Corporate Image Campaign

One of the many threads of thinking that came out of the scenario planning retreat was the importance of creating the correct corporate image for the Prison Service. I always believe that advertising only works if one has a good product or a good idea to sell. Especially in this electronic age, what we are and what we do becomes public knowledge very quickly. If we try to paint ourselves as someone better than we are, we will soon be found out and be branded hypocrites and cheats instead of being associated with the desired corporate image. I also believe that advertising is not just for external audiences. More importantly, it is for the internal audience as well. It is a signal that we are prepared to back up what we are trying to achieve internally with a public message. Although a corporate image campaign was always at the back of my mind to help change the public perception about the Prison Service, I had to wait for the right moment to do so. I had to be confident that we had enough substance to go public about our new emphasis on helping inmates to become useful citizens. By substance, I did not just mean the systemic structures we had put in place to effect the change, but also the change in organisational culture to support such an approach.