This week in PR (3 July)

Author: Richard Bailey, Editor
3rd July 2020 15 min read

About the author

Richard Bailey Hon FCIPR is editor of PR Academy's PR Place Insights. He teaches and assesses undergraduate, postgraduate and professional students.

My first commute in over three months and the office was almost how I remember it. Had a few new additions to drop off, and brought some things back home. Start of a new era. Our trophy for the CIPR Agency of the Year award is pride of place on front desk. Now for the new era to be ushered in. 🙌🏼 @drewbattenhall on Instagram
My first commute in over three months and the office was almost how I remember it. Had a few new additions to drop off, and brought some things back home. Start of a new era. Our trophy for the CIPR Agency of the Year award is pride of place on front desk. Now for the new era to be ushered in. 🙌🏼 @drewbattenhall on Instagram

News in brief

  • ‘US$6m ‘Relaunch Hong Kong‘ PR Assignment Awarded To Consulum… Launched in 2013 by two veterans of Bell Pottinger, Consulum is best known for its Middle Eastern work, which includes supporting the Saudi Arabian government.’ (Arun Sudhaman reports for PRovoke Media)
  • Here’s the list of PRovoke Media SABRE award winners (EMEA region)
  • Former MP Luciana Berger has been appointed managing director of advocacy and public affairs at Edelman UK (PRovoke Media reports)
  • “Public relations conjures up images of writing press releases. It feels analogue to many of our people. To be relevant today it should conjure up social media communications and integration.” Sir Martin Sorrell tells PR Week why he isn’t planning to acquire any PR agencies.

Academic, education and training

Covid-19 comms

  • Amanda Coleman: Tough at the top (2 July)
    ‘There is no manual of how to lead through a pandemic like Covid-19’
  • Rhiannon Bates: Why now is the time for Britain’s rural brands to shine (30 June)
    ‘So, what can rural businesses do to shine? Never has strategic, excellent PR, designed to build the know, like and trust between brands and their audiences, been more vital.’

Wellbeing, gender and diversity

  • Adam Tuckwell and Jon Wilcox with Ronke Lawal: Being successful in my own right [podcast] (30 June)
    ‘I grew up working class on an estate in Hackney. My parents made sure we knew about our culture as Nigerians in Britain. Because of the lack of diversity there’s an infantilisation of Black PR pros; I call it conscious bias.’
  • Naomi Smith: A new voice on the block – Introducing CommsLabHQ (30 June)
    ‘CommsLabHQ is bigger than me, there is a deeper purpose that is unravelling as I type this. This is for the next generation of Black, BAME and underrepresented PR practitioners and beyond.’

Consulting, teams and careers

https://twitter.com/_ghop_/status/1277881203891351552

  • Teela Clayton: Wear sunscreen (2 July)
    ‘Why are PR agencies still asking for CVs btw? You want to root out unconscious bias? Change your recruitment practices. But you already know that.’
  • Brittany Farquhar: How to write a punchy boilerplate (2 July)
    ‘Their importance can be judged by the fact that they are normally the first piece of PR material we draft for a new client. A boilerplate is a snapshot of who the client is and what they do.’
  • Lisa Fleming: Six months of self employment (1 July)
    ‘I could not have predicted what the last six months would have had in store for me when I chose this path last January, and so I enter the next six with an open mind and willingness to keep learning.’

Public and third sectors

  • Paul Masterman: A communicator in lockdown, and other stories (28 June)
    ‘In the end every crisis offers us lessons. But it also brings its heroes. And while there are hundreds of people to mention in the COVID-19 despatches, here is my top five.’

Politics, public affairs and public sphere

  • Stuart Thomson: Johnson government 2.0: The relaunch is underway (1 July)
    ‘With the social and economic lockdowns coming at a gradual end, the political lockdown is ending too. This leaves Boris Johnson’s government in need of a jump-start and it will need help it getting going again.’
  • Jason Mackenzie: Three. Word. Slogans. (30 June)
    ‘Three word statements are imbued with special power. We no longer learn rhetoric in school, but we all know how memorable and impactful a tricolon (or, for that matter, an epizeuxis) can be – even if we no longer know that that’s what they’re called.’
  • Holly Ramsey: Can the Chancellor turn the tide with the upcoming fiscal statement? (29 June)
    ‘This is a crucial moment for the Government as we are faced with what could be the biggest recession in 300 years. On top of needing to reboot the economy and managing the worst public health crisis in living memory, the Government also needs to get itself back on the front foot with the electorate.’
  • Az Chowdbury: Corporate affairs, consultancy and campaigns – post-Covid (29 June)
    ‘Those who think we should reposition our industry as the ‘communications’ business are dead wrong. Public relations and public affairs are broad disciplines that do so much more than merely communicate.’

