PRmoment Podcast

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Welcome to our June review of PR Pitches and mergers & acquisitions in the UK PR scene with Andrew Bloch.

Andrew is a co-founder and non-executive director at Frank PR and is now lead consultant - PR, Social, Content and Influencer at the new business consultancy firm AAR. He is also a partner at PCB Partners where he advises on buying and selling marketing services agencies.

Thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

If you haven’t taken a look already - do check out all the categories on the Creative Moment Awards website, the early entry deadline is on Friday 30th June 2023.

2 mins Andrew gives us his rundown of PR pitch wins for June:

• Alfred win Westfield Shopping Centres
• The Academy win Epson 
• Finn Partners win Tuscany Tourist Board
• Cow win Gilead Science 
• JPR win Hilton Luxury Brands
• Taylor Herring win Unison
• Brazen win Castore
• Hill & Knowlton win Costa Coffee
• Stripe Communications win Honest Burgers
• MSL win The FA
• Edelman win Haribo 
• Portland win Airlines for Europe
• The Romans win Mecca Bingo
• Klaxonn win Grand Designs Life

11.30 mins Andrew reveals the ideal length of a client: agency partnership.

“You get the best out of people when you know them and you trust them”

13 mins Andrew refutes the suggestion that the PR pitch and new business market has gone very quiet.

Ben Smith: “Are things as bad as some people say?”

Andrew Bloch: “No…it’s a bit scrappy…things are slower to sign off.

But I’m dealing with more briefs than I’ve ever had to deal with in my 3 years at the AAR.”

18 mins Andrew gives us his M&A update for June:

• Brandtech Group acquire Jellyfish from Private Equity firm Fimalac
• One Equity Partners takes a majority stake in Smarts owner MSQ. 

The Academy co-founder Mitch Kaye is the first guest in our new In Hindsight series on the PRmoment Podcast.

In a new regular format of the PRmoment Podcast with Ben Smith we’ll be catching up with UK public relations leaders - and our guests will share their in hindsight secrets that they wish they'd known when they started their businesses!

Mitch co-founded The Academy with Dan Glover in 2014. Previously he was the founder and CEO of Mischief. 

The Academy is a consumer PR shop in London. It has a fee income of £6m, 55 employees and clients include Amazon, Morrisons and Disney.

Have you ever made a decision you later regretted, all because you let your ego get the better of you? That's what happened to our guest, Mitch Kay, founder of The Academy, early in his 25-year public relations career. Join us as Mitch candidly shares his hindsight lessons on controlling ego, making impactful decisions, and the importance of timing in both career and life.

We also dive into the topic of achieving impact and avoiding complacency in your career.

If you haven’t taken a look already - do check out the Creative Moment Awards website, the final entry deadline is on Friday 30th June 2023

And thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors of the PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Mitch and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:

1.30 mins Mitch reveals that he’s been working for 25 years!

3 mins Mitch tells us his first insight lesson: Ego

“When I look back over the past 25 years some of my worst decisions have been ego lead.”

“It’s a miserable experience when your ego is out of control and you fall badly.”

7 mins What are the warning signs that your ego is getting out of control?

11 mins Mitch talks us through his 2nd in hindsight lesson: Impact.

“Being busy… managing an inbox - is rarely impactful.”

17 mins Mitch talks about the most useful training session he’s ever had: writing his obituary!

20 mins Mitch’s final in hindsight lesson: Timing.

“The importance that timing plays, in life and in careers.”

21 mins How showing loyalty in a time of change can accelerate your career.

“Leave a job when you’re doing brilliantly in that job.”

Can AI revolutionize journalism and help us create more compelling stories? Join us in this fascinating conversation with Jane Wakefield, a former senior tech journalist at the BBC, and Aaron Kwittken, founder/CEO of PRophet, as we explore the impact of AI on newsrooms, PR teams, publishing models, and the free press. 

We'll discuss the potential of AI for spreading misinformation, its role in storytelling, and even how The Guardian has been an early adopter of AI technology.

As we delve into the future of journalism, we'll examine how data journalism and AI can transform newsrooms and the free press. Learn about speeding up story turnaround times, managing bias with private AI systems, and adapting to the public's changing relationship with mainstream media. Plus, get insights into training newsroom staff on how to effectively prompt and query AI tools for better results.

In an era where trust and quality journalism are critical, we'll consider how organizations like the BBC are adapting to the challenges posed by AI in news. Discover the importance of public education in identifying real and fake news and the potential reactions to an increased reliance on AI in journalism.

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast, on the show today we’re discussing how to improve the connectivity between public relations and journalism - is there a way to create a more efficient workflow between PRs and journalists?

We’ll ask whether the relationship between PR and journalists is becoming damaged beyond repair and look and the reasons why this mutually beneficial relationship isn’t working better.

