How to use trade associations to get publicity and why running can be good for PR

Yesterday, I was running free of any digital devices, and I reflected on the type of fitness I used to have when I went to trade shows. The old days when we went to trade shows felt more like a marathon. You could spend two or three days, especially the big shows in American, walking around floor after floor, trying to reach out to customers in the media. We wouldn't do that now. Zoom calls are much easier, but we're not getting as fit. More importantly, we are not getting close to people in the same way that we used to. With trade shows, we could get closer to potential audiences. We could do our PR at those trade shows through the media coming to our booth, or us visiting. Press conferences also helped us see what other people were saying about their companies. I realized that one of the dangers with COVID-19 is that we are getting cut off course, but this isn't totally new.

I decided I would join the British Exporters Association. I know back in 2018, with Brexit, I was running the British Business Awards in China and reached out to the British Exporters Association to be a partner agency with us. They have over 150 companies that are exporting all over the world. This could be the perfect platform for EastWest Public Relations as there is the opportunity to meet companies that are trying to solve the sort of problems that we know how to solve. My experience in trade associations goes back to Singapore, where I was an active board member on the committee. In China, I joined as a board member and started the British Business Awards in 2008 where I played a role as the vice-chair for two years before leaving the country. Clearly, I'm a big believer in trade associations, but my experience is also that a trade association is only as productive as the amount of energy you want to put into them. Anybody that joins a trade association believes it will bring them business is mistaken. From a PR point of view, we always advise our clients to join trade associations for several different reasons.

The National Association of Manufacturers, which could be seen as one of the pioneer groups in America, originally began as a political lobbying organization in 1895. Their original goal was to help American manufacturers trying to limit companies importing to America, and ironically, they want to retain a high or protected tariff. Then they moved the turn of the century to try and help lobby against organized labour. In the new deal after World War II, they became a force with the republican government and coalition trying to reduce the role of the American government in the economy. There is a long history of trade associations in America as being a channel into the government.

Back in China, we worked as the British Chamber of Commerce with what we call the BMA, or Business Environment Market Access, which was a report created across different verticals. One of the reasons to get involved with that was that as a trading company, Morgan was the importer for the car business, and we were facing a lot of trade barriers and issues with the Chinese government. As previously mentioned, public relations is about the different stakeholder groups; it is about people that buy, and we have three different categories of customers and audiences. We have the customers, the staff, and team, and then the stakeholders, or these allies in government, both friendly and otherwise. These are one of the communities that trade associations can help with the PR of a company and the corporate relationship of the company. 

In America, some research was done that showed that between 2008 and 2017, the US Chamber of Commerce spend approximately $240 million on PR. In other countries, PR isn't necessarily paid for and the members themselves might even get involved. So, I got involved by helping with some of the PR. The British Business Awards was really a platform for British companies and the chamber to market itself in China, so we created the strapline to celebrate British innovation, enterprise, and endeavor. The strapline I developed would encompass all the qualities I felt were great about British brands in China. If you want to join a trade association as a company, what would you do for your PR? The obvious one is that trade associations have their own members. This means you can proximate with other companies that could be potential customers. 

Let's also differentiate between the two different kinds of trade associations. First, it's necessary to distinguish between what I call a "vertical trade organization" and a "horizontal trade organization". The vertical one is where everybody is from the same industry. For example, the SMT, or Society for Motor Manufacturers and Traders is a vertical organization. You would find the Milk Marketing Board is a vertical organization where everybody is working with the same business with collective interests. While SMT is working to promote automotive interests, and in milk marketing, the aim is to get more people to buy milk. A horizontal chamber or association is like Bexar, which is a disparate group of companies with the common purpose of exporting. The export interest at each company means that one company there could be in an entirely different sector or industry to your company, which means there could be either a customer or partner. Each type of organization has a different rationale; therefore, it is worth considering which one to join. Do you need collective action as an industry, or do you need a nation or national grouping to work together in the same way that Bexar does for its group of British companies needing assistant in their exports? 

Thinking from a PR point of view, if you were to join a trade association, what sort of things could you do? The first one is that trade associations have some kind of communication platform, such as a blog. It could be possible to take your content and contribute that to their platform because while they have members, they also have the media. The media will go to the trade association for comment, or for people to do the speaking. In China, I had the good fortune as the vice-chair of the chamber to be on CCTV quite regularly, as well as in the China Daily and other Chinese media talking about various issues such as Brexit. I was able to speak on behalf of all British companies, or as I did with the BBC, about China as a growth market for British brands. The presence of your company and profile within a chamber can be an opportunity for the media to find you in a way that they might not otherwise do. One of the reasons that you find yourself with these speaking opportunities is because the chamber is seen as an authority that comes from being an official body. If you are representing that official body as an officer of that body or one of its members, then you have credibility over and beyond your own company. That may mean you are speaking about something that isn't solely related to your company but from a corporate responsibility point of view in a corporate PR sense. 

