On the PRmoment Podcast, this week is Adam Clyne, founder of Coolr, and we’re going to talk about what social agencies do and how that compares to what PR firms do.Clearly, PR firms say they do social. But to what extent do they do social compared to the broader, or perhaps deeper, social remit of social agencies? And is this a problem for PR agencies? Do they need to worry about that? Or are they better off out of a very competitive social agency market?To introduce our guest, Adam Clyne. He started in PR, and then he made the move into advertising with JWT. Adam launched his own digital agency called The Lab in 2002, which he then sold to the agency that is now called Kindred. He also had spells at TVC and Weber Shandwick.He launched his own social media agency, Coolr, in 2017.When I last interviewed Adam in 2020, Coolr had  20 employees. Now, in Nov 2023, it has 90. Adam won’t tell me his fee income, bu

In a new regular format of the PRmoment Podcast with me, 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! Today, we're chatting with Kirsty Leighton, founder & group CEO of Milk & Honey PR.Milk & Honey was launched in 2016 and is a £5 m fee-income PR firm with offices in London, New York, Singapore and Munich.Before we start, we’ve got some huuuuge news - The PRmoment Awards 2014 are now - OPEN!There are some exciting changes this year; we’ve tweaked the categories, refined the entry form and launched a regional champions scheme with no additional entry fee to reach the work across the UK.Also, thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors the PRCA.Finally, thanks to PRmoment’s data a

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Welcome to our November review of PR Pitches and mergers & acquisitions in the UK PR scene with Andrew Bloch.He is the lead consultant - PR, Social, Content and Influencer at the new business consultancy firm AAR and a partner at PCB Partners, where he advises on buying and selling marketing services agencies.Andrew was also a co-founder at PR agency Frank PR, where he is still a non-executive director at Frank PR.Before we start, we’ve got some huuuuge news - The PRmoment Awards 2024 are now - OPEN!There are some exciting changes this year; we’ve tweaked the categories, refined the entry form and launched a regional champions scheme with no additional entry fee to reach the work across the UK.Do check out the PRmo

On the show today, we welcome Charlotte Brooks, who is the managing director of PR agency Mischief. This is the latest In our ongoing in hindsight-themed PRmoment Podcasts, where PRmoment founder Ben Smith interviews public relations leaders - where our guests share their in hindsight, secrets that they wish they'd known when they started their careers.Charlotte’s been at Mischief for five years and took over the managing director role from Greg Jones when he left last year.Before joining Mischief in 2018, Charlotte had worked for some of London’s finest consumer PR firms, including House PR, The Academy and Launch PR.Mischief is a consumer PR agency based in London with 35 employees and a turnover of £5 m. Current clients include the likes of Lego, Three and Ocada. Big wins for Mischief this year (2023) were Team GB, Diageo and Channel 4.Mischief is part of the MHP group. MHP and Mischief became part of Next Fifteen when it acq

This week, we’re celebrating 15 years of the Taylor Bennett Foundation, and to do that, we’re talking to 3 of its alumni about how the programme helped their careers. On the PRmoment Podcast today, we’re talking to Kwaku Aning,  Shanice Hoo Mills and Toni AdeolaFor those of you not aware of the Taylor Bennett Foundation - well, I’d suggest you should! It’s an amazing charity that exists to encourage black, Asian and minority ethnic graduates to pursue a career in communications. It does this through its PR training programme, internships and mentoring programmes.Established by communications executive search firm Taylor Bennett in partnership with the University of East London and founding agency Brunswick in 2008, the Foundation seeks to address the need for greater diversity in the public relations sector. With the support of leading communication co

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week, we’re chatting to Alex Aiken, long-time executive director of the UK Government’s Communication Service.Alex has worked with six Prime Ministers when they've had to make their most crucial decisions.  He worked in government communications during Brexit, during the COVID crisis, when the queen died and when Russia invaded Ukraine.In short, he’s been in the room during many of the most difficult periods of the UK government since the Second World War.He was appointed in December 2012 and has overseen a huge change in UK Government Communications. Currently, part of Alex’s role is to counter the disinformation spread by foreign governments about the UK and its allies.Whatever your politics, it's acknowledged globally that UK Government Communications is a global leader in ensuring the effectiveness of its communications to the UK public.Before we start, if you haven’t alrea

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This is a bonus podcast where we chat about Rajar’s latest results. For those of you who 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. This offers a really interesting insight for PR people on how the UK public engages with this important channel.Today, we have Alex Blakemore, newsroom producer at Markettiers, to talk us through the latest Rajar results for Q3 2023.Thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Also, a heads up to our PRmoment Podcast data partners - Meltwater. Do check out the program for PRmoment’s new conference launch, The PR Masterclass: The Agency

The PR Network is a £5m fee-income global tech PR agency based in the UK. It has ten employees, no head office and 1300 associates all around the world who it can call upon. On average, it has 70-90 associates working for it at any one time.Before we start, we’ve just launched our latest webinars. One is our annual The Creative Year in Review 2023, and the other is PR Analytics 2023. Do check out the PRmoment homepage for all the details.Finally, thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors the PRCA. Here is a summary of what Eileen and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed.2 mins How many global PR campaigns are there these days?2.30 mins Should most global PR firms be more accurately regarded as multi-territory?“There are 195 t

On the PRmoment Podcast today, Pangolin PR co-founders David Phillips and Will Cookson reflect on ten years of running their agency.Pangolin is a consumer PR shop in London with a fee incline of £1.75m. Clients include Pernod and Pepsi, and it employs 17 people.On the show today, we will reflect on their regrets, lessons and achievements as they look back on ten years of owning their own business.To deal with the elephant in the room straight away - some listeners out there might be pointing out that many firms have exceeded £1.76 m over ten years, but in a way, that’s the whole point. Ultimately this is a story of success but only with a few wrong turns along the way, which makes it an interesting story.Before we start, if you haven’t already, look at our new event PR Masterclass: The Agency Growth Forum. <br

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Welcome to our October review of PR Pitches and mergers &amp; acquisitions in the UK PR scene with Andrew Bloch.He is the lead consultant - PR, Social, Content and Influencer at the new business consultancy firm AAR and a partner at PCB Partners, where he advises on buying and selling marketing services agencies.Andrew was also a co-founder at PR agency Frank PR, where he is still a non-executive director at Frank PR.Thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.A reminder about our new event PR Masterclass: The Agency Growth Forum.At this one event, 22 experts will give 11 Masterclasses on essential elements of managing

Welcome to PRmoment Podcast. This week it’s our October Global Creativity Review, so we are talking creativity with a gorgeous panel who will identify and chat about some of the best bits of creativity they have seen in the past month or so. On the show today to help us review some of the best creative work are: Daniel Glover, co-founder &amp; creative director of The AcademyOlivia Mushigo, social creative, CoolrJames Gordon-MacIntosh, co-founder and chief creative officer, Hope&amp;Glory PR To remind the listeners of the rules - our creatives are not allowed to choose their own work! This is our 4th global creativity review, so if you like what you hear, look back at the PRmoment Podcast archive on iTunes or Spotify to listen to more creative ideas. This special <a href='

Welcome to a new PRmoment Podcast where we look at the PR job market with Dean Connolly, founder &amp; PR recruitment director at Latte.We talk about all things PR recruitment - discussing some of the trends in the PR job market, including the latest numbers from Latte’s 2023 PR salary guide.If you’re interested in keeping an eye on the best PR jobs out there each week, subscribe for free to PRmoment’s Top 10 PR Jobs updates.Before we start, if you haven’t already, do take a look at our new event PR Masterclass: The Agency Growth Forum.At this one event, 22 experts will give 11

On the PRmoment Podcast today we’re chatting with Katie De Cozar, director of CCgroup about how to improve the DE&amp;I of PR agencies.CCgroup has made major changes to its business over the past 5 years which has seen significant improvements in the diversity of its employees. CCgroup is a £6m revenue PR firm based in London with 46 employees. In 2020 17% of CCgroups employees were BME, in 2023 that has increased to 37%.Some background stats for our listeners:According to the CIPR State of the Profession Report 2022 89% of the PR sector is white, 11% black, Asian, mixed or other ethnic groups. (All UK-wide)Government data from the UK Census 2021: 82% of people in England and Wales are white, and 18% belong to a black, Asian, mixed or other ethnic g

On the PRmoment Podcast this week we’re chatting with Andy Peake, London CEO of creative agency VCCP. I’ve known Andy for about 25 years so, to an extent, we’ve followed each other&apos;s careers with interest over a couple of decades!As Andy is now CEO of one the largest creative agencies in London I thought it would be interesting to get him on the show to chat about the intersection of PR firms and advertising agencies. VCCP London has 850 employees and according to Nielson Billings Rankings is the UK’s highest billing creative agency with £483 m in billings, in 2022. Up 34% from £360m in 2021.The agency was founded in 2002 and is owned by Chime, which also owns the PR agencies Good Relations and Harvard.Chime is majority-owned by private equity firm Providence Equity Partners.The intersection between PR firms and advertising firms has become an interesting one - because if you listen to a PR firm describe itself and an advertising firm describe

On the PRmoment Podcast today we’re chatting with Jo Carr, the president of Women in PR. Jo is also co-founder of PR agency Hope&amp;Glory.Women in PR was founded in 1962. So it’s just turned 60!It has 350 members and the profile of the organisation has grown a lot over the last 10 years or so.Of all the trade associations in public relations, I’d suggest Women in PR is the one with the greatest momentum currently.For our international listeners, there is an organisation called Global Women in PR, which has a similar remit.Before we start, if you haven’t already do take a look at our new event PR Masterclass: The Agency Growth Forum.At this one event, 22 experts will give 11 Masterclasse

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Welcome to our September review of PR Pitches and mergers &amp; acquisitions in the UK PR scene with Andrew Bloch.He is the lead consultant - PR, Social, Content and Influencer at the new business consultancy firm AAR and a partner at PCB Partners where he advises on buying and selling marketing services agencies.Andrew was also a co-founder at PR agency Frank PR, where he is still a non-executive director.Thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA.A reminder about our new event PR Masterclass: The Agency Growth Forum.At this one event, 22 experts will give 11 Masterclasses on essential elements of managing a modern, pr

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 Williamson, senior newsroom producer at Markettiers to talk us through the latest Rajar results for Q2 2023.Thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Also a heads up to our PRmoment Podcast data partners - Meltwater. Do check out the program for PRmoment’s new conference launch The PR Masterclass: The Agency Gro

Today on the PRmoment Podcast we’re talking about values. We’re going part history lesson, part comms theory and part future gazing. To help talk us through that kaleidoscope we’ve Rebecca Grant, UK CEO and Global Chief Brand Officer of BCW on the show.We’re going to talk about the importance of values in successful communication campaigns. The hope is that in 30 mins&apos; time, you&apos;ll know about the basics of Schwartz’s values theory, why it matters to communications and we’ll give you an insight into the research BCW has done to take Schwartz’s theory and apply it to communications best practice.So it’s a serious show and to match such a serious topic I should mention that it’s the very serious ESG Awards entry deadline in September! Take a look at all the categories on the ESG Awards website.And thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast spon

In this 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&apos;d known at the start of their careers.This week on the PRmoment Podcast we&apos;re talking to Paul Joseph MD of Full Fat.Full Fat is a consumer PR and social agency with 18 employees. It specialises in FMCG and event work. Current clients include San Miguel, Poretti, and Sziget Festival (a massive festival in Hungary that is I&apos;m told bigger than Glastonbury!)Paul has worked out Full Fat for just over 10 years. The agency was founded by Ella McWilliam and Megan Morass.And thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors of the PRCA.Here’s a summary of what Paul and I discussed:2 mins Paul shares his firs

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Welcome to our July review of PR Pitches and mergers &amp; 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 advising on buying and selling marketing services agencies.Thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Do look at the brace of new webinars that we’ve launched on PRmoment, including Social Media in B2B and The Contribution of Comms to ESG<

This week on the PRmoment Podcast we talk about what CEOs want from PR and we also identify the 7 top attributes that CEOs want in the comms directors.The folks at PR recruitment firm VMA have recently interviewed 20 CEOs and today we’re going to chat with VMA’s MD Lucy Cairncross about what she’s found out about CEO communication priorities.Thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors of the PRCA.Here’s a summary of what Lucy and I discussed:2 mins What are CEO’s current priorities?3 mins Are UK CEOs more brow beaten than their international counterparts? 4 mins The top 4 CEO concerns: International stability, economic turbulence, political changes and environmental commitments.6 mins What do CEOs want from their PR and comms teams? “Comms is central to the quality of response to those issues.”<p

 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&apos;d known when they started their businesses! Today we&apos;re chatting with Greg Double, creative director of consumer PR agency Mischief.Mischief is the consumer PR arm of MHP. MHP and Mischief are owned by Next Fifteen, which acquired them from Engine last year. Mischief has recently won Diageo and Team GB accounts. Other clients include Lego, Just Eat, and Ocado. MHP which owns Mischief has a fee income of about £33 m and 200 employees.Greg has previously worked at Frank and Ready 10. He has been at Mischief for 3.5 years.And thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors of the PRCA.Here is a summary of what Greg and I discussed:<b

Ready 10 founder David Fraser is the next guest in our new In Hindsight series on the PRmoment Podcast.In this 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&apos;d known when they started their businesses!Today we&apos;re chatting with the founder of Ready 10 David Fraser.Ready 10 has revenues of £4 m and 35 employees. It is a consumer PR shop based in London. Clients include McDonald&apos;s, Brewdog, Reed and Paddy Power. David founded the business about 7 years ago.It&apos;s 5 years since David&apos;s been on the PRmoment Podcast it was David who persuaded me to launch it all those years back! So thank you, David, we now get between 5-6 thousand listeners a month and people seem to enjoy the show.If you haven’t taken a look already - do check out the <a href='https://www.creativemomentawar

Welcome to PRmoment Podcast. This week it’s our June Global Creativity Review so we are talking creativity with our wonderful panel who will identify and chat about some of the best bits of creativity they have 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, HalpernTom Rouse, creative director, Pitch Marketing GroupThis is the third episode of our monthly global creativity reviews -  here are our reviews for March and April. (May seemed to get a bit too frantic and I forgot, sorry!)This special PRmoment Pod

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Welcome to our June review of PR Pitches and mergers &amp; 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 We

The Academy co-founder Mitch Kay 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&apos;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&apos;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

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&apos;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&apos;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&apos;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&apos;ll

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&apos;t taken a look already, the final entry deadline for The Creative Moment Awards is Friday 30th June.Thanks to the PRmoment Podcast

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.<br

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&apos;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 m

Today we&apos;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 2023And 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

 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&apos; time.<br/

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 KingdomEach 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&apos;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

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Welcome to our May review of PR Pitches and mergers &amp; 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 GrazePHA win The National Gall

Welcome to a new PRmoment Podcast format where we look at the PR job market with Dean Connelly, founder &amp; 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 momentIf you haven’t taken a look already - do check out the Creative Moment Awards website, the early entry deadline is on Friday 26th May 2023And 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.<b

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

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 HerringDaniel Glover, co-founder &amp; creative director, The AcademyIndy Selvarajah, chief creative officer, Global Markets, KetchumThis 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 fina

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&apos;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<a href='https://www.prmoment.com/event/what-are-the-implications-of-generative-ai-for-public-rela

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Welcome to our April review of PR Pitches and mergers &amp; 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 ChannelW

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, CommetricRosie Bannister, managing director, AxicomPaul Wooding, vice president, corporate communications, KXWe’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, whe

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

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Today we’re chatting with 3 of Google&apos;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&apos;Brien, senior associate, product communiou can still purchase your tickets for The PRmoment Awards from the awards site PRmomentAwards.comThanks 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 bran

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.comThanks 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

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, MSLOttilie Ross, creative director, HalpernJames Gordon-MacIntosh, co-founder and chief creative officer, Hope&amp;GloryThis 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 c

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.On the show today is Jenny Halpern, founder and CEO of Halpern. Today we are talking about PR in the cost of living crisis.Halpern has a fee income of £5m. It&apos;s a consumer PR firm based in London. It was founded in 1993 by Jenny. Halpern is owned by The&amp;Partnership, which is part owned by WPP.Jenny sold to business in 2013 to what has become The &amp;Partnership.Clients include The Co-Op, Unilever and Headspace. Don’t forget you can purchase your tickets for The PRmoment Awards here.Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA. Here’s a summary of what Jenny and I discussed:2 mins Jenny gives us a brief insight into Halpern&apos;s story.4 mins Jenny’s earn-out is long since finished - she talks about why she hasn’t exited the business.

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Today we’re chatting with Dee Gibbs, founder of Liberty Communications. Liberty is an independent tech PR firm, with a fee income of £1.7 m and this year Liberty celebrates its 25 birthday! So we thought it would be good to get her on the show to chat about 25 years of agency ownership hindsight. Do check out our latest webinar The implications of changing consumer digital behaviours for PR and communications professionals.Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA. Here’s a summary of what Dee and I discussed:2 mins Dee talks about why she decided to set up Liberty 25 years ago.3.30 mins Liberty has a fee income of £1.7 m after 25 y

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Welcome to our March review of PR Pitches and mergers &amp; 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.Tickets are now on sale for The PRmoment Awards in London on Thursday 20th April and in Manchester 25th April 2023.2 mins Andrew gives us his PR pitch wins updateNews of wins for The Academy with Peroni and Marie CurrieMaven wins The Perfume shop

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Today we’re chatting with Clarity CEO Sami McCabe. For PR industry observers, Clarity has been an interesting watch over the past few years. It’s had investment from Matthew Freud (which was bound to draw attention), it’s hired some expensive senior talent and it’s acquired 7 or 8 businesses.So today we’re going to talk to Sami about the business, its acquisition and growth strategy and where he sees the future of an earned media consultancy.Clarity is a $20m PR firm with about 200 employees and offices in London, Cornwall, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Amsterdam. It was founded in 2012.Before we start do check out our latest webinar The intersection of PR and SEO 2023.Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA. H

From losing £500K of client fees in 3 weeks in Q2 2020 to selling Taylor Herring to Publicis in April 2021 - we get the inside track on perhaps the most tumultuous couple of years of any agency in recent historyOn the show this week we talk to James Herring about the story of the last few years of Taylor Herring. In Feb 2020 things were looking rosy and James and Cath were no doubt planning their summer vacation in the South of France. Then in 3 weeks, their agency lost £500,000 in monthly fee income.Today we talk to James about the turnaround job which resulted in Publicis buying Taylor Herring in April 2021 and how the agency reported a 40% increase in annual revenue in 2022 (£6.72m, up from £4.9m.) Recent client wins include Nintendo, Natwest, Iceland and McVities. The likes of Samsung, Easyjet and Disney are long-term clients.On the show, today James and I will also talk about where he sees the future of earned media within integrated communica

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Today we’re chatting with Rachel Allison founder and CEO of Axe &amp; Saw about whether there is a tension between using inclusive communications that are able to reach a diverse audience and the most one size fits all approach in most marketing campaigns. We’ll also talk about what Gen Z and minority groups want and need from their PR employers.Axe &amp; Saw has 10 employees, a fee income of £600K and was founded in March 2021.Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA. Here’s a summary of what Rachel and I discussed:2 mins Is there a tension between inclusive communications and the one size fits all approach used in most marketing campaigns?3 mins Communicators now have a proliferation of channels and multiple customer segments - does that mean multiple and varied bespoke marketing campai

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Welcome to the latest PRmoment Podcast with me Ben Smith. Today we’re catching up with David Hart. David has had over 20 years of experience working in corporate affairs - both in-house at the likes of Coca-Cola and SAB Miller and agency side at Fleishman Hillard and Burson Marsteller (now BCW.)Before Christmas, I saw him posting about the lessons he wished he’d told his younger corporate affairs self and so we invited him onto the show to talk in more detail about his nine lessons of corporate affairs.Before we start do check out our latest free-to-attend webinar The intersection of PR and SEO 2023.Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA. Here is a summary of what David and I discussed:2 mins Why did David decide to write his 9 lessons of corporate affairs?5 mins Lesson 1

 Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast. Welcome to our February review of PR Pitches and mergers &amp; acquisitions in the UK PR scene with Andrew Bloch. Andrew is a co-founder and non-executive director at Frank PR and is now Head of PR 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.Here are a few of the highlights that Andrew and I discussed:2 mins News of big wins for Citypress with Siemens, The Romans with Heineken and BCWwith Swissair.“The best corporate agencies think with a consumer lens”PHA bag a couple of wins Andrew talks us through wins for Ranieri and Stir.“It’s a neve

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Today we’re chatting with 3 Monkeys Zeno UK managing director Jo Patterson about the encouraging trend of female leaders occupying more of the big PR agency roles in the UK.When Jo and I talked about this in our pre-show chat it got us thinking and here is a non-exhaustive list of top female PR agency leaders in the UK:We’ve got Jo at 3 Monkeys Zeno, Jo-ann Robertson at Ketchum, Jo Carr at Hope&amp;Glory, Nicola Todd at Ogilvy PR, Pippa Arlow at Smarts, Ruth Kieran at Cirkle, Ruth Allcurch at WE, Sian Morgan at Cow, Sharon Bange at Kindred, Rebecca Grant at BCW, Ali Maynard at Manifest, Cath Taylor at Taylor Herring, Angie Moxham at The Fourth Angel, Kate Stevens at Axicom, Georgina Blizzard and Nicky Regonzonni at The PR Network, Mandy Sharp at Tin Man and Emma Kane at SEC Newgate, Fenella Gray at Porter Novelli and Bibi Hilton at Creative Access.And to be clear there are loa

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 KingdomEach 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 Williamson, senior newsroom producer at Markettiers to talk us through the latest Rajar results for Q4 2022Before we start do check out our latest free-to-attend webinar “The State of Social 2023: Channel Disruption, Influencer Growth and The Great Data Integration Challenge.”Before we sta

On the show this week we talk to Howard Kosky, founder and CEO of Markettiers4DC.Kosky founded Markettiers4DC in 1994. Clients include Rolls-Royce, Linkedin and Unilever. The business employs a team of 150 people in the UK and UAEAs many of our regular podcast listeners may know, last week Waterland Private Equity took a majority stake in Markettiers4DC for a reported amount of £50 million. The business has been well known for its broadcast PR credentials in the UK for decades but it’s grown significantly in the last couple of years - with the growth of its research business Censuswide and its digital production firm Through The I.On the show today we’re going to talk to Howard about the deal and what it means for the future of Markettiers4DC and his role within the business. We’ll also be talking to Andrew Bloch from PCB partners about its role in the deal and how the valuation of Markettiers4DC was made.Do check out our latest free-to-attend webinar “<a

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Today we’re chatting with Andrea Hartley, founder and CEO of Skating Panda about the role of communications in organisations&apos; approach to ESG.For those of you that are not aware -  ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) is a set of standards measuring a business&apos;s impact on society, the environment, and how transparent and accountable its governance is.Skating Panda is a social and environmental impact creative consultancy in LondonDo check out our latest free-to-attend webinar “The State of Social 2023: Channel Disruption, Influencer Growth and The Great Data Integration Challenge.”Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The P

