Levee Case Studies

OPPORTUNITY:  Business strategy sets the tone for the direction of any company. A compelling opportunity arises for companies that can connect their strategy to purpose. By connecting the two, communicators are provided with a powerful content generator that can create a strong narrative about the company.  

ACTION:  By working with leadership as the business strategy was developed, communications then segmented the strategy by audience. Once the audience segments were agreed to, communicators then worked to identify and verify examples of how the company was delivering on its strategy and purpose.  With these proof points, a global communication plan was developed that delivered a consistent message to consumers, customers, analysts, employees, and other stakeholders -- across many time zones, with many executives and employees tasked to speak publicly, from  multiple business units, in many languages, using many platforms, events and venues – all sequenced for maximum effect.

OUTCOME:  Communicating a “business interests meets purpose” story, which began in the mid-2000s, was supported by many inside and outside the company, recognized company growth and rewarded shareholders with a stock price that doubled over a decade and continues trading well above $120 today. With companies being challenged to grow financially, developing a long-term strategy that engages stakeholders through purpose can be crafted into a powerful story. For its part, communications must then shape and share the story as broad and deep as time allows. 

OPPORTUNITY:  As a company’s strategy continues to evolve and grow, so too must the comms team change in order to remain that tightly integrated strategic partner to the business. For a global transportation company, a reorganization provided an opportunity to relook at all management roles and responsibilities to identify ways to improve performance and eliminate inefficiencies. Along with the rest of the company, the Comms team needed to better align with the new business priorities, organizational structure and leadership team. Some team members had roles that were too narrow, leading to outsourcing of more work and spending.

ACTION:  Through a cascade redesign program, the organization was transformed with a broadening of roles and responsibilities for experienced managers. The number of senior individual roles was reduced, with junior roles added to insource work and continue to develop talent for the future. In addition, areas of responsibilities were reoriented to align with the company’s business priorities. The significant targeted cost reduction was achieved, while attempting as much as possible to capture the savings through attrition or by consolidating “empty” organizational boxes.

OUTCOME:  A slightly smaller, yet more focused comms team was created. It was closely aligned to the company’s new business priorities and had a better balance and strategy for insourcing and outsourcing work. Share-of-voice earned media results in areas of importance to the business, such as products and services, remained strong throughout the restructuring in spite of media and influencer scrutiny related to the reorganization, M&A activity and labor contract changes.

ISSUE: A global energy operations company must navigate business risks, including health, safety and environmental incidents, and other reputation challenges. Without a strategy and plan  to prepare the company to communicate to all of its stakeholders in a crisis, the company’s reputation and credibility would be at risk. Ineffective response to a crisis can cost companies in lost customers and revenue, and loss of trust.

ACTION: To better prepare the company for communications response in a crisis, the communications team developed the crisis comms plan and policy, including required content, messaging and training. The team partnered with legal to identify the most likely risk scenarios and developed specific internal and external communications materials, including press releases, reactive statements and a “dark” crisis website, for identified scenarios. An on-call communications notification process for after hours and weekends was established. Comms team processes, including a phone tree, flow chart and crisis roles/responsibilities were developed. The Comms team was trained for specific crisis team roles and conducted a table-top drill exercise. The company’s senior leadership team provided input and was briefed along the way.

OUTCOME: The crisis communications plan, policies and training materials were developed, reviewed and implemented within nine months. In addition, operations leaders globally were media trained via a webinar. When the company discovered an environmental risk in a community, the communications team integrated with the company’s emergency response plans by supporting operations and government affairs with key messages, FAQs, media relations and training and website content. By the end of the project, the company’s actions to safeguard the community and supporting communications strategy helped to fortify its reputation among residents, elected officials and regulators, and it had a permanent solution to address a crisis.

OPPORTUNITY: Launch new "fine-casual" restaurant concept that blends fast-casual with chef-forward cuisine.  Concept is supported by leading restaurant architect, brand designer, chef, and restaurant chain investment group.

Introduce new restaurant concept with integrated Marketing component independent of Levee during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. 

ACTION: Developed a comms plan with multiple "introductions" to the concept among beat reporters and influencers leading up to the opening. Leveraged unique aspects of the revitalized community location to create additional storylines that amplify anticipation of restaurant opening. Phase two began post opening.