To talk about this we’ve got Charlie Russell who is the founder of Synapse. Synapse is aiming to take more of a marketplace approach to the intersection of PR and journalism by trying to remove the inefficiencies and frustrations of email from the daily workflow of PR professionals and journalists.

Before we start if you haven't taken a look already, the final entry deadline for The Creative Moment Awards is Friday 30th June.

Thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

1.30 mins Is the communication bridge between PRs and journalists broken?

“It’s bonkers that email has become the default channel for PR: journalist relations…it’s not an efficient or effective 2-way communications channel”

7 mins How useful are PRs for modern journalists? Are journalists, in the main, still keen to engage?

12 mins Why the SEO sector’s evolution to “digital PR” and its desire for editorial links has resulted in a massive increase in the number of press releases sent to journalists.

“One journalist I spoke to got about 1000 emails a day…another got roughly 1 a minute, mostly from PRs.”

“Every email spawns another email.”

“It’s a real shame email has become the go-to channel for media relations, but it has.”

“PR teams spend far too much time writing/sending repetitive emails.”

17 mins To what extent do the pressures of email impact the mental health of both PRs and journalists?

20.30 mins Charlie talks us through the functionality of Synapse that he hopes will improve the PR: journalist workflow.

Every six months or so I like to catch up with the shy and reserved Warren Johnson from W Communications on the podcast to talk about the financial state of UK PR.

And to my surprise- it’s that time again. The first 6 months of 2023 are basically done and dusted.

My sense is that it’s been a bit of a phoney 6 months or so - the PR sector has been expecting a downturn but beyond a significant tech sector-wide wobble at the start of the year, which has in the main come back, it’s been OK, not stellar but OK. And in many cases surprisingly OK.

But on the show today we’re going to chat about some of the recent league table results we’ve seen in PR, what constituted good numbers last year, and how the last 6 months have been. We’ll also attempt to put some predictions on what might be about to happen next.

W has a fee income of £15m, with offices in London, New York and Singapore. It employs approximately 180 people globally and 150 odd in London.

A reminder that the final entry deadline for The Creative Moment Awards is Friday 30th June.

Thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what PRmoment founder Ben Smith and Warren discussed:

3 mins Warren reviews the performance of UK PR in the first half of the year. What’s up, what’s down, what’s flat?

“What was quite alarming...was that despite the UK agencies reporting strong growth, they were falling down the international rankings”

“We (the UK) are not fully aware of our own demise at the moment and what a second-rate country we’re becoming”

“UK PR had a strong start to the year… and there is now some preemptive belt tightening client side”

Everyone had a strong Q1 with a slight softening in Q2 as the economic outlook, which doesn't get any worse but shows no sign of recovery.”

“Overall H1 was relatively robust but we all (PR firms) had to work a bit harder than we were expecting to make those numbers”

9 mins Bearing in mind inflation how much did PR firms need to frow last year, to increase their profits?

“Our profits grow in line with our revenue…we’ve not had any challenges in our margin.”

“It’s something Graham Goodkind once told me - he said he wanted one thing as a KPI for him as a CEO and that’s a margin number”

“It’s harder t maintain that margin than it ever has been, there’s been rampant wage inflation and a requirement to offer greater benefits than there ever has been.”

“We’re big advocates of in-person collaboration so we’re doing as much as we can to encourage people into the office but that comes at a cost.”

“The other big hidden cost is mental health - which increasingly seems to be sitting away from the government (as a responsibility) and on employers.”

“We just rolled out private health care for our company and extended to private mental health care - important to do but these are all costs that chip away at the margin.”

“As an industry, we are very good at being inventive…as our margin gets challenged in one area we are able to find opportunities… in certain other areas.”

“I certainly get the sense that people are pitching a lot less…pitching is probably the most inefficient thing you can ever do.”

“The less you pitch the better…that will hit your margin more than wage inflation”

13 mins  What do clients want at the moment?

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast. On the show today we’re revealing the six key themes from AMEC’s Measurement Summit 2023. To reveal those trends we have Steph Bridgeman, founder of Experienced Media Analysts and Richard Bagnall who is a co-managing partner of Carma. 

Before we start if you haven't taken a look already, the final entry deadline for The Creative Moment Awards is Friday 30th June.

Thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here is a summary of what Steph and Richard PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:

2 mins Theme One: Why earned media is value not vanity for brands. 

“The role earned can play in PESO”

“There’s nothing quite like an AMEC disco”

“Paid is 4 times more expensive than it was 5 years ago, brands simply can’t afford to put paid first anymore”

5 mins PR people don’t need to feel they are on the back foot with their data.

7 mins Theme Two: The impact of AI on PR measurement

“Learn how to ask better questions to get better answers”

“The bulk of future content on the internet will be produced by AI, in turn, this content will train the next family of generative AI tools”

“ The Gen Zers of today are probably the most insular group we’ve ever had”

11 mins Where are we on the evolution of the accuracy of AI measurement?