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Today we’re chatting with the senior team at John Doe:  Pamela Scobbie, managing partner and CCO, Gin Trewhella, partner &amp; group CEO and Lee Beattie Partner/Joint CEO.We cover a few different themes. Wire was merged into John Doe almost 2 years ago to the day - so we’re going to talk about why 2 independent agencies decided to merge and what Pam, Lee and Magin learnt in that process.Also, one of the interesting aspects of John Doe is that 33% of their employees across their Manchester, Glasgow and London offices are people of colour. So we’ll also talk about how the agency had been so successful at building a diverse workforce.The third thing we’ll talk about is the type of work coming out of the agency. In our pre-show chat, I asked CCO Pam Scobbie which agency she wanted to model John Doe on, and her reply was Uncommon. So we’re going to talk about the type of work comin

This week on the PRmoment podcast I’m interviewing Greg Jones, European chief executive at Smarts.Smarts has a fee income of approximately £12.5m and employs 150 people. It’s an agency headquartered in Belfast with offices in  London, New York and Edinburgh.   Smarts is owned by MSQ.Greg started his career at Shine, before stints at Slice, M&amp;C Saatchi, Splendid and finally back to Engine joining Mischief as creative director before getting the CEO job in 2019. He left Mischief to join Smarts last November.If you haven’t already make sure you download the PRmoment Awards entry form, the deadline for entering is 27th Jan.2 mins Why did Greg leave Mischief to join Smarts?6 mins How successful have PR firms been building themselves into integrated PR firms?“There are winners and losers, there are those agencies that have g

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Welcome to our January review of  PR Pitches and mergers &amp; acquisitions in the UK PR scene with Andrew Bloch.Andrew is a co-founder and non-executive director at Frank PR and is now Head of PR 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.Before we start the final entry deadline for the PRmoment Awards is on 27th January - check out PRmomentAwards.com for all the info you need, including downloading this year’s updated entry form.Finally thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Here’s a summary of what Andrew and PRmoment podcast host Ben Smith discussed on the show:2 mins Andrew

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’re talking to George Hutchinson founder of River Effra Communications about the expanding area of risk methodology in crisis communication.It’s an interesting area which takes another perspective on PR’s increasingly complex intersection with data.The central concept is to use risk methodology to model and understand the reputational consequences for an organisation if it behaves in a particular way.George set up River Effra earlier this year, previously he had senior roles at Teneo and BCW.Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 are open for entries - do check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.comThanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Here is a summary of what George and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed on the show:2 mins George talks

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’re chatting with Zoe Ward Waring from Sunny Side Up and John Higginson from Higginson Strategy about how and why their respective organisations have become a BCorp.On the show, we talk about what being a BCorp is all about and what the process to becoming BCorp looks like.To put the discussion into some context in the UK there are 1375 BCorp organisations, in the US there are 2226 and globally there are 5711. So it’s predominantly a UK and US scheme.21 UK PR agencies are a BCorp including Freud&apos;s, Third City, Don&apos;t Cry Wolf, Sunny Side Up, Higginson Strategy, Milk &amp; Honey and Kindred.Being a BCorp is about transparency and if you are interested you can view any organi

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Today we’re reviewing the biggest PR disasters of 2022 with crisis communication consultant Amanda Coleman. Just to confirm we’re talking today about events and disasters where communications played a key role, we’re not suggesting all of these examples are crises driven by poor PR - although in a number of the cases we talk about on this show a poor communications strategy made a bad situation worse!Amanda is the author of the excellent book Crisis Communication Strategies which looks at how brands can prepare, control and recover from any kind of crisis.Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 final entry deadline is on 27th January, check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.com for all the details.Thanks to the

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Welcome to our final PR Pitches and merger &amp; acquisition trends in the UK PR scene with Andrew Bloch.Andrew is a co-founder and non-executive director at Frank PR and is now head of PR 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.Before we start the final entry deadline for the PRmoment Awards is on 27th January - check out PRmomentAwards.com for all the info you need.Finally thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Here’s a summary of what Andrew and PRmoment podcast host Ben Smith discussed on the show:1.30 mins Andrew gives us news of a couple of tourist boar

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Today we’re chatting with Shayoni Lynn, chief executive officer at Lynn Group about behavioural science theory and the implications of the application of behavioural in PR and communications.Shayoni previously worked as a journalist and then in the in-house team of Cardiff University before launching Lynn Group in 2019.Lynn has a turnover of £2.6m and 30 employees.Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 are now open for entries - do check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.com. We’ve amassed a stellar line-up of judges this year - including 75 senior in-house communicators, who are amongst the most important buyers of public relations services in the UK.Also, thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Here is a summary of what Shayoni and Ben Smith founder discussed:2 mins Shayoni gives us an intro to the basics

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Today we’re reviewing 2022 from the perspective of a PR agency with Warren Johnson, founder of W Communications. W has a fee income of £13m, offices in London New York and Singapore, Edinburgh, Kuala Lumpa, Los Angeles. It employs approximately 160 people globally and 126 in London. If Year in Review Podcasts are your type of thing then do have a listen to our Year in Communications show with Charlotte West, executive director of global corporate communications at Lenovo.Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 early entry deadline is on 16th December, check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.com for all the details. If you miss the early deadline the final deadline for The PRmo

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Today we’re reviewing 2022: The Year in Communications with Charlotte West, executive director of global corporate communications at Lenovo.Charlotte and PRmoment founder Ben Smith talk through the biggest events in PR and communications through 2022.Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 early entry deadline is on 16th December, check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.com for all the details. The final entry deadline is 27th January.Thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Here’s a summary of what Charlotte and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:1.30 mins January started with us all looking forward to 10 good years of economic growth as the economy roared out of the Covid lockdowns…3 mins Did the tech sector, and Meta’s stock value loss of 26% in one day, give us a clue, even before the war started, that

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Today we’re talking about career learning and professional development in PR. We’re going to chat about the differences between career education and career training. We’ll discuss why PR (in the UK at least) seems to value PR experience over education  - and ask whether this is a problem.We’ll also talk about the available courses for PR and comms professionals that do want to do more to educate themselves about communications theory and practice.A theme of this podcast is that if you work in PR and communications - an understanding of the different communications theories is probably only going to make you better at your job, so it’s surprising that more people don’t take part in these courses.To be clear, this is not going to be a podcast suggesting that PR is/isn’t a profession and we won’t try and suggest that to work in PR you must be professionally qualified - frankly, that’s a debate here at PRmoment towers we are le

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’re chatting to Heather Kernahan, global chief executive officer of, Hotwire about her career story. Hotwire has 500 employees globally and about 90 in London.  It has offices in 11 countries.Heather joined Hotwire when it acquired Eastwick in 2016. She became CEO in 2021 following Barbara Bates’ move to the holding company Enero. Before joining Eastwick Heather had a senior comms role at Autodesk in the US.Hotwire was founded in 2000 and was acquired by Enero in 2007. It has recently been on something of an acquisition trail: purchasing 3 B2B sales and marketing firms in the last 18 months or so: McDonald Butler Associates in the UK, BGetIT in Asia and San Francisco-based ROI DNA.Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 are now open for entries - do check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.com, including a bunch of new categories and make sure you download the new e

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Today we’re chatting to Mark Borkowski about some of the biggest stories in the media recently.For those who don’t know, Mark’s had a stellar PR career, starting as a publicist in the theatre and running Borkowski PR for something like 32 years.Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 early entry deadline is on 16th December, check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.com for all the details.Thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Here’s a summary of what Mark and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:1.30 mins Mark laments the lack of curiosity in the news cycle currently.2.30 mins Mark discusses what will happen to PR and to journalism if Twitter fails.“We are getting a sense of just how important Twitter is to PR and the media”7 mins  Does Mark look at the Elon Mus

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’re chatting to Rick Guttridge, founder of Smoking Gun about his career story in public relations and how he went from a procurement officer for the Royal Mail to PR agency CEO.Smoking Gun is a £1.5 m PR firm based in Manchester, clients include Interflora, the NHS and Alton Towers. It has 15 employees.Previously Rick worked for Brazen and Connectpoint PR. He and his wife Vanessa founded Smoking Gun in 2010.Smoking Gun has had an interesting few years, it was impacted by both Brexit and Covid and Ricks going to talk us through that agency journey on the show today.And do check out the home page of PRmoment for our latest webinars, including The State of Social Media Report.Finally, thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, <a href='https://www.prca.or

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’re chatting to Victoria Dean, chief executive officer of Portland about her career story. Portland has 350 employees globally and 270 in London.It has offices in Brussels, Paris, Berlin, Washington, Nairobi, Singapore, Doha and London.Victoria’s career has been a fascinating journey - she has spent the majority of her career working for The British and Commonwealth Foreign Office, in various non-communications roles including head of the political team at the British Embassy, Washington, the British High Commissioner of Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean and the head of strategic finance.She was also the global head of public policy at Google before taking up the global CEO role at Portland earlier this year.On the show today we’re going to talk to Victoria about her time at The British and Commonwealth Forei

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Here’s the latest of our bonus pod series where I chat to Andrew Bloch about PR Pitches and merger &amp; acquisition trends in the UK PR scene.Andrew is a co-founder and non-executive director at Frank PR and is now Head of PR 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.Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 are now open for entries - do check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.com for all the info you need.Finally thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Here’s a summary of what Andrew and I discussed:2 mins Andrew gives us his PR pitch wins update with wins for Ketchu

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Today we’re talking about PR degrees - or rather the lack of them! To confirm there are still a number of excellent PR degree courses available but there are far fewer PR undergraduate places in the UK than there were 10 years ago.On the show this week we look into the reasons behind this, asking whether it is a UK-centric trend and whether it’s a decline that can be reversed.Over the past 5-10 years we’ve seen a massive reduction in the number of undergraduate PR degree places available and as a result, this has seen a big reduction in the number of PR degree graduates coming into PR.Before we start - just to flag, no one is suggesting that PR degrees should be the only way into PR - that would be ridiculous - but today we’re going to look into the reasons why PR degrees in the UK are less popular than they were and whether this is a trend that can be turned around.Without pointing out the obvious, wh

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’re chatting about the role of modern corporate affairs with Sian O&apos;Keefe, vice president of corporate affairs, Mars Wrigley Europe, Central Eurasia, Belarus &amp; Turkey.It’s a corporate affairs special this week and Sian and I talked about the increased breadth and importance of the corporate affairs role within large businesses.We’ll discuss the reasons behind this change, where the most important intersections are within a business for a corporate affairs leader and how ESG and a rapidly changing stakeholder environment have increased the demands on most corporate affairs teams.Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 are now open for entries - do check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.comThanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Here’s a summary of what Sian and PRmoment founder Ben Smith dis

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’ve put in 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 KingdomEach quarter they publish 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 Howard Kosky, CEO of markettiers to talk us through the latest Rajar results.Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 are now open for entries - do check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.comThanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Here’s a summary of what Howard and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:1.30 mins A re

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’re chatting to Charles Tattersall, chief executive of Citypress about why he decided to sell his business to his employees through an employee-owned trust, rather than via an acquisition.In the show today we’re going to tell you agency owners out there what you need to know about taking your agency business into employee ownership. Charles will talk us through why he thinks agency owners should sell their business to their employees and how you can do it.For background, Citypress is an £11m fee income PR firm which was independently owned and became an employee-owned trust in 2021.Before we start do check out the home page of PRmoment for our latest webinars, including The intersection of Data, Insight and PR Planning and <a href='https://www.prmoment.com/event/the-state-of-socia

This week we’re chatting to Sheeraz Gulsher, EMEA communications, Snap and co-founder of People Like Us, about whether PR is making any progress in its quest to be more diverse and represent the audience that it aspires to communicate with.Before we start, do check out the home page of PRmoment for our latest webinars, including The intersection of Data, Insight and PR Planning and The State of Social Media Marketing Report.1 min Sheeraz tells us about People Like Us and its next event.4 mins Sheeraz talks us through other communities and programmes for minority groups in PR, namely: BMEPR Pros, <a

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.On the show today we&apos;re talking to Madan Bahal, co-founder of India&apos;s largest PR firm. Madan and I are going to talk about how, as an independent firm, Adfactors has grown from being one of a pack of highly regarded PR agencies in India - to becoming the biggest PR firm in India, frankly by a long, long way.It&apos;s a story that any independent PR firm founder or CEO should hear because while it&apos;s become an inspirational story, it&apos;s also a story of hard work and risk but ultimately reward.Many of our listeners of this podcast are from the UK and the US and may be less familiar with the story of Adfactors. For context, it is, by miles, India&apos;s biggest PR firm. Adfactors has a fee income of about $50 million. Their nearest rival is less than half of that size and all the big US firms have a presence in India, including Edelman, BCW and Weber.So, to give it a UK equivalent, the largest independent Bri

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Here’s the latest of our bonus pod series where I chat to Andrew Bloch about PR Pitches and merger &amp; acquisition trends in the UK PR scene.Andrew is a co-founder and non-executive director at Frank PR and is now Head of PR 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.Do take a look at the PRmoment home page for details on our latest webinars, including The intersection of Data, Insight and PR Planning.Finally thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Here’s a summary of what Andrew and I discussed:1 min Andrew gives his rundown of new busin

This week we’re chatting to Chris Owen, UK Director at The Hoffman Agency about his experience being an alcoholic working in public relations.Chris has written a number of articles about the period of his life when he drank too much, including Things I don’t miss about alcohol addiction and How the NHS saved my life. On the show today we talk about Chris’s problems with alcohol in the context of his career as a PR professional. We ask whether working in public relations made him more likely to become an alcoholic.Don&apos;t forget that this Friday, October 7th is the final entry deadline for The ESG Awards.Thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, Th

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’re chatting to Emma Kane, Chief Executive of SEC Newgate UK and Deputy Group CEO Deputy SEC Newgate S.p.A about her career story in public relations.Previously Emma founded Redleaf Communications before selling the business to Porta in 2014. Porta combined with SEC Newgate in June 2019 in a reverse merger to form SEC Newgate.This integrated a number of businesses that had been acquired over the years including Redleaf, Publicasity, Newgate, SEC and Newington.  SEC Newgate has 43 offices globally, has revenues of about $150m and employs 900 people globally.Before we start - if you haven’t seen them already - take a look at the categories for The ESG Awards - the final entry deadline is 7th October.And do check out the home page of PRmoment for our latest webinars, including <a href='https://www.prmoment.com/event/pr-a

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’re chatting to Emily Morgan, managing director, operations and innovation at The Red Consultancy.Emily has worked at Red for over 22 years and she’s recently evolved her role too, as the job title suggests, prioritise innovation within the firm.The Red Consultancy has a fee income of about £13m and is part of the Accordience, which was previously known as the Huntsworth Group. Red has a fee income of circa £14 m.The nature of a consultancy business is that to continue to add value to clients, you must innovate and as has been widely discussed the last 5 years have seen huge changes to the PR business and therefore the PR consultancy business - so I thought it would be interesting to get Emily on the show to talk about the innovation predictions and priorities in 2022 and beyond.Before we start - if you haven’t seen them already - take a look at the categories for

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’re chatting to Bradley Tooth, head of social media at Democracy PR about how brands can move from broadcasting content on social media to engaging with their customers and potential customers through social media.For those vintage social media users amongst our listeners - Brad was one of the guys who got blisters on his hands when 02 attempted to reply to every customer&apos;s Tweet during the early days of its Surprise and Delight strategy.Since then Brad has done some super interesting work for Sage - which we’ll talk about later and now he works for Democracy PRThanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Here are a few of the highlights that Brad and PRmoment founder Ben Smtih discussed:2 mins How Brad believes so many brands are gett

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’re chatting to Ruth Allchurch, UK MD WE. We’re going to talk about Ruth’s career to date including her time at Diageo, her experience at Cirkle and most recently at WE where she has took the UK income of the firm to close to £7m, from about £3m when she joined as the UK MD 4 years ago.Currently, 60 people work in London for WE and current clients include Capgemini, Intel, Abbott, Johnson &amp; Johnson, Boehringer Ingelheim and Google Waves.Before we start - if you haven’t seen them already - take a look at the categories for The ESG Awards - the early entry deadline is 16th September.And do check out the home page of PRmoment for our latest webinars, including PR Analytics, LinkedIn as a B2B M

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Here’s the latest of our bonus pod series where I chat to Andrew Bloch about PR Pitches and merger &amp; acquisition trends in the UK PR scene.Andrew is a co-founder and Non-Executive Director at Frank PR and is now Head of PR 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.Don’t forget the early entry deadline for The ESG Awards is coming up on Friday 16th September.Thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Here’s a summary of what Andrew and I discussed:3 mins It’s been a bumper month on the PR agency new business front and Andrew talks us through some of the most recent PR account wins

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’re chatting to Rebecca Grant, UK CEO,  BCW Global. Rebecca has one of the biggest jobs in UK PR. She heads up a team of over 200 people at BCW’s London office and she led the Cohn &amp; Wolfe London operation through the merger with Burson Masteller to a period of significant growth for what was already a big PR and comms operation.Rebecca joined BCW in 2011, previously she worked for Weber Shandwick and The Red Consultancy. She was appointed UK CEO on 2016.And do check out the home page of PRmoment for our latest webinars, including PR Analytics, LinkedIn as a B2B Marketing Channel and The intersection of Data, Insight and PR Planning.</

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’re chatting to Alex Myers, founder and global CEO of Manifest. Manifest employees circa 70 people globally, has a fee income of over £5m globally, with about $2m of that coming from its fast-growing New York Office. London remains its largest hub. It also has offices in Stockholm and Melbourne.Do check out the home page of PRmoment for our latest webinars, including PR Analytics, LinkedIn as B2B Marketing Channel and The intersection of Data, Insight and PR Planning.Finally, thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Here’s a flavour of what Alex and PRmoment founder Ben Smith d

Welcome to this week&apos;s The PRmoment Podcast.On the show, this week is James Beveridge, founder of Made by Giants. James is one of PR&apos;s most experienced creative directors. He moved from the creative agency Further into PR in 2014 to work for Fishburn. He started Made by Giants back in 2020 and it&apos;s now a £700K B2B tech PR firm.On the show today we&apos;re going to talk about some research that James has been doing on creative directors in PR, the skill sets of good creative directors in PR and also the theme of James&apos; 30-year PR career - the intersection between design and communication.Do take a look at the homepage of PRmoment for details on all our latest webinars and thanks so much to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA.James welcome to the show.2 mins James talks us through his researc

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’re chatting to Alex Aiken, long-time executive director, of the UK Government’s Communication Service.We’re going to talk to Alex about his career in government communications, the personalities of the Prime Ministers he’s worked with and the changes he made during his time heading up the Government Communications Service.Before we start, just to tell you about PRmoment’s new Patron Scheme. If you are a regular consumer of our content, including this podcast, and you’re getting value from it, if you fancy making a contribution to help fund PRmoment - now you can.We have three different Patron Tiers—The Daney Parker Tier, The Chadlington Tier and Edward Bernays Tier.And do check out the home page of PR

On the PRmoment Podcast this week with me Ben Smith we’re talking to Darryl Sparey, co-founder of Hard Numbers about how to measure the impact of your PRDarryl believes the opportunity is ripe for communicators everywhere to accurately measure their results through sales software like Hubspot and the like.And today Darryl is going to give his insight into the techniques and tools that he’s found most useful in taking that approach.Hard Numbers is a B2B tech PR firm with a fee income of £1.4 m in the last financial year and 18 employees. Darryl co-founded the business in 2020 with Paul Stollery.Don’t forget you can become a PRmoment Podcast Patreon - just follow the link on the page where you listen to this podcast. From just £5 a month we have three different Patron Tiers - The Daney Parker Tier, The Chadlington Tier and Edward Bernays Tier.Here’s a summary of what Darryl and I discuss

On the PRmoment Podcast this week with me Ben Smith we’re talking to Chris Curtis, head of political polling at Opinium in the first of a regular slot where we discuss the latest polling trends in UK politics.Before we start, PRmoment’s webinar caravan is off again. We’ve got a programme of 8 webinars coming up in September and November which we’ll be launching over the next 6 weeks. Already up on the site are PR Analytics, LinkedIn as a B2B Marketing Channel and The intersection of Data, Insight and PR Planning so do have a look at the home page of PRmoment where you can see the full programmes. Tickets, as ever, are at the cheap end of affordable - from only £40 plus vat.And don’t forget if you enjoy the show you can become a PRmoment Podcast Patreon - just follo

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Here’s the latest of our bonus pod series where I chat to Andrew Bloch about PR Pitches and merger &amp; acquisition trends in the UK PR scene.Andrew is a co-founder and Non-Executive Director at Frank PR and is now Head of PR 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.Don’t forget the entry deadline for The Creative Moment Awards is coming up on Friday 1st July.Thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Here’s a summary of what we talked about:1 min Andrew gives us his run of this month&apos;s biggest pitch news with wins for Kindred, Finn, Luchford, Stir, Alfred, Mischief, Joh

On the PRmoment Podcast this week with me Ben Smith we’re talking to PR academic Tom Watson about the History of PR - when, where and how did the business of public relations begin.Tom is a professor emeritus at Bournemouth University, he taught on Bournemouth’s PR degree for a number of years. Previously he spent much of his career running his own PR firm and he was the founder of the annual History of PR Conference - the 2022 version of which takes place in Bournemouth on July 6th and 7th.Before we start just a nudge to remind you all about the final deadline for The Creative Moment Awards on Friday 1st July 2022.And don’t forget you can become a PRmoment Podcast Patreon - just follow the link on the page where you listen to this podcast. From just £5 a month we have three different P

On the PRmoment Podcast this week with me Ben Smith we’re talking to Nick Braund, founder of Words and Pixels about the PR for start-ups market.Nick founded Words and Pixels in 2020, it has a fee income of just over £1 million, grew by 300% in 2021 and specialises in the PR for start-up scene.Just a nudge to remind you all about the final deadline for The Creative Moment Awards on Friday 1st July 2022.And don’t forget you can become a PRmoment Podcast Patreon - just follow the link on the page where you listen to this podcast. From just £5 a month we have three different Patron Tiers - The Daney Parker Tier, The Chadlington Tier and Edward Bernays Tier.Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA.Here’s a summary of what Nick and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast with me Ben Smith.Today we’re talking to Daisy Hawker Wallace about what clients want from their PR agency?Daisy is currently deputy director &amp; head of PR at Avanti West Coast. Previously she’s worked in-house at Virgin Trains and Virgin. She’s had agency roles at Ketchum and TVC. So she’s sat on both sides of the fence and today she’s going to give her perspective on the agency: in-house relationship and how you can make it work most effectively.Before we start don’t forget the final entry deadline for The Creative Moment Awards is coming up on Friday 1st July.Thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA. Here’s a summary of what Daisy and I discussed:1 min As a client, has Daisy had a positive experience with PR agencies over the years?9 mins

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Here’s the third of a new bonus pod series where I chat to Andrew Bloch about PR Pitches and merger &amp; acquisition trends in the UK PR scene.Andrew is a co-founder and Non-Executive Director at Frank PR and is now Head of PR 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.Don’t forget the entry deadline for The Creative Moment Awards is coming up on Friday 1st July.Thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Here’s a summary of what Andrew and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:1 min Andrew gives us his run of this month&apos;s biggest pitching scene - including wins for Hope&amp;Glory, W, The Romans, Cow and Manifest. 

