We’ve been looking at communications from both Philips and Siemens recently, to assess their civil dimension. It seems to us that Philips and Siemens are on a gentle socially-progressive trajectory, slowly but surely building a strong civil dimension into the organisation. The benefits of this approach is that the organisation can get behind the brand in a genuine way. The challenge is to enable the  brand to communicate civil narratives that engage people and start conversations around topics that they think are important in society.

Philips introduced its ’Sense and Simplicity’ positioning in 2005 and it’s been rather successful. It communicates that Philips is committed to improving people’s lives by delivering products that have a human benefit rather than just technological innovation.  However, there is significant civil benefit in their ‘Create Time’ queue alert product to reduce overcrowding in Chinese hospitals.

Siemens also has a strong humanist dimension in its corporate communications. It talks about answers for life and the Science Express train that is bringing science to young people in 62 German cities has a significant socially-inclusive aspect to it.