“Brand Culture in the Conversation Age” – csuitepodcast Show 30 Part 2

 Blog post by Russell Goldsmith, Founder, Audere Communications

 

View image on TwitterIn Part 2 of Show 30 of the csuitepodcast (starting at 20:05), recorded at the Global ICCO PR Summit, I had the absolute pleasure of speaking with Pascal Beucler, Senior Vice President & Chief Strategy Officer, Global, MSLGroup (and someone I could have happily chatted to all afternoon), on the topic of ‘Brand culture in the conversation age’, which was the title of the presentation he had given at the conference earlier that day.
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Pascal said that his talk was based around how PR has evolved from Public Relations to People Relations, creating relationships through content that is full of emotional connections.

He explained this further by talking about how the z-generation, born between the 1990’s and 2010, or those a little older, born between the 1980’s and 2000, have a relationship to brands that is based on mutual respect and parity – that is not top down or intrusive but based on choice, desire, attraction, seduction – and if it is like this it works, otherwise it doesn’t work.

The example of a campaign that MSLGroup had worked on recently that Pascale said was viral video rather than an advert that creates a dialogue between [the brand and] the target they want to address, was the superb Always #LikeAGirl campaign, one that I personally love and continue to feature in my own Using Video in Social Workshop.

Pascale believes the genius behind the campaign is that P&G and Always are saying they deliver much more than protection every month but they deliver a vision of young girls based on the understanding they have a strong desire to be free of the chains that society and men put them in.  This for him, is an example of New Age relationships between brand and people.  It’s not about telling you my product is better than another one, but instead saying there is an issue and so why don’t we discuss it and find a solution. 

Another area Pascale touched on in his talk was that of gamification, which he sees brands using in two ways.  Firstly, gaming is a huge trend for millennials but also for older people, mainly because the smart phone is always in our pocket and so when we have free time, as well as using it to communicate, we use it for gaming and so it provides a perfect compatibility and convergence between the device and the will to be gaming.

The other reason Pascale said gamification is important is due to the power of data created by millions of people on the way they play that you can use to your advantage.  He used the Deutsche Telekom “Sea Hero Quest” as a great example, which, as quoted on their website, was “designed to create the world’s largest crowd sourced data set benchmarking human spatial navigation, helping bring scientists one step closer to developing new diagnostic tests for dementia.”

Pascale believes this kind of activity gives gamification another dimension, something he calls, Brand Utility, where the brand becomes something useful in your life.

There were so many things we spoke about, too much to write about here, and to be honest, it’s much better listening to Pascale explaining it all, but he finished off with what he saw as the main drivers are for brands in the conversation age, which were:

  • Start conversations based on creativity of the mind
  • There is no conversation unless there is equality, equity and parity between the two sides. It has to be two ways. If it is a dominating conversation, it goes nowhere.
  • Conversation is a continuum

#ad – Many thanks to global media intelligence provider CARMA for supporting the series of shows I produced from ICCO.  Please do visit their website to find out more about how they can help you deliver actionable insights through media monitoring and PR measurement.

All previous shows of the csuitepodcast series are available on Soundcloud or itunes and please, if you subscribe, can you give the show a positive rating and review on itunes in particular.  You can also now follow the show on Twitter and Facebook – please get involved!

“Recruiting and Retaining Talent”: csuitepodcast Show 30 Part 1

Blog post by Russell Goldsmith, Founder, Audere Communications

Show 30 of the csuitepodcast was the first of three shows recorded at the Global ICCO PR Summit that took place in Oxford at the start of September.

Part 1 of this episode was on the topic of Talent Creation, Recruitment and Retention within the PR & Communications industry.

Joining for this first section of the show were Mohamed Al Ayed, CEO and President of TRACCS, Tanya Hughes, President of SERMO, Talk PR’s global network of independent communications agencies, and Susan Hardwick, Co-Founder of Global Women in PR – all three had just been part of a panel session at the conference.

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My guests all agreed that the critical issues that were being discussed around this topic were global and as Tanya explained, a key theme in her own Group’s international conference was not just on finding the right people, but keeping them happy with job satisfaction and work-life balance too.

When I spoke with Weber Shandwick’s Colin Byrne in Cannes, he said the big issue was the fact that PR agencies’ approach for talent has been to steal each other’s staff and that actually PR needs to recruit the kind of people who are currently going to work at Social Media Platforms or the World’s top Advertising and Digital Agencies, something Karen van Bergen, CEO of Omicom Public Relations Group also touched on in her opening keynote at the ICCO Conference.

