Corporational Determinism

We’re see­ing an epi­dem­ic of cor­por­a­tion­al determinism.

Despite not demon­strat­ing sub­stan­tial advance­ments, many Big Tech com­pan­ies are sta­ging massive PR events. Without sub­stance, they’re doing hour-long shows telling every­one how revolu­tion­ary they are.

For now, this strategy of cor­por­a­tion­al determ­in­ism is work­ing. But will audi­ences tire of these self-glor­i­fy­ing proclamations?

I think they might.

Here we go:

Corporational Determinism

A recent research paper pro­poses a new the­or­et­ic­al concept for PR mes­saging — cor­por­a­tion­al determinism.

“This paper pro­poses a new the­or­et­ic­al concept, cor­por­a­tion­al determ­in­ism, to describe nar­rat­ives by which digit­al media cor­por­a­tions are presen­ted as the main or only agency inform­ing socio-tech­nic­al change. It aims to unveil how digit­al media cor­por­a­tions employ such nar­rat­ives to rein­ter­pret the past of digit­al media, to under­line their lead­ing role in present soci­et­ies, and to show their abil­ity in pre­dict­ing and shap­ing the future.“
Source: Critical Studies in Media Communication ¹Natale, S., Bory, P., & Balbi, G. (2019). The rise of cor­por­a­tion­al determ­in­ism: digit­al media cor­por­a­tions and nar­rat­ives of media change. Critical Studies in Media Communication. … Continue read­ing

I’m sure many of us would agree that Big Tech have a flair for want­ing to rewrite his­tory and name them­selves as lead dom­i­n­os in chan­ging the world. 

It’s also fair to assume that Big Tech is push­ing this nar­rat­ive past the point of being that cor­por­ate cringe type at a social event who can­’t stop talk­ing about how mag­ni­fi­cent they are.

It’s cor­por­ate humbl­eb­rag­ging.
Without humil­ity.

Grandiose Ideas of Self-Importance

Taking pride in actu­al accom­plish­ments is sens­ible. Revising his­tory to fit with gran­di­ose exag­ger­a­tions is … cor­por­ate cringe?

“Believing that one single device brought about a digit­al revolu­tion is like see­ing a crowd of people in Times Square and assum­ing they turned up because you broad­cast on WhatsApp that every­one should go there. It is, how­ever, a con­veni­ent point of view for huge cor­por­a­tions such as Apple or Google. To keep their pos­i­tion in the digit­al mar­ket, these com­pan­ies not only need to design soph­ist­ic­ated hard­ware and soft­ware, they also need to nur­ture the myth that we live in a state of incess­ant revolu­tion of which they are the key engine.“
Source: Fast Company ²Nataly, S., Balby, G., & Bory, P. (2019, October 16). The real reas­on Apple and Google still hold big launch events. Fast Company. … Continue read­ing

Examples of Corporational Determinism 

Big Tech PR events are increas­ingly per­form­at­ive, often as self-glor­i­fy­ing spec­tacles rather than plat­forms for sub­stan­tial product innovation. 

Here are five examples of Big Tech’s most self-con­grat­u­lat­ory PR events, where the spec­tacle often over­shad­owed the actu­al substance:

Apple’s “Courage” Moment /​ iPhone 7 Keynote (2016)

Apple’s 2016 iPhone 7 event was a mas­ter­class in cor­por­ate self-praise. For a sig­ni­fic­ant por­tion of the present­a­tion , Apple ration­al­ised why remov­ing a beloved fea­ture was a bold act of innov­a­tion. They posi­tioned the lack of a head­phone jack as an act of “cour­age” rather than a cost-cut­ting, access­ory-push­ing decision.

Apple then sold a sep­ar­ate $159 pair of AirPods to solve the prob­lem they created.

Google’s AI-Powered Call That Was Too Human /​ Google Duplex (2018)

At Google I/​O 2018, Sundar Pichai demoed Google Duplex, an AI-powered assist­ant that could make calls on your behalf and sound dis­turb­ingly human. The demo — a seem­ingly per­fect con­ver­sa­tion between AI and real people — was hailed as ground­break­ing, but it felt more like a tech magic show than an actu­al product announcement.

