Put your public relations and marketing teams in a room together and what do you get? Usually an uneasy stand-off, as each function tries to fight its own corner, jealously focusing on its own remit at the expense of the other.

 

But for Aileen Thompson, director of corporate communications for Vodafone UK, these disparate communications functions are natural bedfellows. “They have a symbiotic relationship,” she says. “The PR function shouldn’t report into marketing but it should be a strong ally and partner. The two must be joined at the hip to create successful brand and employee communications and manage corporate reputation”

 

It’s a learning that Aileen has picked up through a varied and challenging comms career, which has armed her with a formidable skill set. It’s one she’s now using to manage and enhance Vodafone’s reputation – while driving sales.

 

Growing up in Elgin, Scotland, she had a prophetic, although not fully formed, idea of what she wanted to become. “I wasn’t fully sure what shape my career would take. But I always saw myself leading a team who can make a tangible difference to a business.”

 

Strong at languages, she left Elgin Academy to pursue a joint honours degree in French and German at the University of Aberdeen but soon realised it would lead to few roles outside of translation or interpreting. Fortunately, the third topic she took was psychology. “I absolutely loved it. A large part of the course focused on human behaviour and communications And that’s obviously been really useful in my career.”

 

Working life began in 1982, as she walked into a plum role as assistant PR manager (later PR manager) for the Edinburgh International Festival. Aileen describes her three years there as “fantastic grounding.” As well as running an international press office for the duration of the festival, she also set up a global direct mail system and had her first exposure to celebrity management smuggling Liz Taylor into the press office for an unscheduled photo-shoot with The Scotsman.

 

With so little money in the arts back then, the Festival was exploring commercial sponsorship, and Aileen’s role began to resemble that of a marketing or commercial director. It seemed like the right time to move.

 

She still had her heart set on London but was lured into a consultancy role at newly-formed PR Consultants Scotland. It was here she took on a brief (and not for the last time) that many see as taboo: in this case, cigarettes. Aileen spearheaded a regional lobbying campaign to keep down VAT on cigarettes, reasoning that smoking is an adult choice and that she was in part looking after the interests of small shopkeepers.

 

And it was all valuable experience. PRCS was a small team, which meant Aileen was able to work shoulder to shoulder with experienced practitioners. When the agency became part of Shandwick Scotland, her account director role gave her wider business exposure: working for the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, for Scottish Widows as it launched new unit trusts and for healthcare clients. “The Scottish PR scene was super-competitive, packed with great talent and very rewarding” she says. “But it was time to move south and tackle bigger communications challenges.”

She also worked for Nationwide Building Society and later UB Brands – but the bigger test came with Shandwick’s move into ethical pharmaceuticals. It called for the application of tried-and-tested FMCG principles for communications with healthcare professionals and those that influenced them. And it was here she had the chance to be involved in another industry-facing reputation issue: infant formula. Again, she and her team created balanced communications strategy to underpin the value of baby milks for mothers, health visitors and consumer groups.

 

By then, several of her Shandwick colleagues had moved to join what she calls the “global university of PR, Burson-Marsteller” and she joined herself in 1990. There, she consolidated her experience in global corporate and brand communications, issues and crisis management and internal engagement.

 

Her first challenge at B-M was working with Unilever’s fats and oils brand Flora and the health benefits of polyunsaturates. Again, she found that PR’s ability to dovetail with marketing was an essential part of growing the market.

 

This approach was soon rolled out through Unilever. “The company was ahead of it’s time in the planning and execution of integrated communications campaigns. They had – and still have – brilliant marketeers, and they were prescient enough to know that PR was playing a major role in building brand and reputation. As a result, they encouraged all senior marketing directors globally to understand and use public relations as part of the marketing mix. They saw it as great way to maximise budget spend, gain market leadership and differentiate their brand with customers.”

 

With clients in the medical devices market, Aileen soon encountered another industry challenge: medical devices and, specifically, breast implants. But this time it was a real crisis. In 1991, ITV broadcast a World in Action documentary called ‘The Price Of Beauty’ which questioned the safety of breast implants, notably those of Corning Glass Products.

 

The resulting furore sent Corning into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The storm called on all of Aileen’s crisis and brand reputation skills and was, she says, a very tense time. “Working closely with the company and across the B-M world meant the communications were shaped and delivered both ethically and empathetically. That reinforced the point that successful communications has to be a balance of the rational and the emotional, the heart and the head.”

 

Not one to shy away from tough topics, Aileen became involved with the animal welfare communities in both the UK, Europe and the US whilst working for American Home Products, the market leaders in hormone replacement therapy. The growth of their best selling drug was fantastic until animal welfare groups learnt that a key ingredient came from the urine of pregnant horses. “Under pressure from patients, doctors became reluctant to prescribe and also the company’s own employees wanted to know more about the manufacturing process given the unique ingredient.”

