Universiteit Gent Faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte The rise of the lobbying scene My internship at Interel PR & PA Scriptie ingediend ter verkrijging van het diploma Meertalige Bedrijfscommunicatie. Evi Robignon Academic year 2007-2008 Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Geert Jacobs I would to thank a few people who supported me during my studies and especially during the year I studied Multilingual Business Communications. In the first place, I would to express my gratitude towards my parents who never stopped supporting me and who always encouraged me during my studies and during my internship. Secondly I would like to thank Joris Bulteel, my supervisor during my internship, for offering me a great internship and for his professional supervision. I would also like to express my gratitude towards Kristina, Anne Laure, Leen and Inge for always answering my questions, for giving me lots of responsibility, for guiding me during my internship and for letting me work in an amazing team. Finally but not least my gratitude also goes to Luc De Bie, the coordinator of MTB. 2 Table of contents Speech of thanks Introduction Preface Chapter One: Presentation of the company 1. Short history of the company 7 2. Offered services 9 2.1. General services 9 2.2. Interel Belgium: offered services 10 2.3. Belgian Public Affairs: offered services 11 3. Corporate Identity 13 4. Client portfolio 15 4.1. InBev 15 4.2. Securex 15 4.3. Nike 15 4.4. Intrum Justitia 15 4.5. Delhaize 16 4.6. T-Power 16 5. Interel and its competitors 17 5.1. Hill & Knowlton 17 5.2. Pleon 17 5.3. Porter Novelli 18 5.4. ProgressiveMedia 18 5.5. Akkanto 18 6. SWOT-analysis 20 6.1. Interel as a Belgian communications agency 20 6.2. Interel as a communications agency 21 6.3. Interel and its competitors 22 6.4. Summary 23 Chapter two: Lobbying activities in Belgium 1. Introduction 24 2. Lobbying? 25 2.1. Definition and origin 25 2.2. History of lobbying activities 27 2.3. What are lobbying activities? 28 2.4. The necessity of lobbying activities 33 2.5. Legislation 34 2.6. Lobbying activities in Belgium 37 3. Conclusion 42 3 Chapter three: My internship 1. Introduction 44 2. Belgium for dummies 44 3. Other tasks 46 3.1. T-Power 45 3.2. Profiles 45 3.3. Screening 46 3.4. Briefing 47 3.5. Press Release 47 3.6. Monitoring report 48 3.7. Newsletter 49 3.8. Stakeholder mapping 49 3.9. Zero-measurement 50 3.10. Crisis manual 50 3.11. In-between tasks 51 Chapter four: Conclusion 1. Introduction 52 2. Professional experience 52 3. Personal experience 53 4. MTB and my internship 54 4.1. Program 54 4.2. Insight on MTB 55 4.3. Improvement 55 Bibliography 56 Appendixes 59 4 Introduction In the following thesis, I will reflect upon my internship at Interel and upon the many things I learned during the postgraduate education Multilingual Business Communications (MTB). The first chapter will focus upon Interel and will consist of a short company history, the company’s structure and its clients, its competitors and finally a SWOT-analysis. Chapter two will discuss in detail lobbying activities, their history, the difficult legislation and the differences between the Belgian lobbying scene and the American and European lobbying scene. The third chapter will touch upon the different assignments I fulfilled during my internship. The last chapter is dedicated to what I have learned both on a professional and on a personal level during MTB and my internship. As I did my internship on the Belgian Public Affairs department, a number of clients and some information is confidential. Due to this confidential character, I will not always be able to mention the name of the client. The confidential character of my thesis also implies that third parties don’t have permission to read my thesis. 5 Preface While studying Multilingual Business Communication, an internship is obliged. After the introductory session, all students received a dossier that summarized the participating companies. After studying the dossier I decided that I definitely wanted to do an internship in a PR-company. To give its students a better idea of what an internship truly signifies, MTB organized a panel evening. During this evening I got the chance to talk with Inge Staelens, a Belgian Public Affairs consultant. Since politics, economy and the complicated interaction that takes place between these two players always interested me, I was thrilled to find out that Interel was offering an internship on the Belgian Public Affairs department. While applying for the internship, I had an interview with Joris Bulteel, who would later become my supervisor. Since I felt that the obliged five weeks were too short to really get to know the company and the job content, I decided to do an internship of nine weeks. 