On the show this week we’re talking to Fenella Grey EMEA managing director &amp; chair at Porter Novelli. Porter Novelli has had an interesting few years. Brad MacAfee took over from Karen van Bergen as Porter Novelli’s global CEO in 2016 and he was replaced by ex McKinsey executive David Bentley in early 2020.But a constant throughout this period was Fenella Grey who headed up the London office and is now leading the agency across EMEA.Porter Novelli is part of the Omnicom PR group and has 85 people in its London office.Omnicom PR has global venues of $1.39 billion in 2021. Today we’re going to talk to Fenella about the challenges of being a mid-sized firm surrounded by giants and how Porter Novelli in EMEA has reinvigorated itself over the last 12 months Just a nudge to remind you all about the early entry deadline for The Creative Moment Awards on Friday 27th May 2022Thanks as ever to the

One year on from the MBO of Frank PROn the show this week we’re catching up with Frank PR’s Graham Goodkind and Alex Grier, one year on from a particularly eye-catching deal where Alex and Graham bought back the remaining 75% of Frank for approximately £850,000 from Enero. 14 years earlier, back in 2007, Frank was sold to Photon Group (as Enero was then known) for more than £20m.If you haven&apos;t already, do register for your free ticket for our upcoming webinar on ree webinar on The link between corporate reputation and business performance.Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA. Here’s a summary of what we discussed:1.30 mins Graham talks us through the history of Frank&apos;s original sale, the

This week on the PRmoment Podcast we’re talking to crisis PR lawyer Jonathan Coad, about his new book Reputation Matters. Jonathan is one of the UK’s top media lawyers, he’s spent 30 years working on both the PR side and the editorial sides of the fence. Reputation Matters gives a unique insight into how the media works with practical advice on how to deal with PR crises effectively. Jonathan is also the principal at Coad Law.Before we start just to promo our stunning free webinar we’ve got coming up on<a href='https://www.prm

This week on the PRmoment Podcast we’re talking to Alex Warren about his book Spin Machines - which asks the question “Can PR be replaced by AI?”As well as writing his book Alex is also a senior account director at Wildfire PR.On the show, Alex talks about whether an algorithm can devise a PR strategy? Can a robot brainstorm a creative campaign? Can artificial intelligence write persuasively, spin stories or even pitch to journalists? These are the questions Alex poses in his book Spin Machines which is described as an investigation into the changing nature of PR, the future of agency life and the role that machines will play in an industry built on human relationships.Before we start just to promo our st

This week on the PRmoment Podcast, we’re talking to Nicole Yost, CEO of HAVAS Just:: and Corin Baird, head of digital at HAVAS Just:: about the incredible year that healthcare PR has had.We’re going to be talking about the top healthcare trends and what excellence in this buoyant sector of the public relations world looks like.Before we start just to promo our stunning selection of free webinars we’ve got coming up: ranging from PR and TikTok, Changing your measurement mindset: from output to impact and Correlation or causation?: The link between corporate reputation and business performance.And if you want to come along to The PRmoment Awards in Manchester on May 12th tickets are still available.Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA. Nicole and Corin welcome to the show1 min Why the last year in healthcare PR has been a year like!1.30 mins

This week on the PRmoment Podcast, I’m interviewing Michelle Goodall, chief marketing officer, Guild about the techniques required to build a community, the differences between a network and a community and what are the advantages for organisations in having an engaged community.Do take a look at the stunning selection of free webinars we’ve got coming up: ranging from PR and TikTok, Changing your measurement mindset: from output to impact and Correlation or causation?: The link between corporate reputation and business performance.Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA. Here’s a summary of what Michelle and I discussed:1 min When we talk about a community in a business context - how are you defying that

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Here’s the second of a new bonus pod series where I chat to Andrew Bloch about PR Pitches and merger &amp; acquisition trends in the UK PR scene.Andrew is a co-founder and Non-Executive Director at Frank PR and is now Head of PR 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.This is a final call for The PRmoment Awards in London on April 28th and the Manchester Awards are also shaping up to be a big night on the 12th of May.Thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Here’s a summary of what Andrew and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discuss:2 mins Andrew gives us an update on recent PR pitch news3 mins How is the impact of

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.Time flies doesn&apos;t it. We’re well over a quarter of the way through 2022 - remember those plans and hopes we all had on Jan 1st? Well, it’s time for a progress report!PR land seems to continue to be pretty frantic - it’s a hot market both in terms of the amount of work going through in house teams, agencies are as busy as ever and the pressure for talent intensifies.That all seems kinda crazy bearing in mind the horrific scenes we see on our scenes from Putin’s war in Ukraine and the imminent cost of living crisis we’re about to witness in the UK.So I thought it was time to catch up with a W’s Warren Johnson for PR’s Q1 Report!Before that - just to let you know tickets are genuinely flying for the PRmoment Awards in London on April 28th. I&apos;ve no doubt the London Awards i

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This is a quick bonus pod - we’re chatting to Andrew Bloch about PR Pitches and merger &amp; acquisition trends in the UK PR scene. Andrew is a co-founder and Non Executive Director at Frank PR and is now Head of PR 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. The shortlist for The PRmoment Awards is now out, so do get your tickets for the awards nights, all the details are on the homepage of the PRmoment Awards micrositeFinally, thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Here’s a summary of what Andrew and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discuss:1 min What are th

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’re chatting to Lara Gould about whether journalists make good PR people. Lara used to work at The Mail On Sunday and the Sunday Mirror. In 2014 she left journalism for PR and set up Goldbug Communications in 2016.For those of you that don’t know, Goldbug is a brand communication consultancy with revenue of £2.7 million.The shortlist for The PRmoment Awards is now out, so do get your tickets for the awards nights, all the details are on the homepage of the PRmoment Awards microsite.Do take a look at PRmoment’s Patron Scheme. We have three different Patron Tiers—The Daney Parker Tier, The Chadlington Tier and Edward Bernays Tier.Finally, thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, <a href='https://w

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’re chatting to Kat McGettigan, founder of Fine Lines.Kat describes Fine Lines as an “agency-growth agency.” Previously she worked at Grayling, M&amp;C Saatchi and Weber Shandwick.On the show, we talk about how agencies can improve their pitch techniques but we’re also going to take a step back and look at the broader area of growth strategies for PR firms.The shortlist for The PRmoment Awards is now out, so do get your tickets for the awards nights, all the details are on the homepage of the PRmoment Awards microsite.Do take a look at PRmoment’s Patron Scheme. We have three different Patron Tiers—The Daney Parker Tier, The Chadlington Tier and Edward Bernays Tier.Finally, thanks to our P

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’re chatting to Anna Geffert, founder of Hera Communications. Anna is the current President of Women in PR and we’re talking to her today about the 60th Anniversary of Women in PR.The organisation was founded in 1962 and on the show today we’re going to discuss how it started and how it’s changed over the last 60 years.As you’ve probably seen, the shortlist for The PRmoment Awards is now out, so do get your tickets for the awards nights, all the details are on the homepage of the PRmoment Awards microsite.Do take a look at PRmoment’s Patron Scheme. We have three different Patron Tiers—The Daney Parker Tier, The Chadlington Tier and Edward Bernays Tier.Finally, tha

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’re talking to Louise Turner, managing director at Edelman Data &amp; Intelligence, about the UK results of The Edelman Trust Barometer 2022.Before we start just to say tickets for the PRmoment Awards have now gone on sale. They will be the first PRmoment face-to-face awards since 2019! Thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Here’s a summary of what Louise and I chatted about:3 min What are the top trends coming out of the UK results of the Edelman Trust Barometer this year?4 mins Why the UK now has a record trust gap between high and low-income groups.5 mins The impact of Partygate: Louise talks us through the differences in the trust in t

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’re chatting to Will Sturgeon, head of content and thought leadership at PwC UK about its CEO Report.PwC’s 25th Annual CEO Report reveals a growing trend towards more purposeful business practices, including a greater focus on trust, transparency and personal accountability from CEOs on issues such as climate change and inequality. These are all issues where the contribution of the PR and communications team should be critical, so we invited Will on the show to talk us through the key issues from this report from a PR and comms perspective.The UK data of PwC’s 25 Annual CEO Report is based on a survey of 177 UK CEOs conducted 6 October - 12 November 2021.Before we start just a reminder, if you haven’t got your ticket already, do check out PRmoment’s next webinar on <a href='https://www.prmoment.com/event/pr

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’re chatting to Marcus Gault, managing director UK and Ireland of Onclusive.Dare I say many of you may not be aware but Onclusive is the new name for the Reputation Intelligence division of Kantar that was recently acquired by Symphony Technology Group.Onclusive has over 9,000 clients, across 130 markets and over 1,100 employees. So it’s a big beast in the PR measurement and evaluation game.Before we start, just to tell you about PRmoment’s new Patron Scheme. If you are a regular consumer of our content, including this podcast, and you’re getting value from it, if you fancy making a contribution to help fund PRmoment, now you can.We have three different Patron Tiers—The Daney Parker Tier, The Chadlingt

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’re talking to Jon Rhodes, partner at BOLDT about what the important data points behind an organisation’s reputation are.BOLDT and Mettle Capital recently released their Trust in 2021 report.The report analysed more than 40 million conversations and pieces of content across more than 2,500 companies.Before we start, just to tell you about PRmoment’s new Patron Scheme. If you are a regular consumer of our content, including this podcast, and you’re getting value from it, if you fancy making a contribution to help fund PR

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’re chatting to Graz Belli, Co-Founder of Third City. Third City has a fee income of about £2.5 million and grew by 20% in 2021. It was founded 11 years ago. Third City sees itself as a corpsumer PR firm, offering both brand and reputational advice.Clients include the likes of BUPA, Starling, Zurich and G-Network.Previously Graz was managing director of Band &amp; Brown. Before we start, just to tell you about PRmoment’s new Patron Scheme. If you are a regular consumer of our content, including this podcast, and you’re getting value from it, if you fancy making a contribution to help fund PRmoment, now you can.We have three different Patron Tiers—The Daney Parker Tier, The Chadlington Tier and Edward B

This week, on the PRmoment podcast, we’re discussing a new report called Brands &amp; Movements by Alfred which looks at how businesses face increasing pressure to act on issues impacting consumers, and asks what the pitfalls are for businesses engaging with these movements. In short, we’re going to be discussing whether society’s expectations of business have changed?On the show to discuss this is Alfred MD, Dan Neale.Before we start, just a shout out to our latest PRmoment Patron Nigel Sarbutts who is a Daney Parker Tier Patron.Details of PRmoment’s new Patron Scheme are on the PRmoment.com homepage. We have three different Patron Tiers—The Daney Parker Tier, The Chadlington Tier and Edward Bernays Tier.As a new patron, you will be thanked on the PRmoment Podcast and you can email us a q

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.This week we’re chatting to Jo-ann Robertson, partner and CEO, London at Ketchum and Janita Lakhanpal, director of business development at Ketchum about “How to build a diverse PR agency”It’s a journey Jo-ann and Janita started back in 2018 and I thought it would be interesting to ask them on the show to chat about their experience of building a more diverse organisation.Before we start, just to tell you about PRmoment’s new Patron Scheme. If you are a regular consumer of our content, including this podcast, and you’re getting value from it, if you fancy making a contribution to help fund PRmoment - now you can.We have three different Patron Tiers—The Daney Parker Tier, The Chadlington Tier and Edward Bernays Tier.

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.It’s a weighty topic this week - on the show we’re going to be looking at some new research from Golin called The Polarisation Index.This research looks to investigate which topics polarisation society. Has modern society become more about affirming our own views, rather than exposing ourselves to different perspectives?To talk to us about this we’ve got Jonny Bentwood, global head of data &amp; analytics at Golin.Before we start, just to tell you about PRmoment’s new Patron Scheme. If you are a regular consumer of our content, including this podcast, and you’re getting value from it, if you fancy making a contribution to help fund the <a href='https://www.prmoment.co

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.On the show this week we’re going to be talking about whether undiagnosed cases of the menopause are partly responsible the number of women aged 45+ leaving a career in PR.We’ve got Dr Clare Spencer from My Menopause Centre and Jo Carr, co-founder Hope&amp;Glory on the podcast to talk to us about what the symptoms of the menopause are, why it is so often misdiagnosed and how employers can support their staff through this stage of their lives.If you’re a woman approaching the menopausal age, or you’re going through it at the moment, I suspect Jo and Dr Clare may have some interesting insights for you.Some background for you:8 in 10 women will experience symptoms of the menopause…Women have an average of 7 symptoms, with symptoms usually lasting 4 years, but can last

Welcome to this week’s PRmoment Podcast.On the show we have Damon Statt and Gemma Moroney, co-founders of SHOOK.Shook was founded in June 2020, just a few months after the start of the first lockdown. In its first year they had a fee income of £335K and they are on target to hit £600K in the second trading year.Damon and Gemma have worked together since 2006—firstly at Frank, then at Mischief before they decided to co-found their own business in 2020.Hope&amp;Glory have a minority stake in Shook. Shook recently won Creative Moment’s New Agency of the Year for 2021.And thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Here’s a summary of what Damon and Gemma talked about:1.30 mins How did Gemma and Damon meet in 2006?3.30 mins Why was there a bit of a follow F

On the PRmoment podcast this week we’re talking about the lack of working class people working in public relations in the UK. In an attempt to increase the opportunities for working class people in PR Sarah Waddington and Stephen Waddington have launched Socially Mobile.Socially Mobile is a not for profit that offers training to people with a 1 to 3 years’ PR experience to turbo charge their careers.It deliver trainings to those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, as well as under-represented and under-served groups including black, Asian and ethnic minority practitioners, women returners and those with disabilitiesThe eventual aim of the organisation is to increase the amount of talent from lower income backgrounds and under-represented groups to make the public relations sector more representative and diverse.Before we start, thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, <a href='https://www.prca.or

On the PRmoment podcast this week we talk about The Boris Phenomenon: Why don’t scandals, seemingly broken promises and political failings seem to affect Boris’s popularity in the same way other politicians would suffer.Here with me to discuss this is public affairs grandee Lional Zetter who has been a member of the Conservative Party for 30 years and long time, but now retired, PR Agency Dr - Richard Houghton. Richard is a member of the Liberal Democrats and I think it’s fair to say is currently somewhat bemused by UK politics.For context, despite the controversy around Brexit, the difficulties of the last 2 years of leading the country through the COVID pandemic, and a decent number of gaffs and controversy since he became PM in 2019, the Tories have a 1 point lead according to Opinium’s latest poll. Boris’s approval rating is 30%, compared to Keir Starmer’s at 29%.Boris’s disapproval rating is 50%, compared to Kier Starmer’s at 37%Before we star

On the PRmoment podcast this week we talk about The global impact of COVID on the PR sector. Here with me to discuss that is Dr. Pooja Arora from HCL Corporation and Shiv Nadar Foundation in India and Kathryn Lancioni, Instructor of Public Relations at Sefton University in the US.They have recently completed a piece of qualitative research that looks at the impact of the pandemic on the PR industry. The 112 interviews were completed in March to May 2021, so in the midst of the second wave in the US, UK and India. The interviews were with mid-level and senior-level PR practitioners from 16 countries, with the majority of respondents being based in India, the US and the UK.Thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Here’s a summary of what Pooja, Kathryn and PRmoment founder Ben Smith spoke about.2 mins Why did Kathryn and Pooja decide to un

On the show is Debby Penton, managing director of Wildfire. Wildfire is an independent tech PR firm with a fee income of £2.7m and 25 employees. Thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.Also, do please make a note that the PRmoment Awards 2022 have now opened for entries.Here’s a flavour of what Debby and I discuss:1.30 mins Debby describes how, in her first-ever job, she wasn’t allowed to wear trousers! 3 mins Debby explains why she loved working at Banner PR.5 mins Debby talks about why she would never want to work for a firm that is owned by a private equity firm—or one that is run by accountants.8 mins Debby discusses how her time at Wildfire seems to fit into 3 stages: Stage one was when Debby and Lorraine Jenkins formed a good partnership, grew the busi

Welcome to this week’s PRmoment Podcast.On the show this week we’ve gone back to our roots and, honestly these are my favourite shows, we’re going back to our life stories theme.On the show is Martin Bostock, co-founder of Nelson Bostock and later Fever PR.Martin retired from PR in 2015 but I’ve always wanted to get him on the show because his is such an interesting story, which I’ve no doubt will resonate with many of our listeners today.Martin co-founded Nelson Bostock in 1987 with Roger Nelson and sold it in 2003 to Creston for £6.2 million when the turnover was £5.2m.Martin left Nelson Bostock in 2015 when the turnover was £11.3m. So he stayed long beyond his three and a half year earn-out. And today we’re going to talk through that cycle of growth, the sale and the earn-out stage, alongside, no doubt, a bunch of other tangents that Martin will take us down!Thanks so much to the PRmo

This week we’re drilling down into one of our favourite campaigns from 2021. We’re going to look at why a charity called Snow Camp used drill music in its Stop. Breath. Think campaign.On the show to talk us through the campaign is Peter Elms, director at Alpaca Communications, who helped put this campaign together.It’s a really interesting piece of work into how Snow Camp, a charity with a mission to engage young people through skiing and snowboarding, ended up creating a campaign with drill music at its heart.For background, here’s a video of how the drill artist Nito NB worked with Snow-Camp’s mindfulness counsellor Kevin Hempstead to develop the track.And here’s the video of the track:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmoNAH98t_IHere’s a summary of what Peter and I disc

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast. On the show this week it’s the third of our mini-series we’re doing on &apos;PRs Hybrid Future&apos;.Today we talked to Alice Weightman, founder of Hanson Search about its Future of the Workplace Report. Some headlines from the report:30% of marketing and communications employees question whether their current career is right for them, and are considering alternative paths45% rank ‘team, people and culture’ as most important, followed by flexible working (39%) over competitive salary and bonus as the most important elements of a job package15% of PR employees looking to be able to work abroadHere’s a summary of what Alice and PRmoment founder, Ben Smith, discussed.3 mins Alice talks us through the topline findings of Hanson’s Future of the Workplace Report, including an insight into what

For this week&apos;s podcast, we’re talking to Howard Kosky, CEO of markettiers.For those of you that don’t know, markettiers is the UK’s largest broadcast PR firm. If you watch or listen to the news in the UK, most days you’re likely to hear a markettiers&apos; campaign or two!Howard’s going to be chatting with us about what broadcast PR looks like as we all continue to emerge from the lockdown years.The broadcast sector, in terms of the number of listeners and viewers, had a remarkable lockdown and on the show we’re going to talk about what opportunities there are for PR people in a refreshed, but evolved, broadcast sector.Here’s a summary of what Howard and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:2 mins Why lockdown meant the number of people listening and watching radio, TV and podcasts increased.4 mins Howard talks us through the different elements of the broadcast sector.5 mins “At the start of 2021 t

The second in our three part mini-series about PR’s hybrid working spectrum, this week we&apos;re talking to Rebecca Taylor-Cottle, head of communications, Northern Europe at Citrix about the potential for flexible working to change the landscape of how, and where, people work in PR.Potentially it could mean increased diversity, more older people working in the sector, a less London centric sector and a much easier working environment for parents.Thanks so much, as ever, to the sponsors of the PRmoment podcast, The PRCA.Here’s a summary of what Rebecca and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed on The PRmoment podcast.2.05 mins Does allowing employees to work from home increase the diversity of a firm&apos;s employees?3 mins “I know a lot of women have left agencies in their early thirties when they decided to start a family just because of the practic

 In this week&apos;s podcast, we’re talking to Imogen Osborne, founder of The Pulse Business about a research project she has undertaken into face-to-face and virtual working environments post-COVID. 2 mins Imogen talks through the results of the latest research looking at the UK PR sector’s current approach to hybrid working.8 mins Is a hybrid model a tougher model to integrate employees than an all-virtual model or an all-in-the-office working model?.9.30 mins PR is not in a bubble in the hybrid working debate - how are other sectors approaching the issue?10 mins Imogen discusses Google’s - working from home pay reduction calculator and compares it to Facebook, <a href='https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/10/deloitte-us-ceo-hybrid-model-should-bri

Welcome to the PR Pepper Challenge, produced in association with our good friends at Meltwater.On the show today we&apos;ve got Bieneosa Ebite, Head of Corporate Communications at Centrica.Bieneosa talks about her role at Centrica, why she loves corporate communications and how PRs diversity stats have not moved in 10 years.The reason we&apos;ve called this series of interviews The PR Pepper Challenge is that interwoven between my chat with Bieneosa I&apos;ll be asking her three PR Pepper Challenge questions. If she gets those questions right, PRmoment’s Ben Smith has to eat one of the chillies and if she gets the questions wrong she has to eat one of them.The peppers are of increasing strength—so we&apos;ll begin with mild, move on to medium and finish with hot.Here’s a summary of what Bieneosa and I discussed:Questions:3 mins As host of the <a href='https://newsbants

2 mins Dee talks about her 3 year stint as Director of Comms in the Cayman Islands - which included the COVID crisis, an earthquake and the biggest hurricane season on record!6 mins How Dee and her team lead the communications response to a 7.3 Richter scale earthquake.11 mins Dee then talks about the Hurricane Season and the crisis comms required for that!14 mins “In a crisis situation, people can’t work longer than 10 hours. It’s just too intense.”16 mins What is the role of The Government Communication Service? (GCS)?18 mins How the whole of government communications had to work together during the COVID crisis.19 mins Dee talks us how the NHS Weight Loss App has downloaded 1.3 m times, as an example of government communications.22 mins Dee discusses the difficulties of tackling misin

Here is a summary of what Andre and I discussed:2 mins Andre talks us through what this report is all about and the key findings.4 mins Andre discusses the data set behind the report including online articles from 25 UK national and business media from June 2016 to May 2021. 5 mins How and why the space for brands to feature in the media has shrunk.5.30 mins How the overall number of articles in the UK media has reduced by one fifth in 5 years.5 mins How the report also found the number of articles that mention brands has fallen by 28 per cent.7 mins A discussion of how the issues of Brexit and COVID have dominated the media landscape for the last 5 years.10 mins Beyond Brexit and COVID - which issues are dominating the media over the last five years.15 mins What type of content do readers engage with?18 mins What does the report predict about future media co

On this week&apos;s podcast we’re talking to Jon Gerlis about the CIPR’s &apos;PR in the Pandemic&apos; report.In terms of the methodology, 1029 people completed the questionnaire between 23 March 2021 and 19 April 2021.The online survey was complemented by ten interviews. The research was carried out by Chalkstream.Thanks so much, as ever, to the sponsors of the PRmoment Podcast The PRCA.Here’s a summary of what Jon and I discussed, alongside some relevant graphs from the report.1 min 40% of people surveyed said COVID had had a positive impact on public relations, versus 29% negative. So the COVID Pandemic has been pretty good for PR? 2 mins What sort of public relations work is more in demand? 4 mins Will public relations be able to retain its expanded breadth of influence?</p

