ICTSD: Brand & Communications Audit Recommendations

ICTSD: Brand & Communications Audit

Recommendations

© Copyright Glasshouse Partnership

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What is this report?


Strategic context…

ICTSD exists to bridge knowledge and capacity gaps between the developed and developing worlds, and between different communities of interest - to ensure that sustainable development considerations are fully and accurately represented in the trade policy arena.

Since its formation, the certainties of the WTO-led global negotiations are being increasingly augmented by bi-lateral, multi-lateral rules regional and local agreements, and increasingly ad hoc non rule-based arrangements.

In this context, the centralised, knowledge-cascade proposition offered by ICTSD becomes a smaller part of the global solution and its more active convening, advisory and policy-forming competencies become potentially more relevant.

While ICTSD evolves its strategic contribution to this more fractured future, this project sets out to understand the reputational implications of its strategic choices and suggest a brand management approach to enable its strategic options.

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Initial Learnings...


Initial briefings and a internal stakeholder workshop set out to evaluate the internal coherence of the ICTSD proposition and its delivery tools.

1. Needs

2. Communities

3. Issues

4. Influencers

5. Offers

6. Value-Add 8. Decisions

9. Engagement

10. Communications

11. Outcomes.7. Purpose


Needs…

ICTSD does not have a clearly articulated sense of its users’ practical needs.

Instead it sees itself as answering a systemic requirement or ‘knowledge-to-capability’ gap within the global trade system.

This ‘autonomous marketing’ approach is symptomatic of many non beneficiary-funded commercial models.

=> As donors seek more outcome-based accountability, improved ‘market-sensing’ capability needs developing as well as interactive relationship management capabilities

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Communities…

ICTSD considers itself well-centred in the trade space.

But there is recognition that the sustainable development community embraces two poles: sustainability and development. The organisation questions how well it is addressing these two extreme communities.

The organisation also recognises the risk of potential underdelivery in addressing the needs of policy implementers

=> There is a risk of loss of relevance in addressing only niche community interests. ICTSD may need to learn to translate the value of its work into wider interest domains – especially downstream

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Issues…

ICTSD’s existing tools and brand architecture may be constraining development:

- Broad interpretation of ‘non-partisanship’ creates self-censorship. It means ICTSD does not directly fulfil its agenda-setting role through any ‘public diplomacy’.

- The ‘non-partisanship’ mantra puts a straitjacket around editorial quality. This may be creating a spiral of self-censorship and ‘dry’ style.

- The ‘non partisanship’ mantra may be seen to act as a brake on grass roots and advisory work which is legitimate in the eyes of donors, ‘on mission’ and desired by beneficiaries…

=> While non-partisanship may be core to ICTSD’s chosen ‘process’ it may be at odds with the aspirations of its people, and the underlying purpose of the organisation. There is a growing risk that the chosen means are dominating its original ends. Is there a way to break the paradigm?

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Influencers and channels…

ICTSD has no clear trail of influence – through media or relationships, to its desired policy outcomes

ICTSD recognises a need for a more interactive dialogue with subscribers, both for their own needs, and for donors’ needs.

As a media-owner, ICTSD will be expected to exploit and re-bundle existing content for users across more channels and formats and with greater embedded interactivity – over time.

=> Both controlled and uncontrolled channels (through PR) are underexploited. Both have the potential to enable ICTSD’s core purpose and improve stakeholder accountability.

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Offers…

The team acknowledges inconsistencies in the way the ICTSD brand and its propositions are made visible to stakeholders.

Programme materials are fairly well delineated at present, although the design of these is divorced from other pieces of collateral.

Publications, however are a mish-mash in visual terms, and generally have a DIY feel.

The content ‘architecture’ and design navigability of all elements is unclear.

=> The design and presentation of all branded materials needs to be more closely aligned to both user requirements and the logic of ICTSD’s ‘service offering’

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Value-add…

Leadership: ICTSD’s greatest asset is its double-edged reliance upon its founder CEO, which needs to be a) more aggressively capitalised upon and b) derisked

Integrated thinking: ICTSD is a critical translator between the increasing complex and fractured policy arena (bi-lateral, multi-lateral and global) and the actual practice of sustainable development. Its cross-cutting analysis identifies policy and practice implications for different stakeholder communities

Multiple credibility: ICTSD’s individual content-creators/facilitators have credibility as both journalists and analysts

Organisational flexibility: Enlightened opportunism: spotting upcoming sore-spots in sustainable development needs

=> In communications, one strategy may be to bring Ricardo M-O more publicly visible, but distinct from the ICTSD brand as an independent thought-leader and commentator, free from the ‘non-partisan’ constraints of the core ‘media’ brand

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ICTSD sees its own role in three ways:

influencing SD outcomes within the global Trade regime

setting the negotiating agenda around SD issues

enabling effective policy formulation and activation at national level

=> It is open to question how far these objectives are really enabled by the existing brand architecture and commercial models. In reality ICTSD does something rather different. It acts as a conversation enabler and accelerator among different communities. Is enhancing and diversifying this role the key to its growth?

