How to run an excellent ‘hub and spoke’ PR function
Photo by Juliana Kozoski on Unsplash
We know that building an international brand is not easy. It’s not only about having a good strategy and understanding your target audience, but also ensuring brand consistency across all markets.
For PR and marketing, this is even more important. Comms teams need to ensure that the brand and its assets are unified country to country so no matter where customers are or what culture they are from, they understand who you are and what you represent.
There can be a number of challenges when establishing a global brand, particularly:
Managing and supporting a network of agencies across multiple time zones
Ensuring consistent messaging across multiple target audiences in a clear way
Demonstrating ROI back to the management team
This is where a hub-and-spoke model can help.
This framework consists of a centralised hub, usually a partnership between the nominated ‘hub’ lead agency and the in-house comms team, that will work alongside a network of comms agencies in different geographies (‘spokes’).
While the hub agency’s role will vary depending on the brief, quite often it will be the role of this agency alongside the in-house team to formulate the comms narrative, share best practice guidelines and develop content for each of the local markets to use.
The benefits of this include:
There is a clear voice for the brand - as teams are working from the same content
Local teams have more time and capacity - as big thinking and content development can be done at a hub level
As a result, local teams are able to be more creative - teams are empowered to identify local angles and brainstorm new ideas
There is a streamlined approach for media requests - as requests can be responded to quickly with the right processes are in place
Reporting is simplified - as the format is consistent across all markets
This all sounds great, right? But where do you start in getting a hub-and-spoke model up and running?
The PR Network runs hub-and-spoke frameworks for some of the biggest brands in the world. In our experience, it doesn’t need to be complicated.
Here are some of our top tips on how to smash your hub function:
Identify the right agency ‘hub’ partner - who has the right expertise, the right culture and the right work ethic to be an extended member of your in-house team?
Understand your regional network partners’ strengths and weaknesses - this is so the hub knows how to support and empower them in the right way
Build a two-way relationship with local teams - allow regional experts to share market insights to inform and develop better content for the hub
Define processes and best practice - this will have a huge impact if done at the beginning of the partnership
Have a clear plan on what regional teams can expect - local teams will be able to effectively plan if they know what content and news is coming through the pipeline
Be clear on reporting requirements - how are you reporting success back to the board? Ensure the entire network knows so expectations are clear
Want to learn more? Get in touch to find out how we can help you build your own hub-and-spoke model.