“It’s incredibly powerful and impressive but it needs strong guardrails…you need to check everything, it’s so compelling with what it produces you think it must be right but if you don’t check it mistakes will follow.”

14 mins Richard explains the copyright concerns with Generative AI.

17 mins Theme Three: Programme logic models are here to stay.

“If we want to demonstrate our measurement journey we have to move from outputs to outcomes”

(PR) must as an industry avoid substitution error”

Here is a link to AMEC Integrated Evaluation Framework that Richard and Steph discuss on the show The Integrated Evaluation Framework.

And here is a link to the “AMEC Integrated Evaluation Framework Tutorial - which PRmoment has negotiated free access to for our readers/listeners for the next 60 days (normal cost £149 apparently, thank us later!) Discount code: PRMoment23

And here is the link for the “AMEC Foundation course in Media Measurement & Evaluation.” Discount code: PRMoment23

23 mins Theme Four: The importance of data storytelling

“The importance of being interesting and useful!”

“Don’t have a data puke into your reports”

“Can we find the one key insight that will guide our strategy”

28 mins Theme Five: The importance of data confidence in public relations

31 mins The difference between last-click attribution and contribution

Theme Six: The importance of ongoing measurement education in PR and communications

“The time for excuses is over”

“Earned media’s time is now”

“We can’t just count stuff”

“We mustn't confuse counting and measuring activity (ie: being busy fools) with demonstrating value”

37.30 mins Steph gives PR a 3/10 on its measurement journey in the last 5 years - but for some organisations, it's a 10/10.

Today we're chatting with industry legend a long-time owner of Propeller - Martin Loat. We look back on his 30 years working in public relations and including 22 years as a PR agency owner at Propeller.

Martin talks about the ups and downs of agency ownership and why he decided now was the right time to exit. In March Martin sold the business via an MBO to Kieran Kent, Jody Osman and Rose Bentlley in an MBO backed by Triple Point Ventures.

Propeller is a B2B PR firm with a turnover of £4 million with 44 employees.

If you haven’t taken a look already - do check out the Creative Moment Awards website, the final entry deadline is on Friday 30th June 2023

And thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors of the PRCA.]

Here is a summary of what Martin and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:

1.30 mins Martin tells us why he decided now was the right time to sell his business.

“I did feel I’d taken Propeller as far as I could in my own vision - I was at the helm for 22 years!”

3 mins Why did Martin decide an MBO was a better option, rather than an EOT?

5 mins How does it feel after 22 years to not be involved with Propeller? Relieved, sad, happy?

8 mins Martin reflects on the stages of Propeller over the 22 years.

Lesson 1: Work for a well-run PR firm before you start your own business

Lesson 2: Cashflow!

Lesson 3: How to focus on growth.

“Win them, keep them, grow them!”

Lesson 4: What hiring the best people really looks like.

Lesson 5: Developing a proper new business plan

“My story is about a range of self-learnt lessons”

Lesson 6: Your staff/ people

Lesson 7: Keep developing your offer

“If you only have one egg in the basket - if something goes wrong you’re under a bit of pressure”

Lesson 8: You have to change your structure as you grow.

“One of the lesions is that the structure you are now is probably not the right one for growth”

Lesson 9: Learning from your mistakes

Lesson 10: Delegation

38 mins Having spent 25 + years in PR - is Martin hopeful or fearful about the future of the sector?

41 mins What does good B2B communications currently look like?

42 mins What’s next for Martin?

 Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast with PRmoment founder Ben Smith. Today on the show we’re chatting with Fran Ashcroft, senior director, of EMEA Communications at Intel. 

Fran has worked for Intel for nearly 15 years at the firm and is currently preparing for an 8-week sabbatical.

We’re going to talk about Fran’s 15 years in-house at Intel. We‘ll cover what modern international communications looks like, how the in-house side has changed and what a modern agency partnership looks like.

If you haven’t taken a look already - do check out the Creative Moment Awards website, the early entry deadline is on Friday 26th May 2023.

And thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors the PRCA.

Here is a summary of what Fran and Ben Smith discussed:

1.30 mins Fran talks about her excitement that she’s off on sabbatical in a few weeks' time.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had 8 weeks off work”

3.00 mins Over 130,000 people work for Intel globally - what is the role of comms in an organisation of that size?

5.00 mins Fran gives an insight into the complexity of running a global comms programme.

“You have to focus your energy on what is going to make the biggest moments”

“We have to make music not noise”

“A key point of 360 communications is that anything you put out internally there is always the possibility of a leak”

7.30 mins Fran talks about the globalisation of communications and the implications of that on strategy and team organisation.

12 mins What is the mix between leadership, coordination and strategy in an international communications role?

