Klaus-Peter Johanssen
Klaus-Peter Johanssen (born January 8, 1938 in Hamburg ; † October 10, 2012 ) was a German communications consultant. He was considered an expert in corporate and crisis communication in Germany.
biography
Johanssen was the eldest of three sons. After graduating from high school, he worked at a lubricant plant of Deutsche Shell AG at the request of his father . Then he began to study law, which he successfully completed. In 1967 Johanssen went back to the German Shell subsidiary and worked there initially as a legal advisor in the company's legal department and later in various managerial positions in the company's own marketing department. At the beginning of 1994, Shell redesigned the communication concept so that Johanssen, as director of corporate communications, was in charge of the company's overall communications and the various responsibilities for e.g. B. Public affairs , public relations , brand advertising, sponsoring and the corporate identity of Deutsche Shell were managed under his leadership. Klaus-Peter Johanssen was the first German communications director to be entrusted with all communications. In this position he was largely responsible for communication in the following years.
When the term corporate social responsibility had not yet fully arrived in German corporate culture , Johanssen started the first CSR campaign in Germany at Deutsche Shell at the beginning of March 1995, which focused on the company's social commitment. Under the headings “We want to change that” and “We care about more than cars”, the group advertised its social and environmental activities in advertisements and TV spots.
However, in the months that followed, Johanssen achieved notoriety beyond his branch. Shell UK planned to sink the discarded Brent Spar oil platform northwest of Scotland in the Atlantic after independent reports identified the project as environmentally friendly, safe and cheap. Greenpeace then occupied the platform on the night of April 30th to May 1st, 1995 to prevent the successful sinking of the Brent Spar from setting a precedent for the disposal of further drilling rigs. Shell's wait-and-see attitude as well as the immense media attention led to unprecedented protests and boycotts against Shell on the German market. Klaus-Peter Johanssen found out about the incident from journalists on the morning of May 1st and got in touch with the British corporate management in order to communicate his assessment of the possible costs of damage to the company's image compared to the calculable costs of disposal in another way. After Shell finally decided against disposal in the ocean on June 20, 1995, it was supported with the now necessary image campaign, through which Johanssen subsequently made a name for himself in the field of crisis PR. Under the motto “We understood.” The group showed humility and asked the customers for forgiveness. Such an insightful campaign by a large corporation was unique at the time.
In the retrospective, Johanssen struggled with the fact that he was always associated with the crisis communication at Brent Spar, but less so with the then groundbreaking Shell responsibility campaign, which had been developed under his direction shortly before and which never had an impact.
Johanssen also recognized the potential of the Shell Youth Study and personally campaigned for its promotion. Under his leadership, the results of the study were prepared for communication and thus made available for public discussion. Shell's findings were considered the reference work in social reporting in the late 1980s and 1990s and are still widely recognized today.
In 2000 he founded Johanssen + Kretschmer Strategische Kommunikation GmbH together with Heiko Kretschmer, of which he was named and managing partner until the end of 2008. Johanssen was the first successful head of communications for a large company to enter the consulting industry. Even after his retirement as managing director, he continued to advise as a partner.
He gave his experience in the field of corporate communication as a lecturer at the Saxon Administration and Business Academy, the Bavarian Academy of Advertising (BAW) and the PR college in Berlin as well as teaching assignments at the Free University of Berlin , the UdK Berlin and the TU Dresden further.
He married the MetaDesign founder Uli Mayer in 2003 . They also devoted themselves to joint projects professionally. So u grew a. In 2004, out of the shared interest in culture, the MoMA - A Star Comes to Berlin campaign , which accompanied the highly acclaimed and very successful exhibition of the Museum of Modern Art in the Neue Nationalgalerie .
Fonts
- together with Ulrich Steger: Local or Global? . Frankfurter Allgemeine Buch, Frankfurt 2000, ISBN 978-3927282957 .
- Crisis - Catastrophe or Productive Process? . In: Stephan Becker-Sonnenschein, Manfred Schwarzmeier (Ed.): From simple being to beautiful appearance? Communication requirements in the area of tension between public relations and politics . Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2002, ISBN 978-3-322-90900-8 .
- With experience from the crisis . Polisphere, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3938456491 .
- Statement paper Global Brands / Global Branding: The power of brands is global , 2003.
- together with his wife Uli Mayer-Johanssen: In search of uniqueness, corporate identity - the underestimated control instrument , 2008.
- Commemorative pamphlet We understand. - Texts in memory of Klaus-Peter Johanssen , 2013.
Individual evidence
- ↑ "We understand.", Page 30, paragraph 1
- ↑ "We understand.", Page 31, paragraph 4
- ↑ a b http://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/2010-06/brent-spar-bp
- ↑ https://www.greenpeace.de/themen/meere/industriegebiet-meer/chronik-ein-konzern-versenken-sein-image
- ↑ Wilfried Kratz: Learning hurts . In: The time . No. 27/1995 ( online ).
- ↑ “We understand.” - Texts in memory of Klaus-Peter Johanssen, page 9, 2nd paragraph
- ↑ “We understand.” - Texts in memory of Klaus-Peter Johanssen, page 7, 2nd paragraph
- ↑ https://www.socialnet.de/rezensions/4109.php
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from December 18, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ “We understand.” - Texts in memory of Klaus-Peter Johanssen, page 10, 2nd paragraph
- ↑ http://www.krisenkommunikationskongress.de/inhalt/referenten/referenten.php#johanssen
- ↑ We understand . - Texts in memory of Klaus-Peter Johanssen , page 164, 2nd paragraph
- ↑ http://www.rp-online.de/kultur/berlin-moma-ervielreichste-europa-ausstellung-aid-1.1617917
- ↑ "We have understood." - Texts in memory of Klaus-Peter Johanssen, page 11, 2nd paragraph
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Johanssen, Klaus-Peter |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German communications consultant |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 8, 1938 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Hamburg |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 10, 2012 |