Five Ways The PR Industry Can Invest In Its Future

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A blog post by David Gallagher, ICCO President and senior partner & chief executive for Ketchum in Europe

Two weeks ago nearly 200 global PR leaders met in Paris for a frank and free discussion on the industry’s future at a conference convened by ICCO, an international trade body representing over 1700 PR agencies worldwide through 29 national Associations.

 

The conference, Change or Perish, was by most measures a success, and signals the arrival, finally, of a global mindset for a profession that has been aiming for international excellence, professionalism and growth for decades.  You can check out all of the content here, including the World PR Report and the material presented by some of the brightest lights in PR today.

 

But while the conversation bubbled in many accents and from a wide range of perspectives – delegates hailed from Europe, North and South America, Asia, Australia and Africa – one important voice wasn’t really heard: that of the young professional.

 

Don’t get me wrong.  Even those of a more, shall we say, statesmanlike seniority had fresh perspectives (check out Lord Chadlington’s remarks here), but for a conference about the future, we were lacking the views of those destined to be its leaders in the coming decades.

 

And so one suggestion for investing in the future of the industry: send some under-30s to the next ICCO summit in New Delhi in 2014.  In fact, I hope every ICCO member association will endeavour to send at least one under-30 to the next conference, and use the occasion to generate as much discussion and ideas from this group for our future.  I’d suggest we hold a pre-conference for the Gen-Y delegates and then actively involve them in the main conference.  I’m sure we can be extremely creative when it comes to selecting representatives and gathering great thinking from across our local and national industries to kick off a truly global conversation.

And while we are looking at ways to invest in our global future, here are four other ideas:

 

  1. Adapt the UK PRCA apprenticeship programme in other markets.  This ambitious initiative allows PRCA member agencies to open their doors to employees from all parts of the workforce, including those from lower socio-economic communities.  And this in turn diversifies our base of consultants and creatives to offer more sophisticated and inclusive solutions to client challenges.
  2. Establish an ‘ICCO PR Institute’.  This would be a lecture circuit or speaker-exchange to bring the best teachers and innovators from our member markets to places where there is a strong and growing appetite for top-grade PR consultancy.  Delegates from the Middle East thought this might help spur interest in PR as a career and accelerate the already rapid professionalization of communications consultancy across the region, and I suspect other markets may enjoy a similar benefit.  And of course the proposition works both ways, with PR innovators from emerging markets making themselves available to stimulate thinking in the ‘established’ centres.
  3. Collaborate to compete.  Most of the delegates in Paris returned to wherever they’re from to resume the daily battle against each other.  That’s appropriate and within the natural order of things, but it’s increasingly clear that we all have common adversaries beyond the PR industry: management consultancies, looking for access through their approach data analytics; and ad agencies, working to convert their traditional storytelling prowess into something new and compelling.  Both challenges can be met, and many PR firms are already finding their own ways to differentiate, but a collective industry-wide effort to counter both challenges globally could be great contributions by ICCO and other international PR organizations.
  4. Do well by doing good.  One common theme from this summit and just about every PR conference I’ve ever attended is the need for PR to ‘better PR itself.’  I’m not sure I fully agree but I appreciate the sentiment; what we do can and should be a force for good in the world, and people should know about it.  How we go about showing our value, however, is not completely clear.  Cardiologists don’t prove the value of cardiovascular surgery by operating on themselves, for example – the results speak for themselves.So here are a couple of thought-starters. Let’s make a collective effort to show our best work on the most visible stages, like theCannes Lions competition.  I made a passionate, if not wholly persuasive, plea to ensure that the best of our work from the around the world finds its way to Cannes, and there are plenty of ways we can help each other: workshops on creating winning entries, establishing categories in other competitions with Cannes-style criteria, and banishing once and for all the use of advertising value-equivalency (AVE) as a meaningful metric.

    We can also let the work we do to address social problems – road safety, neonatal nutrition, anti-bullying and recycling, to name just a few – speak for itself as a force for progress.  One way: a new website from the World Economic Forum and the US Ad Council (and, in full disclosure, a pet project of mine and Ketchum) called Creative For Good.  This site features case studies and best practice from around the world, convening NGOs and agencies to look at what’s worked and why to tackle sticky social problems – and it would be a true shame for PR solutions to not feature prominently among them.

 

So let’s get to it.  We agreed in Paris we have a bright future in PR.  Let’s take the necessary steps now – maybe some of these, certainly many others – to realize it.

Thoughts on the ICCO Summit 2013 in Paris by Jamie McLaughlin

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The great venues, food and attendees were all complemented by the excellent insight and commentary on show throughout the two days.

As ICCOs recruitment partner, I was one of 5 industry ‘specialists’ tasked with discussing, ‘Recruiting Differently: Attracting and Retaining the Talent of the Future’ – a topic I was relived to know more about than some of the others debated throughout the day.

The panel, made up of Ben Smith (PR Moment), Karen van Bergen (Porter Novelli), Annabelle Warren (Primary PR) and Alison Clarke (Grayling) shared the same broad feeling that employers in PR & Comms must widen the candidate pool, recruit smarter and more efficiently and react to the changing nature of the workforce. At times there was a fight for the microphone and I think we could have gone all day.

Widening the candidate pool was a theme that came up throughout the panel. If employers continue to go after the same talent then they are merely fighting over the same skill sets and it has many negative connotations, especially when PR Agencies attempt to hold on to staff. It inflates salaries and forces employers to promote individuals without merit. Hiring from the traditional sources and therefore similar people can also limit the opinions, insights and creativity employees will bring and as result the service provided to clients. It was also agreed that unpaid internships favour certain socio-economic groups and entry level salaries must improve to be able to compete with likes of law firms and management consultancies.