On this week&apos;s podcast we’re talking to Will Hart, Group Managing Director at Unlimited Communications.Will joined Nelson Bostock in 2011 and became MD in 2020 before taking over the group MD role of Unlimited Communications from Nick Clark in April this year.Unlimited Group is owned by the private equity group DBay Advisors. 150 people work for Unlimited Communications in London, circa 70 for Nelson Bostock, 30 for Fever and 50 for Health Unlimited.For those of you that don’t know, Nelson Bostock is a tech PR firm and Fever is a specialist consumer shop.Nelson Bostock has doubled in size in the last 3 years.Here’s a summary of what Will and I talked about:2 mins Will is a New Zealander who has built a career and a life in London. What brought him to the UK originally?5.30 mins Will talks about the“hardest day”

Welcome to the PR Pepper Challenge where PRmoment founder Ben Smith interviews leading in-house communicators.On the show this week it’s Jay Ward, director, Ford of Europe product communications.But this is an interview with a twist. Our guests have to agree to take the PR Pepper Challenge when they come on! The challenge involves them answering three questions - if they get the question right Ben Smith has to eat the chilli but if they get the question wrong, our guest has to eat the chilli.The PR Pepper Challenge series of interviews is produced in partnership with Meltwater.Here are the details of what Jay and I talked about:1 min What the PR Pepper Challenge is all about!1.30 mins How the role of a communications director changed during the COVID crisis.3 mins Communications, as a function within a business, relies on collaboration. Jay discusses how virtual workin

Here&apos;s the latest PR Pepper Challenge, produced in association with our good friends at Meltwater.On the show today we&apos;ve got Kev O&apos;Sullivan, senior partner at Fleishman Hillard on the show.Kev and I are going to be talking about creativity in PR alongside a bunch of other stuff.The reason we&apos;re calling this series of interviews The PR Pepper Challenge is that interwoven between the chat around creativity and PR I&apos;ll be asking Kev three questions. If he gets those questions right, I have to eat one of these peppers and if Kev gets the questions wrong I&apos;m happy to say he has to eat one of the peppers.The peppers are of increasing strength - so we&apos;ll begin with mild, move on to medium and finish with hot.You can watch the video of Kev&apos;s  cha

On this week&apos;s podcast we’re talking to Giles Peddy who joined Missive last year having previously been at Lewis.We’re talking about Missive’s recent research paper which hypothesizes that brands are over-indexing on lead-gen marketing and under-investing in brand marketing.Before we start, make sure you’ve taken a look at the PRCA’s National Conference which is a face to face event and you can also watch it on a livestream if you prefer.Here is a summary of what Giles and I discussed:1.30 mins Why are marketers over-indexing on-demand generation activity and under-indexing on brand building activity?4.45 mins What happens to an organization&apos;s brand and sales if it over-indexes on lead-gen at the expense of the brand?  5.30 mins and 15.15 mins Why lead-gen marketing results in linear returns, y

On this week&apos;s podcast we’re talking to Scott Wilson, President Europe &amp; Africa at BCW Global.Scott joined BCW in 2010 having previously been at Porter Novelli and Weber Shandwick.He currently leads BCW across Europe and Africa and today we’re going to chat about PR trends post COVID, including what PR clients are currently buying, the resurgence of corporate PR and whether there&apos;s a tension between integrated communications and the benefits of skill specialisation in public relations.It’s the return of the champion to the PRmoment Podcast—Scott’s first podcast he did with us remains our most listened to podcast ever! Do make sure you’ve taken a look at the PRCA’s National Conference which is a face to face event and you can also watch it on a livestream if you prefer.It’s a full day conference in Londo

On this week&apos;s podcast we’re talking to Clive Booth, CEO of the ESG Foundation.Clive has worked in a number of agency and in-house roles, including JLL, Lansons and Lewis.He founded the ESG Foundation in March 2020. The foundation exists to focus the attention of organisations on the importance of environmental, social impact and corporate governance behaviours.Do make sure you’ve taken a look at the PRCA’s National Conference which is a face to face event and you can also watch it on a livestream if you prefer.It’s a full day conference in London on 8 July exploring communication and influence in a post-pandemic world. Speakers include communications leaders from the likes of Google and IKEA, as well as big names including Alastair Campbell and Sophie Morgan.Tickets available on the PRCA websiteAl

On this week&apos;s podcast I&apos;m chatting to Rosie Bannister, managing director UK at Axicom and Kate Stevens, president of Europe at AxiCom.Currently the PR world, alongside many other sectors, is trying to figure out the right balance between working from home and office working in a post pandemic world.On the show this week I talk to Rosie Bannister and Kate Stevens about how Axicom has created a culture in which flexible working can thrive.Thanks so much, as ever, to the podcast sponsors, the PRCA.Here’s a summary of what we discussed:0.55 mins Is there such a thing as a flexible working culture? What&apos;s different about a flexible working culture to a non-flexible working culture?1.30 mins Why flexible working is not about where you work, it’s about how you work.2 mins Why changing people’s habits is the biggest barrier to flexible working.4 min

On this week&apos;s podcast, we talk to Angie Moxham, founder and CEO of The Fourth Angel and Sarah Perry, managing director of The Fourth Angel.Previously, Angie was the founder and CEO of 3 Monkeys which, as many of our readers will know, was sold to Edelman and became part of Zeno.Angie founded The Fourth Angel in March 2019.Sarah joined The Fourth Angel in December 2019 as managing director.The Fourth Angel has a fee income of £1.6m and is described by Angie as a multi-sector, brand consultancy business.2.30 mins Angie talks about why, post her 3 Monkeys Zeno exit, she decided to do it all again and launch The Fourth Angel?5 mins Why Angie is still just trying to please her dad!8 mins Angie talks about why PR firms, for too long, have done management consultancy work for a media relations fee.8.30 mins Why reputation management must “go from boardroom

On the show today I&apos;m talking to Warren Johnson, chairman and founder of W Communications about the state of the UK public relations market at the moment.W had a turnover of £10m in 2020 and despite the COVID economy, it had its most successful H1 ever in the second half of 2020. Warren appointed Rachel Friend as W’s CEO in July 2020, so 9 months in, it seems like a good time to catch up about how things have changed at W.Before we start, just to say thanks so much to the podcast sponsors, the PRCA.Here’s a summary of what Warren and I discuss:1 min Why there’s been a lot of big pitches over the last few months, specifically in Q4 2020.4 mins Why Warren is surprised that more businesses are not seeing now as an opportune time to “land grab” market share.6.30 mins “Advertising/creative agencies modus operandi is to make TV ads and while everyone gave up watching (ads) a f

This week on the PRmoment podcast we&apos;re talking to Engine Mischief managing director  Greg Jones about what he sees as the challenges in the consumer PR market at the moment.Thanks so much as ever to the podcast sponsors, the PRCA.Here’s a summary of what Greg and I discussed:1.30 mins Why does Greg believe there is an increasing commoditisation of the consumer PR market in the UK?2.30 mins “People are being driven to set up on their own...and that results in an oversupply of agencies”.3.00 mins Will an oversupply of agencies create commoditisation, drive fees down and result in decreased standards of work?3.30 mins “The rise of procurement, and the KPIs against which procurement are judged, means the costs are being squeezed ever harder.”“The job of top tier agencies such as Mischief is to demonstrate value, not costs”.<b

On the PRmoment podcast this week, I&apos;m talking to Matt Wilcock and Mark Perkins of Cow PR about being a creative director in public relations.10 years ago there weren&apos;t many creative directors working in PR but now there are quite a few!In this podcast, we&apos;re going to look at the role of the creative director in public relations.Thanks so much to our PRmoment podcast sponsors, the PRCA.Here are summary of what we chatted about:1.00 min Are Matt and Mark creative partners? Are they a pair? How often do they work on a brief together and how often do they look at it in isolation?4.30 mins and 9 mins How much of the creative process involves the wider agency at Cow?5.40 mins Mark recently rejoined Cow after 8 years away. They are among the most high profile creator directors in PR, why did they decide to work together again? Is there a danger they&apos;ll get in ea

On the show today I&apos;m talking to Victoria Cross, managing partner of Instinctif. There&apos;s a huge amount of discussion in the business world about the importance of ESG as an investment criteria but it is also important for communicators. On today&apos;s show we&apos;re going to be looking at why ESG is so important for modern communications professionals.Thanks so much to the podcast sponsors, the PRCA.The final entry deadline for the PRmoment Awards is this Friday March 26, do take a look at the PRmoment Awards website for all the details.If you haven&apos;t seen it already PRmoment is putting on a &quot;What is your ESG risk&quot; webinar on April 28th. Tickets are free! Here’s a summary of what Victoria and I discussed:1 mins What is ESG and why do PR professionals need to kn

This week on the PRmoment podcast we&apos;re talking about virtual pitching.Virtual pitching is clearly an area that&apos;s become more important during the Covid lockdowns and today we&apos;re going to be talking to three guests with different perspectives on the pitch processAndrew Bloch is Lead Consultant PR for the AAR, an agency referral company. Also on the show is Rebecca Wagstaffe, Business Development Director at 3 Monkeys Zeno and finally, we’ve got  Charlotte West, Executive Director, Global Corporate Communications at Lenovo to give a buy-side, client perspective on virtual pitching.Thanks so much as ever to the podcast sponsors, the PRCA.Don’t forget the entry deadline for the PRmoment Awards is this Friday, March 26th.1 mins Charlotte talks about her experiences of watching virtual pitches from the buy-side. 2 mins Creating that “

This week on the PRmoment Podcast I’m talking to Alex Grier, Managing Partner of Frank PR.Alex has worked at Frank for 16 years, he joined the firm in 2005 when there were 15 employees and he saw it sold to Photon (which later became Enero) in 2007. Alex has recently been part of the management team which has bought the agency back from Enero.Frank was originally bought by Photon for just over £8m but over the next 5 years Frank&apos;s management hit various incentive targets and the final amount the company was bought for was about £20m.It&apos;s been reported that the management team bought Frank back for just shy of a million pounds.Frank had a fee income of about £4.8 million in 2020, down a bit compared to 2019 but bear in mind Q 2 of 2020 COVID happened. The management team of Frank tells me Frank has returned to growth.Thanks to the PRCA for sponsoring the PRmoment Podcast.Don&apos;t forget the f

On this week&apos;s podcast, I talked to Carrie Rose, CEO &amp; Co-Founder of Rise at Seven.To give you some context, just over 2 years ago Rise at Seven barely existed, one year ago it employed 14 people with a turnover of about £1.5 million and today it employs 64 people and has a turnover of over £4 million.So it really is a story of incredible growth especially when you bear in mind that the last 24 months (remember Brexit!) haven’t exactly been a walk in the park for any business, especially agency businesses in the startup phase.Rise at Seven describes itself as a search-first creative agency,  and it was co-founded by Carrie and Stephen Kenwright in June 2019.Thanks so much to the podcast sponsors, the PRCA.The final deadline for the PRmoment Awards is on March 26, do take a look at the PRmoment Awards website for all t

This week on the PRmoment Podcast I’m talking to Justin Westcott, Edelman’s chief operating officer of Edelman UK and Ireland and head of technology, Edelman EMEA.Edelman had a fee income of circa $840 million dollars in 2020, down from about $890m from the previous financial year.So Edelman’s revenues decreased 5.9% in 2020 - which, most observers seem to reckon is a pretty decent result, bearing in mind the tumultuous nature of 2020!Here’s a flavour of what Justin and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed.1.30 mins Justin talks about how, for Edelman, this was a V-shaped dip and recovery.2 mins Edelman had a horrid quarter last year but 8 months into its fiscal year Edelman in the UK has returned to growth.3 mins When looking at the wider economy, is it a bit surreal that PR’s in such a growth mode?8 mins What has Edelman done to reduce the negative impact of lockdown on its staff?11 mins How

On this week&apos;s show, I&apos;m chatting to  Francis Ingham, Director General of the PRCA about what the PRCA describes as “an ethical divide (that) has emerged between those willing to embrace ethics and professional standards, and those unwilling to adopt such values.”A PRCA spokesperson has said “almost half (of lobbyists) are happy to be unregulated and unaccountable. And within this group are some enormously influential companies.”To put this spat into more context The PRCA’s analysis of lobbying company entries published by the Government’s Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists (ORCL) showed that the number declaring that they followed no code of conduct increased by 28 per cent between 2019 and 2020.Of the 166 entries by agencies on the ORCL register 51 per cent adhered to the PRCA’s Public Affairs Code, 39 per cent followed no

On this week&apos;s podcast, I&apos;m chatting to Chris McCafferty, group CEO MSL UK. Chris has been at MSL for about a year and a half. Previously he worked for Red, Microsoft, Weber Shandwick, Myspace and Shine. In 2010 Chris launched Kaper PR which was a JV with Karmarama. The Karmarama Group was sold to Accenture in 2016. MSL employs about 150 in the UK and is owned by Publicis.Thanks so much to the podcast sponsors, the PRCA.If you haven&apos;t taken a look yet, here are all the categories for the PRmoment Awards 2021.Here’s a summary of what Chris and I discussed:1.27 mins Why did Chris decide to join a large networked firm like MSL, rather than going down the agency start-up route, like he had done previously in his career?2 mins “I spent 3 years working as a management consultant within Accenture Interactive and i

This week on the PRmoment podcast I chatted to Elena Davidson, CEO of Liberty Communications.Liberty is a boutique technology public relations firm based in London with a fee income of about £2 million. The business was founded by Dee Giibs in 1998. 75% of its fee income is from the UK and mainland Europe and 25% from the US. There’s a link in the show notes to an interview I did with Dee back in 2019.Before we start, thanks so much as ever to the podcast sponsors, the PRCA.And if you haven&apos;t taken a look yet, all the categories for the PRmoment Awards 2021 are on the awards microsite PRmomentawards.com Here’s a summary of what Elena and I discussed:1 min We got the inevitable COVID question out the way first! How has the lockdown b

On this week&apos;s show, I&apos;m chatting to Chris Hides, managing director of The Academy.Chris joined The Academy in December 2020 having previously been co-founder and MD of M&amp;C Saatchi Talk, which was the merged business of M&amp;C Saatchi PR and Talk PR.The Academy employs 50 people and has revenues of £4.4m.As many of our listeners will know it was founded by Mitch Kaye and Dan Glover in 2014.Before we start, thanks so much as ever to the podcast sponsors, the PRCA.And if you haven&apos;t taken a look yet, all the categories for the PRmoment Awards 2021 are on the awards microsite PRmomentawards.com Here’s a summary of what Chris and I discussed:01.00 min How Chris during 10 months of lockdown has merged an agency, launched an agency, left an agency and joined an agency? 03.00 mins How a chance lockdown meeting with Th

On this week&apos;s podcast I&apos;m chatting to Ondine Whittington, group managing director of Golin UK and Virgo Health.Ondine has worked for Virgo since 2006 and stayed with the firm when it was bought by Golin in 2014. She became the UK MD of Golin Virgo in March 2020.Golin employs about 70 people in London and Virgo about 60. Golin is well known for its consumer work but it also operates across the tech and healthcare verticals.Before we start, thanks so much as ever to the podcast sponsors, the PRCA.And if you haven&apos;t taken a look yet, all the categories for the PRmoment Awards 2021 are on the awards microsite PRmomentawards.com Ondine - welcome to the PRmoment podcast.01.30 mins How Ondine started at Virgo 2006 and now 15 years later she’s the MD of Golin and Virgo in the UK.03.30 mins How Ondine didn’t plan to leave Virgo bu

This week we&apos;re talking about whether PR has an ethics problem. Are PR ethics absolute? Are they relative? Or are they personal to all of us?If you were an outside observer of the Twitter chat of various PR thought leaders you’d have thought that bad ethics is a real and present danger to the business of public relations. But is it? How much bad practice is there? And what does that poor practice look like? On the show to discuss this issue are the co-authors of Public Relations Ethics Trevor Morris and Simon Goldsworthy.Thanks so much as ever to the podcast sponsors, the PRCA.And if you haven&apos;t taken a look yet, all the categories for the PRmoment Awards 2021 are on the awards microsite www.prmomentawards.com 02.00 mins Does PR have an ethics problem?

This week I&apos;m catching up with Nicky Regazzoni, co-founder of the PR Network, talking us through her career story in public relations.For those of you that are not aware, Nicky launched the network 15 years ago with Georgina Blizzard. The PR Network now has a fee income of £3.8 million and recorded an impressive 13 percent growth in 2020. Clients include Purple Bricks and Snapchat. These days the PR Network is a multi specialist agency.Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast Sponsors, the PRCA.Don’t forget to take a look at the PRmoment Awards categories, the early bird deadline for entries is Friday 26th February.03.11 mins How The PR Network has navigated the last 10 months.07.50 mins Why the PR Network’s strategy of working internationally with clients really paid off during lockdown.09.35 mins Nicky outlines The PR Network’s model of having a core team and individual and agency partners across a virtual mo

This week we&apos;re talking around the idea that during lockdown we all seem to be super busy- but it’s not much fun! There seems to be a relentless nature to working from home that many hadn’t expected. In this podcast, we explore whether this repetitive, somewhat joyless for some, way of working can be avoided and discuss the impact it is having on PR teams.On the show this week are Jackie Elliott, chairman of Cathcart Consulting, Louie Sinclair, CEO of Harvard and Matt Buchanan, head of PR and Influence at Ogilvy UK.Thank you so much to the podcast sponsors, the PRCA.If you haven&apos;t taken a look yet, here are all the categories for the PRmoment Awards 2021.Here’s a flavour of what we discussed: 02.00 mins Work-wise, are the panel busy but not particularly happy?04.00 mins Why it’s been a tough time to be a leader in PR: “It’s much harder leading through technology.”

This week on the PRmoment Podcast we chat to Victoria Usher, CEO of Ginger May about how the Covid crisis has reawakened many people&apos;s entrepreneurial spirit.Thanks, as ever, to the PRmoment Podcast Sponsors the PRCA.Don’t forget to take a look at the PRmoment Awards categories. The early bird deadline for entries is Friday 26th February.Here’s a summary of what Victorial and I discussed:02.20 mins As an entrepreneur how has Victoria felt over the past 10 months?03.00 mins How Victoria has gone through different stages over the past 10 months.05.40 mins According to Goldman Sachs this has been an event driven recession rather than a systematic recession, therefore the recovery is likely to be V shaped.06.20 mins “I had to become an entrepreneur (all over again), like I did when I set the business up 10 years ago. I felt alive, really</e

Today on the PRmoment podcast I&apos;m catching up with Marc Allenby, ECD of both Harvard and Eat the Fox; the tech Marketing &amp; PR agencies, part of the Chime Group and Daniel Maynard, vice president, Communications, Media (Television &amp; Direct-to-Consumer) Europe &amp; Africa at The Walt Disney Company.Before we start just a reminder for all of you that the PRmoment Awards are now open for entries or the details on the awards microsite PRmomentAwards.com.We talk about Marc and Daniel&apos;s experiences as gay men working in the creative sector.Here’s a summary of what we discussed:1.00 min How self-confidence shines through into all of our work.3.50 mins Do either Marc or Daniel feel that being gay has had a detrimental impact on their careers in the creative sector?7.20 mins Marc and Daniel discuss the issue of coming out at work and that

Today on the PRmoment Podcast I&apos;m talking to Mark Inskip, CEO of Kantar UK’s Media Division about its research revealing the challenges to the comms industry in 2021.According to the research, there are three big challenges facing the sector today: The sheer volume of stakeholders comms professionals need to engage withThe challenge of measuring impact in a landscape of highly scrutinized budgetsThe increased automation of public relations.Here’s a summary of what Mark and I discuss:02.00 mins Why PR teams have become victims of their own success04.00 mins Why PR is in its teenage years!04.45 mins How the PR and comms teams that invest in their teams and resources will become the high performing ones05.20 mins Why PR people must ruthlessly decide their priorities09.00 mins Why PR and communications leaders will need to say “no” a bit more!12.0

Today on the PRmoment Podcast I&apos;m talking to George Coleman Co-Founder &amp; CEO at Current Global.Current Global has just launched a commitment that every piece of communication it develops, curates or publishes on behalf of the firm and its clients will meet the highest accessibility standards. Current Global is owned by Interpublic and has offices in Europe, America and Asia. It employs over 200 people.1.20 mins George’s father is deaf so accessible communication is a personal subject for him.4.40 mins The internet and technology have had a transformational impact on how people with an impairment can consume media.5 mins How to design content to be accessible through technology5.30 mins How technology and standards have developed in tandem to increase the accessibility to content.6.20 mins Some examples of the types of technology that is available to help make communications more accessibl

On the PRmoment Podcast this week we’re talking to Tony Langham, co-founder and CEO of Lansons. Tony and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discuss the findings of a recent report Tony edited: How PR firms can recover fast from the pandemic.The report is a series of 250 word pieces of advice from (mostly) PR leaders from all around the world.1.00 min Tony tells us how the &quot;‘How to Recover Fast from the Pandemic&quot; report came about.3.00 mins Why the report is perfect toilet reading material!4.00 mins Tony summarises the report&apos;s findings. 4.30 mins Why a spirit of positivity in public relations is one of the great things coming out of the report.7.55 mins The report predicts that the leaders who invest in technology and their people will come out of the Covid-19 crisis most successfully.8.30 mi

On the PRmoment Podcast this week we’re talking to Charlotte Mair, Founder and Managing Director, The Fitting RoomThe Fitting Room was originally called PR and Everything in Between in 2012. It was rebranded as The Fitting Room in 2017.The Fitting Room specialises in Food &amp; Drink, Fashion, Music and Hospitality work. It has revenues of circa £1.2 m and employs 7 people. Clients include Cafe Rouge, Sony, Green King and Putt shack.Charlotte welcome to the show1.30 mins How Charlotte started her business when she had £17.22 in her account!2.20 mins How Charlotte, without an agency background, or much PR experience decided to start her own PR firm because “she’d always had a burning desire to work in PR.”3.30 mins Whether calling their parents is the first thing most entrepreneurs do when they decide to launch their business!4.30 mins How the fitting Room has really gained momentum in the last couple of yea

On the PRmoment Podcast this week is Adam Clyne, founder of Coolr.For Adam it’s been a pretty varied career, first of all he worked in PR, then he made the move into advertising with JWT. He launched his own digital agency called The Lab in 2002 which he then sold to the agency that is now Kindred. Spells at TVC and Weber Shandwick followed.Then he had a spell at LadBible before launching his own social media agency Coolr in 2017.Coolr is a social media agency with about 20 employees. Clients include Burger King and Deliveroo.Here’s a summary of what Adam and I discussed:02.00 mins Why Adam moved from PR to advertising early in his career.03.00 mins How that early crossover between PR and advertising defined the rest of Adam’s career04.30 mins Why job roles in PR have become more specialist.05.30 mins How Adam founded the integrated agency The Lab aged 26 and sold it by the time he was 30 to the agen