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Sarah agreed.  She explained that her Spanish agency’s Head of Digital came from an advertising agency and in their Hong Kong agency, they’ve just recruited a creative from a Film Production House.  However, she warned that it works both ways as she’s seen her own talent recruited by Ad and Digital agencies too.

Given Susan’s role in Global Women in PR, I asked her if one way of keeping talent in the industry was to tap into the growing freelance network, particularly in encouraging mums back into the industry.

However, Susan said that whilst freelancers plug gaps, do project work, add value when necessary when you don’t need to employ somebody for 52 weeks in the year, or offer specialists to balance out the team, the difficulty, particularly in relation to mums coming back to work, is in dealing with is the very big gap between leaving work to have children and coming back, as our world changes very rapidly.  She therefore feels there needs to be work on both sides, i.e. perhaps offering retraining to allow returning mums to get up to speed.

Sarah added that in her experience, she felt employers are actually fairly flexible, certainly in her agencies, particularly in creating work-life balance and ensuring people are happy at work.  However, she said that recent experience for returning working mums, particularly after having their first baby, can be a bit of a shock and given the PR industry is a service industry, even if people are working part-time, they are expected to be available to service their client and do longer working hours.

H+K Strategies’ Richard Millar previously said on this series that that the make-up of his agency had fundamentally changed over the last two or three years and that he couldn’t remember the last time he interviewed someone with a typical PR background.  Mohamed made an interesting point on this as he talked about the evolution of the word talent, where it has evolved from ‘employees’ through ‘resources’.  He agreed in that those people who PR recruits don’t need to be PR people by education.  However, in his view, talent is defined by the organisation’s recognition of the skill and the personality of an individual that will suit and best serve their purposes.  At TRACC, Mohamed actually has engineers, a doctor and a psychologist in the team.

One aspect we touched on was retention of as much as attracting new talent and one of the ways Sarah looks to achieve that at Talk PR is in the organisation’s ‘Learning & Inspiration Programme’, which consists of 52 Masterclass workshops, each geared around personal development for everyone in the agency, from junior to board level.  They include everything from helping people to present or run meetings, to handling conflict and business and financial management.  They also aim to inspire the team by getting external speakers in and organising cultural trips plus development for the team’s client relationships too, including measurement and evaluation or helping to pitch great stories to the media and influencers.

When summing up, my guests offered the following advice between them when it comes to attracting the best talent to the industry:

  • Create a great environment in which to work, i.e. a place where people will be banging at your door and want to be part of your team
  • Do great work and promote the hell out of it
  • [ensure] Transparency, Ingenuity and Integrity

#ad – Many thanks to global media intelligence provider CARMA for supporting the series of shows I produced from ICCO.  Please do visit their website to find out more about how they can help you deliver actionable insights through media monitoring and PR measurement.

All previous shows of the csuitepodcast series are available on Soundcloud or itunes and please, if you subscribe, can you give the show a positive rating and review on itunes in particular.

ICCO announces new training programme & qualifications

ICCO has announced at its Board of Management meeting that it is launching an extensive training and qualifications programme as part of its commitment to raising industry standards.

The new initiative is part of ICCO’s drive to be at the forefront of improving talent and skills across the global PR and communications industry, aimed at reaching everyone from those starting out in their careers to seasoned practitioners.

There are approximately 40 training courses to choose from in the new programme, covering a range of disciplines. All courses are available online and are highly interactive and convenient. All courses are run by industry leaders with a breadth of knowledge.

ICCO is launching a new qualification, ‘Global PR and Communications Management Diploma’, which is the first of its kind and draws on worldwide knowledge alongside a collaborative approach. The qualification is based on a points system and each undertaken course is set within a module based on a particular skill. Delegates must complete at least one course within each skill to pass their qualification.

Francis Ingham, Chief Executive, ICCO, said: “It is with great pleasure that we announce ICCO’s new training and qualifications programme. Ensuring that we help develop talent is of the utmost importance to ICCO and this new initiative is a huge step in the right direction to ensuring a bright future for our industry.”

