Cannes Lions 2014: Is the PR industry creative enough? by Arun Sudhaman

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Guest blog post by Arun Sudhaman, Editor in Chief of The Holmes Report

That might be the type of question designed to raise the hackles of the good PR folk travelling to the Cote D’Azur for this year’s Cannes Lions. Yet it is a question that needs asking, particularly when you consider the industry’s mixed record in the PR Lions category, which the Holmes Report has been covering from its launch in 2009.

In 2012, the continued debate over the industry’s creative prowess led us, along with NowGoCreate, to launch the Creativity in PR study, a major global survey of 600 PR people from more than 35 countries across the world. In particular, we asked the PR industry whether it agreed with the claim that PR agencies lack big ideas, a contention that has been heard at Cannes.

Last year’s survey found that respondents, in general, continue to agree with the claim that PR agencies lack big ideas. 60 percent believe the statement is a fair one, essentially the same proportion as 2012. Among clients, the view is even more pronounced, with 69% believing that the PR industry lacks big ideas.

“The PR industry has a range of obstacles in putting forward and driving ‘big ideas’ and very few agencies have managed to master the art of both creating a ‘big idea’ and harnessing the power of their own structured traditional PR techniques,” read one survey response from an agency executive in Australia.

Significantly, the client-agency divide found here extends to perceptions of the industry’s creative quality. Broadly speaking, opinions of creative quality within the PR industry have not shifted much over the past 12 months, demonstrating that ambivalence persists. Once again, more than half describe it as ‘ordinary’ or worse. 38% say it is good and just 7% label it ‘inspirational’. One in 10 describe it as ‘unsatisfactory’.

Significantly, clients have a considerably more jaundiced view of creative quality than their agency brethren. Just 39% describe it as inspirational or good, while more than 60 percent see it as ordinary or worse. Once again, it appears that agencies are falling down in their quest to prove to clients that they have the necessary creative credentials for today’s engagement environment.Respondents in AngloSaxon markets — Australia (56%), the UK (54%) and US (50%) — held the most favourable view of creative quality, with Asia (38%) some distance behind.

Further clarity is provided when respondents are asked whether they think the quality of creativity in PR campaigns has improved over the past year. 61% disagree that it has, suggesting that there are no quick-fix solutions to raising creative standards.

Again, clients are even less convinced that quality is improving; just 26% agree with that statement. Latin American respondents (71%) are least likely to see an increase in creative quality, followed by US (69%) and UK (66%). Australia stands out, with just 59% disagreeing with the notion that the quality of creativity in PR has improved over the past year.

Those results provide plenty of food for thought. If nothing else, the hope is that this year’s Festival will definitively showcase the PR industry’s impressive creative credentials.

 

Arun Sudhaman is partner and managing editor of the Holmes Report, the global PR industry’s most authoritative and credible source of information and analysis 

In this role Arun oversees the Holmes Report’s global content offering, including its analysis and insight into public relations and communications trends and issues. Since joining the Holmes Report in 2010, Arun has led a comprehensive relaunch of the title’s content platform, including its digital presence and new products such as the Influence 100, Global Rankings and Creative Index. 

He brings to the position more than a decade’s experience as a journalist and digital content specialist, most of which has been spent covering the global PR, marketing and communications industries .

Prior to joining the Holmes Report, Arun spent more than seven years with Haymarket Media in Hong Kong, Singapore and London. He joined Haymarket title PRWeek UK in January 2009, after covering Asia’s media and marketing landscape at sister Haymarket title Media Asia (now Campaign Asia-Pacific) in Hong Kong and Singapore.

 

Five Good Reasons To Stay Close To ICCO During Cannes Lions by David Gallagher

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Guest blog post by David Gallagher, ICCO President & CEO EMEA, Ketchum

In my experience, PR people respond to the Cannes Lions Festival in one of three ways:

  • The doubters:  ‘Not for me. It’s really an advertising festival and not where serious PR should be.’
  • The curious:  ‘It sounds interesting, but I’d need to know more before investing that kind of money.’
  • The true believers: ‘Cannes is where the action is, and love it or hate it, we need to be in the thick of things.’

As a delegate from the devout faction, I’m pretty sure nothing comes close to matching the Festival as a source for inspiration, insight and foreshadowing for our increasingly integrated and global business. But in the past I’ve looked at Cannes Lions as both doubter and curious voyeur, so I’m pleased to see ICCO throwing back the curtains on the festival with useful information and perspectives for the Festival first-timers, grizzled veterans and even the stay-at-home critics.

Wherever your opinion sits, here are five good reasons to stay close to ICCO during the Festival through our onsite booth, this website and social media:

  1. Strength in numbers.  Even Cannes old-timers can find the sheer crowds at the Festival overwhelming, and it’s always nice to see a familiar face.  Use the ICCO booth 12.01 in the Palais as a rallying point for networking and meetings, and for the latest on PR-related news and information.
  2. All the news that’s fit to share.  We’ll be collating and sharing perspectives on what’s hot – trends, learnings and analysis – from a range of sources, including our four main agency supporters:  GolinHarris, H+K Strategies, Ogilvy and Ketchum (go team).
  3. It’s a festival in the South of France, after all. We’ll be socialising in advance of the PR Awards celebration on Monday night, toasting what should be a great showing for the whole industry. If you haven’t yet RSVP’d’d, there’s still time.
  4. Meet the Young Lions.  For the first time, teams of two under-28s from up to 20 countries will vie to win the golden Young PR Lions accolade at an on-site competition. We’ll toast their success and wish them well in this glimpse of the future of our business.
  5. There’s a world outside PR, you know.  One of the great opportunities of Cannes Lions is to see creativity expressed through work of those trained in other disciplines.  We’ll encourage participants to share what they liked (or didn’t) throughout the festival with the hashtags #ICCOCannes for general observations and #WeLovePR for professing your industry support.

