This week in PR (26 May)

About the author
Richard Bailey Hon FCIPR is editor of PR Academy Insights. He has taught and assessed undergraduate, postgraduate and professional students.

Profession
We invite friends, colleagues, and members of the PR and communications community to celebrate the life and legacy left by Francis Ingham on Monday, 10th July, at 11:30 am BST, at St. Bartholomew’s The Great, West Smithfield, London.
Memorial details: https://t.co/PQZKSm2Hoc pic.twitter.com/cU7qO7q0fF
— PRCA (@PRCA_HQ) May 24, 2023
- Sophie Banda: Securing PR’s position at the executive table (25 May)
‘PR might look easy from the outside, which is why often it’s taken for granted by those who don’t know much about it. But there are opportunities for us to demonstrate to leaders where we have the expertise that they don’t.’
Purpose, climate and ESG
Consulting, skills and careers
- Emma Drake with Ayo Abbas: ‘Deep Dive’ – How Campaigns Can Improve Your Strategy [podcast] (25 May)
‘A campaign is like compound interest: you invest now and it builds up over time. You’re getting that message out multiple times and they compound.’
- Shamina Peerboccus: What parenthood taught me about leadership (no date)
‘Being attentive and responsive to the needs of others and to the changing dynamics of a situation is essential for building stronger relationships and ultimately becoming an effective leader.’ - Ben Smith: Fran Ashcroft, senior director, EMEA Communications at Intel on the PRmoment Podcast (22 May)
‘Seven years ago we were focused on media and analyst relations. Then we began to realise the importance of corporate comms, not just product comms.’ - Erin Jones: Top tips for writing a winning award entry (22 May)
‘It’s easy to assume judges will have wider knowledge of your company or industry, but with panels often made up of people with varying levels of experience and from different professional backgrounds, it’s best to approach an entry assuming the reader knows nothing about your company or your industry’s particular challenges.’
Gender, diversity, health and wellbeing
- Karen Noctor: Five ways we’re making Blurred more inclusive (25 May)
‘Our internships focus on supporting those from ethnic minority backgrounds and financially deprived groups.’ - Advita Patel: Does unconscious bias training work? (23 May)
‘Even though unconscious bias training can change attitudes in the short term, these do not translate into changes in behaviour in the long term.’
Public and third sectors
- Lynn Health: Trusting the messengers: Building trust amidst public health misinformation (24 May)
‘For audiences to trust in communications, they must first trust in the reputation of that communication source.’
- Ben Capper: When comms projects are good, this is what they look like (22 May)
‘Even though there was total clarity from the client on their expectations, we still were expected to bring the creativity to the challenge.’
Politics, public affairs and public sphere
What happened? pic.twitter.com/2lkm8ADI2x
— Paul Bristow MP (@paulbristow79) May 24, 2023
- Rebecca Coleman: Mind the energy price cap (25 May)
‘The degree of pressure on households from energy prices this year has meant that the way we power our homes and businesses is higher up the political agenda than it has been for many years. But it’s questionable whether the degree of challenge, or the degree of action required to meet it, is widely understood by the public.’
- Fraser Raleigh: Home Secretary determined to brave it out as PM considers yet another ethics probe (23 May)
‘Another long-running investigation into ministerial conduct is the last thing Sunak needs. While his first six months in office have undoubtedly steadied the ship, they have also seen three senior ministers forced out of government due to allegations of impropriety.’
- Alex Reid: Don’t fear the great office zombie apocalypse (23 May)
‘An optimistic part of me can’t help wondering if this great office reset isn’t finally the catalyst needed to reroute the road network of the world’s office workers.’ - Stuart Thomson:The One Public Affairs Question To Focus On: What Needs To Change To Make An Impact? (19 May)
‘To create an effective strategy, it is crucial to identify the specific type of change required.’
Research, data, measurement and evaluation
- Maja Pawinska Sims: AMEC Summit: “Comms Must Move From Being Media-Centric To Being Audience-Centric” (23 May)
‘Media metrics are significant sources of information, but mediacentricity is holding the industry back. Media are just part of the puzzle that is public communication and to equate media content directly with impact is fallacious.’ - Stuart Bruce: AMEC Summit in Miami was a blast (22 May)
‘It isn’t just about media measurement, but is a dynamic, integrated insights framework designed to inform decision-making. It elevates the importance of reputation and relationships to provide senior leadership with valuable reputational insights to help the senior leadership team make better, more informed decisions.’
Crisis, risk and reputation
- Amanda Coleman: Speak first, speak frequently (24 May)
‘There is a difficult balance between speaking and connecting with people and having the full facts. It brings risks that need to be managed. What do you actually know to be fact? Where are the gaps?’ - Mark Harris: What’s real and what’s not? (23 May)
‘The metaverse may be virtual reality but the impact is real. So with that in mind, have you gathered together the risk management team, the legal team, the human resources team, the communications team, your issues and crisis management champions and worked through scenarios? Have you talked through the issues and crises that may impact your employees and your services or products are your response plans ready?’
Media, digital and technology
- Rachel Ford: What do the Bank of England, dog food and Percy Pigs have in common? (25 May)
‘The answer is that they have all been in the news in the last few weeks thanks to a piece of external communications.’
- Dan Slee: BIRD DATA: Newspaper Twitter page views are falling… and what that means for public sector comms (25 May)
‘News publishers with less than 10,000 page views have seen their clicks fall by 98 per cent since 2018. Larger news outlets have seen volumes fall, too.’ - Tom Flynn: The SEC Newgate AI Weekly (25 May)
‘Adobe launched a Firefly integration into Photoshop this week for all users, making image editing much easier and quicker. Early attempts with the tool suggest it heralds a revolution in image manipulation with implications for designers and bad-faith actors alike.’ - Megan Dennison: Is AI changing the way we search? (24 May)
‘A search tool is only as good as the data it provides. Google provides results to our keyword searches based on the algorithm it uses to deem information credible. ChatGPT hasn’t yet been transparent about its sources, which again makes using it for research difficult.’ - Claire Simpson: Overwhelmed by AI? Here’s how to get started (23 May)
‘In recent weeks, I’ve sensed a growing case of ‘AI overload’ among PR practitioners. The sheer volume of AI tools coming to market is positively overwhelming. But with the genie firmly out of the bottle, there’s no going back.’ - Richard Bagnall: Generative AI is exploding. So what? (22 May)
‘A news agency tried using ChatGPT to write an article, and the AI got every important fact wrong. In a world already wrestling with misinformation, the ethical implications are seismic. Not only is there the risk of unintentional misinformation, but generative AI also opens the door to deliberate misuse.’
Great evening in Houses of Parliament at debate on #AI. @mrsjennifield smashes it & wins the motion! Celebrated suitably later at St Stephen’s Tavern with her, @JRGerlis @Rachael_Clamp & @trudyclewis pic.twitter.com/Rwztauz8DR
— Eva Maclaine (@EvaMaclaine) May 25, 2023
Academic, education and training
- Gary Taylor: Public Relations – where next? (21 May)
“If a chartered PR practitioner with 20 years’ experience can now call himself a marketer, perhaps the ‘straight’ PR degree really doesn’t have a future?’