The impact and challenges of the changing workforce was also highlighted. As generation X moves up the career ladder, taking the reigns of PR agencies, whilst generation Y are now the bulk of employees. The latch-key X and the Peter Pan Y have vastly differing outlooks and employers must be aware of this. Increasingly generation Y are less inspired by the traditional methods we normally draw upon, namely financial rewards. Responsibility based recognition has become very important – giving an employee greater scope in their remit can have far more impact. Offering a member of staff the chance to chair a committees or an increased budget can be far more powerful and cost effective.

Being a non-PR Practioner, it was interesting to observe the majority of attendees in agreement of the steps that need to be taken for PR to move forward and it’s actual value realised – although their seemed to be few ‘louder’ dissenting voices on Twitter than in the venue! It was a far more collegiate gathering than the normally partisan awards events. This might have been the focus on talk and less on booze!

 

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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.

On The Verge of Calamity? Why Agencies Need To Adapt Or Perish

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Guest blog by David Gallagher, ICCO President and CEO for Ketchum in Europe

Summary

2013 Global ICCO Summit To Examine Innovations For Survival and Success

 

Sometimes when thinking about the future it’s good to look at the past.

And in some cases, it’s helpful to look at the long past like, say, the past 540 million years. That’s how far back the reliable, observable fossil record goes, and judging from the data experts believe there have been at least five major mass extinction events since then.  The technical definition of these events is not important; suffice it to say, this is when s— gets real for most of the critters around at the time.

And without stretching the metaphor too thinly, I believe the PR industry is on the edge of a mass extinction event – a moment at which the environment under long-term stress undergoes a short-term shock. Or, in our case, it’s not one shock a series of short-term blasts including major shifts in technology, globalization, and economics that are in the process of disrupting, distorting or eliminating virtually every service industry.

Now, I’m no pessimist.  I’ve spoken frequently around the world on reasons to be optimistic about the agency business and I still believe that even the face of massive change – even potentially catastrophic change for many – there is enormous opportunity for those willing to adapt. Because, unlike the 96% of all species that perished in the Permian-Triassic event of 66 million years ago, we have a choice.  We can roll with the punches, adjust to the environment, adapt to new realities.

Change or Perish: The Future of PR is the thrust of the 2013 ICCO PR Summit this October in Paris. Here some of the world’s leading thinkers on the PR business will share their candid views on the trends, innovations and ideas that are challenging – and possibly saving – the communications consulting business.

Agency bosses and gurus we’ve all long admired, emulated and respected (feared?) as competitors and colleagues will offer insights to the strategies and approaches in a wide range of areas most likely to affect our future: leadership and talent diversity, creativity and innovation, linguistics and social science, measurement and evaluation, development markets, new media models and agency structures, and integration with other communications disciplines.

In times of epic change like these, survival is never guaranteed.  But the odds of hanging on just a bit longer are greatly enhanced when we’re willing to step beyond our own day to day tasks and to listen, learn and contribute to a wider conversation about the wider world around us.

Hope to see you in Paris.

As women increasingly outperform men, is feminism becoming irrelevant?

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Guest blog post by Sally Costerton, Founder of Sally Costerton Advisory Limited

For many years the idea of feminism and equality have been largely synonymous. Indeed Wikipedia defines a feminist as someone one who “advocates or supports the rights and equality of women”.

​In an excellent recent article, Spectator Editor Fraser Nelson  suggested that this concept is coming apart.  He opined that with the success of young women at all levels of education and in the workplace, we may be seeing a long term trend where the ‘British economy will become feminised and utterly transformed’. As well as outperforming boys in at school, girls are now the majority of University graduates and women in the 22-30 age- bracket are paid more than their male equivalents.

It is reasonable to assume that  these young women might wish to settle down and have children with men their intellectual and social equals, but if this trajectory continues there will not be enough suitable men to go round. Successful women will be faced with the choice of either not having children or “trading down” to find a father for their children. This raises the interesting prospect of the equality debate going the other way.

Throughout my 25 years in the PR industry, women have always greatly outnumbered men in all levels below the Boardroom where the relationship is almost completely inverted.

The industry is typically almost entirely a graduate profession and remains a very popular choice with high performing graduates. When I ran H&K we had hundreds of highly qualified applicants for our graduate entry scheme often with two or more degrees, several languages and various exotic hobbies to hire from. And all that for 18 grand a year. So our industry should be a leading indicator of the trend Nelson is identifying.

Rather depressingly, over my quarter century the paltry amount of senior women seems to have barely shifted. We have hardly been standard bearers for the equality agenda – let alone a feminist one. Maybe these women could afford not to return to work after having children. Or perhaps their husbands were not prepared to face the perceived stigma of being the primary child carer. My experience (primary bread winner, flexible supportive husband) was rare ten years ago when we decided to role reverse.  It felt like a difficult choice for us both. Now society seems much less judgemental, and I am happy to see far more couples making this choice.

But logically, despite the carnage of the child bearing years which typically see a worrying chunk of talented women leave the industry, the preponderance of bright motivated women who either have no children or who are the primary bread winner should lead to at least equality in the boardroom. It will be interesting to see whether if  in the next 10-15 years women reach the top of the industry to the degree that their number and talents deserve.

And on their own terms, not solely by making typically ‘male’ choices.  If so, we will not really have moved at all on the feminist agenda, although the equality debate may be deemed to be over.

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This article originally appared on Sally Costerton’s personal blog “Breaking the Glass Ceiling: A Survivor’s Guide”

Successful agencies: challenges, mindset and having an engine for growth

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This is a guest blog post by Richard Houghton, Associate Partner, AgencyPeople, former President of ICCO and past Chairman of the PRCA (UK). His work at AgencyPeople is focused on helping agencies grow.

My conversations with the CEOs and MDs of agencies normally start along the lines of – “Do you want to grow your agency?”

The answer is invariably yes.

The next question is often “What is getting in the way of growing your business?”