See you on the Croisette!

 

As a Senior Partner and CEO of Ketchum’s European operations and chairman of the UK agency, David Gallagher brings more than 20 years of public relations experience, both as a client and as a senior agency adviser, to some of the world’s leading brands and companies.

David Gallagher oversees Ketchum’s nine European agencies and their specialist services, which include consumer public relations, healthcare communications, corporate affairs and social responsibility, public affairs, change management, and clinical trial recruitment.

He is president of the International Communications Consultancy Organization (ICCO), the global umbrella network of 30 national PR agency trade associations, and a fellow and past chairman of the UK Public Relations Consultants Association.  He chairs the World Economic Forum’s global agenda council on the future of media, and was the 2014 PR jury president for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

What Young Lions Can Teach Us Old Cats

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Guest blog post by David Gallagher, ICCO President & CEO EMEA, Ketchum

Earlier this year, ICCO helped launch a new feature of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the Young PR Lions – a global competition of 28-and-under talent drawn from the world’s leading agencies to solve a pressing communications problem, in real time.

This was a calculated risk, but with huge upside. Showcasing the power of PR with our best and brightest stars on a global stage is a statement of confidence about how far PR has come, and how promising the future is for those who do it right – with the passion and expertise fostered by ICCO and its members associations around the world.

Still, someone had to light the way, so hats off to the ICCO Board for supporting the idea and to our agency supporters, H+K Strategies, GolinHarris, Ogilvy PRand my own team at Ketchum for seeing the opportunity and walking the talk of commitment with financial support.

I have now how had the opportunity to interact with many of these young lions in three countries (as a juror in the UK completion, as a coach for the German team, and as a colleague of the Austrian team, drawn from our agency in Vienna), and I can safely say that PR is a great investment with pros like this rising through the ranks.

At the final round of competition at Cannes, a panel of industry veterans will decide who takes home a trophy, but in the meantime I have been struck by several lessons the young lions can teach old PR cats like you and me:

  • To rise, you have to shine – and vice versa.  The first thing that has struck me about these professionals? Their willingness to rise up to a challenge, risk disappointment, and show what they can do.  To stand out, you have step up.  These guys are fearless.
  • We are defined by what we bring.  Today. Experience is priceless, but often we use it as an excuse (‘tried it – won’t work’) to avoid new ideas or big thinking, rather than as a guide to keep innovation on track. In these competitions, with just a few hours to propose solutions, the teams are unfettered by decades of experience; they just let the biggest ideas break through. In the real world of course, experience can be a great filter, but it should never drown out creativity.
  • Social is the new traditional media.  Strange how often I hear experienced PR advisors still talking about social versus traditional media. Not one young lion draws such an artificial distinction; they are much more likely to discuss content or channels in term of earned, owned, shared or paid.
  • Problems are solved with changes in attitude or behaviour. Not with ‘coverage.’ One of my happiest discoveries: how many of their programs / campaigns focused on what would change minds in order to deliver objectives, rather than what would generate ‘media interest.’

Don’t get me wrong.  We old cats still have a few tricks to teach. For example, ‘creating buzz’ is not really a meaningful goal.  What’s cool or trending is not always an insight in itself. And budgets are quite important in the real world.

But if these young lions are at all representative of the wider agencies we’re leading, we have a lot to look forward to.

 

As a Senior Partner and CEO of Ketchum’s European operations and chairman of the UK agency, David Gallagher brings more than 20 years of public relations experience, both as a client and as a senior agency adviser, to some of the world’s leading brands and companies.

David Gallagher oversees Ketchum’s nine European agencies and their specialist services, which include consumer public relations, healthcare communications, corporate affairs and social responsibility, public affairs, change management, and clinical trial recruitment.

He is president of the International Communications Consultancy Organization (ICCO), the global umbrella network of 30 national PR agency trade associations, and a fellow and past chairman of the UK Public Relations Consultants Association.  He chairs the World Economic Forum’s global agenda council on the future of media, and was the 2014 PR jury president for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Cannes Lions Predictions for PR 2014

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Guest blog post by David Gallagher, ICCO President & CEO EMEA, Ketchum

As I write this from cold, grey and wet London, it’s hard to believe that in just a few weeks the world’s marketing and communications geniuses will descend on the sunny South of France in droves for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

The PR community has been making itself felt at Cannes with increasing numbers and influence for the past few years, and there is every reason to think 2014 may be the break-through year we’ve been waiting for.  So while the creative are choosing which ironic t-shirts to pack and local restaurants are stockpiling crates of rose, let’s make a few predictions:

