by Kim Mohr | Jun 10, 2025 | Blog
Many times, when we think of a brand that we know and love, we automatically associate that organization with the person who represents it in the public forum. Apple, the Dallas Mavericks, Nike and Microsoft have all had a notable spokesperson associated with their brand. While you may not have Michael Jordan on your bench, it’s as important for your organization to have a trusted frontman or woman to tell your story to the world.
So, Who Should You Choose?
While it may seem like a given to choose the head of your company, a recent article from pr.co cites research that shows the CEO is not always the way to go. Sure, the top boss might know the company and the technology better than anyone else, but does that person have what it takes to relay this knowledge in a relatable way that members of the media and the public can grasp and connect with?
When selecting a spokesperson, credibility is key. Even if your company exec is an expert on your product or service, it’s of the utmost importance that they have experience and knowledge that extends beyond the company talk track. Often, executives who have lived another life as a clinician, health system leader or hands-on data engineer make great spokespeople. They have worked through and grappled with the technology your solution is solving and can speak firsthand to the perils of the problem and the importance of a solution to like yours. Titles such as Chief Medical Officer and Chief Nursing Officer are often great choices. We’ve recently seen great interest in Chief AI Officers, and these executives are often adept to speak not only to the current state of technology, but they can offer insights into how we could see technology change in the near and long term.
Importantly, would you find the person you’re considering to speak for your company interesting to talk to over coffee or at a dinner party? Do they have a unique perspective? Are they passionate about finding a solve to the problem you are addressing? Media are people too, and just like you, they can get bored easily if a spokesperson comes across as static or rehearsed.
Another consideration: In key strategic situations, a company may select someone who is controversial to speak for the organization. Generally speaking, it’s best to avoid someone who runs the risk of alienating your customer base. If you’re considering a controversial or confrontational figure, work closely with your PR agency and internal stakeholders to weigh the pros and cons.
The more, the merrier?
A mistake some companies make lies in thinking they must choose just one person to speak for the company. This couldn’t be further from the truth. While you do want to maintain a consistent brand voice and drive home key talking points that have been determined through a thoughtful process, it is perfectly fine and often even preferable to have more than one spokesperson.
When using multiple spokespeople, differentiate based on each person’s area of expertise. Perhaps your CEO would be the one to give an interview to Axios a funding round, while your CMO would talk about the challenges of clinician burnout in a chat with a provider-focused podcast. Be deliberate when determining how many people will speak for your company. While a couple key leaders focused on disparate topics is great, too many voices can muddy the message and leave your audience confused. Additionally, determine who will speak for the company during a crisis (often your CEO or board chair) and develop a crisis communications plan that is shared with all relevant stakeholders in advance.
How to Build a Thought Leader
Once you have determined who will speak for the company, create a plan to introduce that person to the company. A PR plan should include thought leadership articles from your spokesperson that will be pitched and placed in key trade publications. To build credibility for your spokesperson and to secure earned placement, these pieces should cover a topic relevant to your space and avoid direct mention of your company. If your piece sounds like a sales pitch for your tech, it won’t see the light of day. Further, develop a social media content calendar that details posts for the company and your key spokespeople. Your audience wants to see that your leadership is part of the conversation in their area of expertise, so posting relevant articles from outside your company as well as engaging with outside content are all effective strategies.
A key part of being a spokesperson is, of course, speaking. Well before you schedule your first interview, schedule comprehensive media training for anyone who might be speaking on the company’s behalf. Amendola Director of Media Relations Grace Vinton offers tips for making the most of opportunities.
When it’s time to pitch, again, focus on broader areas of interest and prepare talking points in collaboration with your spokesperson and other stakeholders. You’ll often be given the chance to talk about what makes your company different, but let’s face it – no one likes someone who only talks about themselves all the time.
Additional Pitching Opportunities
While we often focus on health tech and healthcare trade publications and podcasts, Amendola Senior Writer Brandon Glenn reminds us in this recent blog post not to neglect mainstream media. Consumer and local outlets can provide golden opportunities in the right situations. Business publications such as the Wall Street Journal will often publish hiring news, so this can be a great option if your spokesperson has recently joined the company – a great way to get their name in front of a large audience. Axios loves big financial news, so if your spokesperson is willing to talk about a recent funding round or lucrative business deal, don’t overlook this mainstream outlet. Are you hosting a user meeting or participating in a charity even in the city where you’re headquartered or elsewhere? Try for an interview with the local business journal or morning news show.
Remember, too, that media is changing. While landing big publications is often the goal, smaller outlets can offer a precise target audience. Increasingly, bloggers and hosts of smaller podcasts are targeting the very audience you’re trying to reach.
Conclusion
Selecting a spokesperson is one of the biggest decisions you’ll make for your company. But don’t worry – remember these steps that we’ve covered here and you’ll be on your way to putting your company on the right path.
by Jodi Amendola | Apr 28, 2021 | Blog
As many readers of the Amendola blog are probably aware, I lost my mother, who was my inspiration and guiding light, to COVID-19 the night before Thanksgiving last year. It was difficult for my family as well as me, especially because I believe it was unnecessary.
She should have been there to celebrate the holidays with us and would have been in my opinion had it not been for some missteps in her care.
As part of my process of dealing with this unexpected loss, I wrote a story about her that appeared in the Arizona Republic. If you’d like to know more about the details, along with my thoughts about what you should do to advocate for your loved ones should they be in the same unfortunate circumstances, it’s all contained in that article.
It’s what happened next, however, that I want to address today.
Shortly after that article appeared (and was re-posted on Facebook), I began to receive the most touching and beautiful comments, messages, and emails. And I’m still receiving them.
