Light on liars

Today more than ever, you have to walk the talk.

Andrew Carrier

Mar 13, 2022

Welcome to IMTW issue № 49 in which you’ll learn why:

① Clever tech is shining light on liars.

② Messages must always be substantiated with proof points.

③ Action should always come first. Then talk about it.

④ ESG claims can be tested and demonstrated.

⑤ Tokenisation is gaining momentum with fund managers.

⑥ Communication is never the core issue. Trust is.

⑦ We need innovation, now more than ever.

What's new?

① This week, as they do every year, brands took to social media to celebrate International Women’s Day - with varying degrees of sincerity and credibility. But this year, a bot was watching. Fortune has the story.

Gender Pay Gap Bot @PayGapApp

In this organisation, women's median hourly pay is 19.9% lower than men's.

GoCardless @GoCardless

#IWD2022 spotlight on Kasey, our Director of Security & Privacy Risk: 📌Best advice: Feedback is a gift 📌Approach to biases: Educates herself on the challenges faced by under-represented groups. Knowing what to look out for helps her correct them when she can #BreakTheBias https://t.co/ExU0AmiRck

In short:

“Many corporations marked International Women’s Day on March 8 by tweeting photographs of woman colleagues alongside positive statements that celebrated the proud and equal work they do. But a bot, @PayGapApp, which has over 75,000 followers, replied to every corporate tweet that used the hashtag #IWD2022 with a quote tweet highlighting the salary disparity between men and women in the company—a figure that is publicly available on the U.K. government website.
The bot’s co-creator Francesca Lawson told Fortune: “What I get annoyed at with International Women’s Day and any awareness event that is linked to a social issue, so say Pride, Black History Month, it’s all the same. Companies will show their support across all their comms and their social media, but they don’t provide any data or evidence to show what they are doing to challenge discrimination.”
"The bot became so popular that after some companies were called out, they deleted tweets and reposted them without the hashtag so as to not be associated with the quote tweet.”

Why does it matter?

② If a brand is going to jump on a cause, it has to be able to substantiate its statements with facts and action. This is a principle I apply to any messaging. A ‘message house’ contains ‘key messages’ but these must always be underpinned by proof points: fact-based statementS that bring credibility and substance to your narrative.

Sadly, many organisations are so keen to be perceived as caring about diversity, fairness and inclusion that they forget to be diverse, fair and inclusive. Instead, they jump straight to the message and trip themselves up as they do so.

This wonderful bot is a timely reminder to us all to walk the talk.

What's next?

Take action

③ I don’t need to say much here, do I? Marketing, no matter how slick, cannot polish a turd. The answer is never what your communications team are doing but rather how you manage your organsiation. Don’t even think about putting out statements on any cause (our conversation about Ukraine from the last issue springs to mind here too) unless your actions back them up.

Run a good business, treat people fairly, and then, when opportunities like International Women’s Day come around, by all means go ahead and tell people about it. But action first. Always.

Get help

Visit InMarketing, my resource library for leaders in finance or technology who want to innovate, interact and influence.

If you have a question or comment, just hit ‘reply’. I’d love to hear from you.

Can I ask you a favour? If you found this useful or know someone who would, please share it. It would really help me to grow the community of regular IMTW readers.

What else?

Three other articles that are worthy of your time.

FINANCE

UK stewardship code adds 74 new signatories

④ ESG claims can be tested and demonstrated.

Source: The Financial Times, 10 March 2022

“Some 74 new signatories have signed up to the UK’s stewardship code governing how investors hold companies to account, swelling the combined assets of fund managers under the standard to £33tn, from £21tn in September.”
“Major asset managers that are new to the list of signatories include State Street Global Advisors, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Pimco, Schroders and T Rowe Price. Big fund managers who have not signed up include JPMorgan Asset Management, Credit Suisse and Allianz.”
“Stewardship is seen as a key component of investing according to environmental, social and governance principles. But while interest in aligning investment with these standards has increased sharply, critics say that some investors overstate their focus on sustainability in an effort to tap into the billions pouring into this part of the market.”

TECHNOLOGY

Over 50 per cent of fund managers already ‘testing tokenised assets’

⑤ Tokenisation is gaining momentum with institutional investors.

“The study, conducted among fund managers in France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland and the UK with around USD546.5 billion in assets under management, found more than four in five (83 per cent) fund managers agree that the shift into a tokenised economy offers greater potential for a more transparent, open, and fairer financial services industry.”
“Around 85 per cent of fund managers questioned said they believe financial services providers who are not prepared for mass tokenisation of assets risk being left behind.”
“One in five fund managers (21 per cent) have already invested in some tokenised assets and 73 per cent plan to do so within the next three years. Around 37 per cent say they would consider launching their own investment vehicles investing in tokenised assets within three years, while 47 per cent say they could offer these products within three to five years.”

MEDIA & MARKETING

To win over an audience, focus on building trust

⑥ Communication is never the core issue. Trust is.

Source: Harvard Business Review, 9 March 2022

“In the 2020 Trust Outlook, 80% of Americans said they would not follow a leader they do not trust. According to the research, the number one reason people will not buy from a sales person is lack of trust. In the U.S. nearly 8 in 10 people would not refer the products or services of someone they do not trust. Trust is how organisations win our loyalty: respondents reported that the leading reason they wanted to work for an organization — more than compensation or company culture — was trusted leadership.”

There are five competencies a leader can use to gain buy-in and build trust in the context of a presentation: