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On the PRCA logo appear the words ‘The Power of Communication’. That’s because of our strong belief in the power of our industry – it changes behaviour; it changes lives; it changes companies and Governments. And most of that power is used for good. But just occasionally, it is used instead for the wrong purposes. Today, we expelled Bell Pottinger from the PRCA. We did so because of their unethical and racially divisive work on the Oakbay Capital account in South Africa. We did so because they had used the power of communication for a morally wrong purpose. .
It’s an age-old decision point in marketing — work with a range of specialized agencies, or find a full-service agency that can handle everything. In the last couple years, we’ve seen an ever-expanding tick-box approach to agency services. This decision point has only gotten more complicated. In the late-90’s, I joined one of the first digital agencies in the Bay Area. We built websites, mainly for travel companies like Disney and Starwood. We were specialists and we were good at it. Then we got acquired along with 30 or so other specialist agencies and rolled-up into one big one-stop shop. Suddenly, our new, big agency offered everything from brand identity design to consulting to advertising for every conceivable type of company. It was total chaos. I remember going to a meeting with a client to talk about an integrated plan and meeting other groups from my own company for the first time in the client’s reception area. I learned to be wary of agencies that claim to do everything. In my experience on the client and agency sides, few agencies are capable to doing all of those things well, particularly for emerging technologies....
Integration is really easy to say and really hard to do,” says Jason Frank, joint CEO of agency MSL Group in the UK. Which begs the question if it is really worth offering integrated services. Would clients prefer to get great specialist expertise from an agency rather than a blend of second-rate services? Frank says: “Many organisations make it too painful for their marketing and communications people to offer integrated services, for structural and/or cultural reasons. PR agencies talk a good game on websites and powerpoints and acquire lots of skills, but integration is about a mindset and culture and most don’t invest in the necessary culture change.” Frank believes that although the advantages of integration are “nose-bleedingly obvious”, some agencies and clients are still reluctant to embrace it. However, he believes that finding integration difficult is no excuse, as “doing” integration makes clients’ lives so much easier as it's cheaper, easier and faster. “Done well it means one brief, potentially one partner, one idea…”...
Most people are not trained in how to deal with anger, frustration, disappointment, and a host of other emotions that happen as a result of client-agency interactions. When a client expresses his emotions due to a mistake from the agency or a miscommunication, people struggle with figuring out the right thing to say or the right way to handle the situation. So how do you calm the client's visible displeasure and salvage the trust that remains? How do you refocus their frustration and work together to find a solution to the current problem? The first step is getting the client to talk through the problem. Use these prompts to continue the conversation in a productive way:...
Projects don't always go as planned. You can perfectly outline the tasks, major milestones, and timeline for each project, but in the end, things happen: clients don't send the information you need, a key employee walks out the door, a technical issue pops up that requires you to rethink the approach. This can spiral out of control when everyone is simply referring to a color-coded spreadsheet and replying to a confusing email thread. That's why so many agencies invest in project management software. They need an easy-to-use interface to track timelines, tasks, time, and budgets. They need something people will actually want to use on a daily basis. And every agency is different, which means every agency needs a different type of project management tool. We've put together a list of some of the top platforms that are made with agencies in mind:...
Given the job PR has done to support the growth of the tech industry, it's time to celebrate the top tech PR executives globally. And there are 100 of them.
We have therefore decided to celebrate the top tech PR executives that have played their part in supporting some of the now household names in the tech industry and developed the sector as a whole.
To do so, we have again put the decision in the hands of the Hot Topics community and asked them to nominate the 100 top tech PR executives globally.....
The global PR industry grew by 7% in 2014, with currency volatility helping to soften another positive year for PR firms around the world, according to the 2015 World PR Report.
The 2015 World PR Report, produced by the Holmes Report and ICCO, again provides the clearest picture available of the global PR industry, based on submissions from more than 400 PR firms across the world.
The research reveals that, for the first time, the Top 250 PR firms in the world cracked the $10m barrier in terms of fee income last year, reporting $10.4bn compared to $9.7bn in 2013....
PRWeek's Global Agency Report launches on April 27: Here is a sneak preview of the trends agency bosses identified as defining 2014 and shaping the year ahead....
Last summer, PR giant Edelman became the focus of negative media attention when it became known that the agency was open to representing so-called "climate deniers." A perception of environmental callousness was furthered when an internal email from Edelman somehow reached the Climate Investigations Center, in which the firm's then-CEO and U.S. president Mark Hass said it was not necessary that he comment on the agency's stance on which clients it will or won't take.
Suddenly, a full-scale attack was launched against Edelman by many media outlets, painting the firm as a greedy organization that prioritized profits over principle. The episode sparked a months-long PR crisis for Edelman (no, the irony was not lost) and involved firm chairman Richard Edelman issuing a statement confirming the agency's commitment to climate-change science, and dismissing Hass. Like most crises, this one passed over—but it was not easily forgotten by the agency....
