By Ellen M. Heffes

We're a long way from the 16th century, where people could go entire lifetimes and get about as much information as could now be printed in one daily Wall Street Journal. Fast forward to the 21st century where a 24/7, digitally connected world broadcasts information and entertainment content at an ever-accelerating pace.

"Multi-media dissemination of information now plays a major role in the life of every person and every business, with the business media the hottest-growing segment," says Gustav Carlson, a Greenwich, Conn.-based consultant specializing in corporate communications.

Dealing with the business media is the responsibility of every senior executive, to ensure that messages about your organization are conveyed in the form and format that you desire. It starts with asking: "Who/what are we as a company?" "How are we viewed externally?" "How do we want to be viewed?" With answers to these questions, you then go about developing your plan.

A major part of any firm's overall corporate communications plan is a keen recognition of the value and power of its corporate image - its brand equity - and then committing the resources, both people and financial, for taking charge of promoting and protecting that image.

Besides the CEO, it's now the CFO and often, other senior financial executives, who are expected to be company spokespersons for the business media - which includes newspapers, magazines, television, radio, online and wire services.

The financial and business media has changed enormously over the last 5 to 10 years, from a news source that few paid attention to - except for checking stock quotes -- to around-the-clock international reporting. Much of the growth stems from what Carlson dubs "the rise of the consumer investor." A former journalist, public relations executive and author of Total Exposure: Controlling Your Company's Image in the Glare of the Business Media Explosion, he sees the explosion in the business news media being driven by a growing hunger for business and financial information. That has escalated as more people take responsibility for their own investments and retirement portfolios -managing 401(k)s - and the recent popularity of the dot-com era.

Like a double-edged sword, there are at least two sides to each story: the message and the interpretation of the message. The high-speed, sound-bite nature of the media increasingly makes it possible, Carlson says, "for a small company to catapult from comfortable obscurity to glaring infamy in a very short time span." On the other hand, a household-name company, having built years of highly regarded brand equity, can lose its reputation and substantial shareholder value virtually overnight following reports of disappointing earnings or other bad news. The speed with which information can travel around the world also makes it difficult to contain or correct misinformation. Even a little bad publicity can quickly turn into a real crisis.

In this environment, it's the responsibility of any serious financial executive to recognize the critical issues involved in controlling and communicating through the business news media. The proliferation of the business press - more outlets trying to make business news more entertaining, sometimes with inexperienced reporters, rushing to meet deadlines, fill space and get stories out - combined with inexperienced company spokespeople, can too often derail an organization's strategic growth plans.

Add to that the Securities and Exchange Commission's recent reporting standard, Regulation Fair Disclosure, which is pushing more CFOs and senior financial executives - many with little or no media experience - into the spotlight for TV interviews or Web-casting conference calls on financial results and expectations. With all the variables, Carlson boils the corporate communication issue down to a problem of "quantity versus quality."

It's Show Biz: The Business Media

In a sense, it's "show biz" time for CFOs. Besides your business' performance, there's a lot riding on your performance - preparing for and executing communications strategies. While it has nothing to do with crunching numbers, meeting numbers or producing fancy budgets or spreadsheets, your media performance could substantially impact your company's image, shareholder value and more.

For example, Carlson says the biggest risk for a new public company is being unprepared for what awaits it when making its debut. He explains that many new companies going public have reached that point in their business life cycle because of an almost fanatical focus on customers. Then, once it becomes an entity in which people invest money, the rules change, and it's under far more scrutiny from many different audiences. "It's no longer simply the customer. It's the media, the regulators and shareholders. Many CFOs who aren't prepared to address all of those audiences find themselves frozen, like a deer in headlights, when they step onto the public stage."

Assessing the value of dollars spent on corporate communications and public relations isn't easy. "The measurability of public relations and editorial influence is very difficult to quantify, especially when dealing with organizations that are bottom-line-driven," Carlson argues. However, he adds, "a well-placed comment in a piece in a prime business or trade publication - even if it's only a line or two - has far more power and influence for a firm than 'paid media efforts,' such as advertising."

Finally, Carlson urges financial executives to recognize the value of an ongoing and consistent representation in the business news media. He says, "It's crucial that senior executives understand that a big part of their responsibilities as leaders of companies is to promote the public face of their company in this new media environment."

Source: Financial Executives Online, http://www.fei.org/magazine/articles/9-2001_corpcomm.cfm