trust?
This is pretty industry specific – there are industries where you can have some wiggle room on accuracy – say, a customer support chatbot that elevates to an agent if something’s off. That’s a lot different than the legal industry – you’ve got to get that right.
The reality is that these products are compared to perfection – and any mistake is considered a problem. We expect perfection from our machines while we tolerate imperfection from humans.
That’s a big challenge for communicators – they want to position products as accurate and reliable, but they will make mistakes, it’s inevitable. ChatGPT or Claude, they’ll both lie some percentage of the time, and do it with confidence. That might be OK if you’re drafting an internal memo, but harder if you’re diagnosing a patient or categorizing things for their insurance. It’s all about understanding the accuracy tolerance and variability that you can have in your AI product and managing expectations accordingly. There’s nothing but downside if you spin the truth.
<split-lines>"It’s all about understanding the accuracy tolerance and variability that you can have in your AI product and managing expectations accordingly. There’s nothing but downside if you spin the truth."<split-lines>
Of course, as a communicator, you should always ask your company the hard questions: ‘What’s your moat here? Do you have proprietary data? How are we fine-tuning it?’
These are crucial questions that get you to the truth and will inform your work.
