1st Edition

Fundamentals of Corporate Communications

By Richard Dolphin, David Reed Copyright 1999

    The Fundamentals of Corporate Communications gives professionals and students in marketing a comprehensive and incisive overview of what modern corporate communications is, and what it can achieve.

    The author has drawn on extensive business experience in the area and wide ranging research in major corporations to produce an authoritative account of best practice - backed by numerous cases and examples.

    The book demonstrates how corporate communications affects today's marketing mix and explains how it can support wider marketing objectives. The key elements are covered in depth:
    * Who are the key audiences in the present business climate * The role of Corporate Image and Identity in the communications process * How communications informs and affects corporate strategy development * What are the tools of modern communications- from lobbying to brand building * Using communications in a crisis
    * Who should be communicator and why

    The book is both highly practical, it is grounded in real business issues, and rigorous in covering the concepts accessibly. It will be an essential text and reference for practitioners and students of marketing.

    Foreword by David Reed, Whitbread PLC; Towards an understanding of corporate communications; Audiences who - and where - are the key publics?; Corporate identity: the role and value of corporate identity programmes; Strategy; Using the tools provided by corporate communication; Crisis communications: truth at all costs?; The background of the communication executive; A bright future for corporate communication.

    Biography

    Richard R. Dolphin

    'It is truly comprehensive....Everyone from the student thinking of a career in the field to the most seasoned professional will gain from reading it.'
    David Reed, Director of Corporate Affairs, Whitbread PLC

    'This new book provides a contemporary examination of the increasingly important and complex area of corporate communications. It will reward study by anyone interested or involved with this area.'
    Tony Yeshin, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, University of Greenwich

    'Richard Dolphin's book breaks new ground in explaining what makes for effective corporate communications and why they are crucial for any major organization today. His approach is serious and scholarly, and based on original research. The insights of senior corporate communications practitioners on what they do and why they do it, meticulously gathered through face to face interviews, have been skilfully synthesised with a distillation of the still relatively sparse academic literature on the subject. The result is a landmark assessment on a key management discipline which all corporate communications practitioners or would-be practitioners would be well advised to read.'
    Geoffrey Potter, Director, Corporate Affairs, Glaxo Wellcome

    Richard Dolphin has brought an unencumbered mind to a thoroughly researched, comprehensive review of corporate communication practice. The conclusions are soundly based and workmanlike, cutting through much of the pretentious noise which often surrounds the subject.
    Alastair Eperon, Director of Group Corporate Affairs, The Boots Company