With the recent revelations about Sony ‘s movie studio executives behaving badly and its discriminatory treatment of female stars, I decided to look closer to home—to my own industry of public relations—to see how women fare. If anyone should treat women well, shouldn't it be a field like PR, which is predominated by women?
It turns out that while the PR profession skews heavily female, men make significantly more money and hold the majority of the seats of power in the largest agencies.
Consider who's running the world’s top 10 PR agencies as ranked in the Holmes Report. The vast majority has white men at the helm, though two have women running their North American units. It would almost be amusing if it weren't so sad to see some of these agencies’s leadership pages,with men holding all the top spots and women peering out beneath them.
In case you missed it, Bloomberg Businessweek published an intriguing story yesterday by veteran journalist Paul M. Barrett that ran with the headline “What It’s Like to Be Attacked by Putin’s Flack.”
The “flack” in question is Ketchum — more specifically D.C.-based partner Kathy Jeavons, who “heads both the Ecuador and Russia accounts” for the firm.
For the record, Jeavons did not personally attack or even contact Barrett. But a source did forward him a talking points document that the firm wrote for Nathalie Cely, Ecuador’s ambassador to the United States. The doc included both well-stated observations about Ecuador’s history with Chevron and suggestions for casting doubt on the credibility of Law of the Jungle, Barrett’s upcoming book on the lawsuit that accuses the company of abusing its relationship with the people of Ecuador....
When Common Ground PR announced Monday that it would be providing “short-term assistance” to the city of Ferguson, Missouri, online sleuths quickly began looking into the firm.
Clashes between the mostly white police force and people protesting the police shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, an African-American man, have had a racial charge to them. That led Talking Points Memo and others to question why the city had hired a PR firm that appears to have no black people working in it.
Wednesday afternoon, the president and CEO of Common Ground, Denise Bentele, issued a statement addressing those concerns and answering why the firm stepped up....
Can PR companies “Show Up Differently” as Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman, the world’s largest privately held PR firm, wrote in his New Year’s rally cry for his troops? Edelman understands that PR agencies will need to show up differently if they are to win against the advertising agencies.
My post this week about the lack of automation technologies in PR is directly related to this coming confrontation. There’s a great business opportunity for PR agencies to compete for lucrative advertising budgets — if they can prove performance with solid metrics and at scale....
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Will 2017 be the year agencies fall dangerously out of touch with client expectations?
How will the shift towards project-based work impact your agency's ability to retain long-term clients?
Do clients intend to move more marketing services in-house in 2017?
A new report from RSW/US examines these and other troubling trends, offering valuable insights into both agency and marketer perspectives on key topics such as spending, project work versus AORs, and the explosive rise of marketing technology....
In 2014, a whopping 581,000 businesses started up in the UK. One of them was me, Zude PR.
According to Bloomberg, a staggering 8 out of 10 entrepreneurs who start businesses fail within the first 18 months. I don’t know what the figure is for Glasgow PR firms, but I imagine it’s similar.
Twenty-eight months on I’m still here, fighting the good fight.
Here are 28 top observations from MY first 28 months as a solo digital PR pro (just in case you ever need them)....
What's the #1 thing clients value in their agency partners?
It'not results, strategy, or even great creative. According to the Society of Digital Agencies, it's expertise in emerging trends. Now think about the last time you delivered this type of information to your client. If it's been a while, then you've got some work to do. Clients want this information, and if you are able to provide advice and direction on how they should be investing in not only growing their business today but what they need to do to prepare their company to compete one, two, or five years from now, your agency will be in a better position to retain the relationship or even benefit from upselling opportunities.
The USC Annenberg Center for Public Relations today released an executive summary of its Global Communications Report, a comprehensive survey of senior public relations executives, which predicts the worldwide PR agency business will grow from its current estimated size of $14 billion to $19.3 billion over the next five years. To accommodate this growth, agency leaders anticipate their headcount will increase over the same period by about 26%. Industry leaders, both in agencies and in-house, believe future growth will be driven by content creation and social media, as well as more traditional activities such as brand reputation, followed by measurement and evaluation. Earned media still ranks relatively high for both corporate and agency leaders. Paid media ranked last of 18 possible growth drivers. “Overall, we are sensing a continued optimism about the direction the industry is headed, which is good news for people entering the field,” said Fred Cook, Director of the USC Annenberg Center for Public Relations. “But questions remain about the industry’s ability to attract the right talent, adapt to new technologies and increase the level of investment required to capitalize on these opportunities.”...
The agency website is a vital part of the sales cycle, especially when starting out. It serves as the first touch point with a prospective client, where they come to see previous work, and get a sense of the ethos and working style of the agency.
An impressively executed agency website means more work with higher calibre of clients.
