This week in PR (26 April)
It happened this week
Profession and ethics
Business and finance
- Jonathan Winston: UK set to slash rates ahead of US (23 April)
‘The FTSE 100 enjoyed a record high today of 8,076 points – up 29 points from its previous peak of 8,047 in February 2023.’
Purpose, climate and ESG
SUSTAINABILITY COMMUNICATION DIPLOMA
- Steve Earl: ESG News Review: Sustainable reporting directive creates headaches – and maybe headway (25 April)
‘The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) came into force at the beginning of this year, but the deadline for non-EU companies to begin reporting their environmental data from within the bloc has been pushed back to June 2026.’
Consulting, skills and careers
- Emma Drake: ‘Deep Dive’ with Jo Twiselton: Unpacking Coaching, Mentoring, and Self-Help (25 April)
‘Mentoring is offering advice, helping to guide people around a problem; coaching on the other hand is about getting the solution from the individual. You’re helping people see where they can help themselves. It’s not directive in the same way that mentoring is.’ - Louise Thompson: Why do we find it so hard to communicate our value as Comms professionals? (23 April)
‘A lot of communications professionals are people pleasers. We want to solve problems, be helpful and generally keep our stakeholders happy. That’s fine up until a point.’ - Ben Smith with Will Hart: What skills does a modern PR leader require? [podcast] (23 April)
‘Great leadership in an agency involves creating a team environment. The best leaders know how to empower their team. They need to be looking down and in while the leader needs to be looking up and out.’ - Maja Pawinska Sims: Headliners: Sarah Shilling (19 April)
‘Porter Novelli has created an ‘Earnfluence’ model which focuses on a social-first approach. We harness the power of influencers to generate earned coverage and show up authentically in trending conversations to generate talkability and fame for our clients.’
Gender, diversity, health and wellbeing
- Joanne Fiddy: Perimenopause, Parenting & PR (no date)
‘Research fromBupa has shown that almost a million women, have left their job because of menopausal symptoms while CIPD research shows that around one in six people (17%) have considered leaving work due to a lack of support in relation to their menopause symptoms.’
Public and third sectors
- Rachel Miller: New Government Communication Service Comms Plan 2024/5 (25 April)
‘If you’re looking for an example of a strong comms plan, you’ve found it. This week the UK’s Government Communication Service (GCS) published its comms plan for 2024/5.’
Politics, public affairs and public sphere
- Nabeel Khan: Five things to look out for in the local elections (25 April)
‘Voters across England will choose 10 metro mayors, with particular focus on battlegrounds like the West Midlands and Tees Valley. Labour’s bid to unseat incumbent Conservative mayors in these regions could signal a significant shift in political dynamics.’ - Joseph Stephens: Big changes coming down the track, Labour’s plan to fix Britain’s railways (26 April)
‘Co-author of the Conservative rail plan, Keith Williams, even offered an endorsement of Labour’s proposals saying they would take forward the bulk of his recommendations, including a similar simplified fares process and a more straightforward compensation scheme.’
- Lulu Price and Noah Froud: International comparison proves the UK is a pioneer in tobacco control (24 April)
‘Despite years of anti-smoking measures, more than 6.4 million individuals are still smoking in the UK, and it contributes to approximately 150 new cancer cases daily.’
- Allie Renison: Europe back on the political agenda (23 April)
‘With the additional unpredictability of where the US will end up after November, the next UK Government will have much to consider on the European horizon, whether it wants to or not.’
Brands, content and creativity
- Peter Mountstevens: Creatives just do nothing (24 April)
‘The busier we are, the less creative we become; our ability to be super creative reduces as the volume of creative briefs rises, whereas fewer briefs make for a brighter creative spark.’
Research, data, measurement and evaluation
Behaviour and influence
Crisis, risk and reputation
- Farzana Baduel: Exploring Legal Dimensions to Reputation Management With Emma Woollcott
(23 April)
‘Reputation lawyers advise on the merits of litigation claims and defamation. Lawyers advise on the legal merits of claims, but also the wider strategy. Comms people tend to know the client very well from advising them before a crisis occurs.’
- Amanda Coleman: ‘Show me the bodies’ – a review (20 April)
‘‘Show me the bodies’ rightly won an award and should be mandatory reading for anyone working in public bodies and their suppliers. It has made me more determined to try and encourage a change where crisis communication is about people and not reputation.’
- Leticia Christy Callista: Should we engage with clients’ Wikipedia pages? (no date)
‘It would be in the best interests of PR practitioners who operate in the realm of Wikipedia to familiarise themselves with both Wikipedia’s guidelines and the guides introduced by the PR industry.’
Internal communication
INTERNAL COMMUNICATION DIPLOMA
- Jenni Field: The best internal communications practices in 2024 (23 April)
‘Employers are looking for people who can do a bit of everything. You have to be able to write, advise, think critically and manage stakeholders.’
Media, digital and technology
- Ann Wright: How to avoid a disastrous media interview (25 April)
‘Ignoring questions, being defensive, being rude, or running away: none of these are a good look. That was clear when the former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells was approached recently by Channel Four News as she was about to cycle away from church. She refused to answer questions about whether she had lied to Parliament.’