  1. 2014 becomes the year many PR people say they ‘got’ Cannes.  While our interest has been mostly around the awards competition and the mainstage speakers, 2014 marks the first year of a Young PR Lions competition.  Two-member teams from agencies around the world, thanks to sponsorship of ICCO and the underwriting support of global agency leaders Ogilvy,GolinHarris, H+K Strategies and my own employer, Ketchum, will answer a brief and demonstrate the problem-solving power of PR before a jury of global experts.  This is not a prediction, but a fact, but I believe it will mark the beginning of a tipping point, when sufficient numbers of PR people – especially our young influential – are engaged in the Cannes phenomena to make it part of their annual ‘inspiration diet’ for years to come.
  2. A PR agency wins a Gold Lion in a non-PR category. I’m not sure – this may have already happened – but with the quality of PR agency submissions year on year, and with greater familiarity with the overall workings of the festival, I think this will be the year where one of us wins big in another category.  And why not?  Most great campaigns are designed to be shareable and newsworthy from the get-go.
  3. AVE continues to decline as a measure of campaign effectiveness.  Last year’s jury made a point of frowning on advertising value equivalency – AVE, the dubious practice of assigning editorial news coverage an advertising value as an evaluation metric.  We urged future competitors to use real business, policy, behavioural  or social outcomes as the yardsticks for effectiveness.  I doubt AVE will die completely this year, but I hope it’s in in its last throes.
  4. A PR agency will win the PR Grand Prix!  Last year I predicted this would happen within two competitions, but that was a hedge.  After visiting many top agencies and national ICCO member associations, I am convinced that this is the year one of us takes home the biggest prize of all from the festival’s Monday ceremony. Network agencies are finding their best work to enter, and smaller independents are stepping into the ring with remarkable entries; surely one of theme will prevail this year.

 

In any case, this year’s festival promises to be a memorable and inspiring demonstration of global creativity, and for the first time ICCO will be on hand to welcome members of the PR community with hospitality and networking.  Please look for the ICCO booth in the Palais for information on ICCO activities and events.

As a Senior Partner and CEO of Ketchum’s European operations and chairman of the UK agency, David Gallagher brings more than 20 years of public relations experience, both as a client and as a senior agency adviser, to some of the world’s leading brands and companies.

David Gallagher oversees Ketchum’s nine European agencies and their specialist services, which include consumer public relations, healthcare communications, corporate affairs and social responsibility, public affairs, change management, and clinical trial recruitment.

He is president of the International Communications Consultancy Organization (ICCO), the global umbrella network of 30 national PR agency trade associations, and a fellow and past chairman of the UK Public Relations Consultants Association.  He chairs the World Economic Forum’s global agenda council on the future of media, and was the 2014 PR jury president for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

 

 

Education key to agency integration

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Guest blog post by PRable

Somewhat bafflingly, there are many people in the PR industry that disregard social media or view it as a flash-in-the-pan that doesn’t complement traditional public relations.

Unfortunately this view is likely to limit their lifespan in PR and act to the detriment of them and their clients. The key to this is education, and it is never too late to learn.                                                                                   

An Integrated Campaign

The concept of an ‘integrated campaign’ is a misnomer – every campaign should be integrated. With newspaper sales dwindling, more people watching on-demand TV, and an increasing number of people only sourcing news from the web, the demographics of media consumption have completely changes in the last decade.

Social media allows you to reach a dedicated audience of unlimited size. Most importantly, if they follow you, they want what you are offering and want to hear what you have to say. Can you say this of any other media form?

 

Journalists online

We all know that journalists are almost always up against a deadline. Few want telephone pitches, and emails can easily get lost in the pile.

Increasingly journalists prefer to be contacted via Twitter. Aside from being a source of breaking news, on a PR front it keeps pitches concise, aids relationship building and offers an instant source of quotes.

While some are put off by the public nature of Twitter, it is now a fundamental part of journalism and subsequently PR. If journalists are using a service to source story ideas and listen to conversations, surely you want to be a part of it!

Client communications

Some clients will already be on top of social media, while others will undoubtedly be more reserved.

PR professionals are employed to offer advice and best practice on promoting a company or a product. If you aren’t knowledgeable about the benefits of social media, your clients will either turn to someone else or will overlook it completely.

Social media is a great way to supplement your monthly fees, as well as helping your client to reach a dedicated audience. Miss out on understand this medium and you are missing out on money. Simple as that.

Never too late

Early uptake of any new social media network is usually led by younger generations. Yet, it is never long before parent come join in to see what their kids are up to, bringing older age groups with them.

Simply believing that social media is for the young completely misses its universal appeal. While it may be true that social media management in PR firms is often led by the younger members of staff, everyone in the company must be au fait.

It is all about generating client confidence in your abilities. Do you want the youngest member of staff to be the social media ‘expert’? What message does that send?

If MDs promote an a nurturing atmosphere then all will benefit and you can unlock a new revenue stream that will not only support traditional PR campaigns, but set you apart from your competitors.

 

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PRable is a PR blog charting how the industry is developing and how communications will change in the future:

http://thisisprable.wordpress.com/

Follow PRable on Twitter @ThisisPRable

The importance of integration

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Guest blog post by PRable

It seems that almost every day a new consultancy dedicated to social media pops up, under-cutting agency prices and claiming to offer a better service than traditional PR professionals.

While many agencies have been slow to diversify, and the desire to reduce costs is always a considerable factor, having a fully integrated PR structure is essential to the success of any campaign, as outlined below

Managing the mix

PR professionals have spent years honing their messages, their manner and learning about a wide range of B2B and B2C audiences. They know how to position a brand or a product and are there to consult at every step to provide the best business outcomes.

By keeping social media management with your PR provider, you can be assured of a fully joined-up approach that considers every angle and creates a consistency in messages and tone of voice. This is integral in creating brand recognition and customer loyalty.

A good PR professional will incorporate social media as part of a fully integrated PR campaign, blurring the lines between media relations, events, internal communications and social media. This will provide you with the best return on your investment and avoid a disconnect between various agencies.

A social crisis

Crisis PR is where keeping social media with your PR provider comes into its own. Having a coherent, joined-up approach to PR is never more apparent or exposed than when things go wrong.