The answer to this question is always personal to the agency MD but there are common themes, including pressure on budgets, pitches with very long ‘short lists’, recruitment of quality people and managing overheads.

Nobody thinks that these are simple problems to solve or that running a growing and profitable agency in the current economic climate is easy. But looking at your agency from a different angle can provide a new perspective which often helps management start to overcome these challenges.

One of the tools that we use at AgencyPeople is to ask agency management to identify the drivers that they think are the most important to creating revenue and margin growth. It’s these drivers that make up the ‘Engine for Growth’ for an agency.

You may not be surprised if I tell you that these drivers often include great people, real and clear competitive differentiation, a great new business pipeline and efficient financial systems.

Do they sound familiar? Of course they do. Many of the growth drivers overlap with the barriers to growth that have already been identified.

So what?

I think it is a matter of mindset as well as planning. Starting from a positive mindset means that you start planning for growth with a ‘can do’ attitude rather than a list of problems to solve.

Engine for growth

Once you have the right mindset, what drivers should you consider for your Engine for Growth?

Having a High Performing Senior Team (HPST) is an excellent starting point. The team needs to be balanced in terms of personalities and skills and be working towards a clear vision, with a motivating mission. They need to be running an operational plan that provides a road map to growth, with identified milestones.

Working to the HPST needs to be the Right People in the Right Jobs. Understanding an individual’s strengths and playing to them makes for happier staff and clients, with much reduced employee churn and associated costs. Linking the individual’s success to the business’s means that individual reward for success is funded by a profitable and growing business.

Thirdly, all the evidence supports the view that winning new clients is far more expensive than growing existing clients. We estimate about five times more expensive. On top of that, Loyal Clients will spend more, can help with service development and will even provide new client leads through referrals.////  Making sure your client relationships are partnerships rather than transactional is one of the key drivers to sustained commercial success.

The next driver, Standing Out, is probably the one driver that PR consultancies handle the least effectively. This is ironic as our core expertise is differentiating companies, services and products. Understanding the market trends, responding to them and even second guessing them at times, gives agencies a chance to start grabbing the attention of prospects through new and relevant propositions and services.

Combine this innovation with a professional and relentless Sales Process and you have the underpinnings of solid fee growth. The final driver is robust Commercial Systems that ensure that the senior management team have actionable information and no surprises.

In summary, look for drivers rather than challenges and make sure your Engine for Growth is running smoothly.

Lobbying, a democratic essential

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This is a guest blog post by Sharif D. Rangnekar, President of the Public Relations Consultants Association of India (PRCAI), ICCO PR Board Member, and the Chief Executive officer of Integral PR. This post originally appeared on livemint.com.

Lobbying, as a practice, attracts a very negative response that excludes the reality of how public policy evolves in a democratic country. This misperception is the product of the opaque manner with which the profession operates and because lobbying attracts attention only in the light of contentious issues and not when positive outcomes are achieved. In India, the reaction is perhaps justified given the history of misuse of power and the abuse of a system involving a variety of influential people. Yet, these are exceptions, even if this is all that gets amplified in the name of lobbying.

What must be understood is that governments, parliamentarians or even the media do not function in isolation from the people at large. Nor are they custodians of all knowledge or what people need or how a country thinks. It is with inputs from citizen’s groups such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), think tanks, consumer interest societies and industry chambers and associations that debate and discussion translates into policy. It is worth noting that these groups employ a lobbyist or lobby on their own. Such things don’t happen in a vacuum.

Internationally, lobbying is said to date back to 1215 when King John of England allowed people to petition him on any violation of rights. The US interpreted this as the right to be heard.

According to European Public Affairs Consultancies’ Association (EPACA) guidelines (adopted by the Public Relations Consultants Association of India, or PRCAI), lobbying has two primary aspects—“a society that does not have autocratic decision makers must use a group process to make political decisions,” and “lobbying as an aspect of legislative process”. Yet, since the good results of lobbying were not visible to the public and tainted stuff was all that made news, the European Union (EU) created a register where interest representation had to be recorded, with EPACA carrying out monitoring and self regulating.

In the mid-1990s, the big concern in the US was that of government officials switching roles to represent corporations. They had easier access to the system besides a wealth of information that citizens would not have had. The register ensured that every representation was recorded and failure to do so within specified time led to hefty fines.

With these structures, EU and the US built a good-sized industry with government affairs and public affairs experts. There are more than 34,000 lobbyists in the US. In EU, some 3,000 interest groups and 300-odd companies are involved in public affairs and over 100 management companies work in this space, employing some 15,000 persons.

In India, estimates suggest there are more than 20 large- to mid-sized public relations firms offering public affairs expertise. There are also a few stand-alone government affairs consultancies following structured processes. The number of single-man agents, think tanks, NGOs and in-house practitioners is hard to count.

Even with this size and importance of work what is in place are largely guidelines of PRCAI that are based on EPACA norms and US laws. These are followed by a handful of participants.

Yet there is a structure. Some firms follow the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and others state their own codes of governance that disallow the use of any form of influence other than dialogue, discussion and representation. The services offered to clients often fall under government affairs, advocacy, public affairs or even multi-constituency engagement.

With this spirit, the interest of their clients then translates into direct engagement, platform creation or association (working with chambers or industry associations), media relations and, importantly, the use of research and global examples related to the evolution of policies in question in different societies. There are registers at every government office one signs but there is an absence of declaration or identification of purpose or profession. Hence, there is a sense of anonymity.

Yet, with the help of lobbying, India has seen significant changes in policy, consumption and general evolution ranging from food safety laws, intellectual property, the opening up of insurance, banking, aviation and many other sectors, reduction of duties, raising of voices for farmers and human rights, and changes in laws and individual taxation, to give a few examples.