“Our corporate narrative was inconsistent depending on where you were in the world”

“We were quite dictatorial when it came to managing who could be a spokesperson”

16 mins What do communications as a strategic function look like for an organisation like Intel?

“Communications became absolutely critical when COVID hit - whether you’re talking to your employees, whether your talking to external, whether you’re helping your customers… Because of that comms become the spearhead of all company activity - communications has never been more respected than it is now.”

“Everything that we do we measure…having the data that supports our activity makes us accountable for what we’re doing.”

20 mins Outside of the PR team - who are the biggest cheerleaders for PR inside Intel’s senior leadership?

“We do very few third-party press releases because the return on investment on it is tiny”

21 mins  If Intel’s comms and marketing department were in the same function comms would be less effective?

“Nowadays the recognition and understanding of our craft has changed that (the understanding of the different role of comms compared to marketing) rapidly.”

23 mins What does the business demand of the comms dept?

“Our number one goal  is to protect and promote Intel's reputation and share our vision with the world”

26 mins Fran explains Intel’s hub and spoke model including in-house and agency teams globally.

27 mins Fran talks about Intel’s quarterly scorecard for the communications team - including what KPIs are included in the scorecard.

29 mins Fran describes Intel's comms team as an “outcome-driven team” - what outcomes do they concentrate on?

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

This is a bonus podcast where we chat about Rajar’s latest results. For those of you that aren’t aware of Rajar - it was established in 1992 and operates the single audience measurement system for the radio industry in the United Kingdom

Each quarter it publishes the listenership figures for UK radio and this offers a really interesting insight for PR people on how the UK public is engaging with this important channel. 

On the show today we have Alex Blakemore, newsroom producer at Markettiers to talk us through the latest Rajar results for Q1 2023.

If you haven't taken a look already, the early entry deadline for The Creative Moment Awards is coming up on Friday 26th May.

Thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Alex and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:

1 min Alex gives us the highlights of this quarter's Rajar results.

88 % of the population listens to the radio each week!

49.3 m adults in the UK listen to the radio each week with an average of 20.4 hours per week

Total radio listening overtakes TV.

7 mins Alex summarises who’s winning the battle between BBC local radio and commercial local radio.

10 mins Alex discusses the rise in Talk Sports listenership, potentially linking the rise to the recent men's football World Cup and Women’s Euros.

12 mins The ups, downs and flatlining of the Ken Bruce effect!

14 mins Heart’s Breakfast Show with Jamie and Amanda surpasses 4 million listeners a week for the first time, closing the gap on Greg James’ Radio 1 show.

15.30 mins The trend of using radio content across different channels - simulcasting.

17 mins The opportunities for PR people across radio

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Welcome to our May review of PR Pitches and mergers & acquisitions in the UK PR scene with Andrew Bloch.

Andrew is a co-founder and non-executive director at Frank PR and is now lead consultant - PR, Social, Content and Influencer at the new business consultancy firm AAR. He is also a partner at PCB Partners where he advises on buying and selling marketing services agencies.

Thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

If you haven’t taken a look already - do check out all the categories on the Creative Moment Awards website, the early entry deadline is on Friday 26th May 2023.

2 mins Andrew brings us news of wins for:

• Words + Pixels win Graze
• PHA win The National Gallery
• Freud and Pizza Express
• Teneo and Easyjet
• Kingdom Collective and Doc Martin
• Houston and Dominos
• The Herd and W Hotels

11 mins Andrew reviews this month's PR mergers and acquisitions

Pearl acquires Kinetic

Definition acquires OTM, its sixth purchase since 2020.

Here’s the link to the article mentioned in the podcast from Heather Baker, CEO of Definition Group, discussing why agencies benefit from joining forces.

News of a huge potential private equity deal for Syneos Health 

Welcome to a new PRmoment Podcast format where we look at the PR job market with Dean Connelly, founder & PR recruitment director at Latte.

We talk about all things PR recruitment - looking at some of the biggest moves we’ve seen recently and discuss some of the trends in the PR job market at the moment

If you haven’t taken a look already - do check out the Creative Moment Awards website, the early entry deadline is on Friday 26th May 2023

And thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA.

Here is a summary of what Dean and I discussed:

2 mins Dean tells us some of the most interesting people move that have caught his eye.

3.30 mins Dean gives us his PR jobs market barometer update.

“We haven't seen a slowdown in the hiring spree…it’s still a candidate-driven market…we’ve seen a plateau in salary increases.”

“You’d be hard-pressed to get an AE for £24K, it’s starting at £26/27K”

“We’re still seeing a lot of the small and medium-sized agencies who maybe don’t have such a strong brand in the market have jobs open for up to 6 months, they really struggle to attract talent”

8.30 mins Dean gives talks about PRmoment’s Top PR 10 Jobs feature and why there are some great PR roles out there in the market.

