Claim
Brief and memorable statement summarizing the corporate vision and mission; some kind of corporate slogan.
Code of Athen
International code of conduct for PR activities, based on the United Nations Charter of Human Rights. IPRA declared the Code of Athens compulsory for all its members in 1965.
Code of Lisbon
Issued in 1989 by the Swiss Public Relations Society SPRG as a code of conduct compulsory to all member PR professionals.
Communiqué
News to the media, prepared in a journalistic manner and from the point of view of the media. A press release is structured as follows: header, headline, lead, body copy, and boilerplate. Press releases are distributed simultaneously to all selected media by mail, fax, and increasingly by e-mail.
ComPASS
A set of instruments provided by Hill & Knowlton to structure a situation analysis from which a PR concept can be deduced. Ideally such a situation analysis by means of ComPASS is achieved jointly with the client in the course of a workshop.
Confirmation
Minutes prepared by the PR agency following a work session or client meeting, summarizing all decisions relevant for future PR work.
Content Management
Continuous maintenance of all contents of a website under the aspect of keeping it up to date and achieving a top listing by search engines.
Contingency Management
Pro-actively preparing a company for an extraordinary situation or crisis by establishing a taskforce and making respective instruments (contingency manual and infrastructure) available, as well as precise procedures under defined scenarios. One of the key objectives of contingency management is to ensure the leadership role of management interfacing the media.
Corporate Behavior
Internal and external behavior of a company.
Corporate Citizenship
The responsibility a company actively assumes towards the community.
Corporate Communications
Strategically focused grooming of the image of a company. Important disciplines of corporate communications are issues management, contingency management, and crisis PR.
Corporate Culture
The values of a company actively practiced by the behavior of its management and employees.
Corporate Design
The visual manifestation of a company by clearly defined elements such as logo, brand character, typesetting, and corporate color on business stationery, publications, and business vehicles, and also reflected in the architecture of business premises.
Corporate Governance
Binding rules and regulations issued by the SWX Swiss Exchange (Guidelines regarding information on Corporate Governance) and economiesuisse (Swiss Code of Best Practice) regarding responsible behavior of the Board of Directors of a company, and making their principles of behavior known to the public.
Corporate Identity
The self-perception of a company as expressed through its corporate communications, corporate design, and corporate behavior.
Corporate Image
The perception of a company by the interested public. The corporate image may be deliberately influenced or corrected by image campaigns.
Corporate Publishing
Periodicals specifically developed for company purposes aiming to build trust and confidence, such as employee magazines, client magazines, investor newsletters.
Corporate Reputation
The good name of a company as expressed in the trust stakeholders actually place in it.
Corporate Vision
Part of the guiding principles. Defines what a company stands for. Shows in particular the benefits a company strives to provide to its clients, employees, and the community.
Credibility Gap
The unwanted difference between corporate identity and corporate image, as reflected in the findings of internal and external opinion research. Whenever credibility gaps are identified, a comprehensive corporate communications program is indicated.
Crisis PR
Professionally conducted communication in order to manage situations of conflict or crisis with the intention of minimizing potential damage to the company and quickly re-establishing its trustworthiness. Contingency management serves to prepare crisis PR.