Developing a considered and refined plan for crisis PR is essential both off and online. However, with the speed at which things can develop in the socialsphere, swift action is a must. Both the client and PR staff should know who is responsible for what, the tone and manner in which to respond and who should be kept informed about developments.

By keeping social media with your PR provider will save valuable time, ensure a consistency in message and tone, and will ultimately avoid further crises.

Made to measure

Social media has redefined how the impact of PR can be measured. It offers near instant analysis and feedback on a campaign, promotes engagement in a way traditional PR doesn’t, and allows for rapid market research.

By keeping your campaign integrated, with social media managed by your PR provider, you can track the direct effect of PR on your business. Whether you want to increase sales, raising awareness of your brand or product, or see how people are talking about you, you can track it at every step of the way.

Effective PR will enable your business to grow and keeping everything in one package offers the best chance of this. Keep it simple, keep it transparent and keep it connected. Keep it with your dedicated PR professionals.

 

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PR Able is a PR blog charting how the industry is developing and how communications will change in the future:

http://thisisprable.wordpress.com/

Follow PRAble on Twitter @ThisisPRable

Latin America: the time has never been better!

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Guest blog post by Jamie McLaughlin, Managing Director of Capstone Hill Search

The view of Public Relations in Latin America is one of opportunity, but that it lacks the maturity or sophistication of markets such as the UK or US. This is true, but perceptions are changing and we are seeing more and more PR Agencies turn their attention to the region, largely through expansion or acquisition.

 

This year’s World Cup and the 2016 Olympics have attracted an abundance of investment to Brazil, making it a perfect destination for global brands. It is not only Brazil that is experiencing this rapid growth; many other countries in Latin America are also witnessing their economies accelerating at an enviable pace.  Consequently, consumers have a far greater spending power, this attracts global brands and with them a need for PR.

 

Well known PR and Communications firms such as Cohn & Wolfe, Weber Shandwick, Ogilvy PR have already moved into the region. With plans afoot for other agencies such as GolinHarris, that has now expanded its reach to 7 countries in Latin America, and Lewis PR to follow, the latter announced a global expansion plan that includes opening 10 new offices in key growth countries, Brazil and Mexico being of paramount importance.

 

The clients of these agencies will expect the same standard of work they have received in other markets, but also need local insight and networks – this makes for a highly skilled candidate pool and demand for top talent has never been greater.

Latin America is an exciting territory for PR Agencies, but they must hire carefully to ensure their blue-chip clients are kept serviced to the levels they expect.

 

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About Capstone Hill Search Ltd

Capstone Hill Search Ltd is a specialist search and selection consultancy, founded and led by Public Relations and recruitment industry experts. Their belief is that the public relations and communications industry is highly specialised and requires significant industry knowledge and contacts in order to be supported efficiently in respect of search and selection.

They service the PR and Communications industry in the UK, Asia, Australia, North America and the Middle East.

Dreaming vs Digging in PR

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Guest blog post by Gabriela Lungu, Chief Creative Officer, UK & EMEA, Weber Shandwick

There is a lot of emphasis on creativity lately in the PR industry, and for a good reason.

For many years PR practitioners acted as if we were in a “networking” industry, and not in a “creative” one. For many years we relied in our PR campaigns on who we knew (journalists, opinion leaders, analysts, celebrities etc.), instead of amazing ideas that would make even those who we didn’t know want to engage with our campaigns.

 

We were for so many years the only ones responsible with earned media. So now, when boundaries between disciplines have become blurrier and communication specialists from many other domains have started fighting for a share of the Holy Grail of “non-paid”, PR people quickly realized that in order to stay ahead of the game they couldn’t count only on their traditional and natural “relations building” skills anymore. They had to quickly add a new one, the weapon of choice of their advertising competitors – “creativity”.

 

Therefore here we are: an entire industry trying to change the way we always did things and rewire ourselves around creativity (while still preserving the good old “relations building” skills that made us so valuable in the earned media era in the first place).

 

Creativity can be a scary thing.

Creativity was always perceived as something quite ethereal, indescribable. Yes, learnable to a certain degree, but definitely more of an innate talent than an acquirable skill. What if we simply weren’t born with it? Creativity is imagination, inspiration. We’ve all heard of creative blocks, even in the case of the greatest artists. What if we have a block at a certain point or on a specific brief? Creativity seems to be like luck. Some are lucky, some just aren’t. What if we just aren’t??…

 

Well, let me remind you of a wise saying, one that we all seem to agree on: the harder I work, the luckier I get. Luckily (sic) the same goes for creativity in PR!

 

In the day-to-day PR work we’re not required necessarily high creativity, but… little one. Although authentic innovation is totally welcome, the truth is no one asks us to be pioneering inventors or fantastic new worlds’ creators; no one expects groundbreaking contributions or game changing art. Our clients just want us to be relevant communicators, finding clever new ways of framing the reality; they want problem solving with, yes, some surprising expression.

 

Ideas in our field therefore do not come so much from heavenly inspiration, but from good perspiration!

They should not be sought out in the clouds of imagination, but dug out from rigorous research of the reality. To be creative in communications nowadays does not mean becoming daydreamers, but actually means getting down and dirty with clients’ stuff (all the information about product, brand, market, consumer, context etc.) to search for buried, forgotten, overlooked but true and exciting insights.

 

In PR the insight is the INCITE (and I love the fact that we, at Weber Shandwick, own this thought). Once you have found the existing surprising truth that the insight represents, in PR you often already have that idea that would incite consumers’ engagement; there is a quite little leap from the insight to the campaign idea. Think about a great PR campaign you love and its main idea; doesn’t it sound remarkably… insightful? Is it imagination or rather reality presented in a surprising way? Does it look invented, made-up in some moment of inspiration, or actually (and I would bet this is the case) rather discovered, revealed, already existing but now suddenly amazingly uncovered?

