Eight ways an HOC engagement takes shape.
Most institutional engagements arrive through one of eight shapes. We do not adapt these on the fly — they have evolved over fourteen years to fit how regional institutions actually buy senior advisory work. Below is what each one looks like operationally, and the kind of institution most often engaged in that mode.
Embedded Advisory
A senior HOC partner is placed inside the in-house communications function on a multi-day-per-week cadence. The dominant model for our government, sovereign and listed-company work. We co-own the operation; the institution owns the standard.
Programmatic Engagement
A multi-year programme of work across two or three service pillars — typically Strategic Communications, Localization & Arabic, and AI Visibility — governed by a quarterly written review with the client principal.
Editorial Partnership
Long-cycle editorial work — Insights, Systems, whitepapers, sector reports — produced for or with the institution. The publishing-led counterpart to Embedded Advisory.
Retainer-Based Strategic Communications
Standing strategic-communications counsel without embedded presence. For institutions with mature in-house communications and a need for senior external advisory at decision points.
Executive Communications Advisory
Lighter-touch advisory for principals whose institutional engagement is principal-focused — a chairman, a senior minister, a sovereign officer. Direct working relationship with the principal and chief of staff.
Crisis Support Retainer
Standing crisis-readiness and in-crisis response retainer. Often layered onto an Embedded Advisory or Programmatic Engagement. Includes the 30-minute bilingual response standard and the on-call rotation. See the Crisis Communications practice →
Long-term Publishing Partnership
Long-cycle institutional publishing — Systems, sector reports, annual research, ongoing Insight authorship. The publishing equivalent of Programmatic Engagement.
Annual Reporting Engagement — HOC Dickenson
Year-round atelier cadence aligned with the listed-company reporting calendar. July strategy → November board drafts → January statutory drafts → March AGM-ready → April–June inter-cycle work. See the HOC Dickenson atelier →
Specialist Commissions
A defined piece of work — a whitepaper, an annual report, a media training cohort, a crisis response, a campaign. The entry mode for new institutional relationships. Many specialist commissions become Embedded Advisory or Programmatic Engagement within a year.
How we run the work.
- A named partner per account. Each institutional client has one senior HOC partner accountable for the engagement — not a rotating account manager.
- Quarterly written review. A short written review with the client principal every quarter. What we did, what we learned, what we recommend for the next 90 days.
- Editorial board sign-off. Whitepapers, Systems, and major commissioned reports carrying the HOC byline are signed off by the HOC editorial board.
- Bilingual QA on every external publication. Two senior editors — MSA and English — sign off on every external piece. The QA is logged.
- Confidentiality protocol. Spelled out in writing at the start of every engagement. Renewed annually.
- Direct escalation. The senior editor on each account has a direct line to the client principal on matters of voice. No layered approval to flag a problem.