As EPACA suggests, a democracy must recognize lobbying regardless of whether it is carried out by individual citizens or companies, think tanks, governments and other groups. To realize the positive potential of this activity, there is a definite need to recognize this profession so that distinctions between fixing, preferential treatment or crony capitalism are clear.

Further, the association—PRCAI—needs to be strengthened. Participants must sign the dotted line and agree not to make any payment in cash or in kind, or barter so as to influence regulation. And when it comes to public (taxpayers) money, the need to exercise greater caution has been underlined by PRCAI and this must be committed to by one and all.

While the onus lies on the lobbying industry, its existence has more to do with the ethos of a democracy and the belief of plurality and evolution. The industry with its skills perhaps needs to develop a strategy to push forward, acquire greater visibility and be held accountable. It needs to work with government, politicians and the media in reaching what is a balance between visibility and confidentiality. Else, what is not seen or known will always be feared and speculated about.

 

Minimal report on sustainability and corporate social responsibility is better than no report at all

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This is a guest blog post by Maja Recnik, Education Director at SPEM Communication Group, Slovenia

One can never find the appropriate time to start reporting on sustainable development and corporate social responsibility. Global companies are currently at the head of the game in the area of reporting about sustainability while global organizations, such as United Nations and ISO, define reporting methods and structure. In the next year European Union plans to prescribe reporting as obligatory for all European companies. The least European companies can do to adapt to this rising trend is to start now.

Let us look at how some global companies handle this.

According to data received from the audit firm KPMG 95 % of 250 largest companies in the world annualy report on sustainability. The ratio would be approximately 20 % if 5000 largest companies in the world were taken into consideration. Of all companies included in database CorporateRegister.com exactly 6400 make the report. If smaller countries and more languages were included, this number would probably raise to 10000 companies. This is still a small number but the trends predict it would definitely increase. For the next year, for all companies with at least 500 employees the European Commission announced the revoluton in reporting. Thus it won’t only make a huge change in company’s attitude towards sustainable business but will also follow north European countries where reporting is already an obligation.

The need for reporting on sustainable operation and social responsibility emerged in 1990s when the photography of 12-year old boy, who was sewing Nike shoes with his bare hands, was published in media. The photo soon surrounded the world and despite Nike’s effort in the last twenty years to rebuild reputation the image could not disappear. The definition of sustainable development as three aspects of the operation, economical, social and ecological, emerged after the year 2000. Companies should plan their development in a beneficial manner for the next generations. The United Nations first introduced reporting for environment in order to establish common standards so the efforts of companies could be compared. After the year 2010, knowing that companies by doing their work don’t pollute the environment wasn’t enough anymore; besides sustainable growth they must also attain positive effects on environment and society. The future will introduce more specialized reporting areas and integrated reports. The Organization GRI (Global Initiative Report) intends to introduce the next generation of G4 standards which are supposed to focus more on materiality. The event is presumably going to happen next week in Amsterdam. The novelty is the transition from wide scale reporting to reports considering important issues that affect the operation of business and the relationship of participants towards the company.

Preparation of report is a process lasting approximately six till eight months when doing it for the first time. According to specialists’ experiences the report is useful in 90 % because it creates a dialog between the company and participants, on the basis of which it is possible to predict risks and determine opportunities. At first, it isn’t necessary for the companies to choose one of the international standards but can start with minimal observation of their operation on business, society and environment. Elaine Cohem, the counsellor for sustainable reporting at Reporter Beyond Business, who at the invitation ofZavod Ekvilib gave lectures to companies in Network for Corporate Social Responsibility Slovenia, pointed out 25 common indexes for measuring sustainability. Some of them are for example total electricity consumption, joint gasoline and other fuel consumption, the number of kilometres by plane, water consumption, kilograms of trash. In the field of relationship with employees, the indexes are for example employee contentment, the number of absences due to illness or injury, gender diversity, number of training hours. In the field of relationship with customers: customers contentment, product safety, the number of complaints, suppliers satisfaction, payments in due time. Another important area is the field of charity as for example the amount of donations to local communities, number and hours of work of volunteers and other. It is essential that the company collects the required data first. It must accomplish discussions with various participants because thus it already gets the basic data for defining the reporting. Beside the process going on in the company it must be noted that these reports are of most importance to employees and academics who analyse them and then also to customers and suppliers.

The majority of global companies already has a 10-years reporting tradition. Reasons for this are not only various sustainability and companies reputation scales but also greater consumer awareness. Between the same price and the same quality the consumer will probably decide for the company which has a story of sustainability. Likewise we will rather accept a job in a trustworthy company. Magazine Corporate Responsibility (CR Magazine) is one of many which regularly publish data considering company reporting. Its scale of 100 best corporate citizens in USA is a top-level list for measuring practices of corporate citizenship. Global company PPG which shares a joint company in Slovenia in assocciation with Helios Company was selected among finalists. The magazine gathered 318 points from public available data such as annual report, management statements etc. in seven categories: environment, climate changes, human rights, philanthropy, employee relations, financial communities and government. PPG company has issued a sustainability report in April for 2012 where it published sustainability goals and defined new vision till the year 2020. Their sustainability framework follows more than a year long internal and external analysis to determine the most important effects to the company and participants. The company made a plan to decrease environmental impact, improve health, safety and welfare of employees as well as enhance and report about donations and charity of its employees, all these to be accomplished until 2020. In their opinion this was a great step forward which will help all employees in the world to get a method and measurable goals for promotion and development of sustainability practices. Some of the goals are reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions for 1.5 % per year, reducing overflows and releases for 10 % per year, initiating programs for employee welfare and attaining 30 % sale of sustainable products until the year 2020. The report is made by GRI standard G3.

