This week in PR (5 August)

Author: Richard Bailey, Editor
5th August 2022 12 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.

It happened this week

    • Liam Fitzpatrick tells me that an image of his wife Juliet was used without permission in the Spanish ‘beach body’ promotional poster that’s been such a talking point this week. What’s more, she’d been digitally enhanced contrary to the advertisement’s supposedly empowering message about different body shapes. She discussed this on the Jeremy Vine show.

https://twitter.com/theJeremyVine/status/1553692883001253888

Sport

  • Georgina Procter: The Sky’s The Limit: The Lionesses 2022 European Championship Win (2 August)
    ‘Young girls in 2022 sitting at the dinner table with their sports fanatic fathers and brothers, can now refer to an English football team who has won a European Championship – a team made up of a group of confident, unfazed, young women.’
  • Henry Columbine: It’s Birmingham’s time to shine, Bab (2 August)
    ‘The [Commonwealth] Games have provided a real boost for Britain’s second-largest city, bringing new infrastructure, increased tourism and – perhaps most importantly of all – a palpable sense of excitement and a position on the world stage.’

Purpose, climate and ESG

  • Sara Neidle: Pensions Update: Who will be crowned next PM? (3 August)
    ‘As we draw closer to the Taskforce on Climate-Related Disclosures (TCFD) and the Paris-aligned disclosure requirements becoming mandatory from October 2022, we are likely to see a raft of updates and climate reporting from big institutions.’
  • Paul Cheal with Laura Sutherland: PR & the climate crisis [podcast] (29 July)
    ‘We’re moving to a much more strategic advisory role rather than just being a delivery function. We have a massive opportunity to start using our roles for good.’

Consulting, skills and careers

  • Son Pham with Scarlett Zhao: The Nomad S3E5 (4 August)
    ‘My friend recommended me to the Alibaba PR team and I got in, and stayed in the company ever since, in different sectors, and from Beijing to London.’
  • Emma Drake: Cutting through the noise with messages that resonate [podcast] (4 August)
    ‘Your unique business story is the special ingredient that sets you apart from the competition, and when it’s told in a really compelling way it helps you sell.’
  • Chris Hutchings: The 10Q Interview Podcast with Louise Parker (2 August)
    ‘For simplicity I tell people ‘I work in PR’. If I have longer, I explain that what I do is ‘digital PR’ which is PR but it also helps SEO as well.’’

Gender, diversity and wellbeing

https://twitter.com/PRCA_HQ/status/1554391836474675202

  • Neil Moscovici: Has understanding of suicide been left behind in the societal progress made on mental health? (no date)
    ‘Mental health has undergone a seismic shift in recent decades – from highly stigmatised to slowly becoming embedded in mainstream health services.  However, it is vital that the issue of suicide is not left behind.  Reducing misconceptions, encouraging wider discussion, and handling the topic in a sensitive manner will hopefully empower people to recognise, understand and support those at risk, overcoming the final taboo.’

Public and third sectors

  • Nick Fromont: Doncaster Council: our digital journey 2.0 (2 August)
    ‘As of July 2022, we now have over 20 digital channels we are using to communicate with our audience; from social media channels to websites to email marketing platforms. We can no longer just dabble with platforms like Instagram, there is an expectation from residents that they can find us on their preferred social media channel and we need to make sure we’re there to be found!’

Politics, public affairs and public sphere

  • Rebecca Coleman: Take care of the Penny and the pounds will take care of themselves (2 August)
    ‘As the candidates leave Exeter, home of the Met Office, Truss’ outlook now looks less clear skies, and more cloudy with a chance of thunder.’
  • Andrew Adie: How to green your garden (2 August)
    ‘The UK’s green and pleasant land has already turned an alarming shade of golden brown as grass has succumbed to heat, and the looming inevitability of hose pipe bans means that those gardeners who have been fighting to keep their spaces green (rather than surrendering to the inevitable) will also have to watch their green spaces wilting.’
  • Carli Harper-Penman: Housing needs stability and a long-term vision from the new housing minister (2 August)
    ‘We have had 20 housing ministers since 1997 (20 and a half if you count when the brief was split between Nick Raynsford and Hilary Armstrong in the nascent Labour Government). It is a dizzying number for a sector that is a long-term business, which craves stability and feels the consequences of policy change for decades.’