On the PRmoment Podcast this week we’re talking to Richard Rawlins, CEO and founder of Finn.Finn was founded in 2005, it has a turnover of approximately £3 million and 35 employees. It is based in Leeds and focuses exclusively on the FMCG sector.Here’s a flavour of what Richard and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:01.40 mins Why as a 21-year-old Richard enrolled in The British Army.04.10 mins Why Richard left the army.05.35 mins Is it surprising more ex-service personnel don’t work in PR?07.10 mins Why PR’s lack of visibility as a career option for people leaving the army, for graduates, for those leaving school is a big problem for the sector.08.45 mins Richard talks about Finn&apos;s “Next of Kin” scheme that goes out to local schools, academies and youth trusts to tell them about a career in public relations.10.30 mins Why originally Richard wanted to be an ad man.12 mi

Welcome to the latest PRmoment Podcast. This week we’re turning the tables and PRmoment founder Ben Smith is interviewed by Third City’s Chris Blackwood.Just a reminder that PRmoment Podcast listeners can get 20% off the first month off Propel Software here.Here’s a summary of what Chris and I discussed:3.30 mins How Ben’s career has been split over two phases8.30 mins Why empathy is a crucial skill in publishing9.30 mins How PRmoment was started in the midst of the financial crisis in 2008.10.40 mins Chris and I reminisce about Hacked Off Flack16.30 mins How the lockdown has been a tough period for B2B publishers24 mins PR buzzwords that should be banned26 mins Does the public relations sector waste too much time critiquing itself?<

Welcome to the latest PRmoment Podcast. This week I’m talking to ex Golin CEO Jon Hughes. These days Jon describes himself as a Senior advisor specialising in technology and corporate communications.Jon’s been looking at how technology is likely to change the shape of PR and communications businesses over the medium term and he’s giving us an insight into these ideas today.Here is the link where PRmoment Podcast sponsors can get the reader off of 20% off the first month off Propel Software.2.00 mins What Jon has been up to since he left Golin?3.20 mins Why does Jon believe PR firms are behind their marcomms peers in their use of technology?4.00 mins Why the PR sector has now got a hunger for speed.4.56 mins How the pandemic has brought an explosion of data that is available for markete

This week on the PRmoment Podcast I’m talking to James Kelliher, chief executive officer at Whiteoaks International.Whiteoaks is a 40 person tech PR agency based in Hook, Hampshire. It has a fee income of approximately £4m.Here’s a flavour of what James and I discussed:1.30 mins  How James has spent pretty much his whole career at Whiteoaks - he joined as an account exec and he’s now the CEO and majority shareholder.4.46 mins Did James ever get close to leaving Whiteoaks?7.00 mins How the buy out of Whiteoaks from the founders Bill Nichols and Jill Craig was a two stage process.12.05 mins Why PR firms can grow too quickly, controlled low double digit growth is James’ recommendation!14.05 mins James became the MD of Whiteoaks aged only 29. Did that create any challenges?15.45 mins Why Whiteoaks doesn’t believe retainers offer good value for clients.16.15 mins How Whiteoaks

In the latest PRmoment Podcast I catch up with Effie Kanyua, director of PR &amp; Comms, Hearst UK. Effie is currently director of PR &amp; Comms at Hearst UK having previously worked at Clarity, H&amp;K, Splendid and Bauer Media.Here are some of the themes that Effie and I discussed:2 mins How Effie retained a broad range of PR sector experience and why that&apos;s been really beneficial now she has moved to a senior in-house role.4.40 mins Why Effie deliberately avoided becoming known as a vertical specialist to retain a rounded skill set9.50 mins Effie talks about how leadership is so important in creating a culture within a business, both in-house and agency side.11 mins How Effie enjoyed very different cultures through her career – she argues trust and leadership are more important.12.05 mins What makes a good monitoring scheme and why having a mentor in PR is really important.16 mins<

This week on the PRmoment Podcast we talk to Jo-ann Robertson, Partner and CEO of Ketchum London in the latest of our PR Rest series of podcasts - that look at the state of public relations post the COVID-19 lockdown.Here’s a summary of what Jo-ann and I discussed:1.55 mins What does the outlook for the next six months for PR firms? 7.40 mins Bearing in mind how many agency: client relationships have changed during the lockdown we discuss the longer-term prospects for UK public relations. 8.30 mins Jo-ann argues that improving the standard of analytics and increasing the diversity and inclusion of PR teams are vital parts of PR’s future prosperity.11.06 mins and 14 mins: Jo-ann discusses the benefits of being part of a large, publicly owned group during the pandemic.12.15 mins Jo-ann compares the performances of independent and group owned PR firms during the lockdown.16.06 mins Jo-ann discuss

Today on the PRmoment podcast, I’m talking to Matt Peacock, partner at Blurred, about something that I suspect six months ago few of us had heard of – no not Covid, but ESG! Environmental, Social, and Governance refers to the three central factors in measuring the sustainability and societal impact of an organisation. Matt is a partner at Blurred, an ex-corporate affairs director at Vodafone, and visiting professor at Henley Business School. Here’s a summary of what Matt and I discussed:2.03 mins Why is ESG the most important development for public relations and business in the last 50 years? 2.13 mins How ESG is a way to assess the environment and governance risk of business. 3.33 mins Why ESG is a mindset change for business risk management – it forces companies to think about the risk of a company to the outside world.  6.20 mins Purpose is about how a company proves it does good. 7.55 m

In the latest of our &apos;career stories&apos; themed interviews, we talk to Frank co-founder Andrew Bloch.To those of you that are surprised that Andrew hasn&apos;t been on the show before, we can confirm that he hasn&apos;t, and he&apos;s definitely in the category of one of those guests that we&apos;ve been saving up!As many of you will know, Andrew co-founded Frank PR in 2000 and it has become one of the UK&apos;s largest consumer shops with a fee income of approximately £8m in 2019.Here are some of the themes Andrew and PRmoment Podcast host Ben Smith discuss on the show:02.30 mins Why did Andrew decide to leave Frank?04.04 mins How did Andrew tell Frank’s Chairman, Graham Goodkind, who he had worked with for 20 years, that he wanted to leave.04.05 mins Andrew outlines his plan, post-Frank.06.38 mins Why Andrew doesn’t want to set up another PR firm.07.00 mins Andrew tell us how he came

This week, in the latest of our PR Reset series about how the PR world and the wider economy might reset post the Covid-19 lockdown, I’m talking to PRCA director general Francis Ingham. It’s explosive stuff, the highlights are below, but Ingham believes approximately 5,000 UK PR people are likely to be made redundant and claims “The majority of people on furlough within our industry have no idea what’s coming their way”.Ingham also reveals the PRCA will come out of the Covid lockdown about 25% down in revenue year on year.Here’s a summary of what Francis and I discussed:1.15 mins “The PR sector has taken a hit (from Covid-19) and there are further hits coming”.1.54 mins The PR industry is currently in a recovery stage2.03 mins “The majority of people who on furlough are going to be made redundant”.3.55 mins “The majority of people within furlough within our industry have no idea what’s coming their

This week, we&apos;re starting a new series called PR Reset, where I&apos;m catching up with the CEOs of some of the UK&apos;s most prominent PR firms to talk about how they see their business, the PR world and the wider economy resetting post the Covid-19 lockdown. First up, we&apos;ve got the founder of W Communications Warren Johnson. Frankly, Warren’s on even more punchy form than ever! Here’s a summary of what we discussed: 2.12 mins How Warren has managed the coronavirus lockdown crisis for W. 2.50 mins Warren describes the first week of lockdown as “the worst of his professional career.” 2.52 mins How Warren and his FD had to renegotiate “something like 42 client contracts in the first two or three weeks” of lockdown. 3.20 mins How he saw his “job as trying to make sure money didn’t leave (W Communications) for good.” 3.40 mins How W took an “aggressively commercial approach to its cost base” during

Today, on the PRmoment Podcast, I&apos;m talking to Julian Obubo, brand strategy director at Manifest London about &quot;How to be an anti-racist company.&quot;Julian is a member of the leadership team at Manifest and, I know, has been a vital part of the agency&apos;s impressive growth in recent years.As has long been discussed, the diversity stats in PR are embarrassing with approximately 92% of the sector describing themselves as British White.If you’d like to understand more about the diversity challenges and the solutions to PR’s diversity problem, here are a whole bunch of diversity articles, podcasts, and videos where we&apos;ve discussed the topic.Here are a few highlights of what Julian and I discussed:04.53 mins Why Julian believes the typical approach to improving diversity and inclusion is broken.

This week on the PRmoment podcast, we&apos;ve got Phil Hall, chairman of The PHA Group.For those of you that are not aware, Phil was the editor of the News of the World from 1995 to 2000. His old bosses included Piers Morgan and Rupert Murdoch – he was at the pinnacle of British tabloid journalism before he left it all behind in 2005 and founded Phil Hall Associates (Now The PHA Group).He started the business in his front room and his first client was none other than Paul McCartney.He went on to represent Heather Mills McCartney in the infamous divorce and has since built The PHA Group to have revenues of well north of £9m in the pre-Covid-19 world that we all used to enjoy.The PHA Group employs around 100 people.Here’s a flavour of what Phil and I discuss:How the Covid 19 crisis has impacted PHA Media.How making people redundant is the hardest part of running a business.       How PHA Media has won 20 new clients in t

Today we’re talking to Ruth Kieran, CEO of Cirkle, about how an independent firm like Cirkle has coped and responded to the Covid-19 crisis so far.Here’s a summary of what Ruth and I discussed:How has the Covid-19 pandemic impacted the business?     How the crisis has been very specific in the way it has impacted firms. For example, Cirkle has a lot of food and drink clients including Morrisons and Cafe Nero. Morrisons is extremely busy and Cafe Nero obviously had to shut all of its stores.      Ruth talks about the pressures of constantly having to review and re-scope work.     How many in-house comms teams are run off their feet at the moment.     How Cirkle has on-boarded clients since the lockdown began.     How Ruth and her senior colleagues prepared Cirkle for the lockdown in the days and weeks beforehand.     Why all firms need a good IT expert.      What Cirkle is doing to look after its employ

This week, we welcome Tariq Ahmed, ex-group head of corporate communications at Liquid Telecom, to the PRmoment podcast. Here’s a summary of what Tariq and I discussed: In the context of the George Floyd racism protests in the US and throughout the world, including here in the UK, Tariq and I talk about his decision to change his name from Tariq Ahmed to Daniel Jacobs back in 2002 – when Tariq found he was unable to get a job in public relations as a Muslim man in the UK. How Tariq set up an experiment where he applied for the same job both as Tariq Ahmed and as Daniel Jacobs. He was invited for an interview as Daniel but not as Tariq. How until 9/11 Tariq had never experienced racism before. How Tariq got through that period of his life by trying to take the emotion out of it – he saw it as a personal re-branding exercise. He believed once you allow the emotion to stick, you start to become a victim, which he didn’t want. How t

This week we’re going to return to our roots - by going back to our regular career stories theme.We’ve pretty much covered the Covid-19 angle of PR and agency management if you want more info on that then have a listen to the past 5/6 episodes of the podcast, or have a look at the 25 plus Covid-19 articles on PRmoment.com - I think you’ll find all you need to know. It’s quite a body of work.This week on the PRmoment podcast, our guest is Alec Samways, CEO &amp; head of creative strategy at Splendid Communications.Splendid was co-founded by Alec in 2004. It’s a creative consumer PR shop with approximately 40 employees and a fee income of £3.5m in 2019.Here’s a summary of what Alec and I discuss: Alec talks about how Splendid, as a consumer PR firm, has been impacted by Covid-19? How this period of lockdown is proving to be a reflection point for a lot of us about how we live our lives and our work-life balance.  How Alec is en

On the PRmoment podcast this week, we’ve got Adrian Talbot who is the FD of Hotwire PR. He’s one of the most experienced FDs in public relations, having been at Hotwire for over four years, before that he was at BBH, College Hill (now Instinctif) and Burson Marsteller. As quick plug from me, if you haven’t booked already, then you don’t have long to book your tickets to our series of Lite events: We’re running online seminars on PR Analytics, The Intersection of PR and SEO and The Influence of Influence. Here’s a summary of what Adrian and I discussed: Whether the FD is currently the most important person in an agency business. What do agency owners/FDs need to do to manage their agency businesses through the Covid-19 lockdown and the 18 months that follow it. Whether most client budgets are in turmoil at the moment. In such uncertain times, communication is currently so much more important with your agency employees – beyond grou

On today’s show, we’ve got Chris Talago, VP PR and communications JAPAC and EMEA at Oracle. Chris is going to be giving us an in-house communicator’s perspective on the Covid-19 lockdown. Here’s a flavour of what Chris and I discuss: How have the comms team at Oracle coped with the Covid-19 crisis so far? What message is the comms team trying to get across at the moment?      Why Covid-19 requires a fundamental rethink of communications, not merely a pause on the status quo.      Whether the technology sector is insulated more than most to the financial meltdown we’re seeing in the economy.      Has the way Oracle is working with its agency partners changed since the Covid-19 lockdown kicked off? Has it reduced budgets or just rescoped work?      Why the fast-paced changed we’ve seen over the last five years in communications just got a lot quicker.      What’s it like as an in-house communicator during the Covid-19 loc

This week I’m interviewing Amanda Coleman, Ex-head of Corporate Communications at Greater Manchester Police and author of the book Crisis Communication Strategies.Amanda has recently founded her own agency, Amanda Coleman Communications.Amanda and I are going to be looking at the UK governments’ communications performance since the Covid-19 crisis began.To emphasise, we are not attempting to assess the UK governments overall response to Covid-19 because neither Amanda nor I are scientists! We’re purely looking at the communications response.Here’s a flavour of what we discuss:Whether the speed that the virus took hold meant that the government’s communications response was likely to be too slow? How effectively central government has communicated its message to the public How central government has effectively retained control of its

On today’s show, we’re talking to Mandy Sharp, founder and CEO of Tin Man Communications. Mandy and I are going to be talking about her experiences of running a consumer PR firm during the Covid-19 lockdown. Here’s a summary of what Mandy and I discuss: How has it been for Mandy and Tin Man since the Covid-19 crisis kicked off?      Why one of the problems for consumer PR firms has been that a lot of their work is project-based.      Hilton is one of Tin Man’s clients, Mandy and I discuss this impact of Covid-19 on the account team and the client.     Whether Tin Man has furloughed any employees.     How Mandy has changed the priorities and financial targets for Tin Man for the next few months.     Mandy talks us through some stats from Tin Man’s Covid Tracker.     Mandy tells us when she hopes brand campaigns will return.     

On today’s show, we’ve got Crispin Manners and Richard Houghton, co-authors of ‘Grow, Build, Sell, Live: A Practical Guide to Running and Building an Agency and Enjoying It’, talking about the implications of the Covid-19 crisis for PR firms. Here’s a summary of what we discuss:Most agencies have now dealt with the short-term demands of the Covid-19 crisis, but how helpful have the various government schemes been for UK PR firms? Is pride getting in the way of some firms putting some of their employees on furlough? In justifying why furloughing isn’t necessarily the right thing to do, Crispin refers to the Harvard Business article Roaring Out of A Recession. Once agency owners have dealt with the first wave of imminent decisions, what’s next on the to-do list? People, cash, fee forecast, landlords and agency leaders need to look after themselves. Why clients will try

Today on the PRmoment podcast were chatting with Julietta Dexter who is Founder and CEO of The Communications Store.Julietta has recently launched the book ‘Good Company: How to Build a Business without Losing Your Values’ which talks about Julietta’s personal story of lessons learned in the workplace and how to navigate a successful career while holding onto one’s personal beliefs and values.The Communications Store was founded in 1995, is a privately owned communications firm with an income of £16m and employs 200 people – 180 in London and 20 in the US. It specialises in fashion, beauty and lifestyle.Julietta welcome to the PRmoment podcast.[00:02:04] How, as a business owner, COVID-19 has taught Juilettta that things don&apos;t always go according to plan![00:02:20] Why the COVID-19 lockdown has meant Juiletta has had to let go of some

Welcome to the latest podcast with Iain Anderson, Executive Chairman at Cicero/AMO.We’ve put our life stories podcasts on pause as they just don’t feel appropriate at the moment - so today Iain and I are going to be talking about Covid 19: The media, the politics, and the communications.Here is a summary of what Iain and I talk about:[00:02:12] Iain tells us how he&apos;s finding it as a business person working through the Covid-19 crisis.[00:02:46] How as a PR professional Iain feels privileged and fortunate to be able to continue to work, as there are plenty who don&apos;t have that luxury at the moment.[00:03:35] What sort of challenges are Iain&apos;s clients facing currently?[00:04:55] How PR firms, since the start of the Covid-19 outbreak, have become centres of constant communication for employees - with almost back to back video calls and it&apos;s become pretty intense! [00:05:10] Why

We discuss how different sectors are affected, what the impact of the government’s furloughing scheme will be on the PR business, how the government’s business interruption loans can work, and the impact of Covid-19 on employees and clients to date.Here’s a summary of what we discussed:I’m conscious we have international listeners, to confirm the government schemes we’re talking about in this show are the UK government&apos;s schemes.Rachel Bell interview:[00:01:35] What types of businesses, in terms of clients, have reduced their spend so far.[00:03:21] How, almost without exception, new business wins for agencies are on hold. [00:03:35] How some sectors and services are more exposed than others. [00:04:57] How all client-variable expenditure is under huge scrutiny.[00:05:09] Why agencies need to be able to repurpose client spend into something that creates a new opportunity for brands.[00:05:47] Rachels&apos;s s

This week on the PRmoment podcast, we&apos;ve got Jo Carr, co-founder, and chief client officer at Hope&amp;Glory.   Hope&amp;Glory was co-founded by Jo Carr and James Gordon-MacIntosh in 2011. It now has a fee income of circa £8.5 million, employs about 80 people and grew by 25% in 2019.   [00:01:26] How Jo originally wanted to be a journalist or work in advertising.   [00:03:33] How Jo was originally a corpsumer PR person and made the switch to consumer relatively late in her career.   [00:08:15] Jo talks about the importance of being able to be yourself at work: “I&apos;m a big believer that you should be the same person at work as you are at home&quot;.   [00:09:30] Why Jo&apos;s time at QBO Bell Pottinger was such an important time of her career.  [00:11:43] Whether the relatively painful merger of QBO and Bell Pottinger Consumer has had an influence on Jo not wanting to sell Hope&amp;Glory so far?

It’s a bit of an owned-media special this week!    In the latest show, we talk to Will Sturgeon, head of content and thought leadership at PwC. Will talks us through PwC’s content strategy and explains why he believes the opportunity for owned-media content, distributed via a business’s experts, has never been greater.   In the UK, PwC has 22,000 employees and 900 partners and operates across multiple vertical sectors and disciplines. Will has a content team of about 10 people.   Here’s a flavour of what Will and I discuss:   [00:01:37] Will talks us through some of the set-piece content pieces that PwC does – including its Annual CEO Survey.   [00:01:51] How an organisation like PwC with 22,000 people in the UK and 900 partners, develops a co-ordinated content strategy.   [00:02:25] How the concerns of CEOs have changed over the last 23 years.   [00:03:28 ] How PwC&apos;s owned content also includes the UK

This week on the PRmoment podcast, we’re taking another change of tack – we’re talking about virtual agencies with Tamara Littleton, CEO and founder of The Social Element.   There are plenty of virtual agencies around, but not that many have managed to scale to the size of The Social Element. It’s a 300-people (100 staff, 200 freelancers), £9m virtual consultancy business operating internationally.   Here’s a flavour of what Tamara and I talked about:   [00:02:01] How paid media is more prominent than organic content on most social channels these days.   [00:02:40] Tamara discusses the three Cs of Social: creative, consultancy and communications.   [00:03:26] How Tamara has scaled her virtual agency to a £9m business of 300 people across Europe, the UK and the US.   [00:05:14] Tamara talks us through the structure of a virtual business like The Social Element.   [00:06:12] How the key to building a v

This week on the PRmoment podcast, I’m interviewing Louise Turner, head of Edelman Intelligence UK &amp; Ireland.Louise talks to us about Edelman’s annual Trust Barometer research for the UK  in a global context.[00:02:23] How trust in the institutions that govern our society collapsed during the 2008 financial crash and has never recovered.[00:02:42] How the Edelman Trust Barometer measures trust in our government, in our media, businesses and in the NGO sector.[00:03:26] How there is a massive difference of 14 trust points between the Informed public, people in the upper quartile of household income and the mass population.[00:04:26] How economic pessimism is a key driver of the gap in trust.[00:05:49] How globally we no longer trust the leaders of our government, the leaders of our businesses or the leaders of our media inst

This week on the PRmoment podcast, I’m interviewing Rachel Pendered, managing director of Media Zoo.Media Zoo has a fee income of circa £13m and approximately 130 employees. It’s an independent PR firm in London. It was co-founded by Rachel and Mark Killick in 2003.Before she co-founded Media Zoo, Rachel worked for the BBC and Channel 4 as a TV producer.Here’s a summary of what Rachel and I discuss: [00:01:30] Why have we seen so many women leave their agency CEO jobs in the last 12 months.[00:06:51] Why Rachel believes it&apos;s much harder to become a successful female entrepreneur than a male entrepreneur.[00:07:22] How just 8% of start-up funding goes to women.[00:10:08] How can we encourage more female entrepreneurs?[00:12:21] Why entrepreneurship is all about imagination.[00:13:28] Rachel talks to us through some stats from The Rose Review, a piece of research lookin

This week on the PRmoment Podcast I’m interviewing Mitch Kaye, co-founder and CEO of The Academy.The Academy has a fee income of approximately £4.3m, it’s an independent PR firm in London. It has 50 employees and was co-founded by Mitch Kaye and Dan Glover in 2014. Mitch previously founded Mischief which he sold to Engine within five years of its launch in 2006.The Academy describes itself as an agency that is both creative and strategic. Clients include: Amazon, Morrisons and Xero. Here’s a few of the highlights of what Mitch and I discussed: [00:02:02] Why Mitch describes himself as a hustler. [00:02:34] Why Mitch even now feels he “needs to prove a point”. [00:03:17] Mitch&apos;s parents, both in their 70s, still run a flooring business in Bournemouth and why they are Mitch&apos;s inspiration.  [00:04:06] Why Mitch fell out of love with journalism, his first career choice. [00:05:24] </b

This week on the PRmoment podcast I’m interviewing Greg Jones, managing director of Mischief.Mischief has a fee income of approximately £5m and employs 55 people. It’s part of the Engine Group. Mischief’s sister PR agency within Engine is the corporate shop MHP.Greg’s a rare example in PR of a creative director who has got the top job.He started his career at Shine, before stints at Slice (Engine’s consumer PR firm at the time) and then moving to M&amp;C Saatchi before co-founding his own business called Glass Jar. He then moved on to Splendid and finally back to Engine joining Mischief as creative director before getting the CEO job last year, when Frankie Cory left.[00:01:49] Greg talks us through how he took over as the CEO of Mischief when Frankie Cory left last year. [00:03:19] Why hustle has remained part of the Mischief DNA from the day that it was formed by Mitchell Kaye. [00:03:56] Why there have been three stag

