This week in PR (12 July)

In the news

Meghan Markle needs to sack her entire PR team. Her reputation is being incrementally ruined by their haplessness and she doesn’t deserve any of this. pic.twitter.com/vW4dKjDPQ2

— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) July 9, 2019

• ‘A new report into perceptions of PR among executives has found that two in ten do not know what PR stands for and 40% do not think it delivers good value to their business.’ (Holmes Report)
• The government is concerned about grade inflation in English universities, revealed by Office for Students data (The Guardian)
• Data privacy has been in the news. There were large fines under GDPR for BA and Marriott, and the issue of the leaked diplomatic cables that led to the resignation of the British ambassador in Washington.

Education, research and academic

• Johanna Fawkes: Recent publications (11 July)
  ‘Since I ‘retired’ last year I seem to have been rather busy.  The good news is that, free from REF constraints, I can write what interests me not my employer!’
• Jon White: Public Relations Research: Thinking Outside the Box at BledCom (10 July)
  ‘Critical thinking is seen as key to the future of public relations practice. A session on this topic elaborated on this. Public relations thinking in future will need to be more subtle, lacing irony with sincerity, and based on a commitment to broad humanistic and scientific continuous learning.’
• Sandy Lindsay: Why we can learn from Glastonbury’s unlikely star (8 July)
  ‘Alex Mann and Cori Gauff tell us a lot about the fearless attitude of the so-called Generation Z. They’ve got far more about them than I ever did when I was 15. They know their own minds. They know they’re not going to work from 6am-10pm like I did, and good for them.’
• Liz Bridgen: The stories told: A review of our Unconference (7 July)
  ‘Liz Bridgen and Sarah Williams focused on getting to grips with their unfinished pole dancing and PR paper…. also presented a proposal for an edited book that they are developing for female academics and female voices in the PR industry.’
• Noel Armstrong: How to ace your CIPR Internal Communications qualification (6 July)
  ‘One of the things I enjoyed most about the course was meeting other internal communicators. The people on my course (I studied with PR Academy in London) were so friendly and freely shared information and best-practice advice.’

Insights and opinions: Pick of the posts

These are the editor’s pick of posts about public relations this week (UK focused, but with a global outlook). Recommendations are welcome to [email protected] or @pr_place

Purpose and professionalism

• Vassilena Valchanova: David Armano on Brand Purpose: Find a Tension That Aligns With the DNA of Your Organization (no date)
  ‘The key to winning in this game of purpose is to find a social tension that aligns with your brand.’
• Alex Woolfall: Why the PR industry needs a summer holiday – & to chill out! (8 July)
  ‘No industry is as neurotic as PR. No industry is as obsessed about what others think of it. And no industry beats itself up as much about its perceived failings.’

Consulting, careers and skills

Little bit of personal news. I’m leaving The Sun after nearly a decade and joining @BCWGlobal to start a new career in comms. Making the jump at the end of what’s certain to be a calm, quiet and v mature party conference season. #turningthepage #vexcited https://t.co/kmqi6tQwK2

— steve hawkes (@steve_hawkes) July 9, 2019

• Brad Johnson and Shelby Loasby: Why two Students’ Union Officers ended up working in comms (9 July)
  ‘Essentially, getting elected is one massive communications and marketing campaign all revolving around your personal brand.’
• Daniela Hamill: Breaking through old portrayals of PR (no date)
  ‘PR agencies. Staff sit on bean bags and exit the building whizzing down a spiral slide, right?’
• Ben Capper: I survived a year as a comms freelancer. Here’s what I learned. (7 July)
  ‘Working for myself allows me to express myself and my values in full. I don’t have to compromise them. I bring them to how I work, and what I recommend to my clients. They sometimes go with my recommendations, they sometimes don’t. But either way, I let me, be me.’

Politics and public affairs

New series on British lobbying, by Michael Crick on BBC Radio 4. Episode 1 is here: https://t.co/Yvk5vwpk0s

— Conor McGrath (@ConorMcGrathPR) July 9, 2019

Public and third sectors

• Tom Gannon: Go EAST (10 July)
  ‘As comms and public relations pros we will always mean well but when you delve into the world of behavioural insights, biases and heuristics you quickly realise we could unwittingly be inhibiting behaviour change and missing some powerful tricks.’
• Peter Holt: Trello changed my life ….. (10 July)
  ‘When I arrive on a new assignment, of the first things I look at – or, if I’m honest, often have to search for – is a grid, comms planner, or workflow management system.  Finding out what is coming up is a bit of a basic.’

Gender, diversity and wellbeing

When appointing a woman, let’s see her photo in the Twitter card? #womeninleadership https://t.co/KfJKPvPtj1

— Mary Whenman (@marywhenman) July 9, 2019

• Joanna Randall: Changing the face of PR (9 July)
  ‘I’m embarrassed that in 2019 the industry looks the same as it did when I started my first job in PR 25 years ago.’