Other successful global companies with high quotes in the sustainable development field develop concepts where they put themselves and key participants in the forefront. In Unilever the key participants are employees and consumers. Their vision is creating consumer awareness to the point at which they will use cleaning agents more economically and qualitatively. By doing that the company will indirectly affect environment protection and economic independence of consumers. In a similar innovative way Marks and Spencer began their sustainable concept named Plan A since plan B no longer exists. His sustainable model brought not only the reduction of costs but also the increase of profit. Technology company SAP is the first that made a report on sustainability on network and interactively connected itself with its participants in order to get feedback. 100 individuals from different target groups replied and they were valuable source of information on how to improve operation.

Experiences of big global companies are of invaluable importance for companies who are only at the beginning of understanding sustainable operation. The European Union tries to put itself in the forefront. What will these changes bring will be possible to see only when all companies are obliged to operate and report sustainably.

The Matryoshka Effect: exploring Russia’s global brand

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This is a guest blog post by Andrey Barannikov, CEO of SPN Ogilvy, Chairman of  Russian PR Association AKOS and ICCO Board Member

There are topics that one can discuss forever. For Russian PR practitioners, one of those is the country’s image in the world. This issue has been regularly raised on key national industry events over the past few years, so you would think that the topic is rather outworn. However, recent news on the business, political and other arenas keep bringing the issue up, urging us to look at it again and again, each time from a new angle.

On April 24th, SPN Ogilvy, in partnership with the leading global PR industry expert The Holmes Report, held a panel discussion in Moscow dedicated to the brand of Russia and the way corporate and product brands affect it. The panel became The Holmes Report’s debute event in Russia. As Arun Sudhaman, partner and Managing Editor of The Holmes Report, noted, the Russian PR industry shows an impressive development dynamics, both in terms of quantitative and qualitative indicators, and the appearance of The Holmes Report in Russia is, in a way, an acknowledgement to this.

The panel called “The Matryoshka Effect: Russia’s face within and without” featured several senior Russian PR practitioners representing such companies as VTB Capital, Shell, MegaFon, UTAir and a government agency Rossotrudnichestvo dealing with foreign affairs. I will try to give you an overview of what was discussed.

A national brand: why does it matter?

The presence of Russia at the international scene, as our colleague Arun highlighted, is getting more and more noticeable, in terms of Russian companies entering the global market, and also in the light of the political transformations and upcoming sports events. That’s why the question of the national image obtains a particular importance, taking into consideration the growing globalization – after all, it affects the success of domestic business in the world and the ability of a country to attract foreign investments.

According to the latest international research Arun cited (Futurebrand etc.), the reputation of Russia as an investment destination is quite strong – it ranks fourth among the European countries – however, the number of projects is decreasing, and the brand of Russia is in the state of decline (alongside with Pakistan and Paraguay – not the most desirable company for a country aiming to boost its reputation before investors…). The coming Universiade, the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi and the 2018 FIFA World Cup are opening ample opportunities to change this situation. Referring to the London Olympics, Arun fairly mentioned that such events help to change not only the country’s image abroad, but also the way citizens perceive their country, business, culture and themselves, which is probably even more important.

Business takes the lead

“Business is an avant-guard of the international dialogue, it is a communicator and mediator. The way it looks and behaves shapes an idea of the possibility to work with this country”. This very important point was made by Olga Podoynitsyna, Managing Director and Head of Global Corporate Relations and Marketing of VTB Capital, a company for which improving the perception of Russia internationally is an organic part of their communications with the global media.

Leading international media outlets are the key “opinion leaders” shaping investors’ attitude to the country. However, as Olga sadly concluded, today the international media are still influenced by the same stereotypes as 5-6 years ago: in their eyes, Russia is still made up of matryoshkas (nest dolls), vodka, caviar, the Kalashnikov machine gun and girls. However, the surveys show that the image of Russia also has a few characteristics investors consider attractive – those are connected not only with its economic potential, but also with intellectual and cultural resources. These are the things Russians should communicate more actively to key global decision-makers.

It’s not that simple!

However, a country’s image is a complex phenomenon. Petr Lidov, PR director of MegaFon (one of Russia’s top 3 mobile operators), argued that it would be wrong talking about the creation of Russia’s image as a single entity, which would be the same all over the world and for everybody. Indeed, the perception of Russia differs from country to country, depending on the history of our relationships and on the national values. If the West, where democracy stands above all, treats Russia cautiously, then in China, where power is revered, our country is deeply respected. The sector discussed also matters: e.g., Russian oil, gaz and banking industries look very attractive to foreign investors, while no one can call Russia a much-desired tourist destination (although perhaps the potential here lies within positioning it as an extreme travel experience?..). Finally, the country’s geopolitical image and its leaders’ images also form the context of its perception. You know who we mean.

Language is power

The discussion on Russia’s image would be incomplete without representatives of government agencies. Oleg Belyakov, Adviser of the Head of Rossotrudnichestvo, recalled a statement of the Ambassador of Switzerland in Russia: “I have never been to any other country the reputation of which would differ so much from the reality”. Unfortunately, all the efforts to improve the country’s image undertaken on the federal level so far have not been able to improve the prevalent negative attitude towards it. One of the major problems is that there is no one “in charge” of it – however, the country’s image is indeed everybody’s concern. In this respect, the government, the business and the PR community should be playing as one team.

Another problem is that, sadly, we are often not aware of our own resources and the new generation doesn’t feel the connection to the cultural and historical heritage of the country. It is important to show that this heritage is not gone – it is there and present, and it is one of the strongest sides of Russia, in particular, in the eyes of the global community. A powerful resource, the potential of which is underestimated, is also the Russian language, which does not only helps spreading the culture of Russia, but also affects its economic positions in the world: you do business with those who speak the language you know. My father used to be a respected indologist, and I still remember that magazine published in Russian in India – a simple and cheap tool, but what an effect! So there is a huge opportunity for the government and business cooperation lying in the development of Russian language and culture centers across the world.