Five years later, Duplex still isn’t widely avail­able, prov­ing it was more hype than substance.

Facebook’s “Metaverse Revolution” /​ Connect 2021

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta rebrand and Connect 2021 event was an end­less self-indul­gent pitch for a future that didn’t exist. He prom­ised an immers­ive, world-chan­ging “meta­verse”, but the actu­al demon­stra­tion was a bunch of float­ing leg­less avatars in an empty digit­al space. Zuckerberg spent an hour con­vin­cing people that Meta was revolu­tion­ising the world, des­pite hav­ing noth­ing func­tion­al to show.

The “meta­verse” quickly became a fin­an­cial dis­aster, lead­ing to massive lay­offs and Meta pivot­ing back to AI in 2023.

Tesla’s Cybertruck Reveal /​ Elon’s Window Shattering Fail (2019)

Elon Musk’s Tesla Cybertruck event in 2019 was meant to redefine the pickup truck mar­ket, but it quickly turned into a meme-worthy PR dis­aster. Tesla hyped up its “shat­ter­proof” armored win­dows, only for Musk him­self to acci­dent­ally smash them on stage with a met­al ball.

Despite the over-the-top spec­tacle, Cybertruck pro­duc­tion was delayed for years, and the final product looks almost noth­ing like the ori­gin­al concept.

Microsoft’s AI Hype Event /​ Bing AI “Revolution” (2023)

When Microsoft launched AI-powered Bing (2023), they acted like they had crushed Google overnight. Nadella called it “the biggest innov­a­tion in search in dec­ades.” What happened next? The AI hal­lu­cin­ated fake res­ults and gave bizarre responses (e.g., Bing’s chat­bot told a user to leave his wife).

The event hyped AI as a “Google killer” but didn’t fun­da­ment­ally shift search trends. Despite the massive PR push, Bing AI didn’t change search beha­vi­or, and Google still dom­in­ates 91% of the market.

Finding the Right Messaging Balance

The PR strategy of cor­por­a­tion­al determ­in­ism is show­ing signs of audi­ence fatigue. Tech journ­al­ists are get­ting more skep­tic­al of gran­di­ose proclamations.

The prob­lem with these events is that they treat pro­gress as inev­it­able, inflate minor updates into revolu­tions, and prom­ise the world before they even deliv­er a street.

Instead of mak­ing it all about the new products, focus­ing the core mes­sage on how the brand fits with­in a lar­ger story could also make sense out­side Big Tech.

The chal­lenge? We must bal­ance a con­fid­ent brand nar­rat­ive to avoid obnox­ious cor­por­ate cringe.

Learn more: Corporational Determinism

Corporate Cringe

Many cor­por­ate texts are writ­ten in poor taste. Unlike many oth­er cre­at­ive pro­fes­sions, cor­por­ate com­mu­nic­a­tions have some­how for­got­ten that hav­ing great taste is an actu­al skill.

I some­times won­der if cor­por­ate com­mu­nic­a­tions suf­fer from an industry-wide short­age of good taste.

Here are some typ­ic­al examples of cor­por­ate cringe:

By being aware of these pit­falls, organ­isa­tions can refine com­mu­nic­a­tion strategies to ensure more authen­t­ic and effect­ive engage­ment with their stake­hold­ers, influ­en­cers, and pub­lics.

More examples: https://​www​.red​dit​.com/​r​/​c​o​r​p​o​r​a​t​e​c​r​i​n​ge/

A Difficult Conversation

Perhaps we’re drown­ing ourselves in cor­por­ate cringe since we’ve nev­er had this conversation.

Having worked as a cor­por­ate com­mu­nic­a­tions adviser since 2005, I’ve told CEOs that their strategies are plain wrong. I’ve told mar­keters that they’re hurt­ing their brand from short-sighted­ness. I’ve told com­mu­nic­at­ors that they’ve spent huge budgets on unne­ces­sary activities. 

Why? Because cli­ents pay me to be a truth-say­er.
Writing, how­ever, is… a touchy subject.

Tell a head of com­mu­nic­a­tions that their cor­por­ate com­mu­nic­a­tion is cringe, and you’re out faster than their min­ions can slam the door behind you.

