Audiences, stakeholders or something else?

Last week I was at Melcrum's strategic research forum, talking about a new project that I'll tell you more about when it gets a bit further down the track.

In the course of the discussion, up popped a subject which has been niggling me on and off for ages. Which is ... what should we call those people that we communicate with? If you're writing a comms plan, and you have a section where you segment people into different groups, what do you call those groups?

You could go with audiences ... but I know some people hate the term, and in fact I was told I was 'old school' after one conference in which I used it!  The reason for that is that can have implications of a passive group of people, there simply to be 'fed' messages. It's not the way I mean it, but I know that's the sense some people take from it.

So, alternatively, you could go with stakeholders ... which implies people have a stake in the organisation, and will take an active role in communication rather than just sitting listening. The issues with this one are that a) I do find it such a horrible jargonistic word! and b) when some organisations talk about 'stakeholders' they can mean something quite different.

Neither very satisfactory, really. I started hunting around for another word.  The CIPR's diploma course (on which we were forbidden to talk about 'audiences'!) refers to 'publics'. I don't know about you, but I definitely don't like that one!

So, what gets your vote? Audiences, stakeholders, or something else entirely?

Sue

Comments

[Lee Smith]

Interesting post Sue. At Gatehouse we continue to use the word audiences in our plans - though I too share the view that it suggests a rather passive group of people. On reflection it also feels very marketing - about targeting and selling, rather than engaging and involving. Stakeholders is okay, but it borders on HR-speak, which we try hard to avoid. Although i trained as a PR practitioner before specialising in employee comms, like you I absolutely hate the term 'publics' - sounds seriously old school. That said, it does have the benefit - as does stakeholders - of capturing the fact that organisations have various groups of people, internal and external, they need the buy-in and support of. We sometimes lose sight of that simple fact and fall into the trap of viewing employees in isolation, disconnected from other audiences/stakeholders/publics.

[Simon Garcia]

Hi Sue,
More and more I hear the term 'constituents' being used, obviously meaning an element, a citizen, an essential component of the whole and of course in the political sense a voter, which seems to sum things up quite nicely.
Simon.

[Mathew Keenan]

Great post and comments. Like others, I've seen audiences, stakeholders and publics used. This use of constituents is a first for me!

My thoughts are that the important point here is understanding the needs of those you're hoping to reach/engage/influence and ensuring your activities are relevant to them.

From that perspective, I'm not sure the label really counts that much; unless it's publics or constituents, in which case neither gets my vote. Sorry.

That said, I'm keen to see if anyone comes up with a more contemporary term.

[Graeme Ginsberg]

Hi Sue

Since we were last talking about this, I have to say I keep coming back to 'audiences'. Actually a fantastic, colourful word.

Thinking about it, I’d be tempted to ask those people who insist that 'audiences' has passive connotations, "What audiences have you been part of recently?!?" Sitting in a cinema watching "Mamma Mia" (and that's not even live people we're screaming at) … or at a gig with the audience going wild, cheering or shouting "You suck! You were better at the Guildhall in 1978 before you sold out" etc.

In fact, from ancient Greek amphitheatres to the Colosseum to music hall/vaudeville to football matches to comedy shows, I would say audiences have tended actually to be very vibrant, proactive performance influencers.

To me, 'audience' is a great word: it implies a proactive force to be reckoned with and artists/sportspeople/politicians/communicators need to understand and collaborate with the audience or die on stage.

[‘Publics’ is I think awful, ‘constituents’ quite interesting but makes me think of blue/red rosettes or chemistry labs. 'Stakeholder' is, I find, a useful general word that trips off the tongue (far too easily) when talking about business management issues more generally, although it does sometimes make me think of Van Helsing and Peter Cushing...]

[Sue]

Thanks for the interesting comments! I do generally still use the term 'audiences' myself, and I love Graeme's reminder about how audiences in real life can be anything but passive!

Constituents is an interesting one - I haven't heard it before. Although it does make me think of politics.

I'm also totally with Matthew that I don't personally think the label should matter ... although the fact that I've been picked up twice for using it (and not in a complimentary sense!) suggests it definitely does matter to some people, so I'm a lot more careful now to explain the the sense I take from it. From this point on, I shall be invoking images of Mama Mia!

[Emma Ridgeon]

Sorry to be late to the discussion, but I've just had a disagreement with a colleague this morning over stakeholders vs audiences! To me, the two are quite different from a comms perspective and require a different approach.

To give a real-life recent example: I'm working on an HR change programme for a client currently, and as part of this we were required to inform all UK employees that the way they apply for internal vacancies is changing. These employees were our 'audience', and they could be segmented into various sub-categories.

However, before mobilising our communications we had to get the agreement of our 'stakeholders' - a small number of key business leaders, the VP of HR, the head of employee consultation, heads of resourcing in each business unit, etc. This required a direct one-to-one approach to ensure that everyone with a 'stake' in the project (ie with the power/position to help ensure its smooth implementation or equally derail it) were on-side with our communications approach.

For me, the two are quite different and can't be used as interchangeable terms for the same thing. Am I on my own?

Emma