For more information contact Masha Palos, Training and Professional Development Director: masha.palos@prca.or.uk

About ICCO
The International Communications Consultancy Organisation (ICCO) is the voice of public relations consultancies around the world. The ICCO membership comprises national trade associations operating in 48 countries across the globe in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. Collectively, these associations represent some 2,500 PR firms.
www.iccopr.com

New media are communications’ present and future

Jelena Djelic, eKapija interviews Maxim Behar, President of the International Communications Consultancy Organisation (ICCO)

In the past decade, the public relations industry has changed much more than any other business industry. A drastic shift in the ownership of media throughout the world has contributed the most to the process. It was certain during the 1990s that it would happen, but many of us ignored the fact that both us and our clients already had strong ties to the media and the we needed to learn quickly and carefully in order to use the relations as well as possible.

This is how Maxim Behar, the president of the International Communications Consultancy Organization (ICCO) begins his interview for eKapija. The Public Relations Society of Serbia has become a member of this organization this year.

We also talked with Behar about the upcoming Global ICCO PR Summit, the largest gathering of PR experts, to be held in Oxford on September 29-30.

eKapija: How do you see future PR trends, where is PR headed and what should, in your opinion, PR professionals focus on in the future?

– In the past, public relations mostly meant acting as a link between our clients and the media. We were making great efforts to be as creative and innovative as possible. However, there was a limit to innovativeness. The situation has changed completely and PR professionals now manage entirely different requests and tools in doing their job. We have suddenly turned from advertisers and consultants to content managers of our media and the media of our clients. There’s been a clear crossing between public communication channels – public relations, advertising and e-business and the process is getting faster and faster.

Nowadays, many experts express conflicting opinions on who will take the leading role in the future and it is my firm conviction that it will be us, public relations professionals. The reasons are quite simple.

Firstly, we are the only ones in charge of the content, words and expressions in the whole process, and the content is currently the most important part of public communications. Secondly, and in my opinion most importantly, PR professionals are absolute leaders in the two areas of key importance to our clients and their operations – reputation management and crisis communication. We need to focus on these areas in the near future as the basis of our profession’s success.

eKapija: Do you believe that online PR has in a way replaced traditional PR and how do you feel about the transformation?

– This has happened without a doubt and we are all aware of it. The transformation happened overnight, while we were organizing events and press conferences. We simply woke up one day and realized that press conferences and press statements no longer work, that online media are more powerful than anything before and recognized one of its greatest advantages, which we hadn’t been aware previously – cost competitiveness.

Finally, this is what’s most attractive to our clients and we realized this many years ago, but we couldn’t do anything in order to measure the effects of our work and ideas precisely.

photo: Deyan Georgiev/shutterstock.com

eKapija: Based on your personal experience, are PR professionals ready to accept new challenges in the PR area and adjust to current technological trends? Are they prepared to learn and change?

– On the whole, my answer is ‘yes’, but the pace of changes varies from country to country. The fact is that the new media will prevail and that they are the present and the future of communications. What’s expected from PR professionals is to keep track of all new trends and case studies every day, hour and minute, and of course, to create their own.

eKapija: What will be the main topic of the upcoming ICCO PR Summit?

– The most important one is, of course, how to run a successful PR company in the times of drastic changes in our profession. Global ICCO PR Summit is the most important annual event in our industry in the whole world. More than 250 top professionals from all continents will have the opportunity to discuss modern trends in our profession.

There are two main prerequisites for an event’s success – good speakers and enough coffee breaks in which to meet them personally. This year, on September 29 and 30 in Oxford, these prerequisites will be fully met and I’m sure that we will share a great number of new trends, stories and case studies and discuss them to the general benefit of our line of business.

eKapija: What’s your opinion on the future of media? Can content prevail over sensationalism?

– Creating good, brief, attractive, intelligent and professional content is currently the most important element of our profession. We need to be aware of that fact and work hard on it.

eKapija: What is the role of social networks in the PR world? Do you believe that social networks can endanger traditional media?

– Social networks are the most powerful tool we’ve ever had in our hundred-year-old profession. Above all, despite all the apprehensions and concerns, they really are an independent and genuine medium. Theoretically, you can “buy” a journalist, the media, a TV station… but you can’t buy Facebook, you can’t buy Twitter, nor any social network, as they show opinions from all sides.

