Tas Bhanji, director at corporate communications company Blakeney, speaks to Communicate magazine about the difference between strategic communications in Asia and Europe, the importance of taking action to support diversity and the changes corporate comms has witnessed during the pandemic.

How do you bring creativity into corporate affairs projects?

It’s quite easy working in communications to get bogged down by jumping too quickly into thinking about practicalities around tactics and execution, and that really stifles creativity. In every bit of work we do at Blakeney, we are relentlessly focused on client’s high-level, business critical goals - whether that’s getting a new development approved, or securing commitments from the Government. By doing that, we take away the normal barriers people think of like time, money and feasibility, and can think creatively about what would work best. Then you get that one idea that seems unlikely at first, but can be moulded to reach our end goal.

How does strategic communications in Beijing and more generally in Asia differ from in Europe?

On a granular level, there are so many things. For example across Asia, contrition is highly valued culturally, so companies often apologise when they’ve not really done anything wrong, which would be unthinkable in the West. In Beijing specifically, public affairs is very different: the Government sets its Five-Year Plan, and it’s not about organisations shaping and influencing the policy, rather working out how they fit their aims and goals to support that plan. But the basic principle of great communication - that you need to inspire people to think, feel or do something differently - still stands wherever you are in the world.

As former co-chair of the PRCA’s Diversity Network, what can you tell us about diversity in the PR and comms world? Have you witnessed an improvement thanks to all the new initiatives of the past few years?

It has been good to see the industry have more conversations about diversity, and that those conversations have slowly but surely become more mainstream, more prominent, and more honest in the past few years. We absolutely must not underestimate how hard it has been to make all of that happen, and those conversations are great. But at the same time – and while I must acknowledge that there are some signs of tangible improvements – I think there is more that needs to be done. Now is the time for us to be taking action to support diversity in every sense.

How has the world of corporate communications changed during the pandemic? Has corporate comms gained more relevance than before?

At Blakeney we have definitely seen businesses that would not have engaged in significant corporate communications realise its importance in the last year. Sectors whose very existence have been threatened by the pandemic, including live events, entertainment and music, are prime examples and we have been delighted to help them. For other sectors that are more familiar with this discipline, such as energy or infrastructure, they have had to invest more effort in finding smarter, more creative ways of trying to ensure that issues such as climate change and sustainability don’t get forgotten when everyone is focused on Covid-19 and the post-Covid-19 recovery.