10 mins Dean talks about why it’s often harder to recruit in PR outside of London.

13 mins Dean tells us what are the main drivers for people leaving agencies at the moment.

17.30 mins Why it’s important for PR agencies to build a good brand.

19 mins How do PR employers get the recruitment process wrong?

“Hiring managers rarely prepare for the interview!”

“There are a few hiring managers out there who make candidates feel uncomfortable from the outset”

On the show today we’re talking about the results of the PRCA’s Governance Review with Ray Eglington, who is a board member of the PRCA and Group MD of Four Communications.

Before we start a quick plug for our next couple of webinars: LinkedIn as a Marketing Channel and The March of PR: The increasing dominance of earned media ideas in integrated marketing.

Here’s a summary of what Ray and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:

2 mins Ray gives an overview of the PRCA Governance Review.

“This is about creating a structure for the next phase of the PRCA’s growth”

“It (the size of the PRCA) probably got a bit ahead of the governance of the organisation.”

“We’ve completely reworked the Memorandum and Articles of Association of the organisation - the rules of how the organisation can operate”

“People need clear authority so they know what the bit of the PRCA that they are part of can and should be doing.”

“Currently the board is of over 30 different directors..that will slim down to a total of 10 people, 8 of them from within the industry, from a clear election process. We’ll have 2 independent directors.”

“There will be an audit and risk committee - so we’ve got clear management of the finances of the organisation…it will oversee a nominations and remunerations committee so that senior executives within the PRCA - how they are chosen, how there appraised, how they are evaluated and how they are rewarded is done transparently”

9 mins Does the governance of a non-profit organisation membership organisation differ from a normal commercial organisation?

10 mins Why did the PRCA decide it needed to have a governance review?

“There was a huge amount of goodwill from members but they wanted to be sure that the PRCA is operating to UK and global best practice.”

“We only need to look at the CBI to understand the importance of good governance and a good reputation for trade bodies” Ben Smith, founder, PRmoment

12 mins What is the rollout for the governance changes at the PRCA?

“There will be an extraordinary general meeting in September of this year, where members will have a chance to review and agree on a new management board and a new president (which is a new role) that will then take us forward to the next AGM in April/May (2024.)”

14 mins Ray talks about the new President and Vice President roles that are being proposed.

16 mins Ray talks about whether the death of Francis Ingham was covered in the governance review.

Here is PRmoment founder Ben Smith’s post which gives some more context into the death of the PRCA’s ex-CEO Francis Ingham, if you haven’t read it already.

This week we are talking creativity with a review of some of the best bits of creativity our panel has seen in the past month or so.

On the show today to help us review some of the best creative work are:

• Lora Martyr, creative director, Taylor Herring
• Daniel Glover, co-founder & creative director, The Academy
• Indy Selvarajah, chief creative officer, Global Markets, Ketchum

This is the second episode of our now newish monthly global creativity review on the PRmoment podcast.

Each month we will feature a rolling panel of PR creatives and in each episode our panellists will choose the favourite creative work they’ve seen recently.

This special PRmoment Podcast about creativity is, naturally enough, bought to you in partnership with Creative Moment and I’d highlight the Creative Moment Awards which are now open for entries, the final entry deadline is Friday 30th June.

I’d also encourage you to check out this week’s Good and Bad PR. One fun story from this week is about a river in Cumbria called the Swindale Beck. Over 200 years ago the locals cut out the meanders and made the river straight, to increase the footprint of the farmland. 

But the move killed all the fish that had happily swam up and down the river up until that point. The straightening had made the water flow faster and the fish could no longer survive.

So the RSPB and United Utilities and their friends have “re-wiggled” the river and the fish have come back and nature is at one with itself once again.

A beautiful story to end on and our dear friends at Meltwater have been in touch to put some data behind this PR wonderfulness - unsurprisingly the word fish dominated the top positive keywords and there were 3.2 thousand engagements of the story on social channels. Do check out this week’s Good and Bad PR for all the background.

Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA. 
Here’s a summary of what PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed with Lora, Indy and Dan

4 mins Indy Selvarajah tells us why he loves the Ravi Superstar Adidas collab.

“The campaign is built on a lovely human insight from an immigrant community”

“It’s beautifully crafted - it’s got that beautiful key visual you can use across all channels”

“This is about integration, about seeing something that lives across everything.”

“The best campaigns I see are those that are crafted within an inch of their life”

“This is a campaign where Adidas start to feel like an underdog again”

13 mins Dan Glover talks us through 3 of his favourite recent campaigns:

Ford recreates the 100-year-old story of Aloha Wanderwell’s pioneering drive around the world in a Ford Model T, this time with travel influencer Lexie Alford behind the wheel of a Ford all-electric Explorer launch.

On the show this week we talk to Rich Dawes, managing director of DawBell. 

DawBell is one of the UK’s largest entertainment PR firms, working across talent, music and events.

