I was listening to a radio programme while drinking a fruit juice at breakfast the other day. The voice on the radio was talking about trials of GM crops, trying to convince listeners that everything his company does is natural and healthy and good for us. I remained sceptical. His language was from a corporate script.

So, here are two businesses sharing a very similar communication objective, but going about the task in contrasting ways. Clearly the answer cannot be for a multi-million dollar agricultural business like Monsanto to write like Innocent. But there might be something to learn. And the word clouds, as always, are revealing.

 

The Monsanto website includes a pledge, a statement of corporate governance, a code of business conduct and a message from the CEO. They try hard to talk to you and me, and to convince us of their integrity and ethical approach. The word cloud confirms the impression given by reading: it’s all rather self-obsessed, with Monsanto being the dominant word. It smacks of “these are the key

messages we want to say”. But, as a business communicator, you have to focus on what your audience wants to hear as well as

what you want to say.

 

Of course, the context and the audience are very Companies have different approaches to convey that they’re doing good.

John Simmons analyses the common ground for communication different for Monsanto and Innocent. Monsanto is writing for a ‘business audience’, including investors, so words like business, governance, code, integrity and corporate stand out in the word cloud. But businesses make a big mistake if they write for other businesses rather than for people. Businesses need to think what grabs and holds the attention of people. Because people make business decisions.

This is something Innocent never forgets. Knowing them, writing books about them, I’d recommend you look beyond the somewhat folksy exterior. There’s a highly successful business at work, and the communications are being written by people who understand their craft. The particular Innocent pack that gives us this word cloud (imagine – a pack with 500 words on it) is a four-sided carton of lemon, honey and ginger smoothie. On the front face is a black silhouette of a beehive with the words ‘buy one get one bee’. It makes me smile.

 

As you read the other faces, there’s a lot about the ingredients fruit and honey, but one face is taken up with ‘Save the bees’ (because they’re disappearing) and another with ‘Make your own bee home’. The language is simple but single-mindedly about natural things and everyday life. They tell us a story which entertains us and that we can all relate to.

 

The important point, though, is that the story has a purpose. The purpose is to show us the importance of bees in the natural world. Look at the word cloud. Bees, pollination, fruit – they’re all connected. This reinforces the narrative theme that informs every word written by Innocent. “We give you a fruit drink that’s as natural and healthy as we can make it.”

 

 

The two businesses are completely different but the principles of communication should be shared. The lesson isn’t ‘write in the tone of Innocent’. But here are three things that Innocent intuitively knows about communication, that all companies (including Monsanto) could follow:

• Think about the needs of the receiver as well as the sender of communications

• Engage people with storytelling

• Focus, almost obsessively, on the narrative theme of that storytelling.