It is precisely this that is the advantage of social networks – they are interactive and wholly independent, which currently makes them the only medium we can trust and the most important channel that we as public relations experts have at our disposal in order to provide the best service possible to our clients.

http://www.ekapija.com/website/en/page/1529446/Maxim-Behar-president-of-International-Communications-Consultancy-Organization-New-media-are-communications-present-and-future

Conversis launches ‘The importance of understanding language and culture when managing an international crisis’ report

Foreword by Francis Ingham, Chief Executive, ICCO

The UK and US markets lead PR. It’s a statement that I make dozens of times every year, and it’s completely right. In size, sophistication, and staff skills, it’s unquestionably true. And it’s a source of great strength and pride. But it comes with a price attached, and it brings risks. If you’re going to operate globally, and if you’re going to maximise your reach and effectiveness, then you need to be able to communicate globally too.

We simply do not invest enough time effort and – yes – money in communicating in other languages, and in understanding other cultures. The costs of that failure are never higher than when crisis hits. Both the commonalities and the differences strike me.

First, the things that are the same in the UK and the US: Basically all (99%) senior PR executives with responsibility for international crisis comms are confident that their work will take account of cultural sensitivities. And in both countries, when asked if they can respond in a timely manner and across all markets, between 40-50% of executives agree strongly.

On both sides of the Atlantic, there’s a need for support from Language Service Providers – 92% in the US, and a still very high 72% in the UK. But the differences are starker as you dig further into the data. Almost a third of UK respondents translate their campaigns into between 1 and 5 languages; the US figure is only 7%. Conversely, over half of US work is translated into 11-20 languages; compared with just a quarter in the UK.

Monitoring reveals significant differences too. Only 14% of UK companies monitor in 11 languages or more, compared with 47% that do so in the US. Surprisingly, the time taken to issue a first response holding statement shows the opposite trend. 37% of UK respondents are out there within an hour; only 17% of their US counterparts can say the same.

What is the conclusion that I draw from this incredibly valuable Conversis report? Basically, that there is a great deal more we need to do. The world’s two most developed PR markets need to embrace the world around them a little more. When crisis hits, they need to be out there responding with nuance and in local language right away. They can’t afford to be held back by lack of resource, lack of knowledge, lack of preparedness. If the UK and US markets are to continue to speak to the world, then they need to think more carefully about speaking its language: and that language quite simply isn’t always English.

A full copy of the Conversis Report can be downloaded here: http://www.conversis.com/News/April-2016/Conversis-launches-The-importance-of-understandi

 

 

 

PR’s Brave New World

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Maxim Behar, new president of International Communications Consultancy Organization (ICCO) and author of books on communication strategies, shares with PROI Americas his perceptions about the way global PR industry is going – and the main trends for the future.

The World PR Report 2015 informs that the global PR industry grew 7% in 2014. Will This trend continue in 2015 – or the global outlook is more challenging now for PR agencies?

The trend for growth will definitely continue, even I would predict more than previous year, but the business is changing so fast that almost nobody can de- scribe nowadays what the term “PR industry” means. Imagine you have three circles, partly overlapped, depending of the countries, regions and markets. The first one logically is the classical, traditional PR, the second is for our “cousin” from advertising and the third one belongs to a business born some more than a decade ago – digital agencies. Now those three circles are uniting step by step, directly speak- ing even every single day they overlap each other and there is a big dispute which one will prevail. Some say advertising; I say PR. Vision is very, very important in the modern communications, but we, in PR business, are not only “masters of text”, but we are much more experience of earning media and we will much faster learn how to manage them.

In your opinion, what are the most important changes in the PR industry in 2015? Should we have deep- er changes in the near future?

The most important change since the very start of PR business more than century ago is already matter of fact. Initially the difference between the PR and advertising was very clear – PR earn media, advertising buys media. The change now is that first time in history all we own media. Yes, media is our property, to me, to you, to everyone. From that perspective the task now is not to earn media, but to manage them professionally on behalf of our clients. And this will be the main change in the next years – we must learn how to manage media, how to provide our mes- sages in the most convincing way, how to keep the “third party” independence, presenting our clients’ projects. In fact this is completely new area for the PR business, which together with the social media and digital marketing “secrets” our teams must learn every day, even every minute.

How do you see the integration of communication (marketing, PR and digital)?