Clients include The Brits, Paul McCartney, Harry Styles, Elton John, James Corden and The Prince Estate.

The firm has over 40 employees.

Today we’re going to talk about the role of a modern publicist - and how it's changed in recent times.

We’ll also talk about the story of Rich and DawBell, including a discussion of what has been a pretty tough 12 months for Rich on a personal level and the implications of that on his professional life.

Don’t miss our trio of webinars that are currently live on the homepage:

• LinkedIn as a Marketing Channel
• What are the implications of generative AI for public relations?
• The March of PR: The increasing dominance of earned media ideas in integrated marketing

Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Rich Dawes and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:

1 min Why is the role of the publicist back in vogue?

1.30 mins How does the role of a publicist differ from a more generalist public relations role?

3 mins What does a modern publicist do?

“There’s been a shift from broadcast to narrowcast”

6 mins Has the rise of the celebrity CEO increased the demand for publicists?

9 mins Two of DawBell's clients are Elton John and Paul McCartney. It must be pretty cool working for a couple of legends?

11 mins Rich talks about how his passion for music led to a career as a publicist.

13 mins Rich talks us through how he and Stuart Bell met and why they decided to go into partnership to set up DawBell

17 mins Rich discusses how he’s had a tough couple of years personally.

“Life won’t always give you lemonade”

“I learnt to be optimistic but prepare for the worse”

19  mins Why everyone should record a Desert Island Disc with their parents

“As the years go by you do forget what they (your parents) sounded like”

21 mins Is it tougher to scale a publicity business than a general PR firm?

24 mins Rich likes a quote or 4 and recommends 5 books he reckons PR people should read.

Rich’s favourite 5 quotes:

• “The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it’s taken place”, 
• “To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.”
• “The 3 stages of truth: ridicule, violent opposition and acceptance”
• “If the shit is bigger than the cat, walk away”
• “There are 2 rules for success: never reveal everything you know”

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Welcome to our April review of PR Pitches and mergers & acquisitions in the UK PR scene with Andrew Bloch.

Andrew is a co-founder and non-executive director at Frank PR and is now lead consultant - PR, Social, Content and Influencer at the new business consultancy firm AAR. He is also a partner at PCB Partners where he advises on buying and selling marketing services agencies.

Thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Don’t miss our trio of webinars that are currently live on the homepage:

• LinkedIn as a Marketing Channel
• What are the implications of generative AI for public relations?
• The March of PR: The increasing dominance of earned media ideas in integrated marketing

2 mins Andrew gives us his rundown of April’s biggest PR pitch wins

• Kingdom Collective win the PR brief for the energy drink Relentless.
• Mind + Matter win Superdrug
• Hope&Glory win Powerleageue
• Richmond Towers win Calrsbeerg Marston brief Shipyard, Wainrights and Hobgoblin beers
• Frank win Revel and Crockpot
• Full Fat win Puttshack
• Speed win Haven Holidays
• Visible win Flying Tiger
• Ketchum win Iceland
• Ready 10 win Brewdog
• Pitch win Autotrader
• Adhuro win Tetley and Tea Pigs

12 mins Andrew gives us his monthly rundown of the most significant PR mergers and acquisitions in April, it’s mainly trade deals this month:

• Edelman buy Landmark Public Affairs in Brussels
• Weber buy Diverse Interactive
• WPP buy the influencer agency Goat
• APCO buy Camarco
• KKR buy FSG Global
• SWNS buy Pinpep

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Today we’re chatting about how generative AI change PR. To be frank, there’s been no shortage of articles and LinkedIn posts on this but on the podcast today we’ll get to have a proper chat to talk about generative ai in PR.

On the show, I’ve got a wise panel to chat about these issues including:

• Maya Koleva, head of research and insight, Commetric
• Rosie Bannister, managing director, Axicom
• Paul Wooding, vice president, corporate communications, KX

We’ve all watched AI slowly increase its relevance in our lives until about 4 months ago generative AI Chat GPT exploded into our consciousness and PR folks, like lots of other people, started questioning our roles in life!

More recently we’ve seen the launch of Chat GPT 4 which is bigger and better and more accurate than Chat GPT 3.

On the show today we’re going to talk about how, when and why generative AI will impact public relations and the people that work within it.

Before we start don’t forget to purchase your tickets for The PRmoment Awards from the awards site PRmomentAwards.com

Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA. 

Here’s a summary of what Maya, Paul, Rosie and PRmoment founder Ben Smith spoke about on the show:

2 mins For those out there listening to this who may not have followed this story - what is Chat GPT and what is generative AI?

4 mins Rosie talks us through a generative AI-produced report from CES that Axicom partnered on.

7 mins Paul Wooding gives an in-house perspective on the value of generative AI in content creation.

“You play with it (generative AI) and you just get better and better at using it.”