=> Is there once again a confusion over means (bridging) and ends (SD-compliant trade)?

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Purpose…


ICTSD’s development strategy remains unclear. Several perspectives are ‘live’ in the organisation:

‘Applied Expertise’ would involve colonising more and more thematic areas – potentially identifying ones relevant to more, and newer donors

‘Vertical Integration’ would involve more advisory work supporting developing market trading positions and more capacity-building work supporting policy-led implementation

‘Closing the Policy Loop’ would involve a stronger agenda-setting role which would fuel, rather than piggy-back emerging issues – landscaping, rather than gardening the SD agenda.

=> In the absence of closure around around these questions; or in light of a conscious desire to keep them all alive; ICTSD’s brand and communications strategy must be ‘enabling’ of future strategic choices, rather than defining.

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Decisions…


Internally, there is fuzzy understanding of common terms around non-partisanship and implied behavioural boundaries around consulting and advisory work.

Externally, the appetite for (and desirability of) engaging with new external communities – esp. environment and development - is unclear.

In addition, the apparatus of engagement – the means of treating subscribers as an active and engaged audience is yet to be put in place.

=> There is a tension in ICTSD’s engagement between a content-push model, a stakeholder-interaction-enabling model and a subscriber-pull publishing model. All three need to exist in different areas of the organisation. At present the models are not aligned to users’ individual needs and clear ‘terms of engagement’/’relationship migration’ pathways have not been established.

=> At each touchpoint, ICTSD needs to ask itself: what do I want the user to do with this input? And is it fit for that purpose?

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Engagement…


ICTSD’s intrinsic communication – its dialogue and knowledge-sharing tools are increasingly outmoded.

ICTSD’s extrinsic communication – promotion of its vision, its people and its work appears underweighted.

However, it is unclear whether the failure to cultivate wider reputation has any impact on fulfilment of its mission.

=> Web functionality and navigability, and periodical redesign are seen to be urgent priorities. Further work on communications needs will require stakeholder input.

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Communication…


Donors’ desired outcomes exist in three layers:

Education – Developing Countries understanding the impact of trade negotiations on SD and their national self-interest

Assimilation – Developing Countries having the capacity to shape these policies to their advantage

Application – key stakeholders in Developing Countries being able to benefit from policy changes in practice

=> While donors and beneficiaries are both concerned with developing-country progress, ICTSD’s approaches may feel divorced from these aspirations. The level of perceived mission-alignment needs checking, and processes and positioning rethinking, if appropriate.

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Outcomes…


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Questions to be resolved through stakeholder

enquiry...


On this assessment, ICTSD faces a number of paradoxes which require either resolution or coping strategies…

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Cause: SD advocate? or SD enabler?

Character: Infrastructure owner? or Solution provider?

Culture: A policy shaper? or Policy reporter?

Covenant: Pro-developing country? or Pro-dialogue?

Communications: Public diplomacy? or Private influence?

Constituencies: A public servant? or a Members club?


Structured Stakeholder Enquiry among 780 subscription-holders explored these reputational issues to enable us to make balanced and grounded recommendations

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Cause: What is ICSTD attempting to achieve in the world?

Character: What sort of an organisation is ICTSD?

Culture: What is it like to work at/with?

Covenant: What is the nature of its relationship with stakeholders?

Communications: How is it seen to project its influence?

Constituencies: Which communities is it understood to serve?


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The external perspective...quantitati

ve survey


How are we doing on our core activities?

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Very strong performance across the board.

Core activities around knowledge-sharing are well understood and performance is very high.

Ultimate policy outcomes are less clear.


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Who benefits?

Academic and civil society communities benefit more strongly than core intended audiences of policy-makers and negotiators.

Benefits to wider ‘public’ and application-focused users are less clear.


Where should ICTSD refocus its attention?

