WashingtonExec has reached out to leading GovCon communications and media executives about the latest trends in a post-pandemic world. These interviews highlight success stories that resonate, discuss how organizations are navigating current challenges and provide insight into lessons learned.
Roela Santos, senior vice president of marketing and communications for Amentum, shares her thoughts below.
What were you and your team heavily focused on this year?
In 2022, the organization was focused on completing the integration of a couple of major acquisitions into Amentum, which was a huge undertaking. Besides integrating the structure and systems, we have the longer-term focus of building a unified Amentum culture.
One of the key things the marketing and communications team focused on this past year was rolling out a new set of vision, mission and values that reflect the newly formed organization with the goal of inspiring our 36,000-plus employee base, as well as our external stakeholders.
Our broader Amentum employee base has really rallied around the new vision, mission and values, and the marketing and comms team is excited to continue to ground a lot of the priorities and initiatives we have on this foundation. In the process, the culture we’re building taps into the Amentum team of inventive doers passionate about making a difference and committed to building a purpose-driven organization.
What were some of this year’s biggest media and communications challenges, and how did you overcome them?
This past year, we’ve had to reevaluate the marketing channels against evolving audience behaviors as we emerge from COVID-19 isolation. We knew we were not going back to pre-COVID patterns, but how much would audience behavior change and how much would stay the same were the big questions.
For example, were people going back to commuting to make metro or radio advertising a stronger option? And will business travel be back to levels where we should invest more in airport or conference visibility?
The answers to those questions evolved a few times during the past year, and we had to stay on top of them and remain flexible and agile to follow the audience and optimize our investments.
What are some of the biggest media and communications trends you are anticipating for the remainder of this year, and into 2023?
We are happy to see tradeshows and conferences coming back in force and filling a broader role in customer engagement. With a lot of customers working hybrid or remote schedules, these industry events have become a more important venue for having in-person discussions with customer teams and around cross-team collaborations.
We also think that with inflation and some tightening in the economy, the need to measure qualitative results and show value in channels would be more important in 2023. We will still have a diversified set of channels and creative approaches to bring our story to audiences, but with improved metrics and agility, companies can more easily change tactics based on data and analytics.
Are you/your team spearheading any major media and communications initiatives at the moment? If so, can you explain?
We are excitedly working on launching a more complete Amentum brand in January. When Amentum was launched in 2020, the excitement and visibility around the new company were limited by the pandemic. Since then, we’ve integrated and completed a couple more major acquisitions and it is a much different company than we were in 2020.
We now have the opportunity to relaunch the brand of a company that has a much larger footprint and a more exciting portfolio, and is the recognized leader in strategic market segments. It’s an exciting time for our marketing and communications team and for the whole company, and we can’t wait to unveil the brand in January.
What are you most passionate about enhancing communications-wide in your organization going forward?
I’m really excited about the new technologies that are available that will improve the audience and employee experience. Behind the scenes, we have analytics and data to better inform decisions on channels and timing. To reach our stakeholders, who have experience as consumers with various digital channels and devices, our profession needs to step up and reach them where their digital expectations are.
Any opportunity to expand and add to our marketing and communications toolbox is just better for our industry and for the people we’re trying to engage with. This is even more important as digital natives in younger audiences are growing in numbers and becoming more influential in our market.