Corporate Venture Capital Communications:
Moving Beyond the Risk to Reap the Rewards
For many corporate venture capital programs, or innovation arms of larger corporations, there is obvious value in investing in awareness through a unified communications strategy - name recognition, even in your preferred niche, is likely to increase interest from like-minded partners and potential portfolio companies. However, corporate venture programs tend to rely on the larger corporation’s PR and marketing teams - and let’s be honest, the goals of broad corporate brand awareness and innovation-focused thought leadership tend to be a mismatch. This is a problem…
The role of corporate marketing teams is to ensure consistent brand voice and use, particularly in publicly traded companies who must answer to shareholders and a board of directors. That cautious approach has one inevitable outcome: the innovation happening within CVCs is stifled. And with all that you’re doing to identify game-changing portfolio companies and solidify strategic partnerships, toeing the party line or being lumped into a broader communications strategy will stop that momentum dead in its tracks. …with a simple solution.
Being able to shape your own narrative in the public arena is a critical part of building the awareness and credibility you need. What’s more, a calculated approach to communications has too many benefits - better deal flow, strategic partnerships and public trust - to risk leaving them on the table in favor of playing nice for the sake of corporate politics. So what’s a strategic communications-minded CVC to do? Simple.
Engage in thought leadership
Call out your own accomplishments
Raise up your partners’ profiles
And when done correctly? All of this can be accomplished while still balancing risk-averse parent corporations and their marketing teams. Win-win, as easy as that.
Concern #1: Consistency is key
The primary concern of corporate marketing teams is dilution of brand voice, and that’s a fair point worth addressing. Having a clear and consistent brand voice is a hallmark of solid companies that inspire confidence and trust in their shareholders. Makes sense.
But by sticking to the company’s high-level messaging points - without any allowance for slight deviations - you are losing out big in the court of public perception. Instead, position thought leadership as golden opportunities to highlight the company’s ability to be forward-thinking and innovative. It is quite possible to be aligned on company messaging and use those guidelines to inform how CVCs should speak on relevant industry topics - and the end result is an audience that believes the company is aware and engaged with what’s happening on the ground. That benefits more than the corporate venture arm, it reflects positively on the company as a whole.
What better argument is there for taking the plunge?
Concern #2: That pesky problem, risk
Another issue is the inherent risk that speaking publicly on certain topics poses to shareholders, as well as the complexities of doing so given financial and even medical regulations. There is a clear correlation between public scandals, or even a public faux pas in messaging, and company trust and valuation.
But assuming there are clear lines between topics and opinions that are beneficial versus detrimental to the company’s public image - the guardrails that any PR agency worth their salt should put in place from the beginning - the people who will be interested in reading what you have to say are exactly those you will be looking to engage with.
As we all know, deal flow and partnerships are relationship-based. It is unlikely, therefore, that a potential portfolio company or partner will materialize on the basis of thought leadership opportunities alone. However, potential portcos and partners will likely weigh your media presence as one factor in their decision making. Being quoted or included in relevant articles published by reputable publications will likely increase deal flow and lead to more strategic partnerships, boosting image and bottom line in one fell swoop.
Concern #3: Tipping your hand
Being too visible is also likely to raise red flags for a risk-averse parent company, as it might raise the question of whether that visibility will lead to an excess of information being publicly available about strategic partnerships. And we wouldn’t want you to lose that competitive edge.
Fortunately, the art of a carefully crafted communications strategy is in knowing what to say, to whom, and when, so it’s highly unlikely that company announcements about portfolio companies will be akin to tipping the hand of your parent company’s inner workings.
Instead of too much information decreasing the value or likelihood of a partnership, putting together a thoughtful public relations strategy will ultimately raise the profile of your entire portfolio, which in turn will raise that of your parent company. In this case, the successes of one lend themselves to mutual success, as the accomplishments of a portfolio company showcase an investment team that was similarly forward-thinking and strategic, and the impact they are having on a target audience is credited, by extension, to the parent company, no promotional language required.
Concern #4: Workplace politics at their finest
We’re going to call a spade a spade: the corporate politics of any given organization often make it difficult to separate out different lanes for communications efforts or muddy the waters on what is being handled by the parent company’s marketing team versus that of the corporate venture arm. This is not a small hurdle to overcome, as this question of who can or should say what and to whom often leads to, quite frankly, a lot of nothing being published on owned channels, and a general lack of reporter interest.
The key to this puzzle, and the benefit of a communications strategy, is that the topics and goals of thought leadership are likely to either be quite niche on an industry basis or extremely broad within the financial sector. So why not divide and conquer? Corporate marketing teams can hand over one or two particular topics or angles that will be most beneficial for your piece of the pie and spend their time on others that are more important for the parent company, with the assurance that the messaging will remain aligned.
Here again the situation is mutually beneficial: you can take ownership of the topics that will have the best outcomes for your business goals with your parent company’s blessing, and the corporate marketing team removes an item from their to-do list while still reaping the benefits of positive public perception and credibility for the brand as a whole.
The bottom line
Wading into the waters of public relations can be challenging for corporate venture arms operating under the best circumstances; however, as many are governed by risk-averse parent companies, it becomes even more fraught to untangle what can and can’t be said, and how to ensure the most positive outcome is reached when investing in communication efforts.
The concerns many CVCs - or, realistically, their corporate marketing teams - may have can be mitigated by a strategically crafted communications strategy, and in most cases the benefits of engaging in thought leadership, publicizing accomplishments, and utilizing joint press to increase partner profiles far outweigh these initial concerns. As in many things in the corporate venture world, a rising tide lifts all boats, and this couldn’t be more true when it comes to garnering positive coverage and solidifying credibility through public relations.
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