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Further evidence that ICTSD is seen to be too balanced toward ‘Geneva’, rather than having a wider mandate.

A very significant sense that developing country focus should be increased

A sense that policy ‘applicators’ should benefit more

A clear mandate to increase its outreach to media


Which existing areas need more focus?

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Core news-based activities are working well already

More commentary would be appreciated

There is appetite for more interventionist and more focused research work


What do our stakeholders desire from us?

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Building on earlier inputs, there is appetite for a more focused, ‘active’ approach downstream and also higher engagement, upstream in embracing public diplomacy


What is our brand Reputation?

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Professionalism is widely acknowledged

Core ‘academic’ values are widely recognised

Organisational characteristics are less strong: innovation, responsiveness, creativity

Possible hints of opportunism vs strategic approach

Some question-marks over collaborative capability


Where are our natural affinities?

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ICTSD show very high ‘belonging’ to both trade and SD communities.

Belonging to Development community is high (and arguably underexploited)

Environmental credentials are significantly weaker.


How well known are our channels?

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Promoted awareness of niche community sites is high, considering lack of cross-promotion.

This is a strong indicator of latent value in tailored content, which could be better exploited.


How ‘sticky’ are they?

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* A few times a month, or more…

Core web-site is well used.

Lower visitor-rates for other sites reflect lack of news-led content and are unsurprising


How influential are our web channels?

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Core use-case is as background content for researchers

Policy use and government information-use is relatively low

Ag-trade and IPR sites show an increase in policy-making relevance

Trade-environment shows a small bias towards on-sharing of content


Which elements of our web-sites need attention?

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Web-site design receives the strongest call for reform for the core site.

For secondary sites, language availability is the priority.

There is some room for editorial style improvement.


How well known are our print channels?

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BioRes and TNI have surprisingly low awareness.

Addressing the prominence and accessibility of these on a revised web-site should help…


How do subscribers use our periodicals?

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High levels of on-use of Bridges content means it should be well-packaged for ease of sharing.


How can our written content be improved?

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Editorial style of all written content is a priority.

Design is the next most important area to fix.


Are there any access issues created by stakeholder mobility?

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Relatively high churn (25% every 2 years) creates organisational stresses in maintaining contact and identifying new users.

Web and other RM tools must ease registration and portability of subscriptions across jobs.


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The external perspective.Qualitative inputs…


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Stakeholder Consultation Agenda…

What do we need to do differently to build license to innovate?

Where are we underperforming against needs?

Where are we failing to exploit our core assets and capabilities?

Where are we losing relevance to the marketplace?

Where are we misdirecting our efforts?

What do we need to do differently to maintain license to operate?

Depth interviews were conducted with 6 key external, well-informed stakeholders, whose identities are to be kept confidential.


Issues

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Competition: ‘Increasingly high levels of ‘competition’: AITIC, South Centre, CUTS, ODI…’

Morality: ‘It’s a challenge to remain neutral when issues of morality are present. Neutrality can be an implicit endorsement of the status quo.’

Legitimacy: ‘If ICTSD moves into the development agenda, its mandate will be more questioned.’

Partnering Capability: ‘ICTSD will need to learn to partner if it is to provide effective policy inputs rather than just policy briefs’

Strategic choices: ‘ICTSD has to choose – is it moving to enablement downstream or a knowledge generation organisation providing research upstream. At present it is in the middle.’


Expectations

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Resources: ‘I worry about the middle tier. Is there too much churn?’

Purpose: ‘Its mandate is to provide small missions with advice and support.’

Bias: ‘ICTSD must err on the side of LDCs and against donor interest to maintain its legitimacy.’

Focus: ‘ICTSD leaves unmet needs around specific negotiators/negotiating groups.’

Strategy: ‘Bridging dialogue across other communities is a legitimate area of extension for ICTSD.’

Collaboration: ‘There are opportunities for functional as well as thematic exchanges. We need to build a global think-tank ecosystem.’


Performance

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Usefulness: ‘It’s a bit too academic’. ‘It could use more policy focus’

Advocacy: ‘ICTSD has a legitimate second role ‘illuminating and ensuring broad representation’ on issues’

Resources: ‘Is there enough diversity in the people-mix? Are there tensions around leadership?’

Leadership: ‘It’s become synonymous with one person. You struggle to think of others. There’s no public exposure.’

Potential: ‘Have they got the skills to get into analysis and original research?’

Applicability: ‘Relevance matters – to turn briefs into inputs. ICTSD stops short at present.’