“(As an in-house PR professional) I’m thinking ‘What am I going to be paying agencies for in the future that previously was considered an absolutely bonafide use of (agency) time?’ That’s a useful thing for us to have in all of our minds - it sharpens us in our understanding of where this technology is going to go.”

“Very soon we will be able to stick a front end on a media database and within minutes be able to ask it… to bang out a briefing document for a journalist. That used to take 3 to 4 hours. That is something we all need to get our head around.”

12 mins How will AI change the role of PR agencies?

13 mins How will AI change agency job titles?

14 mins How will PR firms continue to add value to their clients?

16 mins Maya Koleva reviews the implications of generative AI for the media measurement market.

18 mins Are we a step closer to AI automated measurement of the media?

“You need structured tagged data for AI to learn. We’re seeing that sentiment personification with GPT-based models works better.”

20 mins Who owns AI content?

23 mins How might the NLA respond to AI scraping publisher websites?

“The value of really good earned media is going to bubble up right to the top”

“Effectively - content from publishers is being used to train AI models..neither the journalist nor the publication will get credit for this.”

“The copyright of generated content from AI models: in a way you own some sort of  creativity by prompting even though the output is based on models”

“If you are feeding an article by a scraper or by copy and pasting…you get the summary out of the model and then distribute that to your clients - this is called derivatives and most publishers would require (you to have) separate licenses for this.”

28 mins Will PR agencies need to evolve to

An insiders view of the structure, skill set and role of a modern in-house communications team

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Today we’re chatting with Bibi Hilton, CEO of Creative Access 

Known to PR people everywhere for her first career working in public relations which included stints and The Red Consultancy and Golin - Bibi was appointed CEO of Creative Access in September last year.

Creative Access describes itself as a social enterprise providing career-long access, opportunities, support and training for people from under-represented groups, to help make the creative industries reflect society. It offers individual support, employers help and partnerships and has a range of resources aimed at helping underrepresented groups break into the creative sectors.

Time is now short but you can still purchase your tickets for The PRmoment Awards from the awards site PRmomentAwards.com

Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA. 

Here’s a summary of what Bibi and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed: 

2 mins Bibi explains the mission and raison d’etre of Creative Access.

“Our mission is to build a creative economy that really reflects the society it serves”

“We work to improve access to (creative) careers..through training, development programs and helping employers build more inclusive cultures”

“There are a lot of commonalities in terms of the challenges that creative organisations face when it comes to diversity equity and inclusion but there isn’t a one size fits all solution to any of those challenges.”

“If you don’t have the data it’s impossible to put in place an effective plan”

8 mins How is Creative Access funded?

8.30 mins How can creative employers become better employers of minority groups?

“Salary transparency is critical”

11 mins What do creative employers who don’t have a diverse range of employees get wrong?

17.30 mins How can individuals come to Creative Access for help

19 mins How representative of the population is the creative sector? And what about PR?

21 mins What does good representation look like? What are we aiming for?

26 mins What can PR learn from other sectors of the creative sector in its journey towards greater diversity?

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Today we’re chatting with 3 of Google's communications team to give us an inside view of how a modern PR and communications team works.

On the show are Jo Ogunleye, B2B communications lead, UK, Julie Dilger, head of external communications, Google Ireland and Olivia O'Brien, senior associate, product communiou can still purchase your tickets for The PRmoment Awards from the awards site PRmomentAwards.com

Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA.

I’d also encourage you to check out this week’s Good and Bad PR on PRmoment. As ever there’s a range of highlights and lowlights but one of my favourite stories this week was that Pepsi has rolled out a new visual brand identity and also revealed that it would include 57% less sugar.

Exclusive analysis from Meltwater shows how the news exploded across social media resulting in 137k mentions and 1.03m engagements.

Do check out this week’s Good and Bad PR for more insight on that from Meltwater.

Here’s a summary of what Jo, Julie and Olivia and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:

2 mins Jo, Julie and Olivia have very different job titles and here they each tell us a bit about their jobs, how their roles are different but also how they work together.

4 mins Jo talks about her 20% role (a Google initiative to enable its employees to work on passion products) and how that enables Jo to work on building networks of diverse communities within the communications industry.

8 mins There are only 9 people in the UK and Ireland Google comms team.

8.30 mins A discussion of how Google uses agency support.

“I would be lost without my agency…when you get a good agency you hold onto them with both hands and hope the personnel don’t change too much!”

10 mins There are so many specialisms within communications and a brand like Google uses the full breadth of comms capabilities - from crisis communications, to exec comms, to corporate and public affairs, to brand, consumer, product PR and B2B comms.

How do in-house communicators coordinate that?

13 mins How much of Google's communications are proactive and how much are reactive?