Think globally

To succeed on the international scene, domestic companies must remember that Russia is part of the global world. Igor Ignatiev, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Shell Russia, felt the importance of the global vision when he worked at the Sakhalin 2 project, where the tiniest event on the oil platform would instantly become a global news. The company’s task was to educate the employees that the way each of them acts forms the perception of Russia as a global energy leader.

According to Lev Koshlyakov, Deputy CEO for Corporate Communications of UTair (one of the leading Russian airlines working internationally), when entering the international scene it is important to think, first of all, what values we bring there. For his business, the expert defined the following combination: “international expertise of a company with a Russian experience”.

A riddle wrapped in a mystery

It would of course be impossible to elaborate a strategy of building the country’s image within 2 hours. However, the experts and the audience agreed that for the country in general and for every Russian company it is crucially important to:

  • Think in a global perspective;
  • Tell the truth about the problems and, at the same time, take measures to solve them;
  • Appreciate and leverage the resources available;
  • Start from small details, such as putting signs in English in the underground or ensuring adequate behaviour of Russian tourists abroad, for a start.

And, going back to the matryoshka metaphor, perhaps the most elegant way to close the discussion on this rich subject was sir Winston Churchill’s saying quoted by Lev Koshlyakov: “Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”. May be, after all, that’s what Russia’s brand is?..

The Matryoshka Effect: exploring Russia's global brand

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This is a guest blog post by Andrey Barannikov, CEO of SPN Ogilvy, Chairman of  Russian PR Association AKOS and ICCO Board Member There are topics that one can discuss forever. For Russian PR practitioners, one of those is the country’s image in the world. This issue has been regularly raised on key national industry events over the past few years, so you would think that the topic is rather outworn. However, recent news on the business, political and other arenas keep bringing the issue up, urging us to look at it again and again, each time from a new angle. On April 24th, SPN Ogilvy, in partnership with the leading global PR industry expert The Holmes Report, held a panel discussion in Moscow dedicated to the brand of Russia and the way corporate and product brands affect it. The panel became The Holmes Report’s debute event in Russia. As Arun Sudhaman, partner and Managing Editor of The Holmes Report, noted, the Russian PR industry shows an impressive development dynamics, both in terms of quantitative and qualitative indicators, and the appearance of The Holmes Report in Russia is, in a way, an acknowledgement to this. The panel called “The Matryoshka Effect: Russia’s face within and without” featured several senior Russian PR practitioners representing such companies as VTB Capital, Shell, MegaFon, UTAir and a government agency Rossotrudnichestvo dealing with foreign affairs. I will try to give you an overview of what was discussed. A national brand: why does it matter? The presence of Russia at the international scene, as our colleague Arun highlighted, is getting more and more noticeable, in terms of Russian companies entering the global market, and also in the light of the political transformations and upcoming sports events. That’s why the question of the national image obtains a particular importance, taking into consideration the growing globalization – after all, it affects the success of domestic business in the world and the ability of a country to attract foreign investments. According to the latest international research Arun cited (Futurebrand etc.), the reputation of Russia as an investment destination is quite strong – it ranks fourth among the European countries – however, the number of projects is decreasing, and the brand of Russia is in the state of decline (alongside with Pakistan and Paraguay – not the most desirable company for a country aiming to boost its reputation before investors…). The coming Universiade, the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi and the 2018 FIFA World Cup are opening ample opportunities to change this situation. Referring to the London Olympics, Arun fairly mentioned that such events help to change not only the country’s image abroad, but also the way citizens perceive their country, business, culture and themselves, which is probably even more important. Business takes the lead “Business is an avant-guard of the international dialogue, it is a communicator and mediator. The way it looks and behaves shapes an idea of the possibility to work with this country”. This very important point was made by Olga Podoynitsyna, Managing Director and Head of Global Corporate Relations and Marketing of VTB Capital, a company for which improving the perception of Russia internationally is an organic part of their communications with the global media. Leading international media outlets are the key “opinion leaders” shaping investors’ attitude to the country. However, as Olga sadly concluded, today the international media are still influenced by the same stereotypes as 5-6 years ago: in their eyes, Russia is still made up of matryoshkas (nest dolls), vodka, caviar, the Kalashnikov machine gun and girls. However, the surveys show that the image of Russia also has a few characteristics investors consider attractive – those are connected not only with its economic potential, but also with intellectual and cultural resources. These are the things Russians should communicate more actively to key global decision-makers. It’s not that simple! However, a country’s image is a complex phenomenon. Petr Lidov, PR director of MegaFon (one of Russia’s top 3 mobile operators), argued that it would be wrong talking about the creation of Russia’s image as a single entity, which would be the same all over the world and for everybody. Indeed, the perception of Russia differs from country to country, depending on the history of our relationships and on the national values. If the West, where democracy stands above all, treats Russia cautiously, then in China, where power is revered, our country is deeply respected. The sector discussed also matters: e.g., Russian oil, gaz and banking industries look very attractive to foreign investors, while no one can call Russia a much-desired tourist destination (although perhaps the potential here lies within positioning it as an extreme travel experience?..). Finally, the country’s geopolitical image and its leaders’ images also form the context of its perception. You know who we mean. Language is power The discussion on Russia’s image would be incomplete without representatives of government agencies. Oleg Belyakov, Adviser of the Head of Rossotrudnichestvo, recalled a statement of the Ambassador of Switzerland in Russia: “I have never been to any other country the reputation of which would differ so much from the reality”. Unfortunately, all the efforts to improve the country’s image undertaken on the federal level so far have not been able to improve the prevalent negative attitude towards it. One of the major problems is that there is no one “in charge” of it – however, the country’s image is indeed everybody’s concern. In this respect, the government, the business and the PR community should be playing as one team. Another problem is that, sadly, we are often not aware of our own resources and the new generation doesn’t feel the connection to the cultural and historical heritage of the country. It is important to show that this heritage is not gone – it is there and present, and it is one of the strongest sides of Russia, in particular, in the eyes of the global community. A powerful resource, the potential of which is underestimated, is also the Russian language, which does not only helps spreading the culture of Russia, but also affects its economic positions in the world: you do business with those who speak the language you know. My father used to be a respected indologist, and I still remember that magazine published in Russian in India – a simple and cheap tool, but what an effect! So there is a huge opportunity for the government and business cooperation lying in the development of Russian language and culture centers across the world. Think globally To succeed on the international scene, domestic companies must remember that Russia is part of the global world. Igor Ignatiev, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Shell Russia, felt the importance of the global vision when he worked at the Sakhalin 2 project, where the tiniest event on the oil platform would instantly become a global news. The company’s task was to educate the employees that the way each of them acts forms the perception of Russia as a global energy leader. According to Lev Koshlyakov, Deputy CEO for Corporate Communications of UTair (one of the leading Russian airlines working internationally), when entering the international scene it is important to think, first of all, what values we bring there. For his business, the expert defined the following combination: “international expertise of a company with a Russian experience”. A riddle wrapped in a mystery It would of course be impossible to elaborate a strategy of building the country’s image within 2 hours. However, the experts and the audience agreed that for the country in general and for every Russian company it is crucially important to:

  • Think in a global perspective;
  • Tell the truth about the problems and, at the same time, take measures to solve them;
  • Appreciate and leverage the resources available;
  • Start from small details, such as putting signs in English in the underground or ensuring adequate behaviour of Russian tourists abroad, for a start.
And, going back to the matryoshka metaphor, perhaps the most elegant way to close the discussion on this rich subject was sir Winston Churchill’s saying quoted by Lev Koshlyakov: “Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”. May be, after all, that’s what Russia’s brand is?..кредитка онлайн заявка на кредит

Ten Good Reasons To Be Happy About The PR Agency Business

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Blog post by David Gallagher, Senior Partner and EMEA CEO of Ketchum, ICCO President
Twitter @TBone Gallagher

It is customary at various industry events to discuss issues of common concern – the rising power of procurement, the threat of other marketing disciplines and questions about where growth will come from and which industries to specialize in. It’s easy to define our common interests by our common challenges, and there is of course tremendous value in finding common ground through national associations and ICCO.

But I am by nature an optimist, and I’d prefer to focus on the reasons we have to celebrate our business and to discuss how we can continue to develop our industry in a way that benefits our people, our clients and our own personal aspirations.

In fact I’m so optimistic, so encouraged by what I’ve seen in my meetings around the world, that I can think of ten reasons to be happy in the PR consultancy business today.

1. PR is (almost) truly global.

For decades we’ve talked about the globalization of the PR business, and we have in fact seen consultancies arise and organize all over the world.

A key objective of ICCO is to help organize new associations wherever there’s interest. This further professionalizes the industry and expands the perspectives and insights we are able to share with our long-standing members. It also give us the scope and reach to begin organising into regional structures that will enable us to provide both a global perspective and regionally relevant agenda; in Europe, for example, we will host a Summit this autumn in France to focus on issues of European interest, and we’re looking at new ways to facilitate cooperation on specific items of interest to our members, like coordinated activity in Brussels.

We are in active conversations now with groups in Hong Kong and mainland China, as well as the very well-established and respected Council of PR Firms of Canada. We will host a summit in India next year, and we will fulfil a personal ambition of mine to begin working with groups and agencies in Africa, which promises to be the next big area of geographic growth for the industry.

2. PR is truly local.

While globalization steals the headlines, the real action may be in localization: through a combination of social media applications that focus on highly specific localization, and the tracking of search and post trends by city and even post-codes, the potential for PR is enormous.

Whether agencies work for local clients that now are now ‘turned on’ by PR and its potential, or for global multinationals, there are several trends worth noting:

  1. Content style is moving from the formal to informal, in all languages. This requires a detailed and nuanced understanding of how language and imagery are used locally, and creates opportunities for us to add value beyond mere translation to communications planning and activity.
  2. Beyond language and culture, there are opportunities to support clients locally in community management, customer support and other important aspects of client business.
  3. There will be opportunities to provide training and learning support to clients interested in working locally workforce’s knowledge and awareness of business practices and cultural norms.
  4. Global brands will continue to find ways to connect with local sensitivities and community-mindedness. McDonalds for example is experimenting with a MaccyD’s brand in Australia in recognition of how the brand is actually seen and discussed there.

Much of the ICCO agenda focuses on helping member associations track these trends and opportunities for the benefit of their member agencies. Training programmes, greatly upgraded with content and trainers from support through the UK PRCA will aim to give local agencies differentiation locally via their national associations, and our regional and global conferences will highlight learning and best practices from all over the world.

If you believe the trends of globalization and localization are real and will continue, the implications are clear. Global networks like Ketchum must find ways to reach into the local markets that are most important to our clients – which seems to be all of them – in ways that are efficient and consistent for the client, and interesting and rewarding for our people. And while local agencies don’t need to surrender their independence, they will want to find a way to connect with the wider world of expertise, information and opportunity. Here again, ICCO is committed to helping its member associations do just this.

3. Technology will set us free.

Without a doubt, the most important development in PR right now is the rise of Internet-driven communications. I could write a separate blog post discussing this, but I think it’s the most important opportunity for us in 60 years.

Agencies seem to respond in one of three ways:

  1. Ignore it
  2. Outsource it
  3. Transform their business around it

My personal belief is that this is a once in a generation opportunity to modernise the industry, and that the only viable strategy is to transform our business around the rise of digital applications and social media.

The writing is on the wall, and more than likely it is a Facebook wall. Organizations that fail to engage with their audiences in these new ways are on a path to self-destruction. Those that embrace this – and the agencies that show them how, are the ones that will succeed.

