Our firm watches commercials. Lots of them. Not just because we represent advertising clients. But because of what they can teach us about how businesses communicate with existing and potential customers—the end users of their products or services. We like to see what works and what doesn't. We were fascinated by the recent Nike campaign. Not because of Colin Kaepernick, but because of the company's good sense of the marketplace and how their customers would react to the ad.

Corporate Counsel has covered a number of recent hires by Uber: Tony West (whom we observed give a thoughtful presentation at the recent 24th Annual Stanford Directors' College), Scott Schools (long-time Department of Justice veteran and new Chief Compliance Officer), and Matt Olsen (former National Security Agency lawyer and new Uber trust and security officer). All three were covered on this site and all top notch, but probably not a single customer noticed. What customers did see was the recent advertising campaign that pivoted from the “Moving Forward” theme (and customers will surely notice the outcome of those hires in terms of the compliance and governance enhancements).

The new ad campaign shows how Uber is part of the fabric of its customers' everyday lives. Uber helps its customers move from one life event to another, and the ad reminds us that Uber drivers are just like its customers when a driver dons a baseball cap to watch his kid play. The narrator tells us, “Whatever your ambition, whatever your drive, whatever you are chasing, opportunity is everywhere … all you have to do to find it is get out here.” As part of the new campaign, Uber also changed its logo to a simple “Uber” (now synonymous with getting places) from the odd logo that looked like Pac Man eating the London tube.

Why the shift? “Moving Forward” doesn't remind customers where the company is going to go. It focuses on where it's been. And the future of Uber is about building trust with customers that Uber is the company that can shuffle you between life events—whether it's going to the airport (which is our firm's primary use of Uber) or going out on a date. At a community service project this weekend at a center for the homeless in Houston, three Catholic high school seniors (whom presumably were old enough to use the service) left in an Uber. When one of the kids said the three were headed home in an Uber, other parents did not bat an eye. That's trust!

Like good advertising campaigns, well-designed compliance programs have a similar focus on the end user—both the business and its stakeholders. Processes have to be simple and understandable. If something doesn't work, the program has to adapt. Effective compliance programs have elements that are fairly straightforward—a good leadership/organization, a process for understanding and mitigating risk, policies, procedures, and other rules for people to follow (and controls to make sure they work), training on these rules and processes, communication of the program, a way to monitor and audit the program, and a mechanism for investigating potential compliance failures in a fair and impartial way. While this framework is direct and maps to various regulatory guidance (such as Chapter Eight of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines), the design and implementation involve understanding the business and the end user of the program.

Effective advertising is the epitome of this sort of “design” thinking because it's about how to engage with the customer and convince him or her to use a particular product or service. A random billboard does not connect with a customer. Want to see effective advertising? Watch Apple's iPhone 7 commercial on the “Memories” feature. If that doesn't make you tear up and remind you to start taking photos of your family and loved ones with your phone, what will? The new Apple ad campaigns are just as good. They get their customers—the latest iPhone ad was viewed 23 million times in one week. Ever have a kid lose a treasured stuffed friend on a vacation? View FedEx's new “Tortoise and Hare” ad, which reminds you that FedEx is a problem solver. According to an article published on Ad Age, Nike's Kaepernick ad killed with millennials—out of a poll of 1,038 voters nationwide, 67 percent of voters ages 18-34 expressed their approval of the ad. The latest IKEA “Lamp 2” ad reimagines an old advertisement, reminding us that IKEA encourages social responsibility. For the best ads each week, sign up for Ad Age's weekly email here. The creatives from Mad Men are alive and well.

Compliance program design starts with understanding the business and its strategy. The program's goals and milestones should support that strategy. The vision should embrace the business message. If one of the business strategies is to expand its digital offerings, compliance can support this strategy by developing simple processes so employees understand how to comply with new rules in a different environment. Presentations on program successes should speak in business terms.

Really good compliance programs get this. They stay away from platitudes and cliché phrases and tie the messaging to the business and its customers/stakeholders. When is the last time you saw a commercial that simply said “Buy this product?” Or, what if the Coca-Cola polar bears said “Dilly Dilly” to one another as they downed their sodas (slogan from Game of Thrones inspired the Anheuser-Busch commercial). Wouldn't work. Or worse, if Coke used the lamp commercial from IKEA. Why would generic compliance messaging that fits any company be any more effective? Or a generic compliance framework that is not fit for purpose. What works at one company may not necessarily work at another. Every company is different. Different businesses. Different culture.

James B. Twitchell wrote a book called “Twenty Ads that Shook the World: The Century's Most Groundbreaking Advertising and how it Changed Us All.” Twitchell begins by telling readers that “Commercial speech–advertising–makes up most of what we share as a culture.” His book is about how advertising has evolved to change our culture. The twenty ads he covers are classics. Apple's 1984 campaign for the Macintosh computer. Listerine for creating the need for clean breath. De Beers for inventing the idea of the diamond engagement ring (“a diamond is forever”). Coca-Cola inventing the modern Santa. And Nike creating the hero as the product (before Kaepernick, there was Jordan).

Compliance programs have to aim to help the business shake the world by helping shape the culture of the business. And to do that, they need both the support of business leadership and compliance professionals to develop the program around the business strategy. If the business sees compliance speaking the language of the business, the program seems less about being a compliance program and more of just a way of the business working.

Ryan McConnell and Stephanie Bustamante are lawyers at R. McConnell Group—a compliance boutique law firm in Houston, Texas with Fortune 500 clients across the globe. McConnell is a former assistant U.S. Attorney in Houston who has taught criminal procedure and corporate compliance at the University of Houston Law Center. Bustamante's work at the firm focuses on risk and compliance issues in addition to assisting clients with responding to compliance failures. Send column ideas to [email protected].