By Emily Greifeld
A strong campaign can generate attention, but the message behind it determines what people actually take away. When that message is unclear, inconsistent or disconnected from the audience, even great creative has a difficult job to do.
That was one of the central themes of a recent conversation between The Pollack Group President Stefan Pollack and Peter Woolfolk host of the Public Relations Review Podcast. Drawing on more than four decades in communications, Pollack discussed why organizations need to spend more time defining what they want to say, who they need to reach and how that message should carry across every part of the business.
At The Pollack Group, that approach is formalized through Message DNA, a structured messaging framework designed to align PR, marketing, sales and other communications functions around a clear and consistent narrative.
Here are some of the key takeaways from the conversation.
Strong Messaging Starts Before the Campaign
Messaging can sometimes get pushed too far down the communications process. A campaign concept takes shape, creative is developed and teams begin thinking about channels before everyone has agreed on the fundamental story they are trying to tell.
Pollack makes the case for doing that work much earlier. A well-developed messaging framework gives everyone working on behalf of a brand a common foundation, from executives speaking with reporters to sales teams talking with prospects and social teams developing daily content. It also gives people enough structure to communicate consistently without requiring them to repeat identical talking points.
That investment up front can prevent much larger problems later.
During the podcast, Pollack recalled an RFP in which his agency finished second after proposing approximately 60 days of audience research and messaging development before launching the campaign. The winning agency was prepared to move more quickly. Three months later, the client came back after a media headline landed in a way that felt completely disconnected from how the organization wanted to be perceived.
The experience reinforced something Pollack has seen repeatedly over his career: time spent getting the message right at the beginning can save considerable time trying to correct it later.
Every Interaction Contributes to Brand Perception
Organizations naturally devote significant attention to their most visible communications. Advertising campaigns, executive interviews, websites and major announcements are carefully developed and reviewed. Customers, however, experience a brand in many more places.
A conversation with a customer service representative matters. So does an interaction at a store, an email from an employee or an experience with someone delivering a product to a customer’s home. Each encounter adds another piece to the customer’s understanding of the company.
Pollack shared a personal example involving the loss of his family’s dog. When the dog’s remains were returned, the person handling the delivery approached an extremely emotional moment with an unexpected level of compassion and care. It was a relatively small interaction from the company’s perspective, but a memorable one for the family experiencing it.
Moments like that demonstrate why messaging cannot live exclusively with the communications team. The values and promises expressed publicly need to make sense alongside the experience an organization actually delivers. When those two things reinforce each other, credibility grows. When they conflict, customers notice.
Consistency Matters Most When the Stakes Are High
Clear messaging becomes particularly important when an organization is navigating change. A merger or acquisition may require two companies with different histories and cultures to begin telling a shared story. A company facing declining sales may need to reconsider whether its positioning still resonates. An organization emerging from a crisis may need to rebuild confidence among employees, customers and other stakeholders.
In each case, rushing into communications without first establishing a clear narrative can create additional confusion. Different departments may emphasize different priorities, executives may describe the same issue differently and external audiences are left to make sense of competing versions of the story.
A structured messaging process gives organizations a common point of reference. It establishes the ideas that should remain consistent while still allowing different teams and spokespeople to communicate naturally with the audiences they know best.
Modernization Still Requires Knowing Your Audience
The conversation also touched on the risks brands face when they make significant changes without understanding how their core audiences are likely to respond.
Pollack pointed to Cracker Barrel’s branding and logo refresh as an example. The effort generated significant backlash, illustrating the disconnect that can occur when internal enthusiasm for change gets too far ahead of audience expectations.
That does not mean established brands should resist change. It means they need a clear understanding of what customers value before deciding what should evolve and what should remain familiar. Research can uncover those distinctions before a new identity, campaign or message reaches the public.
AI Is Making Audience Research More Accessible
Audience research has traditionally required a significant investment of both time and money. Pollack noted that conventional focus groups can cost between $30,000 and $80,000, while still capturing the opinions of a relatively small group of people during a limited period of time.
New AI-powered research tools are giving organizations another way to explore audience reactions earlier in the communications process. The Pollack Group uses Audience IQ, its AI-powered audience intelligence solution, to create custom audience personas and evaluate how different messages may resonate before they are introduced to the market.
One advantage is the ability to continue the research as new questions emerge. A traditional focus group ends when the session ends. An AI-powered research environment can be revisited as a campaign develops, allowing teams to explore new messages, potential objections or different audience segments.
Pollack also emphasized the importance of how those tools are used. Research designed only to validate an existing idea will have limited value. Organizations need to ask difficult questions, explore negative reactions and include audiences that may be skeptical of the message. The goal is to identify weaknesses while there is still time to address them.
Build the Message Before You Build the Campaign
Campaigns move quickly once they are underway. Media opportunities emerge, social conversations change and audiences react in ways that cannot always be predicted. A clear messaging foundation gives organizations something steady to work from as those conditions evolve.
That requires more than finding the right tagline or polishing a few talking points. Organizations need to understand their audiences, determine what they want to be known for and establish a narrative that can hold together across communications, sales, leadership and the everyday interactions customers have with the brand.
Taking the time to answer those questions before launch may feel like it slows the process down. In practice, it can make everything that follows more focused, consistent and effective.
This post is based on a conversation between Peter Woolfolk and Stefan Pollack on the Public Relations Review Podcast, “Brand Messaging That Cuts Through.”