It is happening already since couple of years and the ones in PR business who do not do it yet are really totally late. The integration is simple. Always in our business we have starting point (client’s task) and tar- gets (possible results). The everything else would be the tools reaching the results. Now it is true – we own media, but this is not enough. Using visuals, movies is crucial for presenting the messages to the audience, which means that we take significant part from the advertising business. On the other hand there some- thing else, which also makes our business unique these days. First time in the history in fact PR business is absolutely measurable – we can say exactly how many views, clicks, likes, shares, followers have our messages, we can follow exactly the age, regional and interests structure of the targeted audience. This means that we already took a piece of the traditional marketing business, and this is enormous change for us. So, all those business are already integrated. It is on us, the PR professionals to set the speed of further integration and to change the business further. And we can do it just one way – in our office  with our teams, on the brainstorming sessions, pitching and if for clients and with clients, changing our teams, involving new professions and skills into our office is not easy, I know. But otherwise the companies which are not changing with high speed will be simply out of the modern market.

Using visuals, movies is crucial for presenting the messages to the audience

Which sectors you see significant growth in the near future?

Obviously the highest growth will be in the crisis management. No matter it would be financial, health- care or IT sector. In the past, during the era of traditional printed media we had 8-10 hours basically to solve crisis and also 1-2 hours to respond top a TV coverage in case of crisis for our client. Now we do not have even more that two minutes. Once the news – right or wrong, true or false, is on the social media, then we must know exactly how to respond and how to overcome it. It requires deep knowledge, professional training and understanding the modern media. And also – understanding the world we live in, the brains of new generation, their interests, feelings and moods.

In recent years, technological changes led PR agencies to reinvent its business. Do you think this process will be also a reality in 2016?

It is not “reinvention”. In fact this is entirely new business, which I doubt in 10 to 12 years will be called further Public Relations. Our business had been established more than 100 years ago, at that time the majority of the relations were “not-public” and some of the were “public”, so there was a need of professional to manage the public side of the events. Now… everything, everything, everything is public. Those changes will also bring to the change not only of of the description of our business and change of the need of our clients, but also will bring a new name of our profession. Two early to say what it would be… Social relations, effective relations… Who knows, life is changing so fast, everything in our business is so dynamic that next year for sure will bring to us much more surprises than we can expect.

We saw in 2014 a growth of conglomerate PR groups. How this scenario affects the independent PR agencies?

My vision is that the independent firms will continue to grow and the conglomerates as you say, or big international networks will feel huge difficulties. And the reason is very simple – the slow decision making process and the sometimes too big bureaucratic machine. Very often I say – nowadays worst decision is better than no decision. Independent agencies, very often small and medium sized, are much more and easy to adjust to the clients needs and also faster and more effective to cut expenses. The big networks of course have their chances only if the face huge and immediate changes of the decision making process, both internally and also towards the clients’ needs. What small independent agencies are missing in fact would be the capacity and also the experience. In the times of social media this advantages of the big networks – having much larger number of people and much bigger experience I would say are less important if they do not change according to the new media environment. And it is a know rule that changes in the big structures happen much slower and often unpredictable than in the small ones.

What attributes, in your opinion, must be pursued by PR agencies to better fit in the current scenario and face its challenges?

Including new business in the offices – more people responsible for visuals – graphic designers, web developers, social media experts, editors…even movie producers. All the world’s business is moving into effective visual messages and it is a trend which was very easy to predict even some years ago. Also – the educations started to be more and more important, I really do not mean the academical education which in many cases is absolutely slow in changes, but the self education of our employees – every day and every minute.

In your opinion, which industry has been developing an outstanding PR strategy?

Mainly if services, healthcare and pharmaceutical and also retail business. Obviously these are businesses mostly exposed to the crisis and that is why the need of very proactive and attractive PR strategies is absolutely crucial. But also – PR itself also need a lot of PR. Not so many people, even within our industry understand the changes in the business, and also do not under- stand that Public Relations is one of the fastest changing business in the world. By the way – this is now one of its greatest beauties.

Public Relations is one of the fastest changing business in the world  

How do you see the perspectives of PR industry for Americas?

Our business become more global than local. Americas, mainly Northern of course, are the moth- erland of Public Relations business and  always  will have a special role in its development. The English speaking world although becomes larger and larger every day and Europe and

Asia started being also very innovative, so Americas from that perspective must defend constantly its leading role in the public communications world.

Rio Olympics will, in your opinion, be a valuable opportunity for PR industry? Why?

