This week in PR (22 June)

News in brief

• Many in the PR industry are fascinated with the Cannes Festival of Creativity. It does not seem to be reciprocated. Few PR teams are credited as lead creatives in the Cannes Lions (Holmes Report).
• Here’s the inside story on the Bell Pottinger scandal in the New Yorker, focusing on the role of Lord Bell in bringing down the company named after him: The Reputation-Laundering Firm that Ruined Its Own Reputation.
• Over 100 candidates from more than 20 countries received their CIPR qualification grades this week.
• Cicero Group has acquired Westbourne to create the UK’s largest independent public affairs consultancy.

Calendar

Our calendar of events now appears on a separate page

Thought leaders: 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

Business / profession

• Rich Leigh: We’re going down to 4-day work weeks, without cutting pay (21 June)
  ‘Technology was supposed to give us a better work-life balance. If anything, it’s made it worse. I think that getting rewarded for being good at your job has been replaced by a culture that celebrates being wedded to your job, above all else.’
• Claire Simpson: Optimism in the face of adversity? (20 June)
  ‘There was also significant debate over which roles would be hardest hit by AI. Though the general consensus pointed to those at a junior level. In a bottom-heavy industry, particularly within the consultancy landscape, it’s worrying this alone hasn’t sounded the alarm bells.’
• Chris Lawrance: Is PR the new marketing? (20 June)
  ‘[Our] capability in creating compelling and non-salesy content combined with new technology-led media platforms means that PR is no longer just about building relationships and enhancing brand credibility.’
• Kevin Taylor: Public Relations: charity begins at home (20 June)
  ‘We [iprovision] are a PR charity that doesn’t get enough PR and therefore lacks awareness within the industry. We are also a benevolent fund that doesn’t have a big enough fund to spend much money on its own marketing.’
• Padraig McKeon: For an event to work, it’s the experience that matters, not the staging (17 June)
  ‘About a month ago, Paul Sutton posted a blog about the concept of the conference in which he concluded, correctly in my view, that we “can and should do better with public relations and communications conferences”. I would suggest that putting a focus on providing authentic, people centred experiences as he and Laura have done with each of Digital Download and PRFest respectively is a great start and a guide for others to follow.’
• Nigel Sarbutts: The Festival of Public Relations is the Great Re-Energiser (16 June)
  ‘Partly because it is quite a small conference (about 80 people each day) and partly because the room is intimate, presentations are very personal and the questions after are detailed.’

International

• Farzad Zadeh: Hacking multi-market visibility with SEO (21 June)
  ‘China, the colossal market with almost a billion internet dwellers, operates in its own unique digital ecosystem.’
• Alex Malouf: Lessons we can learn from Marriott’s Anti-Islam Tweet and Nike’s Iran Boycott Crises (19 June)
  ‘Our role as communicators is to understand what is happening in the outside world, and bring those insights to senior management. We have to be social and political analysts, and we have to be able to monitor issues and foresee the outcomes that will impact our organizations, and work proactively to ensure that an issue doesn’t become a crisis.’
• Sierra Fatlowitz and Eva Maclaine: Global Alliances, PR, and a 15 Billion Dollar Industry (18 June)
  ‘For Eva Maclaine, building cross-cultural relationships is key to her success in international emerging markets.’
• Emma Trimble: Top tips to survive a tricky PR project abroad (18 June)
  ‘Have back up plans for your back up plans. We didn’t know that one of the kids was scared of heights when we tried to encourage them to get on a zipline or that one couldn’t swim as we tried to get them into the waterpark.’

Measurement and evaluation:

• Stuart Bruce: PR and communication measurement best practice at AMEC global summit (21 June)
  ‘Most PR and communications isn’t creative and needn’t be creative. What it should be is effective. The way to make it effective is to use measurement for insight before you start, measurement to improve as you implement and evaluation at the end to see what you’ve achieved and how you can improve.’
• Darryl Sparey: Stop looking for ROI from PR…. and other things I didn’t expect to think following the AMEC summit (15 June)
  ‘Stop obsessing over ROI – I literally never thought I’d say this… but a talk by Microsoft’s Jamin Spitzer really challenged my thought process on this.’