“If it’s a big issue it’s all hands on deck”

“Some people thrive in a crisis”

“We have issues comms at least once a week”

“A lot of PR is problem-solving…reactive requires a completely different part of your brain”

“Where my agency comes into its own is when they burst by bubble…I spend so much time in Google land.”

“My expectation of them (my agency) is 100% all-around creative and strategic ideas”

“We might not go 100% of the way but we might go 25% of the way - and that’s us innovating.”

“I don’t want to feel like a client all the time…I want to feel like we’re colleagues”

25 mins What are the suite of measurement KPIs for Google's comms team?

29 mins How does Google get a balance between the standardisation of the message and localised communications?

31 mins With Google’s development and rollout of AI tools - is this a priority for Google's comms team at the moment?

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Today we’re chatting with Lucy McGettigan, partner at The Romans. Lucy was the 7th employee at The Romans when she joined Frank in 2017.

The Romans has 80 employees, 70 in London and 10 in New York. It had a fee income of £8m globally in 2022 and grew by a remarkable 97% last year.

On the show, Lucy is going to talk about the challenges of growing a consultancy business that quickly, the challenges of recruiting talent in public relations and whether process and creativity are a paradox!

Don’t forget to purchase your tickets for The PRmoment Awards from the awards site PRmomentAwards.com

Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Lucy and I discussed:

2 mins Is The Romans still the Millwall of PR?

2.30 mins Lucy updates us on The Romans story specifically the growth the business has had in the last 18 months.

3.30 mins Is growth at 97% unsustainable?

4 mins Growing a 97% is difficult for any type of business - for a consultancy business where revenue is inextricably linked to the number of employees - recruitment becomes a huge problem doesn't it?

6 mins What percentage of new recruits don’t work out?

7 mins Has the Mother relationship impacted the speed of growth for The Romans?

8 mins Why Mother and The Romans share many clients.

9 mins Has the creative work changed as The Romans has grown? Are bigger clients more risk-averse?

12 mins The Romans is infamous for not having too many processes - has that has to change as you’ve added scale?

14 mins What does lead creative agency actually mean these days? Is there any such thing any more?

15 mins Is media relations still the dominant channel for The Romans' work?

“If you haven’t got a journalist on WhatsApp they are probably not going to reply to you”

16 mins How has Lucy’s job changed since she became a partner last year?

17 mins Lucy was the 7th joiner of The Romans - and 4 of those 7 people still work at the firm. I think people will be surprised by that…

“When agencies are growing you can find room to keep hold of your best staff”

20 mins What is the biggest growth limiter for The Romans at the moment - finding talent or finding clients?

21 mins Has The Romans gotten better at keeping hold of its clients in recent years?

This week we are talking creativity with a review of some of the best bits of creativity our panel has seen in the past month or so.

On the show today to help us review some of the best creative work are:

Kim Allain, creative lead, MSL
Ottilie Ross, creative director, Halpern
James Gordon-MacIntosh, co-founder and chief creative officer, Hope&Glory

This new regular episode of the PRmoment podcast will feature a rolling panel of PR creatives and in each episode our panellists will choose the favourite creative work they’ve seen recently.

This special PRmoment Podcast about creativity is, naturally enough, bought to you in partnership with Creative Moment.

Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what I discussed with Kim, Ottille and James:

1.30 mins Kim talks about IKEA’s collaboration with Shelter.

Campaign: Temporary Roomsets
Client: IKEA and Shelter
Agency: Hope&Glory

“A real visual representation of temporary accommodation”

“I really like the commitment from Shelter to get 9000 more social homes built by 2030.”

9.30 mins Ottille talks us through British bike helmet manufacturer Endura's recent collaboration with The Brain Charity.

“It was a really simple campaign, super visual…backed up by research.”

Campaign: Project Heid
Client: Endura with The Brain Charity

12.30 mins Ottille talks us through the Honest Eggs Co. chickens with a pedometer campaign.

Campaign: FitChix
Client: Honest Eggs Co.
Agency: VMLY&R

15.30 mins Google Streetview marks the year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“You can switch between footage when you watch it so it shows the streets as they were before the invasion and switch to how it looks now”

Campaign: The Undeniable Street View
In partnership with United 24, Voices of Children and War Up Close.
Client: Google Street View

19 mins James Gordon-Macintosh talks us through Climate Clubs Sinking Stadia campaign with Copa 90.

Campaign: Sinking Stadia
Client: Climate Clubs

“I feel like the partnership with Copa 90 was a bit mismatched...was there another platform that could have sat on? But the insight was great. ”

21.30 mins James talks about the second campaign he liked this week: A World Without Nature by WWF.

“I don’t think anyone has done a creativity session in an agency lately without ‘How shall we use AI’ coming up at some stage or another…there have been some terrible travesties that have come out of the creative industry as a result of that question being answered badly but WWF came up with quite a cute one.”
"The work was wonderfully bleak…in a way that was compelling.”