Rio Olympics will not be a great opportunity; they will be really enormous one to promote the country and also its culture and history. Needless to say that sports has the most supporters and fans from any other area in our life. Use this unique chance to show the world how great and unbeatable is Brazil of creating history and spreading good and positive mes- sages globally.

How do you see the role of the PR professional in a increasingly digital world?

Just one word – leading! The Public Relations experts are the one who give the lights and proper messages already with the means of social media to billion.

maxim behar picture

We already took a piece of the traditional marketing business and this is enormous change for us people all over the world. Our role is very special in- deed. We are the one to spread the newest trends of all businesses and must keep this role for the future. This is the reason we should keep very high ethical and professional standards. The whole world is watching our business, many other businesses are learning from us and it says everything about Public Relations now. Amazingly good business, which require every professional globally to have as a start just one important quality: sparks in his or hers eyes. It means a lot of knowledge, it means ambitious and motivation for growth and innovations and creativity. The rest is easy!

Original Article from PROI

Augure’s Summary of the ICCO Global Summit, Milan 2015

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Written by: Irene Cau, Country Manager Augure Italia

Two weeks on from the ICCO Summit 2015 in Milan, at Augure we’d like to share with you the top 5 outcomes we’ve drawn from this amazing event and some resources that will help you to implement these ideas at your agency:

  1. Agencies need to change their structure to face industry changes: Rethink the model, hire differently, own the sandbox  (via Fred Cook)
  2. We’ve got amazing examples of how to communicate concepts without words, just with images (via Candance Kuss)
    • However, sometimes there aren’t enough internal resources to create eye-catching and visually attractive content. If this is your case, check it out this post in which we share some easy-to-use tools to create visual content.
  3. Creative work shows 54% more ROI than non-creative work (via Fiorenza Plinio)
  4. Social Media Community Management, multimedia content creation, insight and planning and creativity are all major relevant skills needed by PR Executives. On the other hand, paid media, research and CSR are less relevant skills.
    • If you don’t believe me, here’s an infographic with the main differences between Digital PR and traditional Public Relations
  5. Complexity, costs and time are still major challenges for measuring ROI.
    • Don’t let these challenges stop you from measuring your ROI, download this white paper that shows, step by step, how to create a measurement system for your influencer engagement strategy.

We loved taking part in the ICCO Summit 2015 and seeing you there! If you want to continue talking about how Augure can help you improve your agency’s efficiency, get in touch with us!

Visit the Augure website.

What’s Keeping PR Agency Bosses Awake At Night? #agencypublisher

Written by: David Gallagher

dgPrint@TBoneGallagher

Last week’s annual summit of the International Communications Consultancy Organization (ICCO) drew PR agency heads from nearly 40 countries to discuss the opportunities and challenges in front of the industry.

This meeting is particularly known for its candour; the fact there are no clients in attendance reduces the showboating we’re famously fond of, and the speakers (from independents and the big networks alike) are especially generous and open with their insights.

The good news: PR consulting continues to grow worldwide.   This is partly from new markets joining the global pool.  Partly from new clients adding PR for the first time to their wider business consulting and marketing communications investment.  Partly from agencies adding new services to their proposition, particularly in digital and social media. And partly, I think, from clients shifting a (small) share of their large ad budgets to PR.

The bad news: well, there’s not much bad news, but there are a number of challenges keeping agency chiefs from feeling complacent.  Specifics vary by market, but the main anxieties follow common themes.

Here’s a quick look:

  • Talent:  How do we attract talent from ‘non-traditional’ backgrounds to manage the new services and technologies our evolvling propositions require? How do we keep, develop and inspire our established talent – especially ‘millennials’?  And how do we leverage our senior talent in a fast-changing market?
  • Business models: How do we move from hourly rates and retainers to value-based service propositions (payment for business results)?  How do we structure teams to include more flexible solutions?  How can we integrate with ad agencies and other consultancies to meet complex client problems, without giving the farm away?
  • Competition: How do we manage in an environment in which we compete with each other on some engagements, while working as partners on others?  Are ad agencies our friends (for leads), competitors (for budget) or somewhere in between – frenemies?  Are digital and social media agencies potential poachers? Or acquisition candidates?  And how many unseen / disruptive competitors are there beyond our line of sight, waiting to Uberize our industry with wholly new approaches?  Does “PR” have value with the client community as a description of our proposition? Or is it need of modernization?
  • Creativity:  Are we sufficiently creative compared to other disciplines and channels?  Is it something we can teach, or is it found in talent to hire?  Are awards good indications you have it? How do you measure it?