Some were from friends, of course, expressing their sympathy for my loss. Many, however, were from strangers who had gone through a similar experience and found a sense of kinship in sharing their grief as I had shared mine.
It was a stark reminder of a basic principle we, as marketing and PR professionals, should keep in mind: PR in general, and thought leadership in particular, works better when you make it personal. A topic, incidentally, I also explored in my latest Forbes Agency Council article.
The most effective thought leadership comes when the person behind it is passionate about the subject matter. Yes, you can write in a detached away about something technical, conveying information and/or data that is worth sharing. But while it informs, it usually doesn’t move people to action.
For that you need a human element. And nothing is more human than sharing something personal.
It can be a story from your childhood, your teen years, or your time as an adult. It can be about something funny that happened to you, or something sad, or something that contains a mix of emotions you can’t even sort out yourself.
Or it can be about a person who means a lot to you. Like my mom did to me.
The important thing is that it is a little glimpse behind the façade we all tend to put up in our business encounters to cover our true selves. In other words, it’s real.
Organizations often talk about creating an emotional connection to their brand during branding meetings. But then they’ll do everything they can to hide anything that seems remotely raw or real.
To me, that approach makes no sense. Sure, you don’t want to air all of the organization’s dirty laundry in your marketing and PR efforts. But what’s wrong with showing your human side?
The point is a person or a company can be open and honest about their feelings and reactions to events without falling into the rabbit hole of controversy. The key is to focus on the parts that are universal to the human experience.
We all experience joy and caring. We all experience excitement and wonderment at one time or another. We all experience grief and loss.
That doesn’t mean we experience it in the same way. But we do share those experiences to some degree.
The more willing organizations are to take a stand and tell stories about themselves, their employees, their customers, and everyone else who is connected to them, the more “real” they will become in the minds of their key audiences. And the more successful they will be in creating a brand image that is unique and memorable.
I know it’s not always easy to tell these stories. We can all feel a little exposed when we offer these types of details about ourselves.
When I wrote about my mom it was like going through it all over again.
Yet as I see the reactions continue to come in I know I made connections with people I’ve never met, and probably never will properly meet. Isn’t that what marketing and PR are really all about?
by Jenn Cohen | May 1, 2019 | Blog
Over the last fifteen years, I’ve participated in more corporate messaging workshops than can be counted. Inevitably, at a certain point during the workshop, the facilitator will ask the collective group: “Who ARE we?” Typically, the marketing leaders are quick to reiterate the company’s vision or mission statement, while sales leaders rattle verbiage from their elevator pitches, and executives state messages similar to those they give investors on analyst calls. Turns out, answering “Who ARE we?” is not that simple of a question after all.
Is your brand suffering from a bit of ambiguity? Try this simple experiment the next time you’re riding up the elevator with colleagues. Ask the folks standing beside you, “Who is {insert your company name here}?”
I’m not a gambler, but I’d wage a bet you’d get limited overlap in responses. Why? Perhaps because your organization hasn’t fully invested the time and effort into crystalizing their brand positioning and brand purpose for all employees, customers and stakeholders.
No longer reserved for consumer-facing brands, it has become essential for business-to-business organizations to not only create and develop a brand but also define their position and purpose. Why?
Not only will it separate your brand from a sea of sameness among competition, but it can elevate your position in the market. If we as marketers can prevent our sales team from being asked “So who are you, again?” we’ve done part of our job.
I’ve worked on branding and rebranding initiatives for companies of all sizes and what do they all have in common? An aligned purpose to create a great brand.
But what does it take to go from good to great? Well, good brands merely fulfill a need. They provide a service, or a product, based upon an expressed need.
But a great brand? A great brand anticipates. How? By truly understanding their customers. Talking to them. Asking questions. Reading about them in the news. Thinking about their current and future needs.
And while it may be unpleasant, or downright excruciating, asking your customers where your brand falls short can be one of the first steps towards creating a brand people trust. After all, people want partners, not vendors.
Sometimes the most important part of creating and maintaining a successful brand is simply realizing that just because something isn’t broken doesn’t mean it’s working. In the last year alone, we’ve seen notable brands take inventory of their brand presence and come to the ultimate realization that their current identity is no longer aligned with their future state. Let’s look at three notable examples:
Dunkin Donuts ditched the donuts and debuted a short name Dunkin along with a modernized look and feel to test stores around the country earlier this year. The company is investing $100 million to update their stores and “better meet the evolving tastes” of their customers, which will include new equipment and dedicated drive-through lanes so people who order drinks on their phones (hello, Starbucks!) can pick them up easily. They realized the market demanded more than coffee and donuts to stay competitive, and they’re putting their money where their mouth is.
Unlike Dunkin’, Slack kept their name but instead chose to revamp their original (dare I say iconic?)logo. This move caused an onset of conversation around the decision to ditch the beloved hashtag in favor of a simpler visual identity. Why? They felt it was time to evolve. Beyond the unexpected logo swap, Slack’s rebrand came in advance of a direct public offering expected later this year.
Earlier this year, WeWork announced their rebrand, informing the market that they will now be known as We Company. This strategy was likely designed for both investors and customers in order to broaden their aspirations from places to people. The announcement also came with a sweet perk to the tune of $2 billion in investment from SoftBank Group.
Taking inventory of your current brand and determining whether it aligns with your future growth is no easy feat. In part two of this post, we’ll review the main drivers that help indicate when a logo refresh is needed, a repositioning workshop will do, or when a full rebrand makes the most sense.
We’ll walk through logical next steps, including how to get it done. Using your brand as a springboard to add colorful depth to your offerings can easily change the conversation and help your sales team create meaningful relationships to not just power the sales cycle but build the funnel at the same time.
