Early in my career, as head of communication for a mid-sized professional services firm, my team built an award-winning employee referral program that resulted in a 3000% (no typo here!) increase in employee referrals.
Central to the integrated program was a cute rubber duck! But that’s not what drove the results. It was the combination of a few factors that must be present for a communication campaign to work.
It was our understanding of the problem, the emphasis on the business processes, leadership alignment and a bit of competition that put it over the edge.
Clutter-busting communication programs lead with science, not art.
A year later while interviewing with the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, he said “we are too formal here, we won’t have ducks or birds in any of our communications campaigns.” I said, “but the birds delivered results, the birds worked!” Hence the name Brdzwork.
By the way, I stayed with that CEO for nearly a decade and there were many birds along the way!