6 Chapter One: Presentation of the company 1 1. Short company history Interel PR&PA was founded in 1983, as a Belgian Public Affairs-Corporate Communications company by Jean-Léopold Schuybrouck and François Verhaeghe. In 1989 Interel sas Paris was set up and in 1990 the creative subsidiary Landmarks was founded. In 1997, the company merged with another communications agency owned by Ine Mariën. The name of the new company was changed into Interel Mariën. By merging both companies, Interel Mariën was able to offer its clients a wider range of services, going from marketing and brand communication to issues management and lobbying activities. Interel Mariën kept growing, but in 2004 Ine Mariën decided to leave the company. Interel never stopped expanding its strength on foreign markets and founded in 2000 an office in Prague and in 2007 an office in Berlin, bringing its total amount of subsidiaries to five.2 At the same time, they also strengthened their position on the Belgian market, by being the only communications agency with Belgian roots. Four years ago (in 2004), one of the remaining two partners died, which meant that a problem concerning the shares arose. In the mean time, the remaining partner wanted to expand his vision and he also wanted to become a European company as well as a Belgian company. Two main solutions were found. 3 The first possibility was to be acquired by a large worldwide PR-company such as Hill & Knowlton. This however, didn’t appeal much to Jean-Léopold, since such a merger would mean giving up Interel’s own strategy and input. A second possibility seemed more appropriate: finding a company that would like to serve as a financier. In 2006 an appropriate investor was found: Hasgrove Plc. Today Interel PR&PA is a fully owned subsidiary of the UK based marketing and communications group Hasgrove Plc. Hasgrove offers to Interel the necessary means to grow and to expand its business. 4 Since it has not been over two years that Hasgrove acquired Interel, the consequences and changes are still taking place. However, a few changes are already visible: Hasgrove is a listed company, so Interel is now obliged to publish yearly figures. This also means that consultants have to pay more attention to figures as well. 5 Further, Hasgrove has allowed Interel to grow rapidly: over the last year the number of employees almost doubled. The Belgian image that Interel was so proud of has not been touched upon.6 Recently Interel has succeeded in enlarging its Public Affairs Services by acquiring Cabinet Stewart. Due to this merger, Interel Cabinet Stewart has become the second player on the Public Affairs market. 7 Interel is not only a major player on the Belgian market; they also have offices in Paris, Berlin, London, Madrid, Prague and Washington DC. 8 Where they have not yet developed or acquired an 1The company history is based both on Interel’s website ( www.interel.eu ) and on the new company’s brochure. 2The other subsidiaries are Interel sas Paris, Landmarks, Interel sro Prague, Interel GmbH Berlin and Cabinet Stewart European Affairs. See for more information on the subsidiaries www.interel.eu. 3During my interview with Baudouin Velge, the Managing Director of Interel Belgium, Baudouin told me the possibilities that arose after the death of one of the founding partners. 4Interview with Baudouin Velge. 5While I was discussing my thesis with my colleagues at Interel, some consultants told me what they thought had changed after the acquisition by Hasgrove. 6Interview with Baudouin Velge. 7Ibidem. 7 office, they are present on the market via partnerships with other companies. The offices Interel owns in other countries, however, work on an independent basis and don’t apply the same working methods as Interel Belgium. 9 When one merely looks at the figures, they reveal that Interel is a growing company. In 2007 the yearly turnover of the Group exceeded €17.8 millions. This figure shows a growth of 45% compared to the figures of 2006. The consolidated balance sheet of Interel exceeds €7.5 millions and shows a healthy solvency and no external debts. 10 Currently Interel employs a team of 125 consultants; the Belgium department engages approximately 30 consultants. 11 Interel boasts the fact that their staff in Brussels (both the offices in Tervuren and in the centre of Brussels) consists of fourteen different nationalities and that sixteen languages are spoken. This offers Interel a multicultural approach. 12 Interel is led by Jean-Paul Schuybroeck, who is the executive chairman. The Chief Executive Officer is Frederik Lofthagen; Bob Lewis is the Chief Operating Officer. Baudouin Velge is the Managing Director of Interel Belgium, Tom Parker is Managing Director of the European Public Affairs Practice, Alain Fallik is the Managing Director of Landmarks, Catherine Stewart is the Group Practice Leader of Public Affairs and finally Christine Burgaud is the Finance Director and Company Secretary.13 8www.interel.eu.