Communication

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Outreach: ‘They don’t do primary communication.’

Audiences: ‘Parliaments and financial communities are insufficiently aware of them.’

Quality: ‘Work is concise and rapidly assimilated.’

Boundaries: ‘How effectively does ICTSD identify future topics? Is security a future issue for example. Equally, are they stretching too far – into biofuels and biodiversity?’

Scope: ‘ICTSD cannot reach down to grassroots levels, but must be able to equip others to do so.’

Tools: ‘The organisation must invest in electronic tools. Print is too late.’


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Conclusions


Overview: Key Strategic Communications issues

Competencies

Media aggregation is clearly a massive strength of the organisation. However, the quality and depth of institutional competencies, especially upstream, are less clear and stakeholders are not sufficiently aware or convinced of the value of these initiatives. Presentation of these offerings needs to be upweighted to underpin legitimacy in these arenas.

Overstretch and Incoherence

Viewed at the programme level, there is some stakeholder perception of overstretch both at the thematic and activity perspective and a lack of clear understanding of why certain activities are justified. Against this perception there is a counter-perception that ICTSD is actually very good at managing its issues radar and identifying future areas of contention and need. ICTSD should resolve this paradox by more closely aligning thematic decisions to its core mission and proactively explaining its decision-making rationales to all stakeholders. Linked to this overstretch issue is a lack of top-down strategic coherence, and a need for clearer separation of ends and means. These means, in turn, need to be more clearly separated into toolsets and pathways/strategies of influence and communicated to alls stakeholders. The fragmented appearance of ICTSD’s activities reduces stakeholders’ ability to see the big picture of its activities, and may cause them to underweight the value of its convening and enabling activities.

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Overview: Key Organisational issues

Internal tensions and cohesion issues

At a time of change, ICTSD clearly faces significant challenges in its own organisational development, linked to its decisions around structure, growth and value-strategy. In a global policy ‘village’, any internal tensions can become public reputational issues which may have particular impact around partnering choices.

The tensions caused by the desire to pursue between upstream, downstream or pure enabling roles are quite real within the organisation and to some degree anticipated understood by stakeholders. Each strategic thrust has distinct brand implications. Equally, seeking to maintaining a balance of the three will also have brand strategy implications. In any case, institutional clarity of purpose and principles need to be reinforced.

Leadership development/succession planning

The breadth and depth of the leadership team is called into question. This may be perceptual, and driven by role-allocation decisions, or more real. Communications should address this through increased visibility of secondary ‘players’ in any case.

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Overview: Content issues

Value of Communities

The enquiry into the value of independent web-based communities around Ag-trade and IPRs, for example, is inconclusive. There is undoubted appetite for more specific, focused and actionable inputs around key themes, but is unclear that these communities have distinct identities

Both ICTSD brand management demands and useability of community issues argue for aggregating these communities into a single location and providing them with richer tool-sets, to manage their multiple needs in one place

Quality of content

Non-partisanship remains a key strength of the editorial. Some style issues do emerge that would benefit from investing in a more journalistic sensibility. Hiring and investing in this should be a priority to protect the organisation’s ‘cash cow’ offering

There is stakeholder appetite to add more value to this work through further analysis, rather than mere reportage.

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Overview: Key Communications Issues

Corporate profile

ICTSD’s public profile is seen to underperform the seriousness of its global role

There is a legitimate need, and also a mission-aligned ‘business’ case for projecting ICTSD’s analysis into adjacent communities of interest – specifically environment and agriculture – and also into the broader public arena, as a trusted commentator

Personal Profile

ICTSD’s leader, RMO is privately very well known, but ‘publicly’ less well known

RMO’s own credibility is a natural lever to boost visibility. Balanced against the succession planning issues, there is a case for positioning RMO as an ‘energetic, (rather than elder) statesman’ in the TSD space, and beginning to elevate the profile of divisional leaders of programming and publishing activities

Tools and Channels

Web will be a critical tool to enable improved knowledge-flow as well as improved collaboration around content creation and project-based collaboration. Upgrading capability here is a key priority.