So if you’re starting up a new agency, or looking to refresh your online presence, you’re in the right place! We’ve scoured over the web to bring you these 30 stunning examples of impressive and creatively realised agency websites. Beautiful designs, exquisitely executed. Read on!...
We often hear Sanjay Dholakia’s quote, “Marketing has changed more in five years than the past five hundred.” What we don’t hear as much, however, is how public relations needs to transform itself to adapt to a changing world.
Here are three trends that are forcing PR agencies and professionals to step up their game, and what your organization can do to wield them to your advantage....
Global expansion. Blurred lines between PR and marketing. An explosion of creative services.
Chief executives from 12 of the largest agencies in the world discuss their firm’s performance over the past year and share their pitch for the future of the business....
Trust Me, PR is Dead is the provocative title of Robert Phillip’s long-awaited second book. It’s had many PR practitioners up in arms that a co-founder of Jackie Cooper PR and former EMEA CEO of Edelman should bite the hand that’s fed him (and them!)
Having read and enjoyed the book I can let you into a little secret that not many of the numerous reviews have revealed. The book isn’t really that much about PR. In fact it is far more interesting. It’s a broader analysis and dissection of society, politics, business and even the economy as it is today. Much of the commentary is about how many in the PR world, business and politics haven’t even begun to sufficiently grasp the seismic changes that are taking place....
PR has probably changed more in the last ten years than it has in the last three decades. For communicators, new challenges and opportunities have come along with the changes we have experienced as a society, most of which have roots in the influence of the Internet and social media. We are living through a creative and transformative period. With each passing year comes a time to reflect on how far we've come and, perhaps more important, how much we still have left to figure out.
What will PR look like in 2015? What will the challenges be? As communicators pause to celebrate the holidays, let's take a look at where the profession is headed next year:
Investigating the gun industry, Muslim extremists, and high-stakes litigation, I’ve grown accustomed to deadline intimidation from corporate legal departments or an executive’s personal PR squad, but only this week am I getting a feel for what it’s like to be the target when a sovereign nation goes into crisis-communication mode.
Worried about revelations in Law of the Jungle, my soon-to-be-released book about the epic Chevron (CVX) oil pollution case, the Republic of Ecuador’s U.S. public relations advisers, New York-based Ketchum, has sent a six-page, single-spaced memo to Ecuador’s ambassador to the U.S., Nathalie Cely. Marked “reservado y confidencial,” the memo, prepared in Spanish throughout, outlines “difficult questions” the book raises “that negatively affect Ecuador,” and includes an ad hominem swipe. “It remains unclear when and how many times Barrett visited Ecuador or if he interviewed anyone from the Government,” the memo states. “This can be converted into a point that we can raise, but only in suitable settings and among appropriate journalists.”
I obtained a copy of the memo from a helpful noncombatant who works for neither Ketchum nor the ambassador and who requested anonymity for all the obvious and usual reasons. The damage-control document is a peculiar combination of advice on how to discredit the messenger—“this can be converted into a point …”—and admissions that the book raises issues that do not reflect well on Ecuador’s government....
Ketchum’s staff members who provide public relations advice to Russia must avoid being seen as defending acts contrary to American interests while still providing some luster for a lucrative client.
In 2006, executives from the public relations firm Ketchum flew to Moscow to secure an account that has since been worth tens of millions of dollars.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had hired Ketchum to provide advice on public relations before the nation hosted the Group of 8 meeting in St. Petersburg. At the time, Mr. Putin “cared a great deal about what other leaders, especially presidents, thought about him,” said Michael A. McFaul, a former United States ambassador to Russia who now teaches at Stanford.
Times have changed. The escalating conflict between Russia and Ukraine has turned relations with the United States as frosty as they have been in years. Last week, President Obama said that as a result of the economic sanctions imposed on Russia, the country “is already more isolated than at any time since the Cold War.” And the United States ambassador to the United Nations called Russia’s actions in Ukraine a “threat to all of our peace and security.”
A GIANT public relations agency that has been under fire for a couple of gaffes in the last couple of weeks says it is taking steps to try to make sure such blunders do not recur — the kinds of steps it would recommend to clients in the same predicaments.
“What the leadership team decided,” Ben Boyd, president for practices, sectors and offerings at Edelman in New York, said in an interview on Friday, is that “we will treat ourselves like we treat a client.”
“Lesson learned,” he added.
“Just because you advise clients on the complexities of today’s world, that doesn’t mean they’re easier to manage,” Mr. Boyd said, adding that “it would have been smart” to have had in place at Edelman some of the internal protocols and processes that the agency’s 5,000 employees suggest that clients adopt....
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In our 48-year history, these are the harshest sanctions PRCA ever has handed down to a member. They reflect the severity of Bell Pottinger’s breaches of PRCE ethical frameworks. And they reflect how seriously PRCE takes those frameworks