OUTCOME: Secured multiple interviews for stories with local media and influencers, including the lead restaurant reporter in the market's major daily.  With restaurant now scheduled to open in December, interviews continue and on-site events set for pre and post opening with all stakeholders.

OPPORTUNITY:  For publicly traded companies, annual reports are a standard part of business. Beyond their legal requirements, they are useful tools to update shareholders and stakeholders alike. For a B2B client, an opportunity arose to go beyond what’s legally required communications in publishing its annual report and tell a more comprehensive story.  

ACTION:  First, project leads were identified – which were Finance, Investor Relations and Communications. Each was given specific responsibility -- Finance took on company strategy, Investor Relations had responsibility for shareholders and Communications served as project manager and content developer. To make the annual report more compelling, sources for the content were identified and responsible parties were assigned to vet the information. In addition to prior year financials, the annual report was shaped into a platform that explained the company’s strategy beyond year-over-year performance -- through words, visuals and charts -- by illustrating recent success and previewing future goals.  It became a road map of the future for employees, analysts and shareholders to rally behind.  The annual report became the foundation for subsequent presentations and announcements that described the company’s strategy and growth agenda.

OUTCOME:  By creating a strong communications platform at the start of the year, like an annual report, it can serve as an ideal reference point for any company’s strategy throughout the year. It enables consistency and clarity that both shareholders and stakeholders welcome when making decisions about how to value the enterprise. Having a strong annual report allows leadership to refer to its content when speaking to analysts on earnings calls, the board when making capital investments, employees when creating optimism for the company’s future and other stakeholders who seek to better understand the company’s role in society. 

ISSUE:  A company with 40,000 employees had little control of internal functions sending mass emails to group distribution lists. Compounding matters was that 90 percent of the employees worked outside of headquarters, and the majority of emails were sent by headquarters functions. The lack of central management and communication coordination created confusion among employees due to competing messages as well as frustration from non-headquarters employees for the perceived over communication of irrelevant information.  

ACTION:  Audits of emails being sent to employee distribution lists and by which function to determine the extent of the issue. With the information obtained, a case was made to leadership to centralize employee communication responsibility between the company’s in-house public relations and human resource functions.  The plan called for the public relations function to be responsible for communications that raised awareness of the company’s strategy and major initiatives. Human resources became responsible for communication that required employee action. Both functions strategized to improve the company’s culture and implemented campaigns and developed communications tools to consistently reach all employees.

OUTCOME:  After one month of audits, another month to secure leadership approval, developing the plan between public relations and human resources took one additional month. The activation plan began with a roll out that explained the new process and responsibilities to all employees.  After some consternation by some functions over the restrictions, the new plan began to gain traction – especially with non-headquarters employees who appreciated the structured and relevant company information they now received.  Employee surveys and polls were taken to measure effectiveness of communication for awareness and understanding of company priorities and other important news. 

OPPORTUNITY:  With sales lagging for a flagship brand, a deep dive into its consumer base led to an interesting insight – control.  According to research, younger people wanted a say in what the brand stood for – not the company. A creative solution was needed to reconnect a brand loved by many, but now being ghosted by its followers.

ACTION:  After the decision was made on how to reengage its core consumers, the ball – literally -- was handed to communications to create  awareness and engagement through Public Relations. Knowing the ads created for the Super Bowl made news, what if the ads were 100% created by consumers? And what if the buzz created the week before the big game was instead created during all of the final four months of the football season?  And what if social media was used to create interest and competition among filmmakers and fans alike to select the winning ad? You’d have a PR campaign with enough elements to create a consistent stream of news that makes a fading brand more relevant.  

OUTCOME:  Not only was the first campaign a success, with more than one billion media impressions and tens of millions of dollars in advertising equivalency – the campaign became an annual staple for about a decade. By doing the research, critical analysis, having guts to turn over control, and relying on communications to connect with its consumer – a flagship brand went from losing sales to consistently winning again, and again, and again... 

ISSUE:  With shareholder pressure to reduce costs and increase profits mounting, a manufacturing company faced a time-based challenge to streamline operations and lower overhead to meet the quarter’s financial expectations. Company  executives met for two weeks to identify the areas of opportunity, leaving roughly 10 weeks to select the manufacturing facilities and HQ staff to be impacted, plan for the new supply chain, shift employees to new roles or expand responsibilities, evaluate the financial upside, and weigh community reaction across multiple locations in North America.  After 10 weeks of evaluation, the executives made the decision to restructure and announce this in conjunction with its earnings release in two weeks.