 

We should therefore talk less of dreaming, and more of digging in PR. Let’s guide our good PR people, who are learning to play in the “creativity” field, to embrace… research and data analytics – acquirable, controllable skills, and not a perceived innate talent, a burden that intimidates rather than inspires. Let’s focus on smart processes that lead to good outcomes every time, and not so much the fruit of lucky inspiration or a stroke of genius that may not repeat again. Let’s look for insights and then, of course, use some less worn-out ways of expressing them. This might just lead us to some big ideas as well! Because, yes, the harder we will search and research, the more creative we will be.

 

 

Gabriela Lungu is one of the most awarded people in the industry, an active advocate for building a culture of creativity in PR and award worthy work for clients. She has received over 150 awards and nominations during the last years, among which the most coveted trophies in the industry such as Platinum SABRE, Global SABRE, Gold SABRE, PR Lion, European Excellence Award, IPRA Golden World Award etc. At Weber Shandwick she is the firm’s first regional Chief Creative Officer, based in London, driving the creative output for UK and EMEA.

Previously she held positions at Ogilvy, where she was Managing Director of Ogilvy Public Relations Romania before founding her own multi-awarded agency The Practice in 2006. Under her creative leadership the independent agency in Bucharest was ranked number 13 on The Holmes Report’s Creative Index 2012 of the most creative PR firms in the world and won the title of Eastern European Consultancy of the Year in 2013. 

 

PR & The Future: Time To Think BIG

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Guest blog post by Pascal Beucler, SVP & Chief Strategy Officer, MSLGROUP.

The ICCO Summit (International Communications Consultancy Organisation) held in Paris October 10-11 chose a bold theme – Change or Perish: The Future of PR.

It certainly is a sign of the exciting – and challenging – times we live in.

We need to think really big.

I dare refer here to the legendary “Think Different” campaign TBWA\Chiat\Day created for Apple at the end of the 90′s, and the way it contributed to the firm’s actual reinvention, I’d be tempted to say that the challenges our industry are facing are equally critical.

Although various topics were discussed during this ICCO Summit – gender inequity, diversity, change of mindset and organizational models, innovation, creativity ,to name a few – the motto of most presentations and panels was about much more than just change: it’s been about transformation and reinvention. From this standpoint, the ICCO Summit delivered against its promise, with a bunch of bold and thoughtful debates.

So let’s briefly examine:

  • What’s already changing, fast (clients’ expectations, employees’ needs and aspirations, competitive landscape),
  • What didn’t change yet, or not enough (gender inequity, poor degree of diversity),
  • What still needs to change – and the sooner, the better (mindset, organization, offer).

And of course these are my personal thoughts on the matter, inspired by what I heard and saw last week.

Think FRESH.

Reinventing ourselves for the new competitive landscape is not an option, it’s a vital priority.

As Paul Holmes underlined it, the PR agency of the future is not going to look like the one of the past. The issue is that too many agencies are still organized “the old way”, poorly equipped for the Digital & Social Age, with far too many “villages” or silos, and too many managerial layers. Before their “G4” reinvention was launched, said GolinHarris CEO Fred Cook. “there were more levels of hierarchy in our agency than in the US Army”!

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Paul Holmes at the ICCO summit

What should the agency of the future look like, then?

First of all, a place where the best of data, insights, ideas, connectivity and engagement is conceived: this is what clients expect today…even if too few of them give PR agencies the credit for it. It’s up to us, and – believe me – no one else will help, to bravely take the challenge.

To make this happen, a full reshaping of the agency is a vital necessity: new skills, diverse teams, a more agile organization, new tools and processes, and even a redesigned workspace where strategists, planners, creative people and “connectors” can interact and collaboratively imagine disruptive solutions. We’re not there, obviously. Just walk into most of PR agencies around the globe, and you’ll realize how the existing space planning and cubicle-inspired design mindset keep encouraging the deadly silo culture (best friend of the “Not Invented Here” syndrome).

Amid other though, yet in a different industry, one firm shows the way, these days:

 

Fleishman-Hillard CEO Dave Senay shared a similar vision: reinvention is not an option, when most of the dominant agency structures reflect the past, not the future – not even our present: how many PR agencies can claim today that they have a truly holistic approach to business, a really diverse and social savvy talent pool, a best-in-class Analytics, Research & Insights resource, a 24/7 Newsroom and a genuinely Content-Centric value proposition?

Meanwhile, our clients run fast, and they do expect timely, useful, relevant, 360°, effective solutions, not internal revenue conflicts between silos and endless channels’ debates. Who can seriously believe that a consumer bothers whether a message comes to him through a “earned”, “owned” or “paid” media? Really?

Transformation is not an easy task though, in our industry like in most sectors: people are, too often, change adverse. And the talent part of it is essential, though. Mobilizing people is of the essence. Training, coaching and Change Management should therefore be at the core of our investments in the two of three years to come.

Another fight is on the compensation front: as Cook highlighted it,

“We are about insights and ideas, that’s the kind of company we want to be in the future (but) our clients are used to be paying for our hours!”

Data analytics, market research, insights generation, Brand & Reputation Management, focus on Social Enterprise and Social Media should be our top delivery, and the value we thus create properly compensated.

Think DIVERSE

Is the PR Industry “A Man’s Man’s Man’s World”? Yes it still is, very sadly.