International 

The IPRA Golden World Awards for Excellence (GWA) announces a record total of 89 winners for 2019. Many entries tackled health issues such as breast cancer in Peru, while inclusion of women in the workforce was addressed in Turkey. Detail at https://t.co/AOWArIkPNK pic.twitter.com/dBDrG4XXx7

— IPRA (@ipraofficial) July 10, 2019

• Alex Malouf: Has the PRCA become MENA’s industry association for communicators? (11 July)
  ‘The PRCA has moved quickly to establish itself as an entity that is locally based across the region. What has also impressed me is the PRCA’s willingness to reach out and work with other groups.’

Brands and influence

Trust, crisis and reputation

• Ella Minty: Is Amazon’s Alexa the Privatisation “Trial” of the NHS? (10 July)
  ‘There are several questions that this collaboration between the NHS and Amazon leaves unanswered.’

Internal communication

I just had to explain to my boyfriend of 6 years what exactly comms involves. I spent the first of those years writing a thesis about employee engagement and the next 5 in comms roles.

What did he think I did everyday?! pic.twitter.com/DsyArfRTtx

— Annie Lordon (@annielordonHE) July 9, 2019

• Debbie Aurelius: How to use a podcast for internal communication (11 July)
  ‘I think podcasts are best suited to storytelling, particularly where you hear people tell their story in their own voice. There’s something very powerful about hearing someone’s story from the heart, even if that’s simply about how much they care about their job or their customers.’
• Anthony Bernard-Sasges: How to plan your Internal Comms budget (5 July)
  ‘Not only are more communicators engaging in measurement activities, many increased the percentage of their budget allocated to this activity. Spending on measurement and monitoring as a percentage of the communications budget has more than doubled in the past two years.’

Campaigns and creativity

• Paul Cheal with Michelle Hutton: A Public Relations Podcast: Smoke Signal Episode 18 – postcard from Cannes (8 July)
  ‘[Cannes] is probably the only global stage when so many different pieces of our industry come together at one time to celebrate creativity and what we do as a business.’
• Milan Charles: Sainsbury’s launch alcohol-free pub called ‘The Clean Vic’ (8 July)
  ‘Sainsbury’s is launching ‘The Clean Vic’, a pop-up pub in central London which will exclusively serve no or low alcohol drinks.’

Measurement and evaluation

• Andrew Bruce Smith: Return on communication: treat your PR plan like a financial prospectus (8 July)
  ‘Apparently Slack increases an organization’s “return on communication” by “increasing accessibility of communication, which in turn increases transparency and breaks down silos.’
• Laura Joint: The Instagram hokey-cokey… (8 July)
  ‘[Instagram] Insights data are only available to business accounts. Check first to see if your Instagram account has been set up in this way.’
• Mark Pinsent: PR measurement. It’s you, not me. (no date)
  ‘There. I said it. It’s almost impossible to attribute a genuine business outcome to the result of most PR activity.’

Technology and AI

• Stephen Waddington: CIPR kicks off #AIinPR Primer series with introductory guide to AI (10 July)
  ‘An Introduction to AI in PR is the first resource from the CIPR’s new #AIinPR Skills Guides series. It’s a collection of primers that provides an introduction to AI in different areas of PR practice.’
• Jennifer Sanchis: Why AI isn’t ready for the spotlight in PR – yet (8 July)
  ‘Artificial intelligence promises to identify trends, track issues, generate sentiment analysis and produce reports in ways that are faster and better than what humans alone can deliver.’

Media and digital

Instagram now asks bullies: ‘Are you sure?’ – really interesting move, getting AI to spot bullying comments https://t.co/Laieqf3h4l

— Rory Cellan-Jones (@ruskin147) July 9, 2019

• Vikki Willimott: The secret to B2B Content is easy; treat people like people (8 July)
  ‘Good B2B content is – and always has been – about treating people like people. At H+K we use the idea of ‘B2H’ or business-to-human, as a way of helping teams to remember this.’
• Andy M Turner: Cleaning negative Google search content: Can you? Should you? (5 July)
  ‘Not so long ago, concern about a negative story could easily be dismissed with the response that today’s news is tomorrow’s Fish & Chip wrapper.’
• Ross Wigham: Table tennis & social media learning (4 July)
  ‘The battle for eyeballs is real because people are busy and their timelines are stacked with other content.  You need to give people a reason to look at your content and your curation is increasingly important because people will lose interest or unfollow if you don’t get it right.’

Sport

• Gary Taylor: What lies beneath? (10 July)
  ‘It’s great that we’re getting all of this coverage and support for the England team, and I hope it extends to the Women’s Super League season. But what if you’re running a club that isn’t in WSL (formerly WSL1) or The Women’s Championship (formerly WSL2)?’