 

Aileen led a global team to initiate a two-pronged response. “First, we needed to win the confidence of all employees that their product was produced ethically. At the same time it was important to communicate the high standards of animal welfare provided by farms in the supply chain. Part of the engagement programme involved taking senior management teams along with animal welfare groups to Canada to visit family-run ranches whose income depended on producing raw materials for the drug. Slowly prescriptions began to rise and the reputation of the company return and strengthen.”

 

Aileen spent a decade at Burson-Marsteller, rising to MD, and speaks of it in glowing terms. “I worked with the brightest and best in public relations – people who understood the value and potential corporate communications has as a management tool.

 

So far, Aileen’s comms career had been very much out-of-house; but that was about to change. “I wanted to get under the skin of a business,” she says. So when, in 2000, a call came from Kellogg’s, asking her to become director of corporate communications EMEA, she grabbed the opportunity.

 

“Kellogg’s is a much loved global brand with a fascinating history” said Aileen “Many would say it is a naturally conservative company,not used to putting its head over the parapet. That needed to change with growing regulatory pressures hitting the food industry.

 

A spate of European regulations, including revisions to rules on adding vitamin and minerals and on advertising, meant that the firm was challenged from all angles. “The business saw it had to raise its profile and increase the communications around the benefit of breakfast cereals and their role in a balanced diet.”

 

Fortunately, Kellogg’s had long seen it pivotal to work with its peers in the food industry, and alongside others such as Nestle and Heinz, was able to communicate with a united front.

 

Aileen stayed at Kellogg’s until 2004 and, although she created an effective communications team across the region, strengthening the company’s internal and external communications as well as reputation management, she wanted the greater challenge of a global role. “And at Kellogg’s the opportunity simply wasn’t there. But then fortune tapped me on the shoulder.”

 

Aileen was called by Tim Brown, then group corporate affairs director at Vodafone. He wanted her to fill a newly created global role combining brand, enterprise and consumer PR.

 

“Although I was a Vodafone customer, I knew little about telecoms. I was excited by the opportunity to simplify communications with customers and inspire them to use mobile services through the power of PR” she says. “Vodafone had a formidable reputation for its financial and corporate communications – here was a chance to build the same reputation across consumer and B2B audiences.”

 

Vodafone knew part of its comms output had to be instructive. “Consumers and businesses were aware of the potential mobile services could offer” she says. “PR could build on this by working with brand and marketing teams across the world, to ensure communications about our network, our mobile services, our smartphones are simple and easy to understand. Today, we’re engaging not just with media but also directly with customers as web relations takes off.”

 

Aileen finds this shift towards online communications exhilarating. “Corporate communications has truly become a 24/7 world, and that means increased exposure for brands, for companies and employees and for reputation, on and offline,” she says. With that in mind, she has built a team dedicated to online engagement, which works closely with brand and customer service teams. “The close integration means we have an instant lightning rod to pick up emerging issues, which we can quickly resolve working across our business units to identify fast and effective solutions It’s a win-win, as it helps us to manage reputation, add value to existing customers and attract new fans.”

 

Now installed as director of corporate communications, Aileen’s remit goes further than web, media and internal engagement. “It’s rewarding to be part of a company that is passionate about giving something back. It’s a critical part of what we do in Vodafone. ” she says. “In the UK, we’ve just launched our World of Difference programme, delivered by the Vodafone Foundation. We’re giving 500 people the chance to make a difference by working for a local charity of their choice for two months - and they get paid.””

 

People will each get a mobile phone to capture their experiences on blogs and encourage and inspire others to take time to get involved with a charity. Last year’s campaign saw strong satisfaction levels – both for the 500 winners and the charities whom they supported.

 

Aileen has certainly made her mark. Simon Lewis, Tim Brown’s successor before leaving to become director of comms for 10 Downing Street speaks highly of her. “I was struck by her energy, vibrancy and professionalism,” he says. “She was always very committed, very high energy, and had a positive outlook – which is important in the communications world with all its slings and arrows.”

 

Aileen’s enthusiasm for her work is palpable and goes far beyond the practised zeal that is the communicator’s stock in trade. “Others might describe me as a workaholic,” she admits. “But I’m a firm believer that businesses with a clear, integrated communications approach for their customers and their people, will deliver greater impact in terms of commercial results and corporate reputation.”

 

An enthusiastic advocate of professional development, she is a long-time CIPR member, and has just signed her team up to the PRCA, now that it is open to in-house teams.

 

Fortunately, she still finds time to make the most of life away from work. She enjoys “creating colour and order in the garden” and spending quality time with her husband and two daughters. But even her children draw her back to her work. As young teenagers, they are representative of a key consumer group and act as bellwethers of the Vodafone brand. “I get to experience how much mobile is part of young people’s lives,” she says. “And of course, a mother who works for Vodafone is super cool.”