Reimagining Condé Nast international’s brand

Reimagining ‘mission and vision’ statements is a challenge, even for small organisations. If you’re one of the world’s most successful publishing companies, where do you begin? Condé Nast International commissioned Further’s crack
online research team to help them develop a new global ‘mission and vision’ statement for the organisation. We had one week to have conversations with 60 employees, all with different titles and levels of seniority, across six countries
in different languages.

The Approach

We designed and moderated a series of online communities in Brazil,
Germany, France, Taiwan, Japan and Mexico, hosted on our advanced
Together platform. We used group discussions, surveys, image sourcing,
storytelling and projective techniques.

• We surfaced staff perceptions of Condé Nast International as a global
  employer, a place of work and a consumer brand, in a non-hierarchical
  environment. We carefully unpicked the opportunities around brand
  equity, product quality and corporate culture.
• We then gathered feedback on potential mission and vision statements,
  focusing on what needed to be emphasised and what the meaningful
  semantic differences were between languages and cultures.
• Finally, we worked together with staff to refine and build on the potential
  mission and vision statements to ensure they were grounded in the
  heritage of the business and distinctive for all stakeholders, all whilst
  turning the gaze toward the future

Results

We helped reveal the heart and soul of Condé Nast International in a matter
of weeks. The inspiring new mission and vision statements are something
everyone can be proud of for small organisations. If you’re one of the world’s most successful

 Further’s response to the brief was excellent. We achieved complete buy-in from the employees that took part, who felt that it was great to be part of something that could really shape our overall direction. It was empowering and people felt valued. We were amazed at the level of insight we achieved in a week with the online communities. My team is really well versed in digital research with consumers, but we had never considered that approach for employee research. Further opened our eyes to new ways of researching our staff. They are a fantastic team to work with

Paul Nesbitt,
Head of Audience Research, Condé Nast International