Revolutionising how CNH tells its sustainability stories
When CNH wanted to showcase its work in sustainability, it turned to FirstWord to help create an editorial process that delivered stories people would read, writes Sophy Buckley
There are lots of ways to measure success. But when it comes to content, stickiness and eyeballs are up there.
Stickiness is how long people spend reading; eyeballs measure the size of the audience. Both give a good indication of a story’s impact. Back in 2016, getting lots of eyeballs and long read times for sustainability stories were two of Laura Overall’s objectives as senior vice president of communications at global agriculture and construction equipment giant CNH.
“We knew we had lots of really good, inspiring stories in our sustainability report. But they weren’t being read. They weren’t resonating,” she says.
Every year CNH, whose brands include agricultural machine producers Case IH and New Holland, published its sustainability report showing how the company was meeting its targets and validating its claims. But at around 300 pages, it was too long to attract the attention of the media and other desired audiences, including potential new recruits, trade bodies, NGOs, governments and charities.
“We needed the professionalism of experienced reporters and the rigour of a newsroom to get that hard-hitting factual point to hang the narrative on. We just didn’t have those skills in-house.”
Overall and the CNH comms team hit on the idea of printing a magazine to showcase the most important and relatable sustainability stories in a more engaging and digestible format. But they lacked the expertise to choose the best subjects, find the perfect angle for each and then write them up as compelling and engaging stories. “We needed the professionalism of experienced reporters and the rigour of a newsroom to get that hard-hitting factual point to hang the narrative on. We just didn’t have those skills in-house,” she says.
Drawing on external expertise
The company turned to FirstWord for help. “We’d known Adrian [FirstWord co-founder] from when he’d been Milan correspondent for the Financial Times and we thought his journalistic approach to content and the experience of [the agency’s] writers would really ensure we made the most of our stories,” she says.
The first year working together resulted in a magazine, called A Sustainable Year, with 17 pieces of content. Published and printed in the spring of 2017, the articles included the environmental benefits of autonomous vehicles, a project to reduce road fatalities in South Africa and a piece on how CNH’s World Class Manufacturing commitment was raising ESG standards, not only at the manufacturer but also at its suppliers.
FirstWord carried out the interviews and writing, making the stories compelling and newsworthy, and also created the flat plan – a map of the magazine. It also designed the magazine to reflect CNH’s corporate branding and ensured the layouts amplified key messages and metrics.
“When we ask FirstWord to do something it just gets done and it’s done to a high quality on time and on budget. We don’t have to check it.”
Jeroen Bergmans, a FirstWord editor who has worked with CNH since 2017, remembers: “CNH came up with a long list of story ideas. We looked at it with Stefano Ferro, who runs the magazine from inside CNH, worked out the hero stories, ensured the pictures would work and commissioned infographics.”
When magazines are printed, the pagination has to be in multiples of four for the printing presses, a discipline that also dictates the length of stories. Get it wrong and you’re left with pointless white space.
‘Digestible and relatable’
“Producing a magazine is quite complicated and tends to have lots of moving parts. Pictures might not be strong enough to hold up a story or a story might turn out to be much more interesting and complex than originally thought and deserves more space or an explanatory infographic. All that will affect the flat plan. We made sure it worked,” says Bergmans.
For that first magazine, Overall printed about 6,000 copies and used them as calling cards at conferences, corporate events and when meeting the media. The magazine was also published as a PDF on the company’s website.
“We used it as a companion guide to our sustainability report and got really good feedback because at this stage we were the only ones doing it,” she says. “Our media guys liked it because we were making their job easier. The institutional and the corporate people liked it too because it was an easy way into sustainability. It was digestible and relatable.”
“This year I really want to cement that progress. Two years of solid data will let me know so much more about what people are really interested in.”
Since then, the project has evolved considerably. In 2019, the magazine went wholly digital, triggering a redesign that included increasing the font size to make it easier to read on a device. Then in 2023, publication became episodic, with Overall drip-feeding the articles often related to a relevant news event.
“Having a news peg for an article helps drive traffic. It makes the story more relevant,” she says.
Once all the articles have been published, she will collate them into a single searchable document and publishes that online.
Another change has been to bring in outside voices. Originally, all the interviewees were from CNH, but last year Overall included independent experts – a suggestion from FirstWord to help make the stories resonate with a broader audience. These experts included Q&As with Reshma Ramachandran, a former leader in business transformation at human resources giant Adecco, as part of an article on women and leadership. It also included Dr Jonathan Witter, associate professor in agronomy and soils at Ohio State University, on how the science of soil management and crop production plays a crucial role in feeding the world’s growing population while also promoting sustainable farming practices.
The combined changes went down well, helping to boost readership considerably.
Building on success
In October 2023, Overall published the most recent issue of A Sustainable Year magazine. On LinkedIn, it gained 13,626 impressions, 338 engagements and 15 reposts. Compare that with an original story she posted on LinkedIn in July that year about CNH’s solar panels that got more than 65,300 impressions, 1,709 engagements and 27 reposts, and the success in boosting readership by publishing individual pieces of content as well as the whole report is clear.
“This year I really want to cement that progress,” Overall says. “Two years of solid data will let me know so much more about what people are really interested in.”
This data-led approach will help Overall pick the stories with the widest appeal going forward, for while she admits she’s a tractor nerd, that’s not true of everyone. “I loved a story about the world’s first liquefied natural gas tractor – a beautiful machine and groundbreaking technology. It only got 41,000 impressions on LinkedIn – that’s 20,000 fewer than the solar panels piece,” she muses.
Looking ahead, she’d also like to add more video content. “I like the idea of experimenting with video,” she says. “Having shorter social media videos could be a gateway into more long-form articles. We could create an ecosystem of social feeding the long form on the website.”
FirstWord has already helped edit some CNH films and videos, cutting them down or adding music or text graphics, using Guy Ruddle, the former BBC Radio Five business and economics reporter whose company FirstTouch TV now works with FirstWord.
It’s being able to offer these multimedia skills that makes FirstWord Overall’s ideal content partner. “When we ask FirstWord to do something it just gets done and it’s done to a high quality on time and on budget. We don’t have to check it,” she says, adding that it would be hard to find someone who could do everything she needs to hire as staff. “It’s much more effective for me to employ an agency that does this 365 days a year.”
For Overall, the ongoing partnership has proved its worth, helping not only to make her job easier, but also to deliver the eyeballs she wants.
“Getting it right is easier if you work with a professional team of writers who can act as your critical friend. They help us remember that it’s not what interests us that matters. It’s what interests the audience you want to attract,” she says.
Today, her stats are good and she’s also enjoying good pick-up of her stories by reporters.
“I can see that we’re being written about, quoted, being republished, getting a virtual buzz. It’s a win-win. Eyeballs and stickiness,” she says. “And that’s not easy for a corporate website. People might be fans of what we make, but to get them interested in the holding company, that’s a really important yardstick of success.”