This week on the PRmoment podcast, I’m interviewing Gerry Hopkinson, owner and CEO of Unity.Unity is a £2.7m fee income consumer PR consultancy based in London. Clients include the likes of Axa, Vue, Freesat and AEG. Unity’s fee income has grown by 30% in the last 12 months.Gerry is a Canadian who came to the UK aged 24. His early career was spent at PR agencies QBO and Band and Brown. He also had a stint in-house at Mastercard. Gerry co-launched Unity with Nik Govier in 2005.As many of our listeners will know Nik Govier left Unity in 2018. [00:01:43] Gerry tells us about Unity&apos;s hectic couple of years[00:04:59] What do brands want from their public relations? What is its function? What needs does public relations answer for clients and for wider society?[00:06:55] Why truth is, by its very nature, subjective. [00:07:23] How do you bring emotion to ideas and facts so that people really feel them and ac

Welcome to the second in a new mini-series of PRmoment podcasts where we interview the authors of books relevant to those who work in PR and communications.In the last year or so there have been a number of books launched by people I really respect in PR. Frankly, I don’t have time to read them all so, partly for selfish reasons, I thought I’d interview them on this show.Today I’m interviewing Kate Hartley, the author of Communicate in a Crisis: Understand, Engage and Influence Consumer Behaviour to Maximize Brand Trust.The book looks at the psychology of a crisis from the consumers’ perspective and focuses on how modern society engages/voices its outrage through social media and the implications of this for brands.Kate is the MD of independent PR firm Carot and the co-founder of crisis communications modelling training company Polpeo.Communicate in a Crisis: Understand, Engage and Influence Consumer Behaviour to Maximize Brand Trust is, needless t

On the PRmoment podcast this week we’ve got one of PR’s nice guys Justin Westcott.He’s currently got two jobs – not only is he chief operating officer of Edelman UK and Ireland, he’s also Edelman’s head of technology, EMEA.Justin started his PR career at Microsoft, before moving to August One and Inferno Communications. He joined Edelman in 2006.Edelman has a fee income of circa $890 million dollars and 5,500 staff and 60 offices globally.It’s an independent PR firm founded in 1952 by the last Daniel Edelman. It is currently run by his son Richard Edelman. As of 2018, it is the largest public relations firm in the world by revenue.Edelman has 600 staff in London.Here’s a flavour of what Justin and I discussed:[00:01:45] Why Justin really, really, really wanted to be a doctor but kept passing out![00:03:58] How he made the jump from IT recruitment to his first PR job in the Microsoft press office.[00:07:0

This week we’re changing tack again with the second of our mini series of podcasts looking at the use of data, technology and insight in communications.On the show is Petra Masinova, global director, reputation intelligence at Kantar.Petra has worked in senior in-house roles – so she understands what senior communicators want and need from their communications. She has also had big agency experience – having been CEO of McCann Worldwide in Prague.Petra has been the global CEO of Newton Media (a big European media measurement firm) before moving to the southern hemisphere’s biggest measurement player – iSentia as a global director.So she understands all aspects of PR’s data challenge – in-house, agency, national, international and technical.For those of you that don’t know WPP recently sold a 60% stake in Kantar to Bain Capital, the US private equity company in a deal expected to yield £2.47 billion to WPP and valuing Kantar at approximately $4bn.</

Welcome to the first in a new mini-series of PRmoment podcasts were we interview the authors of books relevant to PR and communications people.In the last year or so there have been a number of books launched by people I really respect in PR – frankly, I don’t have time to read them all so, partly for selfish reasons I thought I’d interview them on this show.First up is someone who is returning to the PRmoment podcast for a second time – which I think is a first, welcome back Rachel Bell.For those of you that don’t know, Rachel is a serial PR entrepreneur and has a stake in a number or PR firms currently as well as being a non-exec on a range of different agencies.She founded Shine, co-founded Mischief, owns a significant percentage of The Academy, has a stake in Adhuro and John Doe.She’s also a non-exec in a number of firms including Don’t Cry Wolf and BECG.Rachel recently finished co-writing a book called <a href='https://www.amazon.co.uk/

This week on the PRmoment podcast, we’re taking another change of tack – we’re talking about the pitching process and on the show we’ve got a PR buyer and a PR seller.On the buy side we’ve got Lenovo’s executive director, global corporate communications Charlotte West and on the sell side we’ve got 3 Monkey Zeno’s business development director Rebecca Wagstaffe.Here’s a summary of what Rebecca, Charlotte and I discussed:[00:01:19] What is a tissue meeting and are they a good idea?[00:04:30] How reliable is the &quot;that went really well&quot; feeling post the pitch?[00:06:45] How significant an influence do procurement tend to have in the decision making process? [00:08:38] How the pitch decision making scorecard will be weighted. [00:09:37] Charlotte talks us through Lenovo&apos;s score card for a recent pitch.[00:14:12] Is the pitch process really about the creative idea? Or is it mo

Kaizo is an independent PR firm specialising in two areas – B2B technology PR and health and wellness. It has a fee income of about £3m and employs 30 people.   Steph and Rhodri Harries bought the business in 2011 and it’s an interesting story because fairly swiftly after that they lost three of their biggest clients.   The firm is now thriving again and clients include the likes of Avast, Pure Storage and Snap Logic.Here’s a summary of what Steph and I discussed:[00:02:25] How Steph and the board of Kaizo bought the business from the Argyle Group in 2011. [00:04:44] How post the deal to buy the business in 2011 – the worst case scenario happened and Kaizo lost it&apos;s three biggest clients. [00:05:11] How in 2011 Kaizo lost £1m in revenue, which at the time was 50% of the business. [00:05:56] Why Kaizo had to go back into a startup mentality. [00:09:07] How having money in the bank was &quo

This week, in the latest PRmoment Podcast, we’ve got a change of format.  In anticipation of the PRmoment Awards 2020 I thought it would be interesting to hear from some of the winners from the PRmoment Awards 2019.  So today I’m talking to Pete Mountstevens, CCO &amp; Managing Partner at Taylor Herring, about its &apos;Spin Cycle: the launch of Samsung Quick Drive&apos; campaign that won the Integrated Communications Campaign of the Year at the 2019 PRmoment Awards.   The early bird entry deadline for the PRmoment Awards 2020 is Dec 16th. All the categories are on the awards microsite. Here’s a flavour of what Pete and I talked about:  [00:01:42] Pete tells us about the thinking behind the Samsung Quick Drive campaign and why it won a PRmoment Award. [00:02:28] What Ben thinks about Pete&apos;s washing machine! [00:03:22] How T

This week, in the latest of our life stories podcasts, I’m interviewing Marshall Manson.Marshall has been London based for the last 11 years.   He worked at Edelman London as its digital director from 2008 to 2013, then he joined Ogilvy, from 2013 to 2018, latterly as the last UK CEO of Ogilvy Public Relations.   Marshall joined Brunswick as a partner in April last year.   Brunswick employs 1,100 people globally and 250 people in the UK. It has a global fee income of circa £300m.   [00:01:52] How different is the work Marshall is doing at Brunswick compared to the earlier parts of his career?    [00:02:37] Why Alan Parker, Brunswick&apos;s founder, says it doesn&apos;t do &quot;people, politics or products.&quot;    [00:05:32] Marshall reflects on the differences between the PR market in China compared to the US and the UK, including the primacy of digital and the dominance of WeChat.    [00:08:09] Why for much of the web and d

This week, on the PRmoment podcast, we’re talking about mental health in PR.On the show we’ve got James Endersby, chief executive of Opinium, and Jane Fordham, who spent 20 years working in PR agencies before launching her eponymous consultancy in 2018 specialising in people, culture and diversity.Opinium has recently published a Mental Health and Wellbeing report in conjunction with the PRCA. One of the headlines coming out of the report says, and I quote: “that 62% of UK workers have struggled with their mental health in the last 12 months, and over four fifths (89%) of PR professionals surveyed say they have struggled with their mental wellbeing.”Here’s a flavour of what we discussed:[00:02:09] How 89% of participants in a survey of 500 PR people found that they have struggled with their mental well-being in the last 12 months.[00:02:25] Why workload is the top source of stress in PR.[00:02:30] How workload is also the top reason why p

This week, in the latest of our life stories series, I’m interviewing Asad Dhunna, founder of The Unmistakables, on the PRmoment Podcast. Asad started his career at IncrediBull (now Text 100), before moving to Weber Shandwick and via a stint in-house at FleishmanHillard Fishburn.Asad set up the Unmistakables in Aug 2018. Alongside running his own agency until recently he was also director of communications at Pride in London.Here is a summary of what Asad and I discussed:[00:01:02] As a gay man of Indian origin did Asad set up The Unmistakables because he didn&apos;t feel comfortable working in large agencies mostly populated by white, middle-class people who often went to private school? Or he did he do it because there was an opportunity for brands to better communicate with minority groups in the UK?[00:02:10] How during his time working in big agencies Asad felt he was working &quot;living in different worlds&quot; – when comparin

This week, in the latest of our life stories podcasts, I’m interviewing Jennifer Mowat, managing director at Babel.Jennifer went to university at Cambridge. Her first job in PR was at Mantra (now Speed) before moving to Chameleon and Brands2Life as a director. She joined Babel as managing director in February this year.Babel is an independent tech PR firm with a revenue of circa £2m. It employs 20 people in the UK and five in the US. It was founded by Ian Hood and Narelle Morrison in 2008. Narelle and Ian still own the business.Here’s a flavour of what Jenny and I discussed:[00:01:42] How Jenny originally wanted to be a teacher, but changed her mind whilst at university. [00:03:50] Why Jenny&apos;s time at Chameleon had a big impact on her career.[00:03:59] How Rob Skinner, Steve Loynes and Adrian Ma taught Jenny a lot during her time at Chameleon. [00:05:42] How Jenny has tried to learn from the senior lea

This week we’re changing tack – we’re challenging our listeners out there to engage your brains!Technology means we’re on the cusp of data and insight playing a much bigger role in the planning, activation and measurement of communications.Alongside this development, a number of new (and established firms) have invested in the technology to more accurately and more swiftly understand the numbers behind communications.And on the show today is David Benigson who is the CEO at one of these firms Signal AI.Signal has just raised a further $25 million funding, taking its total funding to something like $53m. So we’re talking about significant sums of money. And Cision this week has announced that it has been bought for $2.74bn by private equity firm Platinum Equity.So this is a sector attracting some very significant investment.While we’re on the topic of data and insight PRmoment has just launched what I reckon is the best <a href='https:

Here&apos;s a special PRmoment podcast from the ICCO Global Summit in Lisbon featuring interviews with ICCO CEO Francis Ingham, global CEO of Hotwire Barbara Bates, and new president of ICCO and group CEO Avian WE in India Nitin Mantri.On the podcast we cover global public relations trends, whether PR has an ethics problem and focus on Nitin&apos;s plans for his two-year stint as ICCO president.Here&apos;s a flavour of what we discussed:Francis Ingham[00:00:32] What is ICCO?[00:00:39] Do we really need a trade body for PR trade bodies? [00:01:28] Whether we are now entering a period of a two-speed global PR market?[00:02:03] How PR people globally identify the same challenges: Talent, proofing the value of what they do and ethics.[00:02:29] Whether PR has a greater mental health problem than the rest of society?[00:03:37] Why over-servicing and poor evaluation are linked to mental health issues in PR. <br

This week, in the latest of our life stories podcast, I’m interviewing Alex Northcott, co-founder of Gorkana and founder of Roxhill Media.Alex has packed quite a bit into his career.He was originally in the British Army as an officer in the Gurkhas.His first job when he left the British Army was in PR at JP Morgan.He then worked for Morgan Stanley before cofounding Gorkana in 2004 alongside Michael Webster.Between them they grew Gorkana over a six-year period before selling to Durrants – who after various acquisitions became what is now known to us all as Cision.The deal was reported to be worth just shy of £28m.Alex then left Cision and five years ago set up Roxhill Media. Which is again a media database company – albeit with a technology twist or two.Roxhill has a turnover of circa £5m and employs about 25 people in the UK.[00:01:27] How a relatively short career in the British Army shaped Alex&apos;s career. </

This week, in the latest of our life stories podcast, I’m interviewing Fenella Grey, chair at Porter Novelli London, on the PRmoment podcastFenella was a director at Weber Shandwick between 2007 and 2013, then she spent almost six years at Freuds before joining Porter Novelli in 2014.She was MD of the London office, before becoming London chair in July last year.Porter Novelli in London has circa 75 full-time and part-time people in its London office.Here’s a summary of what Fenella and I discuss:[00:01:01] Whether Freuds is still that the agency that consumer shops in London try to emulate. [00:03:29] How Fenella learnt at the &quot;front end of making big decisions and this and selling big ideas to the C-suite of organisations&quot; at Freuds. [00:05:02 ] Why did Fenella leave Freuds and move to Porter Novelli?[00:06:19] How, when Fenella joined Porter Novelli London, it required a &quot;big shot o

This week, in the latest PRmoment Podcast, we’ve got a change of format from normal.In anticipation of the PRmoment Awards 2020 I thought it would be interesting to hear from some of the winners from the PRmoment Awards 2019.So today I’m talking to Niall Couper who is head of media, PR and supporter communications for Amnesty International UK.The Amnesty International UK comms team won the in-house team of the year award at the PRmoment Awards this year.Here’s a flavour of what Niall and I discuss:[00:01:27] How Amnesty&apos;s comms function is split between reactive and proactive teams.[00:02:19] Niall talks us through Amnesty’s journalism engagement programme.[00:02:34] How a lack of budget is Amnesty&apos;s biggest challenge. [00:03:56] How the in-house team at Amnesty retains its creative edge.[00:08:25] Why Amnesty&apos;s work in London &qu

This week, in the latest of our life stories podcasts, I’m interviewing Louie St Claire, CEO of Harvard and board director at Chime Specialist GroupHarvard is part of the Chime Group, has a turnover of £7.5 million and grew by 18% last year.It has 80 employees.Chime originally bought Harvard in 2000 when it employed 200 people.What I love about Louie and Harvard’s story is that when Louie joined the company in 2011 it was down to a revenue £1.2m and had 11 employees left.So it’s been a proper journey – at the start it was all about survival, then a turnaround, then growth and recently Louie as the lead for a number of acquisitions for the firm.Harvard clients include Facebook Workplaces, Cisco, Vodafone, Lenovo and Square.Here’s some of the highlights of what Louie and I discussed:[00:01:23] When Louie joined Harvard  in 2011 it was down to 11 employees at one point, from a high of 200 employees 10 years earlier.<

This week, in the latest of our life stories podcast, I’m interviewing Dan Neale, co-founder and MD at Alfred.Alfred is an independent PR shop in London focusing on the consumer, entertainment, technology and gaming markets.It has a fee income of circa 1.3m and about 15 employees. Alfred was founded in 2013 by Dan Neale and Gemma Pears. Gemma moved to the US for a short while and during that time Dan bought her out, meaning he now owns 100% of the business.Previously to Alfred, Dan headed up Unlimited Group’s then digital and social offer – Things with Wings.He was only 30 when he launched Alfred – so he was a relatively young PR entrepreneur.Here’s a flavour of what Dan and I discussed:[00:01:21] Whether Dan, as a 30 year old, reckoned it was a risk to leave a salaried job and launch Alfred.[00:04:26] How Dan was influenced by his father being an entrepreneur.[00:06:40] How Dan always had the ambiti

This week on the PRmoment Podcast, in the latest of our life stories series, I’m pleased to welcome MD of Nelson Bostock Nick Clark.   Nelson Bostock is one of those firms that everyone’s heard of, but it probably punches below its weight in terms of it’s profile in the PR industry.   For those of you that don’t know, Nelson Bostock was founded in 1987 by Martin Bostock and Roger Nelson. The founders of the business have left the firm and it’s now part of Unlimited Group which is owned by the private equity firm DBay.   Unlimited Group has a turnover of over £70m and consists of digital agency TMW, research firm Walnut as well as Health Unlimited (previously Red Door), consumer agency Fever and Nelson Bostock.   Nelson Bostock has a turnover of approximately £5.3m and has 65 employees.   Here is a flavour of what we discussed:   [00:02:01] How Nick has worked for Nelson Bostock for (almost) 21 years.    [00:02:16] Whethe

This week, in the latest of our life stories podcasts, I’m interviewing Mark Lowe, co-founder of Third City. Third City is a consumer PR firm in London with a fee income of over £2 million and a turnover approaching £3 million and 28 employees.Mark co-founded Third City in 2008 with Graz Belli. Previously Mark had worked at Band &amp; Brown for six years.Here is a summary of what Mark and I discussed.[00:01:09] How Mark originally wanted to be an actor. [00:03:01] Mark talks us through his early career as a singer in a band. [00:05:09] Why if you have a dream in life it&apos;s important to at least give it a go! Even if you ultimately end up doing something else.[00:06:35] Mark and I discuss the trend of people going plural and having two or more jobs.[00:07:42] Whether PR firms offer sufficient flexibility in working practices. [00:08:32] Why Mark reckons his CV in his 20s was &

This week on the PRmoment Podcast, in the latest of our life stories series, I’m pleased to welcome co-owner and managing director of Chameleon Tom ButtleChameleon is an independent tech PR firm in London with a fee income of £2.1m and 20 people.The business was originally owned by Helen Holland before Tom Butttle and Tom Berry (what are the chances!) completed an MBO of the business in April 2017.Here’s a summary of what Tom and I discussed:[00:01:08] How Tom was a late starter in PR, having previously worked in HR, but has since had a pretty accelerated career path. [3.8s] [00:03:35] Tom talks about the advantages of moving into PR from a different sector. [0.9s] [00:05:04] Why Tom took a pay cut to move into PR. [0.4s] [00:07:15] Tom tells us how, and I quote, &quot; he fell in love with content and storytelling&quot;.[00:09:21] How Tom has benefited from having a mentor in his career.

This week on the PRmoment podcast, I’m pleased to welcome Natasha Hill, managing director at Bottle.Bottle has a turnover of £2m and is an independent multi-specialist PR firm in Oxford.The business was previously owned by Will and Claire Cairns. Will Cairns still has a stake in the business but Natasha and creative director Colin Cather now run the business day to day.Bottle has 25 staff and about 60% of its work is in consumer markets and 40% in B2B.Here is a flavour of what Natasha and I discussed:[00:01:21] Why Bottle founder Will Cairns can now be found in the Cotswolds, on a bike with a bunch of American tourists![00:02:02] How Bottle founder Will Cairns has exited the day-to-day running of the business and handed it over the Natasha and creative director Colin Cather. [00:04:49] Natasha talks us through the story of Bottle as a business – how it grew to about £2m in 2014 and then lost some momentum (fee inc

Richard Fogg, CEO at CCgroup on the PRmoment podcastThis week on the PRmoment podcast I’m pleased to welcome Richard Fogg, CEO of CCgroup.CCgroup has a fee income of £3.5m and is an independent, technology-focused PR firm in London.The business was previously known as Companycare and rebranded as CCgroup in 2006Rich and his business partner Paul Nolan completed a management buy out of the business in 2018 and we talk in detail about that process.[00:03:16] Why Rich believes his Bournemouth PR degree gave him a massively unfair advantage in his career. [00:04:16] Why it annoys Rich that PR courses get such a panning in the industry. [00:04:20] How it frustrates Rich that the sizeable body of PR theory out there is rarely used.[00:04:27] How Rich believes there is a correlation between our industry&apos;s inability to use its academic models and our difficulties in getting onto boards.[00:05:

This week on the PRmoment Podcast, in the latest of our life stories interviews, I’m pleased to welcome Torod Neptune, who is worldwide group vice president and chief communications officer at Lenovo Group.His CV is a beautiful thing – he’s previously spent time at Weber, WE, The US House of Representatives and Verizon before joining Lenovo in 2017.Torod is also a passionate supporter of increasing the number of BAME people working in PR.Here is a taster of what Torod and I discuss:[00:01:36] Torod talks about his time working as director of strategic and crisis communications at US House of Representatives during 9/11. [00:03:22] How his time working in politics gave him an acute understanding of the detail required for stakeholder relationship management. [00:03:42] How Torod learnt very quickly that there is no such thing as an apolitical role in an organisation such as the Congress.[00:05:51] Why Torod

This week on the PRmoment podcast, I’m pleased to welcome Jon Lonsdale, CEO and joint founder of Octopus. Octopus has a fee income of £5m and is an independent technology-focused PR firm in London. The business has been going for nearly 18 years and was founded by three mates who worked together at Bite. Those friendships are still intact and are still at the heart of the business. Octopus has also, in Jon’s words “bet the farm” on its brands to sales positioning of the agency and we&apos;ll be talking about that, amongst other things, in this podcast. [00:01:14] Why Jon reckons &quot;running a business with your mates is about as good as it gets.&quot;  [00:02:44] How Jon, Billy Hamilton-Stent and Pete Hendrick have retained such a good working environment between themselves over such a prolonged period of time. [00:03:04] Why Jon and the partners of the business have treated themselves as employees to avoid Octopus hav

Here’s a special PRmoment podcast from AMEC’s Global Summit in Prague: featuring PRmoment founder Ben Smith complete with an almost lost voice, Diageo’s Jim Alexander, AMEC chairman and CARMA CEO, Europe and the Americas Richard Bagnall and Mischief’s head of insight and strategy Gemma Moroney.We talk through the three perspectives of PR’s measurement opportunity – the client&apos;s perspective, the measurement provider’s perspective and finally, the PR firm’s side of the story.First up I talked to Diageo’s Jim Alexander.Jim and I talk for about the first 18 minutes of the podcast and here is a flavour of what we discussed:[00:00:58] Jim talks to us about where Diageo started its measurement journey and where it has got to now. [00:01:17] How, two years ago Diageo&apos;s measurement processes was in &quot;a very disparate place&quot;. [00:02:08] Why each brand and each different special

This week on the PRmoment Podcast, in the latest of our life stories series, I interviewed chairman of The PR Office Shimon Cohen.The PR Office was founded in 2004, has a fee income of about £2.5m and about 15 employees.The business has clients across a broad range of sectors and Shimon has some interesting views on how he sees the scope of public relations.Here is a summary of what Shimon and I discussed:[00:01:05] How Shimon used to be executive director to the Chief Rabbi but ended up in PR.[00:04:32] Shimon talks us through his “job interview” with Sir Tim Bell. [00:06:49] Shimon describes what it was like working at Bell Pottinger in its heyday (Shimon left 14 years before the scandal that bought it down.) [00:07:16] Why good public relations essentially comes down to three things: Where are you now, where do you want to be and how do you get there. [00:09:46] How, Bell Pott Gate aside, S

This week on the PRmoment Podcast, in the latest of our life stories series, I’m interviewing Sharon Bange, managing partner at Kindred.Kindred has a fee income of circa £5m, a turnover of approx £9m and employs circa 50 people.It is an interesting story because the business almost went bust in 2010 (for reasons discussed in the podcast) but it has since recovered.Sharon has been with the business since 2003 and is now a managing partner.[00:00:48] How Sharon ended up in PR although her first choice of career was to become a social worker.[00:02:53] How Kindred has come back from the brink of administration.   [00:03:21 ] Why, when David Cameron&apos;s Conservative Government came to power in 2010, it had immediate negative implications for Kindred because 90% of its client base was public sector government work.[00:03:41] Hear how the morning after the 2010 election, the phones at Kindred kept ringing –  a