Brands, content, community and creativity

  • James Herring: Campaign turns beach waste into currency to buy snacks. (4 August)
    ‘A new initiative aims to turn coastal waste into currency to buy snacks. The ‘Seanack’ project in South Korea gamifies litter collection by giving snacks to beach goers in exchange for discarded waste.’
  • Jessica Pardoe: My Favourite Creative Campaigns Of July 2022 (3 August)
    ‘Despite the news being chocka with chaos, there were still a number of creative campaigns in July that I thought were worth shouting about. Here they are.’
  • Trevor Young: Expert vs thought leader: what’s the difference? A discussion with Ashley Faus, Atlassian [podcast] (3 August)
    ‘On experts, thought leaders and influencers, I’ll give the four pillars: they are credibility, profile, expertise and depth of ideas. A thought leader has to be strong in all four. If you look at someone who’s an influencer, they probably have a big profile, but in a lot of cases they don’t have that strong depth of ideas. Experts have really strong credibility, they probably have strong depth of ideas because they know so much, but they’re not really prolific and they’re not well known.’

Research, measurement and evaluation

  • Kenzie Zimmer: The human side of research (3 August)
    ‘There’s no denying the power of a good statistic. If 95% of customers are satisfied with a product, it’s hard to imagine how you wouldn’t be too. For that reason, numbers—and the quantitative (numerical) research that underpins them—are often vital in convincing communications.’

Crisis, risk and reputation

Media, digital and technology 

https://twitter.com/stuartbruce/status/1554708411387977728

    • Scott Guthrie: Some contrarian views on Instagram’s feature changes (4 August)
      ‘Facebook acquired Instagram 10 years ago. The much-coveted teens and early twenty-somethings of the time, who built followers on the platform, are now either entering or departing their third decade.’
    • Amber Lovell Dykes: Top 3 Reasons Why Brands Are Getting Serious About Gaming (2 August)
      ‘Gaming is a central pillar of modern culture with some creators now more commonly recognised than mainstream celebrities. Influencers also have the potential to greatly impact the extended interests and purchasing behaviours of their online communities, so brands are quickly learning how to leverage this massive audience by gaining gamers’ trust.’
    • Sam Burne James: Online hate is all around us – what are we going to do about this? (1 August)
      ‘Since it was created in mid-2020, CAH has been playing its role by, among other things, encouraging UK charities to join a boycott of Facebook advertising over the platforms inaction on hate speech, publishing a Guide to Best Practice in Ethical Digital Marketing & Comms Practices, which is freely accessible on our website; and launching a suite of product recommendations for social media companies.’
    • Dan Slee: CHANGE #2: What the heck is going on with the algorithms? (1 August)
      ‘The established order of YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are looking at TikTok with a measure of anxiety. These are not just tanks on the lawn. These are Chinese tanks playing by different rules.’
    • Neville Hobson: The metaverse is not your destination (29 July)
      ‘People are misinterpreting Metaverse as a destination, a virtual world, a this or that. The Metaverse is not a place, it’s the network for the next version of the Web.’

https://twitter.com/katherynrwatson/status/1554129905767649281

Academic, education and training

  • Kevin Ruck: Are qualifications a tipping point in establishing PR as a profession? (1 August)
    ‘Views on the value of education and training do, naturally, take time to change. Some senior PR directors may still believe that ‘job experience’ is the best way to learn. But this is to miss the point. Professional PR qualifications are all applied courses with assessment based on using knowledge to improve practice.’

Related topics

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