Obviously a lot of the discussion revolved around what’s changing in our business, and how to address these developments in ways that make sense for our people, clients and shareholders.  Some of it focused on where – with a strong delegation from Africa discussing the remarkable growth and opportunity for PR consultancy there.

But maybe it was the theme of why PR advice is now more needed than ever that offered participants the greatest comfort.  Knowing that you play a role in connecting people – helping them understand each other and the world around them – can be a strong incentive to work through the operational challenges.

I’ll share some of the solutions and experiments presented in future posts, but for now, it’s good to know that as diverse as our industry is, we’re all worried about similar things.

See you in Istanbul for the ICCO Global Summit 2016!

Cohn & Wolfe Sweden wins the Young Lions PR competition in Cannes

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sweeden winners

coh and wolfe winners

 

 

Joseph Borenstein and Linnéa Rinäs from Cohn & Wolfe Sweden have received Gold Lions awards as the winners of the Young Lions PR competition at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, sponsored by ICCO.

The Young PR Lions PR competition saw 18 countries send their selected teams of two PRs under the age of 28 to Cannes. On Saturday 20th, the teams were each given a brief from Greenpeace and on the following day had 12 hours to create a creative and effective campaign for the charity.

Francis Ingham, ICCO Chief Executive, said: “I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of this year’s winners at the Young PR Lions Competition. The judges were incredibly impressed with the standard of work put forward by the entrants, all of whom should be sincerely proud of their work.

“I would also like to thank each of our sponsors, as well as the Festival, for allowing us to showcase such astounding talent. We look forward to celebrating again next year.”

Greenpeace’s brief required the competitors to prepare a PR campaign around sustainable agriculture, with the aim of raising awareness of the environmental impact of meat and motivating consumers to change their consumption habits.

The jury included: David Fine, Global Creative Strategist, Edelman; Joe Benarroch, Head of International Ads, Corporate Communications, Facebook; and Steve Barrett, Editor-in-Chief, PRWeek US.

This marks the second time that the Swedish team have represented their country in the PR competition, having won the local competition twice. They also won the Eurobest Young Creatives integrated competition this year.

 

The Gold, Silver and Bronze winners are:

Gold

Joseph Borenstein and Linnéa Rinäs

Cohn & Wolfe, Sweden

 

Silver

David Gomez and Juan Alba

Ogilvy & Mather Colombia, Columbia

 

Bronze

Hsin Chi Tsao and Xiao Yi Yu

J. Walter Thompson Always, China

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About ICCO

The International Communications Consultancy Organisation (ICCO) is the voice of public relations consultancies around the world. The ICCO membership comprises national trade associations in 31 countries across the globe in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australasia. Collectively, these associations represent over 2,000 PR firms.

Contact Binta Kristin Hammerich, ICCO Global General Manager

Francis Ingham’s postcard from Cannes

Written by Francis Ingham

500_francisingham2Print@PRCAIngham

 

So it’s all over bar the boasting, the excuses, and the analysis. And maybe the odd hangover. Cannes has presented its awards, and agency heads are left to work out what if means for them and what it means for the industry

What are my observations?

First, the number of PR practitioners here keeps on growing. Partly because more agencies are entering and partly because PR people simply feel more at home here.

There are more PR wins. MSL walked away happy last night. But so did plenty of other PR agencies. The old lament of ‘PR agencies don’t/can’t win at Cannes’ simply doesn’t hold true any longer. But equally….

Lines really are blurred now. OK. That’s not an original observation. But it’s blindingly obvious when you’re here and when you see the work on display. Is this a bad thing? No. For the simple reason that PR agencies are better placed to eat into rivals (previously larger) territories than they are to eat into ours.

The campaigns that won were the integrated ones that told a compelling story. And more often than not spoke to a higher purpose than just profit or just fulfilling a brief. And yes, #likeagirl ticks all of those boxes.

And finally, the future really is bright. ICCO sponsored and made possible the Young Lions. Bigger than last year, and attracting entries from 18 countries, it was a fantastic showcase of the industry’s future. And showed, incidentally, that for all that the UK and the USA are the most advanced markets, our two countries have no monopoly on talent. The winning team came from Sweden. Last year, It came from Japan.

And on that note go and open up the ICCO House of PR. There are a lot of sore heads to tend to this morning…..