Gender inequity remains a painful reality, a disgrace and a true concern for our sector. Speaking about “Women in PR”, APCO Worldwide CEO Margery Kraus revealed that 73% of the PRSA’s 21,000 members are women, but that four out of five leadership positions are still held by men. As of 2010, the average income for women in PR is 60% of men’s average, and it was 69% in 2006. So it’s getting even worse. Just a shame. Still a long, long way to go….

The industry urgently needs to work on this. And a specific effort is also to be done on women’s own attitude towards the male-chauvinist dominant culture in society at large. “Women need to have each other’s backs, we have to coach women to reach out for help when they face challenges and have doubts”, said Porter Novelli CEO Karen van Bergen. A perspective Margery Kraus brightly echoed, quoting Eleanor Roosevelt:

“Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent”.

From a broader perspective, van Bergen insisted on the fact that there was still a lot to do, in order to break through the “glass ceiling”: clearly for women, and also for the so-called “minorities”.

Karen insisted that the crisis of diversity is not “just” a personal issue: it’s clearly an industry issue: “Diverse teams come up with better solutions, solutions that resonate with diverse audiences”. So her message to the business is: “Embrace diversity like your future depends on it – Because it does!”.

Interestingly, several participants underlined the fact that diversity is not only an issue to be aggressively addressed by our organizations: it should also be considered a great opportunity. The debate went beyond inequities in terms of gender and origins, to focus on the question of efficiency: diversity is also about enlarging angles of vision, perspectives, points of views.

The consequence is that we need to start recruiting differently, attracting and retaining the diverse talent of the future.Rethink the way we recruit our people and hang on to them. Endogamic recruitment (searching the same profiles, with the same skills, coming from the same schools) is a deadly route, nowadays.

Yes, PR need brains, but different kinds of brains, coming from very diverse horizons, cultures, backgrounds.

Think SMART.

Innovation in PR was another insightful debate, introduced by Text 100‘s Cecile Missildine: the golden rule today is audience-led communications, with content and conversational strategies which have to be built upon a deep understanding of people and communities. Content + Communities + Contact: a vision we definitely share at MSLGROUP!

Cecile said it was somehow worrying to see that so many brands and CMOs still rely on the old marketing funnel, born in the sixties with the blooming of the consumer society: yes it is still out there! People’s attitudes and behaviors have changed and keep changing a lot, though…The decision-making journey is actually very different, and the challenge is to manage it rightly.

Language strategies are equally crucial here, and Maslansky + Partners CEO Keith Yazmir showed it with talent, starting from something we all know, or should know, but don’t truly understand: it’s not what you say, it’s what they hear which actually counts. Another point we fully share at MSLGROUP, having put what we call the art & science of conversation at the heart of our people-centric Brand Essence.

Be heard is the difficult part of it, and if we’re not good at that the risk of disconnection between brands and people will grow very fast.

It’s all about understanding the message you are getting behind the words you’re hearing. Too many messages are still rooted in what you want to say, not what the audience will actually hear: the dialogue gap.

Innovation in PR is also embedded into the Science of Engagement, as Weber Shandwick’s Adam Mack rightly showed it.Yes, the traditional model of research is changing fast, with the Big Data turmoil, the need for insights, the focus on field observation…all leading to better, “bigger” and smarter ideas.

Neurosciences, Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology, Semiotics are now supporting the new Science of Engagement, and it makes a big difference (we could see good examples of this too during the Holmes Global PR Summit last November in Miami). Never has our industry been in such a need of Social & Human Sciences, and it’s very good news!

Understanding that the contemporary drivers of engagement are very diverse, and numerous, is essential: it’s a complex and fast-evolving field and we should never forget that “We’re still cavemen at heart”! This is why engaging at the same time, but in different ways, the thinker AND the caveman in each of us is the key to successful campaigns.

WEF‘s Diana El-Azar demonstrated why the effects of the Social Revolution are – unfortunately – still poorly integrated in our conceptual and operational models. We need to keep in mind that disintermediation is affecting and putting upside down each and every sector of society – including our industry.

If we do not understand that leadership today is about dealing with transparency, velocity, empowerment and complexity, we’re not going to help our clients navigate the blur.

Think BOLD

Last, but not least, lots of insights and ideas were shared on two separate – but highly connected – topics: creativity in PR, and award-winning strategies.

What is creativity in PR?

Well, 50% of our clients spending less than 5% of their budget on creation, it’s not necessarily something clients value the way we do…In such a context, we need to be very good at managing costs, or start argue. Or both.

Risk aversion on the client side is for sure another serious handicap: the main barrier, on top of the lack of money and time.

Prime PR‘s Tom Beckman – a respected voice on the matter in our industry – offered a fresh perspective here: creativity is neither mysterious nor costly, it’s mostly a question of innovative thinking and structures. Again here, diversity is core to the success, and the Prime PR way is for sure disruptive. Tom gave the example of a winning team made of a creative director + a business intelligence specialist + a sustainability expert: such an unexpected team won the pitch because the combination of their very different views created a 100% tailored and innovative solution for the client.

Weber Shandwick’s Chief Creative Officer UK & EMEA Gabriela Lungu insisted that “It’s up to us to fight to raise the creative bar, all the time: and if the agency is small, courage will make the difference”.

What makes an award-winning campaign?

Ketchum EMEA CEO David Gallagher, who led the latest PR Jury there, said the PR industry needs to be massively present at the CannesLions Festival. The process there is fair, and transparent. Too many agencies stay away from the pool, said David. And one week festival of content, inspirational speakers, debates and conversations beyond the parties is a worthy experience for our best people!

