BEIJING, Dec. 3, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The PR Newswire 2013 New Communication Annual Summit was successfully held on November 28 in Beijing. C-suite executives and seasoned PR industry professionals from well-known firms across the sector including agencies, multinationals, privately-held firms, emerging technology companies as well as emerging media were invited. With eight keynote speeches and two roundtable discussions, the Summit, which focused on the latest dynamic studies and an in-depth analysis of the field of public relations communications, became a platform for the discussion of the challenges and the responses to those challenges facing the corporate communications sector. Over 300 top managers and executives from companies and organizations attended the summit and listened to the guidance and advice provided by the invited speakers. The winners of the “PR Newswire 2013 Communication Awards" were announced at the summit, while, at the same time, the new authoritative report, “2013 Content Marketing Trends and ROI Impact Assessment by Companies in China”, was released.
Development trends across the communications sector and the experience of Chinese firms engaging in communications abroad
Over the past several years, tremendous changes have taken place in the communications sector. New communications channels and tools are constantly emerging, with microblogs, social apps such as WeChat, mobile internet sites, emerging media and news apps the latest entrants. In addition, the sector has experienced changes driven by advances in technology. According to Steven Cao, CEO of Edelman China, sharing is a new trend in a time of media transition and technological advances. As a result, it behooves all players to have a more open platform for the sharing of corporate brands. Furthermore, content -- stories, histories, products, values, dialogue and goals -- must become more varied and be better used to guide sharing, enabling a more diversified and integrated communications trend, said Cao.
Jean Shao, director of international communications at Youku Tudou, gave a speech on “Communications ideas and best practices for Chinese companies seeking to expand abroad”, where she emphasized the importance of the disclosure of public information. She said investors and the media need facts rather than just commentary. Video is now the most popular medium for the communication of information and is positioned to become ever easier to consume with the continuing expanse in the use of cellphones, especially smartphones.
B2B companies and media huddle to discuss challenges and opportunities
Guests to the summit included Lydia Lu, VP, Corporate Communications, Asia Huge Growth Area at Honeywell; Jason Cao, Head of Technology/B2B at Waggener Edstrom-China; Misha Lu, Marketing Director at TUV SUD Greater China; Boning Yang, Vice President at SAP China; Haoying Sun, Marketing Director at NSFOCUS Information Technology and Miao Yue, Deputy Chief Editor at Global Entrepreneur. They shared practices in B2B corporate communications and discussed the challenges and opportunities faced by B2B corporate communications practitioners.
Honeywell’s Lydia Lu shared her experiences when a multinational B2B corporate communications department faced greater challenges during the integration of the company’s internal resources. She expressed the opinion that corporate communications requires general managers of various businesses to see themselves as members of the same choir who must sing from the same musical score while keeping in harmony. She also suggested that B2B corporate communication is not only in the telling of a story but also in the creating of that story. Global Entrepreneur’s Miao Yue commented from the perspective of the media when she said that “some B2C companies overcommunicate, while others utterly lack exposure, which is partly caused by the issue of communication context.” Waggener Edstrom-China’s Jason Cao commented that “we should tell the story of B2B in a B2C way”, and added that “no matter what sector one is engaged in, whether it be engineering, mechanics or any field dominated by a lot of arcane terminology, a story motivated by personal feelings and emotions can have an excellent effect.” SAP China’s Boning Yang felt that “the opinions of industry analysts and opinion leaders are precious in B2B communications” and that “A company’s value can also be presented through telling a client’s story.” NSFOCUS’s Haoying Sun noted that, over the last few years, conferences and events related to B2B are taking place more frequently, indicating that the sector has generated increasing market demand.
Discussions on the influence of social and new media
As for the influence of social and new media, Hejuan Zhao, founder of TMTpost, said, “We-Media is not the extension of the blog era and the internet is boundless. Individuals (users), content (information) and services are becoming increasingly integrated and consolidated.” Guests including Victor Gao, PR Director at Dell, Helen Shen, General Manager of the Beijing office at Strategic Public Relations Group, Dawei Yuan, Director of PR and Brand Center at HNA Group, Miao Yang, PR Director at Renren.com/Member of Huxiu.com, and Jing Li, Business Development Director at PR Newswire, discussed the effect of social and new media on corporate communication strategies and tactics during a round-table conference.
Strategic Public Relations Group’s Helen Shen said, “Different kinds of new media have posed challenges to the entire corporate world and their staff in terms of the way they think, manage, operate and communicate. HNA Group’s Dawei Yuan held the opinion that the interactivity enabled by new media is the underlining reason “why companies focus on both content and feedback in their communication activities and pay more attention to feedback from existing customers, targeted prospects and the general public.” Renren.com’s Miao Yang noted: “With increasing digitalization around the world, PR departments are under high KPI pressure and KPI planning is subject to each company’s ability in PR.” Dell’s Victor Gao added, “Different kinds of new media need to be deployed to every business unit and operational department of a company rather than merely the marketing and brand departments.”
The sector’s most authoritative annual report released
Lynn Liu, Senior Manager of New Media at PR Newswire, released the annual survey report, “Content Marketing Trends and ROI Impact Assessment by Companies in China”. A focus of the survey included trends in corporate content marketing and assessment of the impact of ROI in a new media environment. This year, PR Newswire introduced the ‘RESULTS’ model for assessing the effectiveness of content marketing and added polls on the use of WeChat by companies across China.
Download the full report: http://www.prnasia.com/marketing/survey-2013
The winners of PR Newswire’s Communication Awards for 2013 were announced at the summit. Five media outlets won the Best News Platform award, while 31 companies and organizations, including multinationals, privately-held firms, new technology companies, foreign embassies, conference and exhibition organizers as well as science parks, won awards in the categories for Best Global Communications, Best Multimedia Communications, Best ROI, Best CSR Communications, Excellent Communications as well as the Grand Annual Award.
“The summit gathered together PR Newswire’s old friends as well as new ones, who all brought and shared their in-depth insights,” said Yujie Chen, PR Newswire’s Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific. “The event is expected to serve as a platform for exchanging of industry information, for increasing one’s knowledge of the field and for interaction between the participating companies and organizations,” he added.
For more information about the summit, please visit: http://www.prnasia.com/prnewswire-summit-2013/
For more information, please contact:
Selina Cui, Senior Marketing Manager, PR Newswire China
Tel: +86-10-5953-9598
Email: marketing@prnasia.com
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