This week on the PRmoment podcast, in anticipation of our Influence of Influence conference on 15 May, I interviewed Rax Lakhani, freelance PR and social media consultant, about the current state of influencer marketing.Here’s a summary of what Rax and I discussed:[00:01:30] Why Rax turned his back on full-time PR agency employment and became a freelancer.[00:04:56 ] Why Rax believes PR agencies have become incredibly good at commoditising what they do.[00:06:22] Why Rax worries that PR sector is not embracing influencer marketing enough and how he thinks PR firms are getting influencer marketing wrong.[00:07:55] Why ad agencies have forced the term influencer marketing onto PR – and we&apos;ve just accepted it.[00:10:22] Why the word influencer has become such a broad term – it&apos;s become meaningless.[00:13:37] Why the

This week on the PRmoment Podcast, in the latest of our life stories series, I interviewed James Hickman, director, Hatch Communications.Hatch is a Leeds based consultancy founded in 2008 and they now have billings of £2m per annum and 25 staff. Hatch had 80% growth last year, all of which was organic growth.Clients include Diageo globally and the Rugby League World CupHere is a summary of what James and I discussed:[00:00:56] Whether it is tougher to build a PR agency business outside of London than it is within it. [00:03:22] How face-to-face client contact is so important in building longer client relationships. [00:04:46] How small agencies like Hatch can win big clients like Diageo. [00:08:41] Why some agencies in Manchester and Leeds have been &quot;digital native&quot; for longer than many London firms. [00:10:31] How the co-founders of Hatch Jason Madeley, Matt Peden and James launched

This week on the PRmoment podcast, in the latest of our life stories series, I interview Dee Gibbs, founder of Liberty Communications.Dee founded Liberty Communications 21 years ago. Liberty is an independent PR firm, specialising in Tech PR. It has a turnover of £2.5m, approximately 25 people and offices in London and San Francisco.Here is a flavour of what Dee and I discussed:[00:01:20] Why, after working in-house for 15 years, Dee decided to start up her own firm.[00:04:17] Why, at launch, the agency name Liberty was chosen as a reflection of what she hoped the business would give her. [00:04:25] Dee tells us where she thinks PR tend to get things wrong from a client perspective. [00:05:47] Dee tells us what it is that she enjoys about owning her own business.[00:07:24] How Dee now runs Liberty from Portugal alongside her UK based management team. [00:09:33] Having run Liberty throug

This week on the PRmoment Podcast, in the latest of our life stories series, I’m pleased to welcome CEO of Golin Jon Hughes.Global PR firm Golin has a fee income of about $240m. Jon has been at Golin for about 14 years, he spent six years in the UK as co-managing director alongside Matt Neale, before moving to Hong Kong to head up its international business. He became CEO alongside Matt Neale and Gary Rudnick in 2017.Here are some of the highlights of what Jon and I discussed: [00:01:15] How Jon went from working in IT sales and ended up as global CEO of a top-ten global PR firm. [00:04:28] Whether Jon has Jon got more “PR royalty” mates than anyone else? [00:06:04] Why Jon “didn&apos;t really know” Matt Neale before they became joint UK MDs of Golin. [00:07:59] Why the sector experience of Matt and Jon combined to mean that they together were the right combination to take Golin forward [00:08:52]

This week on the PRmoment podcast, in the latest of our life stories series, I&apos;m pleased to welcome Sarah Scholefield, CEO, UK and Ireland, Grayling.Sarah has worked at Grayling for five years, having previously held senior roles in Singapore with Fleishman Hillard, Ruder Finn and EdelmanGrayling has nine offices in the UK, 70 globally and 130 employees. Sarah can’t comment on these numbers because of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, but Grayling was reported to have a fee income of circa $55m globally in 2018.Here’s a flavour of what Sarah and I discussed:[00:01:22] How Sarah has restructured and changed Grayling UK since she became UK MD in 2015. [00:02:29] Why you have to take a long-term view when you&apos;re trying to turn a business around.[00:02:43] How Sarah had to get rid of the parts of the business that weren’t working as they should be. [00:02:58] Why when changing a business you&apos;ve got to be q

Natalie started her career at Shine in 2003 before launching Aduro in 2012. Aduro has a turnover of £1m and employs 10 people. It specialises in consumer focused public relations work.[00:00:54] Why Natalie describes Aduro as the “Ronseal of PR”.[00:02:56] Why Natalie believes it is possible to isolate the impact of PR in a consumer market where there are numerous promotional channels. [00:03:52] How working with entrepreneurs showed Natalie that if she could demonstrate the impact of PR on the entrepreneurs’ businesses, their businesses would grow and they would spend more on PR. [00:05:59] How Aduro has developed a model where it believes it can confidently point to its sales impact.[00:07:08] Why internally there is a need for PR to be able to define its cost per acquisition.[00:08:21] Why clients should own their evaluation and measurement insight, rather than farming the whole thing out t

This week, in the latest of our life stories podcast, I’m interviewing Scott Wilson, president Europe and Africa at Burson Cohn &amp; Wolfe (BCW).Scott started his career in journalism, before becoming head of media at Porter Novelli and then managing director of consumer at Weber Shandwick.Scott then moved to Cohn &amp; Wolfe to become UK CEO and later MD of EMEA. And when Cohn &amp; Wolfe and Burson Marsteller merged one year ago he got the nod for the president Europe and Africa job at Burson Cohn &amp; Wolfe.BCW global revenues are estimated at $700m and it has approximately 4,000 employees globally.Thanks to our PRmoment podcast sponsors PRCA.Here is a flavour of what Scott and I discussed:[00:01:15] As an ex-jouno turned PRO – why has public relations worked out for Scot when it hasn&apos;t for so many journalists who attempt to make the same move?[00:02:48] Did Scott move to PR from journalism because it paid more

This week on the PRmoment podcast, in the latest of our life stories series, I&apos;m pleased to welcome executive director of Premier, Lawrence Francis.Lawrence has an interesting personal career story because he has successfully made the journey from being a business development director at Premier to working client side.Premier is one of UK PR’s best kept secrets; it&apos;s a big firm. It has a turnover of nearly 20 million pounds and employs 170 people. It specialises in entertainment, art and cultural PR. Here is the flavour of what Lawrence and I discuss[00:01:07] How Lawrence made the transition from a business development role to a client-side PR role.[00:06:09] Why Lawrence was a late starter in PR and how he has managed to catch up.[00:07:11] How Lawrence changed his job role within the business. [00:09:08] Why working in businesses that have a certain scale and across multiple markets ma

This week, in the latest of our life stories podcast, I’m interviewing Neil Henderson, group director of global media and financial communications at Zurich Insurance Group.Neil is based in Switzerland.Previously, he has was head of media, content and partnerships at Which?, director of communications at Mastercard, executive director at Golin and head of media and broadcast at Red.Before this, he was a journalist with Sky, ITN and the BBC.[00:01:03] How Neil has managed his career so that he has been able to work in a broad range of sectors rather than specialise in one. [00:01:58] How for Neil, as a journalist turned PR guy, his career has always been &quot;a bit like working a newsroom&quot;. [00:07:01] Why Neil wishes he&apos;d stayed at Red and Golin longer than he did. [00:08:17] Whether PR people still under-prioritise the broadcast media. [00:12:38] How one of Neil&ap

This week on the PRmoment podcast I’m interviewing Louise Turner, head of Edelman Intelligence UK &amp; Ireland.Louise heads up a large part of Edelman’s annual Trust Barometer research and is here to tell us about the UK findings in a global context.Louise talks about a fair bit of data in this podcast and below are a few useful links where you can learn more about the context of the discussion.To hear more about the global Trust Barometer have a look here and all the UK specific findings are hereAnd here is come background reading on measuring and diagnosing Trust.Here is a flavour of what we discussed on the podcast:[00:00:49] Louise give us an overview of the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer results.</p

This week on the PRmoment podcast, in the latest of our life stories series, I’m pleased to welcome co-founder and CEO of Diffusion Daljit Bhurji.Diffusion was established 11 years ago and has a turnover of £5m and employes 60 people - 30 in London and 30 in the US, with offices in New York and more recently LA.It has a range of consumer, travel and technology clients. From about 26 minutes onwards, Daljit has some interesting things to say about diversity in public relations.[00:01:14] How starting his career as part of a startup agency meant Daljit always wanted to own his own business.[00:03:10] What it was about Ivan Ristic&apos;s and Daljit&apos;s friendship that meant they trusted each other sufficiently to go into business together. [00:03:27] How Daljit ended up starting a business with one of his best friends.[00:04:22] Why Daljit stared Diffusion at the age of just 27. [00:05:44] H

This week on the PRmoment podcast, in the latest of our life stories series, I’m pleased to welcome founder and MD of Fanclub PR Adrian Ma.Fanclub was established seven years ago, has a turnover of £1m and employes 11 people.It has a consumer and B2B client portfolio including Tesco Mobile and every PR person’s favourite organisation The NLA.Adrian has some really interesting things to say about the progress of PR’s diversity problem from about 32 minutes onwards.[00:01:35] Adrian tells us about his first year in business and why there were times when it was a struggle to keep it going.[00:01:50] How a chance meeting with a journo led to Adrian setting up Fanclub PR.[00:02:28] How Adrian started Fanclub with a £500-a-month client.[00:03:34] Why Adrian had to freelance for about two years before he was able to dedicate his time 100% to Fanclub.[00:07:38] Why you have to commit to launching your

This week in the latest of our life stories podcast I’m interviewing Tom Murphy, director of global communications, Microsoft Services.Tom started his career at Text 100 in Ireland and then worked for a couple of start-ups and mid-sized firms in their in-house teams before joining Microsoft Ireland in 2005.He moved to Microsoft&apos;s head office in Redmond in the US in 2009 and is now Global Communications at Microsoft Services. Tom joined us on the phone from Redmond.Here is a summary of what Tom and I discussed:[00:00:56] What was it that he did at Microsoft Ireland that meant he got a tap on the shoulder to go to the US. [00:02:15] Why Microsoft has a career profile where you spend a couple of years learning a job, you spend a couple of years doing the job and then you look for your next move. [00:03:18] How, in Redmond, Tom can go skiing 40 minutes from his front door and gets a guaranteed four or five mon

This week on the PRmoment podcast, I’m talking to co-founder of Tyto and previous global CEO of Hotwire Brendon Craigie. Brendon joined Hotwire in 2000, three months after it was founded and went on to become its group CEO. During his time at Hotwire the firm grew to have a turnover of $31 million. Unexpectedly for most observers, Brendon left Hotwire in 2017 following its acquisition of Eastwick. He set up Tyto in October of that year. Eighteen months later Tyto has a fee income of approximately £1m.Here’s a flavour of what Brendon and I discussed:[00:01.18] Why Brendon left his position as global CEO at Hotwire after it acquired Eastwick.[00:01.25] How he and the management team gew Hotwire to become a $31m, multi-sector, multi-geography PR firm.[00:05:56] Why Brendon decided it was now or never for his own start up. [00:06:09] Why Brendon&apos;s first boss Kristin Syltevik at Weber Shandwick h

This week on the PRmoment Podcast, in the latest of our life stories series, I’m pleased to welcome co-founder and CEO of Lansons Tony Langham.Lansons is one of the UK&apos;s largest independent PR consultancies - with a fee income of circa £14m.The business was founded in 1989 by Tony and his now wife Clare Parsons. Lansons has about 110 employees.Here is a summary of what Tony and I discussed:[00:00:42] Tony tells us about the series of events that led to him and Clare launching Lansons. [00:02:56] Why, despite maxing out his and Clare Parson&apos;s new AMEX cards when they launched Lansons, they didn&apos;t really see it as a risk. [00:03:55] Tony tells us what it&apos;s like running a business with his wife for nearly 30 years. [00:06:47] Tony talks us through Lansons&apos; ownership structure - where half of the business is owned by employees and approximately 50 percent is owned by Clare

This week, on the PRmoment podcast in the latest of our life stories series, I’m pleased to welcome Molly Aldridge, Global CEO of M&amp;C Saatchi Public Relations.Molly has worked for both large and small agencies, independent and networked. She joined M&amp;C Saatchi Public Relations in 2012.   The company has a fee income of circa £10m and employs circa 100 people.   Here is what Molly reveals:   [00:03:32] The importance of PR being a good place for parents to come back to work after having children.   [00:04:36] Why PR as a sector needs to make sure that it looks after working mums and dads otherwise you lose a whole set of talent certainly within the industry at a time when PR firms are struggling to find sufficient talent. [00:05:27] Why Molly&apos;s time at Cohn &amp; Wolfe was such an important job in her career. [00:05:45] What makes a good public relations practitioner today. <

This week, in the latest of our life stories podcast series, I’m interviewing Giles Fraser.Giles is co-founder of Brands2Life. He started the agency in 2000 with Sarah Scales and today, the agency has over 140 staff, a fee income of £14m and offices in the UK and US.  Giles started his career at mid-sized agency Infopress on Fleet St when the papers were all still there and he spent four years pitching stories to journalists in the newsrooms and pubs.He then moved on to work in the communications strategy team at management consultants PA Consulting.During this time he studied for an MBA in the evenings at Cass Business School.He then moved in-house to IT services firm Logica where he oversaw all its global communications.In 1995, he left Logica to take on the role of MD of Hill and Knowlton’s tech team and, over the next five years, grew the revenues of this division ten-fold.Giles launched Brands2Life in 2000 alongside co-founder

This week I&apos;m interviewing Aaron Kwittken, founder of KWT in the latest of life stories podcasts.  Aaron started KWT, formally Kwittken, 13 years ago. Before this he followed a big agency career path working at MSL, Ketchum, Fleishman, Cohn and Wolfe and Havas.  KWT has a fee income of $12 to $15 million dollars and around 80 employees including 12 in London.  Aarron sold KWT to MDC Partners in 2010 and still owns a minority stake in the firm.  MDC Partners also owns Allison Partners, Hunter PR and Sloane &amp; Co. Here is a summary of what Aaron and I discussed: Why having spent 13 years working for some of the world&apos;s biggest PR firms he decided to launch Kwittken. 0.59 mins  Why mediocrity can hide at big agencies in a way in can&apos;t in smaller firms. 01.19 mins Why it&apos;s wrong that the more senior you get in a large agency the further away you get from actually serving clients. <e

This week on The PRmoment podcast I’m catching up with Rebecca Blinston-Jones, UK managing director of MWWPR.MWWPR is a US-owned, mid-sized PR firm with revenues of $40-50m that employs around 250 people.In the UK it has revenues of £1.7m and employs around 20 people.Here is a taster of what Rebecca and I discussed: How her formative years at Text 100 played a huge part in Rebecca’s career 1.05 minsHow Rebecca met her husband at Text 100 1.40 minsHow Rebecca used to sign clients on the back of napkins during her time at Mantra PR How Mantra survived the dot.com crash and was then sold to Lowry Group and merged into Speed Communications. 4.30 minsHow Rebecca met and worked for Patrick Herridge at Mantra Communication, then they worked together at Parys Communications and then at MWWPR 6 minsHow Rebecca had equity in both Mantra and Parys - and

In a special PRmoment podcast I talk to Howard Kosky, CEO of 4DC, the recently launched podcast consultancy.   In a wide-ranging conversation about podcasts, here is a summary of what Howard and I discussed:   Why the rise in podcast popularity is linked to the continued popularity of radio 0.50 minsWhether the rise of podcasting is linked to consumers getting screen fatigue 1.42 minsThe trend of narrowcasting 2.20 minsThat 11% of UK adults listen to a podcast each week, average hours listening is just over 3.5 hours each week 3.15 minsHow the use of podcast in the UK has increased from 3.2 million adults to 5.9 million adults a week according to Ofcom&apos;s figures 3.45 minsWhat does a podcast need to be successful? 5.55 minsWhat are the opportunities for brands within podcasting as a channel 7.44 minsWhy it’s important not to underestima

This week on the PRmoment podcast. in the latest of our life stories series, I’m pleased to welcome co-founder of Taylor Herring, James Herring.  James started Taylor Herring in 2001 alongside his then girlfriend Kath Taylor.   Taylor Herring has had quite a 12 months, with work with Greggs, The Beano, Samsung, Diageo and Easyjet (and I could go on) grabbing attention.  Taylor Herring is one of a group of independent firms in London who seem to be pushing the boundaries of public relations - to a more integrated place, but it is doing that by unashamedly taking advantage of its understanding of what is required to make a story fly in earned media.  Taylor Herring Group has billings of around £4.5m and employs around 20 staff.   Here is the flavour of what James and I discuss:   How James ended up getting his first job in talent management at comedy agency Avalon 1.15 minsHow James ended up working on 10 Edinbu

Welcome to a slightly different PRmoment podcast. This week we&apos;re going to be doing a year in review of 2018.  The show will be divided up into three parts. First up, we have Alice Weightman, founder and CEO of Hanson Search, who&apos;s going to talk to us about the PR talent market in 2018.  Then we have PRCA director general Francis Ingham, who’ll be giving us a wider perspective about the health of the sector over the past 12 months. Finally, we have Taylor Herring co-founder James Herring guving us his perspective on the most interesting pieces of work over the past year.Here’s a summary of what Alice and I talked about:The “busyness” barometer of the UK PR sector in the last 12 monthsThe impact of Brexit on PR recruitmentHow the shift from retainer work to project work has affected the recruitment market How 2018 started with a lot of focus on senior hires in PR, but this then fell away over the summer

This week, on the PRmoment podcast, as part of our life stories series, I’m interviewing Barbara Bates, global CEO of Hotwire. Barbara was joint founder of the independent US tech specialist Eastwick and ran the firm for 25 years before selling to Hotwire, in what was Hotwire’s parent firm Enero Group’s biggest acquisition for the agency to date.Following Hotwire’s takeover of Eastwick, Barbara became global CEO of the agency that had bought her company.Hotwire has grown significantly since the acquisition and now has 250 staff in 12 different countries.Here is a flavour of what we discussed:Barbara outlines how the tech sector has grown throughout her career, particularly in the USBarbara tells us how Eastwick got its witch-themed nameHow to manage a PR firm through three different recessionsWhy PR firms need to be know as being really good at one thingWhy PR firms need to work with both larger brand

This week, on the PRmoment podcast, as part of our life stories series, I’m interviewing  Nik Govier, founder and CEO of agency Blurred. Previously, Nik was the co-founder of consumer PR shop Unity. At its peak, Unity had a turnover of circa £4m. Nik has recently founded and self backed her new venture Blurred, which launched last month. Here is a flavour of what we discussed: How a job as a tour guide at at Madame Tussauds led to a career in PR 1 min  How Nik’s early career was in corporate PR, but despite this she then moved to consumer PR when she started Unity 2.30 mins  How a random account win set the tone for Unity’s consumer specialist success story 4.45 mins  How awards built the momentum for the growth of Unity 6.50 mins  What the creative process looked like for Gerry and Nik at Unity 8.50 mins  Why the combination of being able to be a planner and a

This week, on the PRmoment podcast, I’m interviewing  Mandy Sharp, founder of Tin Man. Mandy founded Tin Man in 2013 and it now has a fee income of £1.3m and employs 20 people. Previously, Tin Man was part owned by Unity co-founders Nik Done and Gerry Hopkinson, but Mandy has recently bought them out and is now the sole owner of Tin Man. Here is a summary of what we discussed:How it feels for Mandy owning 100% of Tin Man, having bought out Nik Done and Gerry Hopkinson who previously owned a minority stake Why her first job in PR taught her how not to do it Why her time at Band &amp; Brown had a big impact on her career Why there is a pattern of two founders setting up PR firms Why Mandy always knew she’d set up her own business, but was still nervous about it Why Mandy has launched a business each time she has been on maternity leave How it came about that Nik Done and Gerry Hopkinson

This week, on the PRmoment oodcast, I interviewed Angie Wiles, founder of The Difference Collective.Previously, Angie founded Virgo Health with Sarah Matthew in 2003 before selling Virgo to Golin in 2012. Both Sarah and Angie have now left Golin.Angie is now doing it all again and set up The Difference Collective last year.Here is a summary of what we discussed: Why Angie preferred PR to marketing at uni  How she blagged a job at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and was on the IOC&apos;s press team during the Ben Johnson drug scandal  How Angie got into healthcare communications  Why Angie disagrees with my suggestion that healthcare PR is boring  Angie describes the different elements of healthcare PR, from the prescription side, to over-the-counter, to medical education  The impact of working in a regulated market for healthcare communications professionals  The differences in healthcare communications i

This week, on the PRmoment Podcast, I’m interviewing Adrian Talbot, global CFO at Hotwire.   Most PR agency entrepreneurs I speak to reckon the time they hired an experienced financel director was a critical moment for the growth of their business – so I thought it would be interesting to get an experienced PR agency FD on the show to talk.   Adrian has held senior FD posts in various PR firms for the last 15 years, including Hotwire, Instinctif, Bartle Bogle Hegarty and Burson Marsteller.   Here is a summary of what we discussed: The most important challenges for a finance director in a consultancy business The difficulties of financial forecasting for a PR firm when clients can give you three months’ notice The difficulties of managing hard-to-predict revenues against a fixed staff cost The difficulty that public relations has in selling an intangible product Why a successful FD must involve themselves in the bus

This week, on the PRmoment podcast, I’m interviewing Brad MacAfee, chief executive officer, senior partner at Porter Novelli. Brad has worked at Porter Novelli for the past 18 years and is now the global CEO of this Omnicom-owned PR firm. Porter Novelli has around 90 offices in 60 countries. Here is a flavour of what Chris and I discussed: Brad identifies what he sees as the four growth categories for public relations over the next few years 1 minWhether company purpose has become the new CSR? 2.30 minsWhy consumer behavior is fuelling the rush for company purpose 4 minsWhy Brad almost left Porter Novelli in 2006 when he didn’t make partner 6.30 minsWhy Brad decided not to leave Porter Novelli 7.20 minsWhy personal career management is really important 8.46 minWhy the first 100 da

This week, on the PRmoment Podcast, I’m interviewing Chris Talago, VP PR &amp; communications, JAPAC &amp; EMEA at Oracle.   Chris started his career in the British Army before moving, fairly randomly it has to be said, into PR. He started his career in-house before moving agency side with jobs at Text 100 and Hill and Knowlton. He then moved in-house to AMD before tacking back agency side to become general manager EMEA at Waggener Edstrom (now WE) before taking the Oracle job in 2016.  Here is a flavour of what Chris and I discuss:Why Chris always wanted to be a soldier in the British Army 1.30 minsWhy he chose to become an infantry soldier 2.02minHow his father’s time in the Polish parachute regiment during The Second World War shaped Chris’s career in the Army 2.25 minsWhether Chris saw action during his time in the Army 3.25 mins</e