Paul Holmes added a very wise note to the debate, observing it shouldn’t be focused on award-winning strategies: it’s actually about creating award-worthy work for clients.

“What makes one work amazing?,” asked Paul.

Insights, research-based strategies, engagement planning, big ideas, perfect execution, results (and correlation of the results with the goals: how do they align?)

“Courage is what separates simply good work from really great work”, added he.

Engagement is king, not bombardment of the audience: make it sticky, shareable, ethical & able to change behaviors.

A fresh vision, a brighter organization, rich of much more diverse teams, delivering the best of smart, bold and creatively executed ideas: here’s the future of PR. Up to us!

 

MSLGROUP’s Chief Strategy Officer, Pascal Beucler holds BAs in History and Language Sciences, a master’s degree in Linguistics and a post graduate degree in Semio-Linguistics.  

This blog post originally appeared here.

PR & The Future: Time To Think BIG

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Guest blog post by Pascal Beucler, SVP & Chief Strategy Officer, MSLGROUP.

The ICCO Summit (International Communications Consultancy Organisation) held in Paris October 10-11 chose a bold theme – Change or Perish: The Future of PR. It certainly is a sign of the exciting – and challenging – times we live in.

We need to think really big.

I dare refer here to the legendary “Think Different” campaign TBWA\Chiat\Day created for Apple at the end of the 90′s, and the way it contributed to the firm’s actual reinvention, I’d be tempted to say that the challenges our industry are facing are equally critical. Although various topics were discussed during this ICCO Summit – gender inequity, diversity, change of mindset and organizational models, innovation, creativity ,to name a few – the motto of most presentations and panels was about much more than just change: it’s been about transformation and reinvention. From this standpoint, the ICCO Summit delivered against its promise, with a bunch of bold and thoughtful debates. So let’s briefly examine:
  • What’s already changing, fast (clients’ expectations, employees’ needs and aspirations, competitive landscape),
  • What didn’t change yet, or not enough (gender inequity, poor degree of diversity),
  • What still needs to change – and the sooner, the better (mindset, organization, offer).
And of course these are my personal thoughts on the matter, inspired by what I heard and saw last week.

Think FRESH.

Reinventing ourselves for the new competitive landscape is not an option, it’s a vital priority. As Paul Holmes underlined it, the PR agency of the future is not going to look like the one of the past. The issue is that too many agencies are still organized “the old way”, poorly equipped for the Digital & Social Age, with far too many “villages” or silos, and too many managerial layers. Before their “G4” reinvention was launched, said GolinHarris CEO Fred Cook. “there were more levels of hierarchy in our agency than in the US Army”! paulholmesicco Paul Holmes at the ICCO summit

What should the agency of the future look like, then?

First of all, a place where the best of data, insights, ideas, connectivity and engagement is conceived: this is what clients expect today…even if too few of them give PR agencies the credit for it. It’s up to us, and – believe me – no one else will help, to bravely take the challenge. To make this happen, a full reshaping of the agency is a vital necessity: new skills, diverse teams, a more agile organization, new tools and processes, and even a redesigned workspace where strategists, planners, creative people and “connectors” can interact and collaboratively imagine disruptive solutions. We’re not there, obviously. Just walk into most of PR agencies around the globe, and you’ll realize how the existing space planning and cubicle-inspired design mindset keep encouraging the deadly silo culture (best friend of the “Not Invented Here” syndrome). Amid other though, yet in a different industry, one firm shows the way, these days:  
Fleishman-Hillard CEO Dave Senay shared a similar vision: reinvention is not an option, when most of the dominant agency structures reflect the past, not the future – not even our present: how many PR agencies can claim today that they have a truly holistic approach to business, a really diverse and social savvy talent pool, a best-in-class Analytics, Research & Insights resource, a 24/7 Newsroom and a genuinely Content-Centric value proposition? Meanwhile, our clients run fast, and they do expect timely, useful, relevant, 360°, effective solutions, not internal revenue conflicts between silos and endless channels’ debates. Who can seriously believe that a consumer bothers whether a message comes to him through a “earned”, “owned” or “paid” media? Really? Transformation is not an easy task though, in our industry like in most sectors: people are, too often, change adverse. And the talent part of it is essential, though. Mobilizing people is of the essence. Training, coaching and Change Management should therefore be at the core of our investments in the two of three years to come. Another fight is on the compensation front: as Cook highlighted it, “We are about insights and ideas, that’s the kind of company we want to be in the future (but) our clients are used to be paying for our hours!” Data analytics, market research, insights generation, Brand & Reputation Management, focus on Social Enterprise and Social Media should be our top delivery, and the value we thus create properly compensated.