ACTION: Confidentiality is critical for this type of news and the circle of insiders was kept small. Communications was fully engaged once the decision was made to proceed with announcing tied to earnings. Planning began immediately with input from HR, IR, Operations, Finance, and Legal. Stakeholders were identified, messages were developed for each audience and a comprehensive timeline of internal notifications and public announcements was finalized. To avoid disruptions in the investment community or with shareholders, the announcement could not be made during NYSE trading hours – 9:30 am ET to 4:00 pm ET. With multiple locations across three North American time zones, timing was critical as executives mandated that employees learn of the restructuring from the company first – timed to the press release becoming public -- through their supervisors, and then broad internal and external sources.

OUTCOME:  Once final restructuring and communications plans were reviewed and approved by the function leads, the announcement coincided with that quarter’s earnings – as had been decided.  The earnings press release with restructuring news was scheduled for after 4 pm ET, with the analyst call scheduled for the following morning.  This timing allowed employees on both the east and west coasts to be notified during their normal work hours. Simultaneous to the press release being issued, individual employee meetings and employee group forums had been scheduled in advance to begin making all internal stakeholders aware of the changes to come and what it meant for them going forward. Internal communications via electronic means were sent to employees, board members, customers, and suppliers.  Contact was also made with local officials, organizations and community partners shortly after the press release became public. News like this is never welcome, but when the company considers its people first and develops a thoughtful plan to lessen the impact – restructuring still remains unwelcome but may be more readily understood. 

OPPORTUNITY:  A CPG company recognized for superior processes to reduce supply chain costs while also maintaining high quality standards was generating consistent revenue and profit but was getting no credit for decreasing water, fuel and energy consumption.  

ACTION:  After measuring its water, fuel and energy usage and investing capital in “green” facilities and vehicles to prove the cost benefit, a compelling business case emerged on two fronts – environmental sustainability and cost reduction.  An integrated communications strategy was developed to create awareness of the company’s sustainability programs to employees, elected officials, regulators, retail customers, and media.  The strategy became an everlasting communications campaign for an industry leader in environmental sustainability.

OUTCOME:  The company garnered significant news coverage and public recognition for its efforts to reduce its environmental footprint.  Among the highlights were a front page article in a national newspaper regarding its  facility in Arizona, an Earth Day event with then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to unveil its solar field in California and recognition from former Vice President Al Gore for reducing greenhouse gasses while demonstrating a financial benefit to the company's bottom-line.  

ISSUE: A company going through a merger review, at the appropriate time, must be prepared with a back-up plan, especially if the transaction faces high regulatory risks. While doing everything possible to support the successful deal closing and integration planning, a global company had to develop an alternative, stand-alone business strategy -- as well as internal and external communications plans to support the strategy -- when it appeared likely that a pending transaction (already challenged by regulators) might be terminated. 

ACTION: A small subset of the communications team, working discretely with senior business leaders and investor relations, put together an integrated communications plan based on the new business model and strategic direction – including expansion into new market opportunities, debt and cost reduction actions and steps to return value to shareholders. The communications plan included laying out the three-pronged business and financial strategy in a press release, investor script, customer/sales communications, website content and in a full range of internal communications, including an employee letter and video message. For shareholders, the messaging focused on the value proposition related to the new strategy, while customer communications focused on the benefits from better products and services and new technology. Internally, the plan included a compelling campaign to rally employees around the company’s new future and direction, creating excitement about their roles in the company’s ongoing success. 

OUTCOME: Once the transaction was terminated, the new business strategy and communications plan were launched before the stock market opened the following day. Employee engagement and excitement levels were extremely strong, as seen in interactive employee posts and readership of internal materials and content. The press release and follow-up media relations efforts produced expansive, balanced and largely positive coverage results. The heavily attended investor relations conference call a day later helped to solidify the narrative among investors and sell-side equity analysts. The communications plan and strong strategic story instilled confidence among all of the company’s stakeholders, internal and external, buying the company time to execute its plans and achieve proof points of success.