This week in PR (13 October)
It happened this week
- Benjamin Bell: Jew & Me (10 October)
‘Sympathy for Israel at this time should not be deemed bold, risky or political. It must simply be reckoned human.’
Purpose, climate and ESG
SUSTAINABILITY COMMUNICATION DIPLOMA
- Andrew Adie: Tipping point for ESG as public demand corporates deliver on their promises. (12 October)
‘The research indicates that we may have reached a tipping point, suggesting that the need for genuine action by corporates to address the impacts they are having on people and the planet is no longer up for debate.’
Consulting, teams and careers
- Ben Smith with Daniel Glover, Olivia Mushigo and James Gordon-MacIntosh: The Global Creativity Review for October on the PRmoment Podcast (12 October)
‘Apparently every man has thought about the Roman Empire. [A Swedish creator] started this whole viral TikTok trend and it has had about 1.3 billion views.’ - Emma Drake: Autumn comms hacks; how to make the most of your time [podcast] (12 October)
‘Productivity continues to be a struggle. I rely on life hacks quite a lot, always trying to find the most valuable path to a solution. The Eisenhower matrix is a four box time management technique that prioritises tasks according to urgency and importance.’ - Mark Tungate: Hope&Glory PR: Not only different, but better (12 October)
‘At that time [2011], they were very few creative-led consumer PR agencies. Most consumer brand agencies did press offices and product placement. Or they organised parties with celebs. So we were part of a very tiny group of agencies who set out to be creative.’ - Chris Lewis: Inclusivity in the age of deception: avoiding the Scooby Doo trap (10 October)
‘It’s becoming increasingly hard to tell bot from not. A backlash against a brand can be started by a frighteningly small number of actual people.’ - Michael White: Global companies under daily assault from misinformation and disinformation (9 October)
‘The rise of AI means disinformation can spread at an unprecedented scale. But very few organisations have built the necessary resilience into their communications operations.’
Gender, diversity, health and wellbeing
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- Dan Gold with Advita Patel: Embracing Diversity and Empowering Change in Internal Communications
(10 October)
‘I prefer Equity, Diversity and Inclusion because, for me, you need equity first before you can move forward with anything else.’ - Frankie Oliver and Danny Rogers with Clara Biu and Mike Levaggi: Just Eat PR boss on agency diversity: ‘What are your proof points?’ [podcast] (6 October)
‘As a Black woman who has been in the PR industry for 17 years, I’ve seen a lot. A lot of focus has gone into recruitment but not enough work has been done to ensure an inclusive environment. It’s an active stance to ensure you have a diversity of thinking.’
- Dan Gold with Advita Patel: Embracing Diversity and Empowering Change in Internal Communications
Public and third sectors
- Lauren Surtees: How we’re using tiktok to target our residents (9 October)
‘Although, as a Council we have had a presence on TikTok since 2021, it’s only in the last six months as the channel has continued to grow in prominence that we’ve had a focussed strategy towards our approach to the platform.’
Politics, public affairs and public sphere
- Gareth Jones: Why Labour? Starmer sets out to answer that question… without sparkle (12 October)
‘The feeling of being on the verge of power had a palpable effect on the atmosphere at Labour conference in Liverpool this week. It created an upbeat mood certainly among the many attendees. But also, one of caution – one of the overriding priorities in the party was of not wanting to mess things up.’ - Tanya Joseph: A view from the Mersey at the Labour Party Conference (11 October)
‘By my reckoning, the next general election will be in May 2024; Starmer has just seven months to persuade the electorate that they should vote for him. His first task is to convince them that they can trust him with the security of this country and with the economy – basic requirements of any government and something that the electorate didn’t believe of Jeremy Corbyn.’
- Alex Dismore: Labour Party Conference: Focused on winning (11 October)
‘The message discipline was impressive, and the extensive courting of business by Labour over the last year appeared to have paid off. Businesses were there in their droves, causing some members to mutter that the atmosphere was overly corporate.’
- Tom Frackowiak: Labour Party Conference: Five key takeaways (11 October)
‘While Labour has set out an overarching vision for Government there is still a lot of detail that businesses to hear for planning and investment decisions.’ - MHP Group Public Affairs team: Political Insider: Labour Party Conference (11 October)
‘Woe betide which future Labour minister goes into the Treasury and asks for more money when Rachel Reeves is in charge. She adopted an almost Thatcheresque turn of phrase in her speech, saying that “change will only be achieved through iron discipline” and “when you play fast and loose with the public finances you put at risk family finances”.’ - Joe Cooper: A view from Labour Party Conference: A changed Labour party with no room for complacency (10 October)
‘With headline grabbing endorsements from figures such as the former Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, expect businesses to continue to be drawn to Labour and in particular the Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves.’
Crisis, risk and reputation
- Amanda Coleman: Business continuity and crisis communication – a key relationship (8 October)
‘Business continuity is essential to every business. We learnt this through the Covid-19 pandemic when to survive many businesses had to resort to remote working overnight. Being able to continue working means still being able to make money or help people access vital services.’
Behaviour and influence
- Scott Guthrie: Ogilvy’s James Baldwin discusses new global B2B influencer marketing report [podcast] (13 October)
‘The collective network of your employees is on average ten times larger than the company itself. If CMOs aren’t tapping into that free resource, it’s a huge missed opportunity.’
Internal communication
INTERNAL COMMUNICATION DIPLOMA
- Jenni Field: How to focus yourself and be productive (10 October)
‘Multitasking increases the time it takes to complete a task by 40%! Stay focused on one thing at a time and be present in the meeting, conversation, or on the specific piece of work.’
Media, digital and technology
- Florie Lhuillier: WormGPT and FraudGPT – the dark side of AI (no date)
‘Just as ChatGPT made AI widely accessible, so are these tools opening up phishing and other attacks to whoever is interested.’ - Paul Sutton with Matt Navarra: Need to know: the future of social media [podcast] (11 October)
‘There’s a shift away from public feeds and into recommended content in the feeds and also into private social. There’s also a trend to give payback to creators. Successful brands on social media are adopting a creator style.’ - Dave Turnbull: Beyond AI: The key topics captivating Europe’s most influential tech community (11 October)
‘Whereas tech conversations were dominated by a single topic [AI], it was much more of a two-horse race when it comes to socio-economic issues. Climate change and Geopolitical conflict & instability started in the top positions and traded places several times over the course of the year. - Barney Packer: 7 reasons why PRs should use SEO to empower campaigns (10 October)
‘SEO isn’t just about keywords; it’s also about demonstrating authority in your niche. PR campaigns generate media coverage and mentions from industry experts, which can be leveraged to strengthen your website’s authority in the eyes of search engines.’
- Neville Hobson: X, Moral Bankruptcy, and the Business of Hate (8 October)
‘I see five reasons that might help explain why people who use X continue using the platform in spite of the mounting evidence that this is not a place you really want to be in. This applies, too, if you’re an advertiser.’ - Dan Slee: LONG READ: There is little now left of social media mark I (8 October)
‘In social media mark 1, the Town Square was where all human life ideas and opinions are. But we are moving to safer spaces where like-minded people are.’
Academic and education
- Stephen Waddington: How to use AI to make sense of academic papers (12 October)
‘Making sense of a research paper and extracting information typically takes half a day. Parsing a paper using the Anthropic Claude 2 large language model and asking the AI bot for a summary, key arguments, and the method takes 15 minutes.’