Telling any­one their writ­ing sounds bor­ing is rough — even for me — but it must be done.

If you drench cor­por­ate com­mu­nic­a­tion with plat­it­udes and unin­spired, stale, and corny hyper­boles, it does make a difference.

We might adequately plan, execute, and meas­ure our activ­it­ies, but that won’t mat­ter if our com­mu­nic­a­tion activ­it­ies sound corny.

Good Taste is a Rare — But Important — Skill

Unlike many oth­er cre­at­ive pro­fes­sions, cor­por­ate com­mu­nic­a­tions often seem obli­vi­ous to the import­ance of being … taste­ful. Our industry’s ignor­ance of what con­sti­tutes good taste is pecu­li­ar because we ought to know better. 

We are com­mu­nic­a­tion pro­fes­sion­als, after all. 

Tonality isn’t just for copy­writers.
Look and feel isn’t just for art dir­ect­ors.
Great taste is a PR skill, too.

But there’s a way out of this poorly lit tun­nel of mediocrity. We’re in a pos­i­tion to mit­ig­ate cringe-worthy cor­por­ate messaging:

If you’re blessed with a col­league with a sense of taste, let them have their say. Don’t allow ego and hier­archy to get in the way of good communication.

Never settle, nev­er give up.

Join the fight against cor­por­ate cringe.

Learn more: Corporate Cringe

Classic Media Logic: Beware the News

Classic media logic can be regarded as a rhet­or­ic­al approach to PR the­ory.

“The pos­i­tion and size of art­icles on the front page is determ­ined by interest and import­ance, not con­tent. Unrelated reports […] are jux­ta­posed; time and space are des­troyed and the here and now are presen­ted as a single Gestalt. […] Such a format lends itself to sim­ul­tan­eity, not chro­no­logy or lin­eal­ity. Items abstrac­ted from a total situ­ation are not arranged in caus­al sequence, but presen­ted in asso­ci­ation, as raw exper­i­ence.“
Source: The new lan­guages (1956) ³Carpenter, E. & McLuhan, M. (1956) The new lan­guages. Chicago Review. 10(1) pp. 46 – 52.

Contrary to pop­u­lar belief, clas­sic media logic is not one single the­ory. Instead, it’s a col­lec­tion of the­or­ies about how the medi­um and its con­text influ­ence medi­ated messages.

“[…] each com­mu­nic­a­tion chan­nel codi­fies real­ity dif­fer­ently and thereby influ­ences, to a sur­pris­ing degree, the con­tent of the mes­sage com­mu­nic­ated.”
Source: The new lan­guages (1956) ⁴Carpenter, E. & McLuhan, M. (1956) The new lan­guages. Chicago Review. 10(1) pp. 46 – 52.

Classic Media Logic Effects

Classic media logic is hypo­thes­ised to influ­ence the news media in the fol­low­ing ways: ⁵Nord, L., & Strömbäck, J. (2002, January). Tio dagar som skakade världen. En stud­ie av medi­ernas beskrivningar av ter­ror­at­tack­erna mot USA och kri­get i Afghanistan hösten 2001. … Continue read­ing

“The dom­in­ant pro­cesses, estab­lished routines, and stand­ard­ized formats which frame and shape the pro­duc­tion of mass-media con­tent, espe­cially its rep­res­ent­a­tion or con­struc­tion of real­ity, and its man­u­fac­ture of news. Media logic inter­sects with com­mer­cial logic and polit­ic­al logic — con­flu­ences asso­ci­ated with such phe­nom­ena as tabloid­iz­a­tion and the medi­at­iz­a­tion of polit­ics. Media logic exists wherever medi­ation exists. It con­trib­utes to the shap­ing of social order in mod­ern post-indus­tri­al cul­tures.“
Source: Oxford Reference ⁶Media Logic. (2023). Oxford Reference. https://​www​.oxfordrefer​ence​.com/​d​i​s​p​l​a​y​/​1​0​.​1​0​9​3​/​o​i​/​a​u​t​h​o​r​i​t​y​.​2​0​1​1​0​8​1​0​1​0​5​3​5​7​611

Learn more: Media Logic is Dead, Long Live Media Logic