Think DIVERSE

Is the PR Industry “A Man’s Man’s Man’s World”? Yes it still is, very sadly. Gender inequity remains a painful reality, a disgrace and a true concern for our sector. Speaking about “Women in PR”, APCO Worldwide CEO Margery Kraus revealed that 73% of the PRSA’s 21,000 members are women, but that four out of five leadership positions are still held by men. As of 2010, the average income for women in PR is 60% of men’s average, and it was 69% in 2006. So it’s getting even worse. Just a shame. Still a long, long way to go…. The industry urgently needs to work on this. And a specific effort is also to be done on women’s own attitude towards the male-chauvinist dominant culture in society at large. “Women need to have each other’s backs, we have to coach women to reach out for help when they face challenges and have doubts”, said Porter Novelli CEO Karen van Bergen. A perspective Margery Kraus brightly echoed, quoting Eleanor Roosevelt: “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent”. From a broader perspective, van Bergen insisted on the fact that there was still a lot to do, in order to break through the “glass ceiling”: clearly for women, and also for the so-called “minorities”. Karen insisted that the crisis of diversity is not “just” a personal issue: it’s clearly an industry issue: “Diverse teams come up with better solutions, solutions that resonate with diverse audiences”. So her message to the business is: “Embrace diversity like your future depends on it – Because it does!”. Interestingly, several participants underlined the fact that diversity is not only an issue to be aggressively addressed by our organizations: it should also be considered a great opportunity. The debate went beyond inequities in terms of gender and origins, to focus on the question of efficiency: diversity is also about enlarging angles of vision, perspectives, points of views. The consequence is that we need to start recruiting differently, attracting and retaining the diverse talent of the future.Rethink the way we recruit our people and hang on to them. Endogamic recruitment (searching the same profiles, with the same skills, coming from the same schools) is a deadly route, nowadays. Yes, PR need brains, but different kinds of brains, coming from very diverse horizons, cultures, backgrounds.

Think SMART.

Innovation in PR was another insightful debate, introduced by Text 100‘s Cecile Missildine: the golden rule today is audience-led communications, with content and conversational strategies which have to be built upon a deep understanding of people and communities. Content + Communities + Contact: a vision we definitely share at MSLGROUP! Cecile said it was somehow worrying to see that so many brands and CMOs still rely on the old marketing funnel, born in the sixties with the blooming of the consumer society: yes it is still out there! People’s attitudes and behaviors have changed and keep changing a lot, though…The decision-making journey is actually very different, and the challenge is to manage it rightly. Language strategies are equally crucial here, and Maslansky + Partners CEO Keith Yazmir showed it with talent, starting from something we all know, or should know, but don’t truly understand: it’s not what you say, it’s what they hear which actually counts. Another point we fully share at MSLGROUP, having put what we call the art & science of conversation at the heart of our people-centric Brand Essence. Be heard is the difficult part of it, and if we’re not good at that the risk of disconnection between brands and people will grow very fast. It’s all about understanding the message you are getting behind the words you’re hearing. Too many messages are still rooted in what you want to say, not what the audience will actually hear: the dialogue gap. Innovation in PR is also embedded into the Science of Engagement, as Weber Shandwick’s Adam Mack rightly showed it.Yes, the traditional model of research is changing fast, with the Big Data turmoil, the need for insights, the focus on field observation…all leading to better, “bigger” and smarter ideas. Neurosciences, Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology, Semiotics are now supporting the new Science of Engagement, and it makes a big difference (we could see good examples of this too during the Holmes Global PR Summit last November in Miami). Never has our industry been in such a need of Social & Human Sciences, and it’s very good news! Understanding that the contemporary drivers of engagement are very diverse, and numerous, is essential: it’s a complex and fast-evolving field and we should never forget that “We’re still cavemen at heart”! This is why engaging at the same time, but in different ways, the thinker AND the caveman in each of us is the key to successful campaigns. WEF‘s Diana El-Azar demonstrated why the effects of the Social Revolution are – unfortunately – still poorly integrated in our conceptual and operational models. We need to keep in mind that disintermediation is affecting and putting upside down each and every sector of society – including our industry. If we do not understand that leadership today is about dealing with transparency, velocity, empowerment and complexity, we’re not going to help our clients navigate the blur.

Think BOLD

Last, but not least, lots of insights and ideas were shared on two separate – but highly connected – topics: creativity in PR, and award-winning strategies.

What is creativity in PR?

Well, 50% of our clients spending less than 5% of their budget on creation, it’s not necessarily something clients value the way we do…In such a context, we need to be very good at managing costs, or start argue. Or both. Risk aversion on the client side is for sure another serious handicap: the main barrier, on top of the lack of money and time. Prime PR‘s Tom Beckman – a respected voice on the matter in our industry – offered a fresh perspective here: creativity is neither mysterious nor costly, it’s mostly a question of innovative thinking and structures. Again here, diversity is core to the success, and the Prime PR way is for sure disruptive. Tom gave the example of a winning team made of a creative director + a business intelligence specialist + a sustainability expert: such an unexpected team won the pitch because the combination of their very different views created a 100% tailored and innovative solution for the client. Weber Shandwick’s Chief Creative Officer UK & EMEA Gabriela Lungu insisted that “It’s up to us to fight to raise the creative bar, all the time: and if the agency is small, courage will make the difference”.

What makes an award-winning campaign?

Ketchum EMEA CEO David Gallagher, who led the latest PR Jury there, said the PR industry needs to be massively present at the CannesLions Festival. The process there is fair, and transparent. Too many agencies stay away from the pool, said David. And one week festival of content, inspirational speakers, debates and conversations beyond the parties is a worthy experience for our best people! Paul Holmes added a very wise note to the debate, observing it shouldn’t be focused on award-winning strategies: it’s actually about creating award-worthy work for clients. “What makes one work amazing?,” asked Paul. Insights, research-based strategies, engagement planning, big ideas, perfect execution, results (and correlation of the results with the goals: how do they align?) “Courage is what separates simply good work from really great work”, added he. Engagement is king, not bombardment of the audience: make it sticky, shareable, ethical & able to change behaviors. A fresh vision, a brighter organization, rich of much more diverse teams, delivering the best of smart, bold and creatively executed ideas: here’s the future of PR. Up to us!  
MSLGROUP’s Chief Strategy Officer, Pascal Beucler holds BAs in History and Language Sciences, a master’s degree in Linguistics and a post graduate degree in Semio-Linguistics.   This blog post originally appeared here.
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