Training and certification are something else trade associations have. This makes it possible to offer your services to provide training or have your staff acquire any necessary certification. In Singapore, for example, there is the IPRS, which is the international PR group, and they have courses that your staff can enroll in and attain certification. Another area that is of great value is access to industry information. Within the chamber in Beijing, we could have forums, which, as one example, could be a forum for automotive or professional services. That meant that within an environment of professional excellence, you could share your own industry expertise, learning from others, take any non-confidential information to use in your own public relations. If you were to learn information from that community, you could then use statistics or a report. As members, we could attend events The Economist would host in Beijing, and the Economist Intelligence Network is very generous, so we could use the research and reports within our own companies. This creates the framework for articles and interviews that could then be used for our own PR activities. 

The aforementioned British Business Awards, coming out again this year, can now be run by the Chamber of Commerce in China, which creates an opportunity to sponsor. Awards held by groups like the British Chamber of Commerce in China, or awards held throughout the world in every Chamber of Commerce, is a platform for companies to enter and sponsor you, and winning would be a great accolade. While consumers or partners appreciate companies that are winners, there is also the chance to put your branding out onto the merchandise material. In the case of the British Business Awards in 2018, we hosted a press conference until we had media there. While I worked as the emcee, we had people like Rolls Royce on the panel talking about British business in China. It's a great way to use a common platform to position your company. 

In the UK, we have the trade association forum, which was established in 1997, and the link will be available on this website. It is the TA forum organization administered by the CBI, an umbrella organization for all the trade associations within the UK. Singapore has the Singapore Business Federation which is another government-backed umbrella organization. The Association of German Industry has the BDI which is the umbrella organization for trade associations in Germany. I can recall being at an event about the automotive industry with one of the members from the German Chamber of Commerce. The presentation was regarding electric vehicles and how the German government mandates that all companies that set up overseas have to join the German Chamber of Commerce in those markets. The funds and fees are deducted at source from the German company that goes to fund the Chamber of Commerce. In China, Chambers of Commerce is regulated and there is only allowed to be one per country. You can't set up your own associations because that could constitute a political party. Therefore, different countries have their own regulations, so it is necessary to check those. 

As a platform, grouping together in a vertical or horizontal Chamber of Commerce organization brings many benefits, and consumers have their own associations. In the UK, ours was founded in 1957 and has 1.3 million members. In America, Ralph Nader was the hopeful presidential candidate pioneering in his campaign against the automotive industry. Back in the mid-'50s, he published the book Unsafe at Any Speed, which has become a landmark where he was prosecuting American cars for their build quality, and as a result of his labors, he managed to get consumers put at the forefront. Trade associations for business have a role to play, and always has a role to play for consumers. If there are ways for your brand to engage with those trade associations, both the professional and personal ones, then it provides a connection for direct sales as well as publicity.

While PR is about proximity in some cases, it isn't necessary to be out running the way I was to think about the obvious spaces that are available for publicity. Because I wasn't distracted by anything whilst running, I noticed a number of people running past me with t-shirts on which bore different logos. My friend Jin, who runs an IT company in Singapore, is creating t-shirts and by doing so is creating publicity by one person at a time. It's possible to build your brand and to communicate with broad brush PR, as well as thinking about where your potential partners, or the ones already congregated in these trade associations, and your staff, and how you can join them and take part in what they are doing. Because some of those companies may be partners or customers, there will be channels to communicate your PR through various networks, which leads us to the idea of the cascade through which we have previously talked about. It is not only necessary to communicate with our first year, but with the next year and the year after that. Jin has sent me a t-shirt, which I shall wear while running. Maybe not many people will see me if running the trails, but if I were to join a club, there would be more people to see my jet branding. The other runners may not want at-short or codeless coding app that Singapore has developed with Jin, but I was offering local goods and services, my chest could become quite valuable real estate for PR. If you think about what message you have gotten, which audience you can share that which, and how you can use trade associations, you can also consider how you can use the people around you, what they are wearing or saying, the signage on your car or on your property, and start to rebuild your brand during the times of COVID.

This is a transcript from our podcast which you can find on EastWest PR. If you're interested in learning more about what we do, you can sign up for our newsletter here.

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