Sustainable Partnerships Require New Forms of Cooperation and Communication

Angelika Svoboda

When it comes to communication, this statement is heard incessantly. Everywhere, people are talking about things, writing, producing pictures. Nothing can happen without its being photographed, discussed, heard about, reacted to and quoted.

All this is reality – reality communicated through the media. We are all eager for emotion, for sentiment, for anything that takes us out of our everyday routine and triggers moments of deep feeling. These are precisely the determining factors of the event industry boom. However, what is socially relevant, first and foremost, is how things are received in the media – this is what gives value recognition and generates a historic moment. An inherent element of corporate cultural responsibility (CCR) is the goal of obtaining good publicity and thus achieving a good reputation, a positive image and favourable associations in the minds of the recipients. The objective is to have various target groups communicate the image of commitment, valuable ideas, a “corporate citizen” – which can be an individual but is more likely to be a company. In our globalised world, the more multinational a company is, the more important it is for that company’s communicated values and images to be identifiable. It is the act of communication that creates a relationship, triggers chains of association that create images in the minds of the public.

Communication instruments can manipulate, can substantially alter people’s perception of something. One often hears the accusation that CCR as well as corporate social responsibility (CSR) are being used for manipulative purposes. This is the case when the publicity that is issued alters the surface image and is thus not authentic. When CCR is taken seriously, it involves awareness of the responsibility to make communicative instruments an intrinsic part of the concept in order to communicate certain messages to various target groups.

A Well-Functioning Partnership Needs Communication
For a business enterprise, promotion of the arts and culture is always part of a company strategy; the commitment that is made is intended to reflect the company’s mission statement. What success factors can be used to measure the value of cooperation? Seen from a long-term perspective, they are: quality, a partnership approach, the possibility of devising an integrated concept of marketing and communication, and sponsoring. New forms of media relations work and event staging offer promising opportunities. This should be interpreted as an appeal to everyone in the field of the arts and culture: Overcome your reservations and try to develop new forms of cooperation and communication together with business enterprises!

Angelika Svoboda has been a journalist for over 20 years. For the past 15 years she has focussed on developments in the field of cultural management and 11 years ago she established the company Svoboda PR & Consulting GmbH. Svoboda, who completed university studies in ethnology, deals with the positioning of markets on a global level as well as with strategic communication agendas.
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