4. Psychology is the new black.

As exciting as a world linked and driven by technology is for our business, there’s a whole new universe of opportunity much closer to hand: our understanding of the human mind. While much of the action focuses on moving information and ideas from point to point around the world, there is increasing interest in how ideas and opinions and decisions form in the 3 pounds of the average human brain. Advances in brain imagery and neurology, and serious analysis of well-designed experiences in sociology and psychology, are offering dramatic insight into how we interpret and use information and emotions to make decisions about what we buy, how we vote, whether to smoke or who to marry.

We would rightly say that we’ve always put psychology and our understanding of human nature at the heart of our work, but I think we’ll see social science take on increasing prominence in our strategic work. Concepts like ‘nudging’ and ‘framing’ are increasingly common in the way agencies are planning and designing strategy, and candidates with credentials in psychology or anthropology are increasingly sought after.

At Ketchum we’ve enjoyed a partnership with another Omnicom company called Maslansky and Partners. Their basic assumption is that what we say as communicators is far less important than what audiences actually hear. And before you say this is obvious, think about how many times we have included key messages in our content without ever doing the research necessary to know if the messages work. Maslansky helps track the relative power of different messages with audiences with highly specific testing in advance of any production or communication.

5. Advertising value equivalency is dead.

Well, if it’s not dead, it’s dying. Those of you familiar with the Barcelona Principles created by the Association of Measurement and Evaluation in Communications will know that the industry is finally getting serious about ending the charade of measuring the value of our work by trying to compare it some kind of comparable form of advertising.

ICCO will be working closely with AMEC to educate our member associations and the client community on the benefits of better measurement and the use of analytics in public relations. We will be supporting their next global conference in June in Madrid and I would encourage you to attend or follow the proceedings closely. My good friend and Ketchum colleague David Rockland is president of AMEC and I assure you nobody in our world is more committed to the application of measurement and research in PR.

6. Advertising is our new frenemy.

A constant refrain at PR meetings is the competitive threat posed by advertising agencies and their incursions onto “our turf.” There is no doubt to me that the lines between the different channels of communications and marketing are blurring, and there will be times when assignments we thought should rightfully be “ours” will go to an ad agency – especially as clients struggle to understand the difference between our approach to social media and content and theirs.

But I think there’s a greater opportunity than risk posed by the advertising community, and that’s in working together to solve client problems. Rather than argue the superiority of PR or the supposed weaknesses of advertising, I think we would be better served looking for ways to foster collaboration and joined up thinking. Our clients will thank us, our work will be better, and ultimately we’ll create greater opportunities together than apart.

You can expect ICCO to remain committed to helping member associations voice the value of PR consultancy and good practice, but you can also expect us to open dialogue with those representing other communications disciplines, and to identify best practices for integrated communications among member agencies.

7. Internal communications – an emerging market right under our noses.

One of the fastest growing areas at Ketchum is internal communications and change management. Rather than trying to ‘convert’ our external communications specialists, we’ve hired organizational psychologists and other specialists to help clients with employee engagement and advocacy, recruiting and retention, and managing major change initiatives.

This line of work offers access to whole new client budgets, expands the areas in which we can add value and create new relationships, and obviously helps to align internal and external communications.

At ICCO we will investigate the interest among member associations for developing content, training and growth opportunities in this area.

8. Corporate communications is taking centre-stage

With greater transparency and openness comes greater scrutiny on corporate and institutional communicators. External audiences – consumers, customers, investors and regulators – want to know that companies are doing what they say they are doing. This presents an opportunity for communications advisors to frame corporate policy, not just the words to describe corporate policy.

It also ushers in a new age of expectations for leaders, who are now expected to be more than merely good decision-makers; they now must be great communicators – engaging and inspiring, and giving a sense of purpose to the organization’s business.

At Ketchum we collect data annually on what the public expects from leaders in terms of communications, and we plan on making this available through ICCO and our member associations.

9. Our creative moment in the sun is upon us.

This year I have the privilege and honour of serving as president of the PR jury at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. Now I know there have been some questions in the past about the lack of winning entries coming from PR firms, and the value of supporting a competition that’s not a “pure “ PR event, and I’ll save these debates for another day.
I will say, however, that I’m encouraged by the number of PR agencies who say they are entering work for Cannes this year, and the quality of the work I have seen at other competitions like the SABRE awards, the PRCA awards, and PR Week awards, has every chance of shining on the stage this summer in France.

10. We are changing the world.

I say this with no sense of irony or cynicism. We have always helped our clients make a difference in the world by helping them understand the expectations placed upon them by their stakeholders and to align their words and actions with those expectations, and in many cases this work has been instrumental to improving the lives of millions.

And now it seems PR agencies are making more direct contributions to their communities and society in general by putting serious effort into their own corporate citizenship, not just that of their clients. Just about every agency I meet has a cause they support with pro bono services, and many are building CSR into their own culture and business practices, not just in their list of offers for clients.

At Ketchum we have been deeply connected to a global organization called Room To Read, which promotes literacy and advocates education for children – especially girls – in Asia and Africa, and we make significant agency resources available around the world. As you can imagine, agencies that ‘practice what they preach’ are attractive to clients, but also to employees, who increasingly have high expectations of their employers.

I am sure you have got your own examples of PR you have done to support causes you and your people care about, and I would invite you to share them with the world so that others might learn from and be inspired by your success. And I am offering this invitation literally – I am involved with a project developed in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the US Ad Council called Creative For Good, in which social education campaigns of all kinds are placed in a database for use and inspiration by others looking for creative help and guidance.

Selfishly I’m hoping to have lots of PR campaigns on the site as a way of not just saying we can solve big problems, but showing it. I hope you’ll feel free to contact me directly if you’re interested in this.