Risk, crisis and reputation

https://www.linkedin.com/embed/feed/update/urn:li:share:6681937118417190913

  • Sheena Thomson: PR and reputation in the insurance sector – Don’t let it bleed (2 July)
    ‘Crisis communications is part of the crisis management/business continuity function. All issues on the risk register must be viewed as a potential reputation issue and a communications advisor must be part of the conversations in its management.’
  • Padraig McKeon: It’s not a crisis now, so all change on the communication front. (1 July)
    ‘There is no one strategy for communication. Society is naturally segmented and subdivided and any campaign of communication will have to reflect that.’
  • Jennifer Sanchis: Crisis knowledge management: Where to start (30 June)
    ‘While Covid-19 might have taken us all by surprise and business may not have intentionally contributed to the pandemic, the question to ask is whether brands could have done something differently, something better in their response – and how they intend to behave going forward.’
  • Ella Minty: Crises and change: Corporate comms in oil and gas (29 June)
    ‘What will an industry so much battered by internal and external geopolitical and lobbying interests, price uncertainty and market volatility, significant activist pressure and an increasingly depleting resource do to attract the best and the brightest?’

Brands, storytelling, and influence

  • Scott Guthrie: Coty, Kylie, Kim & cappuccinos (2 July)
    ‘The Coty move seems old fashioned by today’s influencer marketing standards. The Kardashian fame is closer to celebrity endorsement than it is to influencer marketing. Their communication’s strategy is broadcast; one-way communication.’
  • Orlagh Shanks: Is the Beauty Industry Controlled by Influencers? (1 July)
    ‘If you’re into beauty, you can probably roll off 20 beauty influencers in 30 seconds. You buy what they tell you to buy, no questions asked.’
  • Jessica Pardoe: Why Does Mrs. Hinch Have Such An Influence? (1 July)
    ‘Mrs Hinch, I notice, has very relatable content. A lot of her posts are about her home life, which isn’t too dissimilar to any of ours. Plus, the products she recommends are often affordable and easily accessible.’

Measurement and evaluation

  • Laura Joint: Glossary of social media measurement terms (2 July)
    ‘To start with, let’s look at what can be measured and on which platform. Once you have a handle on these it’s easier to understand the different measurement methods.’
  • Amanda Nash: The dreaded e word (29 June)
    ‘I wonder why evaluation strikes fear into us and why we’re not proudly sharing our good practice and learning from this time. For me at least, there’s a sense that we can’t quite capture the impact of what we do. Therefore any data we produce (be it qualitative or quantitative) doesn’t quite do justice to our work.’
  • Heather Yaxley: Tracing the measurement origins of PESO (28 June)
    ‘This article has tracked a decade of PESO from its measurement origins in 2010, through the latest version of the Spin Sucks model and ongoing work at AMEC.’

Internal communication

https://twitter.com/Ayla_Iskender/status/1278711356582236161

  • Debbie Aurelius with Tim Rutter and Gareth Brookes: The making of steelcast [podcast] 26 June)
    ‘A lot of the [Tata Steel] workforce don’t have access to digital media. The podcast is an attempt to reach all of our workforce, especially those that aren’t online.’
  • Shelby Loasby: Focus on the journey and the rest will follow: internal comms in the staff journey (29 June)
    ‘Staff journeys, or Employee Experience Maps as they are also known, are widely used by HR professionals to better understand their colleagues. Internal communicators can learn from this practice and need to adopt the same idea to better inform their work.’
  • Huw Swettenham: State of the Sector 2020: the good and the bad (29 June)
    ‘Currently, fewer than one in two IC teams (46%) use a formal channel framework document — but this is a crucial piece of the puzzle, which, frankly, should be far more widespread than it is.’

Technology, media and digital

Related topics

#ThisWeekinPR