This week, on the PRmoment Podcast, I’m interviewing Vanessa Pine, co-founder of Atlas Partners. What I love about Vanessa’s career is that it’s real! She says she doesn’t have any regrets, but there are a few career decisions which I suspect, in hindsight, she could have played out differently.Vanessa is currently a director at Atlas Partners which employs 10 people and has a fee income of £600K. Atlas was founded in 2015.Here is a summary of what Vanessa and I discussed: Vanessa tells us what it was like to work on the Lib Dem campaign in the 2010 general election when “I agree with Nick” briefly became one of the nation&apos;s favourite phrases  How the TV debates changed the dynamic of UK election campaigns  Why the Lib Dems went to 40% in the polls for a brief period  How a very small Lib Dem general election team w

This week on the PRmoment Podcast I interview co-founder and executive creative director at The Romans, Joe Mackay-SinclairJoe launched The Romans less than 4 years ago and already it has a fee income of about £3.5m and employs 30 people.Here is a summary of what Joe and I discuss:Whether he regrets Mother investing in a minority stake in The Romans, or whether he wished The Romans had remained independent 35 secs How the partnership with Mother has benefited The Romans 2.20 mins Why we all need some mentors in our lives 4.20 minsWhat does the fact that virtually none of The Roman’s clients are Mother’s clients say about the need for integrated agencies 4.45 mins What do clients want when they are purchasing marketing services 6.45 minsWhere The Romans are currently winning work 7.30 secs Why good work is the key ingredient in the growth of a PR firm 8.35 mins Why Joe decided tha

This week, on the PRmoment Podcast, I’m pleased to welcome founder of The Communications Store Julietta Dexter. Julietta established The Communications Store 23 years ago and it now has an income of £16m and employs 200 people – 180 in London and 20 in the US.  The Communications Store has remained independent and is a specialist consultancy operating in fashion, beauty and lifestyle.  Here is a summary of what Julietta and I discussed:  Why Julietta is so proud to have had the same job for the last 23 years. 1.03 mins Why Julietta has not had a “switch-off” holiday for the last 25 years and why that works for her. 2.30 mins Why her business partner Tom Konig-Oppenheimer decided to leave The Communications Store after 23 years and how Julietta and Tom managed his exit from the business. 3.26 mins and 32.15 mins<

This week on The PRmoment podcast I’m catching up with Neil Hedges, founder and partner at communications firm Headland. Neil has worked in the UK PR scene for nearly 40 years – so he knows his way around. Before setting up Headland, Neil was one of the founders of Fishburn Hedges – arguably UK PR’s pre-eminent PR shop of the 1990s and most of the noughties. Here is a taster of what Neil and I discussed: How Neil started his career in advertising and decided to move to public relations 0.46 Why PR’s current need for planners is history repeating itself 3.15 Why his time at time at Valin Pollen had a big influence on the rest of his career 4.15 Why a consultancy business is always likely to have very busy periods and some fallow ones 6.45 Why did Neil leave Valin Pollen? 7.20 Why Neil has never bought a business 9.20 How did the genesis of Fishburn Hedges come about? 10.10

This week, on the PRmoment Podcast, I’m pleased to welcome founder and managing director of W Communications Warren Johnson. Warren established W nine years ago and the business now has a fee income of circa £7.5m. W is the largest of a group of independent consumer agencies in London which are leading PR’s fight for creative work. Here is a flavour of what Warren and I discussed: Why he once left a career in PR to be become a builder Why if you’ve worked for someone for 10 years – you don’t really know what you know. Why he didn’t want to start W Communications Why Warren fell out of love with PR – first-time round Why Warren is a better senior PR person than a junior PR person Why Warren is ultimately driven by commercial success, not the quality of work Why p

This week on the PRmoment Podcast I’m pleased to welcome founder and CEO of Lewis Communications Chris Lewis. Chris established Lewis 25 years ago and today it is a truly global agency operating in 26 markets with a fee income of £50m and circa 500 employees. Lewis is the only current example of a British-owned PR and communications firm that has successfully scaled its business globally. Here is the flavour of what Chris and I discuss Why survival was the primary objective for Lewis Communications when Chris started the business 25 years ago How a lucky break (literally) gave Chris the opportunity to start Lewis PR How Lewis PR grew in the early years Why in a consultancy business it is always a team of leaders who is responsible for the growth of the business, not an individual leader Why PR firms must change their mindset when it comes to training and staff development

This week on the PRmoment Podcast I’m pleased to welcome founder and CEO of Manifest Alex Myers. Manifest is a self defined brand communications agency and has a fee income of £3.5m.   Manifest has grown by 70% in the last financial year and has offices in London, New York and Stockholm.   Here is a summary of what Alex and I discuss:   How Alex got into PR PR outside of London and the burgeoning Huddersfield PR scene! Why Alex, a northern lad, set up his PR firm in London How the start of Manifest London came about through a mixture of naivety and bravado Whether Alex regrets initially having two other partners in Manifest Why Alex enjoys managing a business How, unwittingly, Manifest has taken a creative approach to building the business – from deciding what computers to use, to developing an appraisal system, to hiring new staff. How

This week on the PRmoment Podcast I talk to co founder of Hope&amp;Glory James Gordon-Macintosh. James went to Cambridge University and has then only really had two jobs in PR - first at Fishburn Hedges, the consumer side of which morphed into 77 PR, and then he set up Hope&amp;Glory with Jo Carr in 2011. Hope&amp;Glory has a fee income today of approx £5.5m. Here is a flavour of what James and I discuss: How his first job was as a journalist writing about Brazilian debt equities! Why, from very early in his career, he always wanted to start his own PR firm How, from very early on, he planned his career to position himself to be able to set up his own firm Why James yearned for a career in consumer PR while working for then corporate PR shop Fishburn Hedges How James became MD of consumer PR firm 77 PR having never really worked in consumer PR

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast. This week on the PRmoment Podcast I’m pleased to welcome founder and MD of Cow PR Sian Morgan. Cow PR is a circa £3m fee income consumer PR shop in London. What’s interesting about Cow is that despite its relatively small size - it punches well above its weight creatively, and has done for basically the last 18 years so I want to discover from Sian how they have managed to do this. Here is a flavour of what I discuss with Sian: How Sian has managed the ups and downs of running her own business for the last 18 years through a couple of recessions Sian talks about how 8 years ago an office move almost spelt the end for Cow How Sian dealt with the stress of having breast cancer and running her own business Why having a business partner doesn&apos;t need to last forever How PR creative legends like Dan Glover, Mark Perkins and Matt Wil

This week on the PRmoment podcast I caught up with serial PR entrepreneur and founder of Shine Communications Rachel Bell. Here is a quick summary of what Rachel and I discussed: Why she left Fleishman Hillard as an account director in 1997 to set up Shine. How the death of her father impacted her decision to launch Shine. Why Shine Communications was launched. Why Rachel took her first new business call for Shine on the morning of her father&apos;s funeral. Whether the anger Rachel felt about her father’s death helped to launch Shine Why the launch of Shine represented no risk for Rachel, in her mind. How Shine, launched by Rachel, previously an account director at Fleishmanhillard, won the FA Premier League and Timberland accounts in its first year.

I’m pleased to welcome PRmoment’s Young Communicator of the Year, and data and research guru at Ketchum, Erin Salisbury. I wanted to interview Erin because I think we all pretty much get the need to increase the extent to which PR firms use data but Erin is at the frontline of this and I wanted to get her real world insight - from the client perspective, a colleague perspective and from a data and insight tools perspective. Here are some of the things Erin and I discuss; As a research and analytics manager in a PR firm how are you using data? How Ketchum are using data all the way through the system; from influencer identification, understanding key audiences, how they think and behave, how they consume media, from brand strategy through to micro campaigns What sources of data do PR firms need to use The extent to which PR firms should use personalised and non personalised data How PR firms need to pl

This week, in the second of our PR Trailblazers interviews, on The PRmoment Podcast we’ve got founder of Ready 10 - David Fraser. David spent 12 years at Frank PR before setting up Ready 10 in 2016. I wanted to get David on the show because I thought he would bring an interesting perspective to a couple of things. First if all, he worked for a big consumer PR firm before he decided to gamble and set up Ready 10. He’s only 2 years in and I know that for the first 18 months he wrote a work diary of things he learnt, so I thought it would be good to review some of those entries in hindsight. David set up Ready 10 to compete at the intersection of PR and SEO, which is not an unfamiliar positioning statement but I get the impression PR is still punching well below its SEO weight and I wanted to talk to David about the reasons for this. David is also and experienced podcaster: He presents and helps produce the award winning qpr pod - so possibly, pu

This is the first of a new format series on the PRmoment Podcast. We’re going to continue our Life Stories series but I wanted to make sure we include the stories of younger, up and coming talent who are trailblazing impressive careers. So welcome to the first of our Trailblazers PRmoment Podcasts.  I’m pleased to welcome the founder and MD of PRmoment’s B2B agency of the year, Victoria Usher. I wanted to interview Victoria for a couple of reasons. First of all because Victoria came into PR relatively late in her career; she didn’t start working in public relations until she was 33. Also, until she moved into PR Victoria’s career was predominantly spent as a data analyst. So I reckon there’s probably some interesting stuff to talk about on how a data analyst built a PR firm. And finally I wanted to talk to Victoria about GingerMay. GingerMay only launched in 2010, already employs 40 people and has a fee income of £

This week on the PRmoment podcast I caught up with Mark Flanagan, the UK MD of Portland. The Omnicom owned agency is a rare example of an PR firm owned by a holding group that has a recent track record of double digit growth. What is it that has enabled Portland to grow much faster than almost all other PR firms owned by a holding company owned? Mark has had an interesting career; he has had big jobs outside of PR and communications before make the move into public relations, first of all within government and now agency side. Here is a flavour of what Mark and I discuss: Why did Mark make the move from MD at LBC radio to a role in PR? Why Mark used to be a radio DJ? Mark compares working in government to working in the corporate world Whether Mark enjoyed working for UK government communications, firstly for Tony Blair and then Gordon Brown… How Mark replaced t

This week on the PRmoment podcast I’m pleased to welcome Bibi Hilton, UK managing director at Golin. Here is a flavour of what Bibi and I discuss: Why she has stayed at one agency for so long Why autonomy is important in a networked PR agency Why she likes working for large networked firms Bibi identifies the biggest changes in PR in the last 16 years - and it’s not just spray mount and fax machines! Why the fundamentals of public relations have not changed Bibi marks PR out of 10 for how well it is performing against its marketing peers The lessons 6 years on from restructuring the people within Golin from generalists to specifically skilled communities within the business. In Golin’s case these communities were Strategists, Creators, Connectors and Catalysts. Why Golin’s s

This week on the PRmoment Podcast I’m pleased to welcome the Chief Global Officer of Talk PR Tanya Hughes. Talk PR is owned by M&amp;C Saatchi with annual revenues of approx £4.5 million. There are 2 things that make Tanya and Talk PR a particularly interesting story. One is that it most of its income comes from within its very defined market market specialism of beauty PR The second is that an independent UK firm -  60% of its income comes from global work. Here is a flavour of what Tanya and I discuss: How the pace of change in public relations makes it a great place to work How digital influencers and Instagram have transformed beauty and fashion PR How Instagram and YouTube have marginalised beauty bloggers Why the importance of editorial coverage has risen again, following the “moras” of digital influencers Why

This week I&apos;m thrilled to be catching up with Dan Glover, co-founder and creative director of The Academy. If you look at the most famous consumer PR campaigns in the UK over the last 10 years or so, most of them (not all) have come from a very small number of PR creatives (probably less than 10) and Dan, with his work with The National Trust, Kellogs and Heathrow is undoubtedly a member of this pretty unique club. Here’s a summary of some of what Dan and I discuss: Why Dan doesn’t think he’s creative How great creatives need to ask questions and activate against those opinions Why creative directors must be client facing How empathy and problem solving are vital parts of creative thinking How cultural curiosity helps Dan’s creativity Dan defines what he believes is the role of a creative director How and why Dan condensed h

This week on the PRmoment podcast I interviewed Caroline Kinsey, founder and chairman of Cirkle PR. Caroline set up Cirkle 20 years ago and today it has a £3.5 million independent PR firm. Here is a taster of what Caroline and I discuss: How it feels to have run a business for 20 years Why Caroline started her own business How she developed her entrepreneurial spirit How an independent firm like Cirkle manages its ups and downs Why Cirkle started in Caroline’s converted garage Caroline identifies Cirkle’s Willy Wonka golden ticket moment How Caroline launched Cirkle with no agency experience Why employers must never underestimate the responsibility of employing people Caroline discusses the impact of Cirkle MD and shareholder Anne Kendall passing away in 2014, after a tough battle with pancreatic cancer How PR has stepped up in recent times Why good public relations must now involve high quality strategic corporate council alongside high quality activation Whether PR a

This week on the PRmoment Podcast I’m talking to Frank PR co-founder and Chairman – Graham Goodkind. Graham started his career at Lynne Franks PR, rising from account exec to MD. He left Lynne Franks when it was sold to Ketchum in 1998. He then became a bit if an internet entrepreneur before starting Frank in 2000. Here are the highlights of what Graham and I discuss: How Graham developed a passion for the media What it was like working at Lynne Franks PR, where Graham started as an account exec ended up as MD. Where he learnt how to run a profitable PR firm How he started the internet start-up Another.com? What the genesis was for Frank PR Whether it’s possible for a consumer PR firm like Frank to retain an &quot;edgy&quot; market position for a prolonged period of time Why there is no correlation between the quality of an idea an

This week on the PRmoment Podcast we’ve got Lord Tim Bell. Lord Bell started his career as a runner in an advertising firm and ended up becoming the one of the most high profile PR people in the world. Synonymous with The Conservative Party of the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher and the now defunct Bell Pottinger - it’s been quite a career. Here are the highlights of what we discuss: Lord Bell’s perspective on the demise of Bell Pottinger How Bell Pottinger might have survived the Oakbay Capital/Gupta scandal How he feels about the PR firm he founded 25 years earlier going into administration How he came to make the move from advertising to PR The insider&apos;s perspective on his role advising the Conservative Government of Margaret Thatcher. How government communications has changed since t

The Edelman Trust Barometer: A recording of our live stream video with Edelman Intelligence UK head Louise Turner. Howard Kosky from markettiers and James Erskine from Social Circle Consumers are less trusting of social media and continue to be sceptical of government, business, media and NGOs in the UK. This is according to the 2018 Trust Barometer, PR firm Edelman’s 18th annual trust and credibility survey. The UK version of the Edelman Trust Barometer found that social media companies have lost the trust of most of the public, with only a quarter of the UK population now saying that they trust social media as a source for news and information. Where social media companies were once seen as champions of free speech and democracy, they are now seen as not taking enough responsibility for key issues including extremism, fake news, and cyberbullying. As a consequence, the majority of people are now calling for greater regulation in the sector. Key stats

This week, PRmoment founder Ben Smith interviews Ketchum UK ceo Jo-ann Robertson as part of our series of one to one interviews with some of the most senior people in UK PR. Jo-ann has recently been appointed as UK ceo to Ketchum having been at the firm since 2011. Previously she spent eight years at Weber Shandwick. Jo-ann graduated in 2002 with a BA in Politics from the University of Strathclyde.

PRmoment founder Ben Smith recently interviewed Lord Chadlington as part of our series of one to one podcasts with some of the most senior people in UK PR

In the latest of a series of podcasts with PR industry leaders in the UK PRmoment founder Ben Smith recently interviewed Mark Borkowski

In the latest of a series of podcasts with PR industry leaders in the UK PRmoment founder Ben Smith recently interviewed Threepipe owner Jim Hawker

This week I caught up with Francis Ingham CEO of The PRCA. This is the latest in a series of PRmoment Podcasts with some of the leading lights of UK PR. The PRCA has grown from an organisation with revenues of £700K to one of nearly £3.2m during Ingham&apos;s ten-year tenure. Francis and I discuss:How he was brought up on a Manchester council estate Why he hated school and refused to go for year Why he left home and school at 16 and spent two years living in the local catholic hostel How the headmaster at his school subsidised his education How he got into Oxford University Why he’s always been good at &quot;arguing back!&quot;How his time at Oxford shaped his passion for politics Why he left the CIPR for the PRCA His greatest achievement at The PRCA What’s next in Francis Ingham&apos;s career path 

This week I caught up with Angie Moxham, chief monkey at 3 Monkeys Zeno. This is the latest in a series of PRmoment Podcasts with some of the leading lights of UK PR. Angie and I discuss: How she helped build one company, lost it and then built another one How she went to state school and then went to Oxford What it’s like at Oxford, coming from a state school background Her time at Le Fevre Communications How it came about that Le Fevre was sold for £1 What were her worst moments in her career Why she started 3 Monkeys How she grew 3 Monkeys to become a £6m PR firm in 2015* What the sale process looked like when Zeno bought 3 Monkeys * According to the 2016 PRWeek League Tables

In a not unexpected move, the The Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA) announced last week that it had imposed its most serious sanction on Bell Pottinger, following its investigation into Bell Pottinger&apos;s work for Oakbay Capital in South Africa. The investigation followed a complaint from South Africa&apos;s Democratic Alliance. Bell Pottinger will not be eligible to reapply for corporate membership of the PRCA for a minimum period of five years. On the face of it, the PRCA had little choice but to expel Bell Pottinger; if they had not, its own credibility would have been on the line. But the PRCA has been criticised over its handling over a number of issues resulting from Bell Pott Gate and here Francis Ingham covers these. We discuss: Whether the PRCA feels guilty about the impact of the PRCA&apos;s decision to expel Bell Pottinger on the large number of potentially innocent staff, who this week, could be concerned about their jobs. Bearing in mind that the PR

Today we&apos;re interviewing Colin Byrne, CEO of Weber Shandwick UK and EMEA – in the latest of our series of interviews with some of the most high-profile leaders in UK public relations. By day Colin is CEO of the UK&apos;s most award-winning PR firm, with 35 years’ communications experience, by night he&apos;s a writer, aspiring novelist and musician. His PR experience spans domestic and international public relations. He joined Weber Shandwick in 1995, rising to lead the public affairs practice in London in 1997. He is now CEO of the firm’s UK and EMEA network and a senior member of the global management team. He’s recently announced he’ll be stepping down after more than 20 years at the helm. After several years in private and not-for-profit sector PR, Colin joined the British Labour Party’s communications team in 1987 and was quickly promoted to head of press and broadcasting. He was press aide to Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Jack Straw. He is a visiting fello

2017 marks the centenary of the Government Communications Service. To mark the occasion I recently interviewed Alex Aiken, Executive Director for Government Communications on his top three historical campaigns for the UK government communications in the last 100 years. In a wide-ranging discussion Alex and I discussed the context in which the government communication service was founded in 1917 by John Buchan, who interestingly was also the author of the novel 39 Steps. Alex and I discuss the role of the communications innovator Stephen Tallents and his work to move communications from a broadcast discipline to one of dialogue. Alex believes that at the core of government communications is the need to tell the truth credibly. He goes on to talk about how communications now plays a central role in the business of government and is a powerful tool for the government of the day, alongside legislation, regulation and taxation. He believes communications is now recognised as one

We recently caught up with Henry Playfoot, founder of The Pitch Doctor to discuss the rights and wrongs of the pitch process. Henry reckons the pitch process is not the best way to match the needs of the client with the right agency and discusses why a more collaborative approach would work better for everyone.

I recently spoke to Ali Gee, deputy CEO at FleishmanHillard Fishburn in London, about the the measurement of public relations. I asked Ali whether as a profession, public relations is in danger of becoming paranoid about measurement? And whether PR is any worse at evaluating our work than our advertising friends? We also discuss whether, in an integrated world, it is possible to identify the contribution of public relations to the campaign objectives? Finally, Ali talks about whether she sees any any evidence that in-house teams are prioritising measurement more than they were, and what the role of PR agencies is in moving the PR measurement debate forward?

Francis Ingham from The PRCA talks about the Whirlpool / Hotpoint tumble dryer crisis by PRmoment

I recently caught up with Tony Langham to discuss entrepreneurship in PR. Tony set up Lansons with Claire Parsons 28 years ago and today Lansons has a fee income of circa £11 million pounds. I discussed with Tony: - How to keep a culture of entrepreneurship within a 28 year old business. - How Tony maintains his personal drive having lead Lansons for 28 years. - We talked about the British culture of successful independent entrepreneurial PR firms and discussed the challenges of the &quot;early&quot; years, the &quot;middle&quot; years and why it is that so few have successfully gone global Tony also identifies his three secrets of entrepreneurial success in public relations

Harvard&apos;s fee income today it&apos;s close to five million pounds. In 2011 this had fallen to £1.6 million. Previously in about the year 2000 Harvard had been a 200 people agency with 5 offices with a fee income of circa seven million annually. I recently caught up with Ellie Thompson, MD of PR and AR at Harvard and Louie St Clare Group MD to talk about what it takes to bring a PR firm back from the brink.

In our latest mini podcast we caught up with Farhad Koodoruth, Co-Founder at Threepipe to discuss the evolution of search marketing and the increasing crossover between search and public relations.

As part of our series of interviews reviewing 2016 I recently caught up with PRCA director general and ICCO CEO Francis Ingham. Francis identified the following trends for UK PR in 2016: UK public relations has grown by approximately 10% in 2016 according to the PRCA numbers, following a similar growth pattern of recent years. Public relations is becoming more blended discipline Niche specialist agencies are doing well, alongside agencies with an international offer. Mid-sized generalist agencies having a far tougher time as media relations becomes commoditised. Brexit created a period of uncertainty for the pr sector but we&apos;ve yet to see a significant downturn. Some sectors, notably public affairs, have thrived since the June vote.

Through the numerous pitches and RFPs that we all enjoy, I suspect the majority of PRmoment readers have a pretty good understanding of how the purchasing process for domestic PR briefs works. However, many of the bigger accounts reside in global campaigns/retainers. How this business is pitched for and won is probably less well understood. PRmoment recently caught up with Tanya Hughes, president of the Sermo Communications, an international hub of independent PR firms, and PR agency Talk PR. We ask Tanya: Whether global work really is global? Where the majority of global work comes from? What is the decision making process for deciding the long list for global work? What does it take to build a successful international network of independents?

As part of a series of interviews reviewing 2016 I caught up with Giles Fraser, co-founder, of Brands2Life. Key trends from 2016 that Giles identifies include: There has been a continued demand for creative campaigns and content across all formats. Increasingly marketing directors are purchasing from PR agencies. They are keen to talk to PR firms because they recognise that they have good ideas, produce good content and can drive engagement quickly. To be successful PR firms need a broader range of skills than ever before

As part of a series of interviews to review public relations in 2016 I thought it would be interesting to look in detail at one of the major challenges for PR agencies and increasingly for in-house PR and communications teams - finding enough appropriately skilled people. Joining me is Alice Weightman founder and CEO of Hanson search. Alice identifies three recruitment trends in 2016: • The rise of the freelancer. • The desire for candidates to have multiple skill sets. • The impact of a decreasing number of retainer clients being that PR agencies require more commercially minded people to win business more regularly. Alice has plenty more to say in the full interview: She identifies what PR agencies get wrong in the recruitment of talent and names the top talent requirements for 2017.

Ben Smith, the founder of PRmoment, recently caught up with Cision and PR Newswire CEO (EMEA and India) to discuss why Cision has spent over $1.5bn on PR service providers