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Overview: Key Branding issues

Brand Naming

There is no mandate to change the name from ICSTD

The acronym ‘ICTSD’ itself has significant autonomy when detached from its explanation International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development)

In a less centralised, and more solution-centric future, there is a strong strategic case for capitalise on this shift over time to globalise and simplify the brand to ‘ICTSD’ - linked, on occasion, to a simple strapline

Brand Identity

While the ‘design’ views of stakeholders should be treated with extreme scepticism, there is little active desire to change the brand logo per se

There is however, willingness on the part of many stakeholder to change the identity if resources allow

Given stakeholders’ questionmarks around organisational agility and flexibility, there is a case for signalling a more dynamic, less academic and more ‘global’ logo design. If a strategic case for change is accepted, an evolution of the brand will be accepted by stakeholders

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Options


Three core strategic options

Stakeholder input validates three strategic options for ICTSD, with significant constraints:

1. Downstream: ICTSD has a mandate to offer greater downstream advisory support to LDCs

2. Upstream: ICTSD also has a strong mandate to expand its work upstream in more public agenda-setting (and to some degree in direct influence and input)

3. Dambusting: ICTSD also has a third mandate – to develop a more functionally-led role, leveraging its convening power and networks on a more global basis and potentially federated basis

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Options

Option I ‘Downstream’ approach

ICTSD can achieve downstream impact through partnering and more effective collaboration on the ground – not only partnering for impact, but also for skills-transfer, based on its knowledge and negotiating-based insights. Activities could also include providing direct advice to LDC officials.

Its capacity at mid-level would require investment and empowerment to deliver behind this proposition.

However addressing this values-based agenda is compromised by the degree to which ICTSD is seen as a ‘media brand’ with required neutrality at present.

In this option, the key risk is that ICTSD begins to significantly underperform developing world expectations, and gets outcompeted either by more values-based organisations in these arenas or by consultancy-type players.

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Options

Option II ‘Upstream’ approach

More direct policy input and influence could be achieved through a combination of direct lobbying, increased convening-power and wider, more public diplomacy on emerging SDT issues.

Pursuing this requires ICTSD to generate more ‘owned’ thought leadership and build analytical and advisory capability, owning more of its research resource and developing a stronger senior team.

It would require significantly upweighted public diplomacy for which there is a strong stakeholder mandate.

Finally, it would also require it to extend the depth and visibility of its leadership. Once again, the means-based ‘media-brand’/’non-partisanship’ legacy is a barrier to evolution.

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Options

Option 3 ‘Dambusters’ approach

ICTSD could choose to stretch its existing capability organically, under the existing brand architecture, building its expertise in identifying policy-based nexuses of contention and providing a suite of educational materials and services to enlighten debate around these topics.

In organisational development terms this would require would require it to build competency-based networks and improved process excellence. Its geographic growth could be through the development of regional hubs replicating capabilities in key centres of collaborative need. ICTSD would genuinely act as a bridge providing functional integration, soft negotiation and dispute resolution services for active TSD partnerships.

This strategy builds on ICTSD’s perceived professionalism and presents no fundamental challenges in branding terms, but does require it to address certain negative perceptions around its own organisational performance, specifically, leadership breadth and organisational cohesiveness, and also to develop both its public and private IP and also its experience-base in custodianing ad hoc partnering solutions.

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Recommendations


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ICTSD needs a brand strategy and architecture for that strategy that will:

• help it to unblock existing organisational tensions

• enable it to optimise its existing competencies

• secure license to operate by protecting and enhancing its unique infrastructure role

• cultivate license to innovate around future upstream and downstream aspirations

This improved brand architecture should help separate ‘ends’ and ‘means’ and help reclarify the ‘whole organisation’ vision.

The need


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ICTSD should differentiate its historic investment in its greatest source of strength – publishing – by creating a sub-brand that has this explicit ‘media’ mandate.

This means-led brand would be: ICTSD Publishing.

• Having a dedicated brand would give periodical editors greater legitimacy and freedom to improve editorial style and cut-through in their work and greater mandate to upweight the quality of their analysis

• A dedicated brand would also shore up the ‘non-partisan’ integrity of this activity stream

Freed of the non-partisanship straitjacket, the core ends-led ICTSD mother-brand would become more able to engage in values-rich activity - both downstream service-provision and upstream agenda-setting. This purposeful brand would become a reinvigorated centre of organisational momentum and legitimised creativity.

• Having a clear values-led brand would also establish a brand structure which can spawn additional service-streams over time: e.g. primary research or training activities, under which operational activity streams have greater autonomy and sustainability.

We believe this simple structural step could act as the catalyst to enable the organisation to directly address the issues raised by stakeholders and summarised in our conclusions.

The response

ICTSD: Brand & Communications Audit Recommendations

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