Careers and skills

• Ella Minty: Attend, Listen, Learn & Share (21 June)
  ‘Coming from an introvert, this may surprise you: couch learning and online study can never ever beat the actual takeaways and adrenaline rush you get from attending an event; they simply can’t.’
• Tove Nordström: How do we find our purpose and use it to do good? (21 June)
  ‘Creating’ a purpose, as a CSR initiative or to show your company is doing good through a partnership with a charity, isn’t quite the same as developing an honest purpose where the core business model can create true impact.’
• Jennifer Sanchis: Public Affairs: Top tips for your Brexit communication (20 June)
  ‘While scenario planning exercises act as guides to action and help us think about the implications of the different situations, communication professionals also have to redefine their roles by acting at a more strategic level and see Brexit as an opportunity for the profession as a whole rather than a challenge.’
• Chris Lee: How to write an ‘About us’ page (no date)
  ‘If anyone is still unclear on what you do after the first paragraph, you are failing to communicate at a really critical moment in that customer or influencer’s experience with you.’
• John Brown: Why I think work/life balance is a rubbish phrase [vlog] (18 June)
  ‘Instead, what I try to achieve is a work-life blend.’
• Jana Fickerova: How can I persuade someone to do something? (15 June)
  ‘A simple stat like that may bring the message closer to home, but there’s more to it – one in four people in England are going to need a blood transfusion at some point in their lives.’

Campaigns and creativity

• Katie McKee: How a sausage dog with wings helped increase voter turnout for a pilot scheme (21 June)
  ‘“Bring your poll card to vote on Thursday 3 May 2018” was basically our mantra for about six months. Boring as that sounds, sticking to that clear instruction really helped as it made it difficult for people to get confused. It must have worked as almost all people brought their poll card to vote.’
• Maja Pawinska Sims: Cannes Lions: Overcoming Bias And Barriers To Creativity (21 June)
  ‘We all know there are complete shits in every organisation who are a nightmare to manage. Managing that dark talent in a creative industry is a major task, because these people are often the most creative.’

Gender and diversity

• Amanda Coleman: Women now head up the big three in policing – how do police communicators fare in comparison? (15 June)
  ‘You might imagine that policing is a very macho organisation where getting ahead as a woman is challenging. When I joined in 1999 I might have agreed with you but 2018 is a very different place.’

Internal communication

• Annabel Dunstan: Internal Evolutions: The Future of Internal Communications is Bright (19 June)
  ‘On one front, agreement is unanimous: One hundred percent of respondents believe that IC will become more valued in the boardroom during the next decade.’
• Natalie Henderson: Integrating an internal communication function and setting it up for future success (18 June)
  ‘The challenge of the intranet relaunch was one of the biggest of my career and I’m proud that I could do it in record time and achieve the level of engagement we did, so quickly.’
• Frank Dias: TheBigYak: my first communications unconference (17 June)
  ‘Our discussions went on to the internal vs external news challenge, where employees are hearing about internal news externally before hearing about it internally first. A challenge which connects nicely back to the trust point – who do I trust to deliver comms of interest to me?’
• Katie Macaulay: The future of content (15 June)
  ‘The world is awash with content. This is potentially bad news for us as internal communicators. Why? Because we are competing against a wall of noise.’
• Helen Deverell: Why internal communicators need a strategy (17 June)
  ‘Internal communicators need to be able to adapt to our ever-changing organisations. Again, I agree, but I don’t believe a strategy stops you from doing this. It should be a living document that evolves as the organisation does.’

Media and digital

• Marcel Klebba: IGTV: is the future of video vertical? (21 June)
  ‘Instagram has yesterday released IGTV — an app for sharing long-form videos. Here is what it’s all about.’
• Stephen Waddington: Hold the front page: the news business remains a work in progress (21 June)
  ‘Advertising revenue and audience, the two fundamentals of a traditional publishing model, have been squeezed in a pincher movement by the technology giants. It almost seems unfair.’
• Paul Sutton with Scott Guthrie: The lowdown on B2B influencer marketing [podcast] (20 June)
  ‘In the B2B space it’s more about building a story, building engagement around that subject area. The biggest influencers aren’t those with the biggest reach, they’re the ones with the most knowledge.’
• Chris Norton: The social media trends of 2018-19 (presentation) (20 June)
  ‘I am a bit of technology geek and I like to stay abreast of the latest developments, so I have put my thoughts into a short 90 minute presentation and added it to my Slideshare account for you to download and read at your leisure.’
• Arianne Williams: Social media chats for PR professionals (18 June)
  ‘I love a good social media chat. It’s social media doing what it was designed for: provoking discussion, idea sharing and promotion of best practice.’
• Scott Guthrie: Unilever’s commitment to fight fake influence decoded (18 June)
  ‘Unilever believes influencer marketing has a bright future. But only if fake followers and fraudulent practices can be cut from the discipline.’