PRmoment Podcast

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Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

This week we’re talking to George Hutchinson founder of River Effra Communications about the expanding area of risk methodology in crisis communication.

It’s an interesting area which takes another perspective on PR’s increasingly complex intersection with data.

The central concept is to use risk methodology to model and understand the reputational consequences for an organisation if it behaves in a particular way.

George set up River Effra earlier this year, previously he had senior roles at Teneo and BCW.

Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 are open for entries - do check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.com

Thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here is a summary of what George and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed on the show:

2 mins George talks us through the use of risk methodologies in crisis communications.

“The time has come for increased use of risk methodologies in crisis communications...to help potentially avoid the crisis in the first place.”

4 mins What are risk methodologies and how do you use them in crisis communications?

“Reputational risks are always secondary, they don’t come from no-where”

7 mins So is this approach about putting a “threat” cost on reputations by modelling various crisis communication scenarios?

“The idea that your corporate affairs director can somehow relationship your way out of a crisis just doesn’t work”

10 mins George suggests that communication and reputation crises are actually pretty predictable - Black Swan crises are rare.

12.30 mins What are the riskiest areas of crisis currently?

16 mins How cyber security crisis can become business critical.

17 mins Are poor CEO behaviour the most common reputation crisis for most large organisations?

“There are businesses that I have advised where the CEO has had to go...you can’t treat your leadership team differently from the rest of the organisation”

19.30 mins What are the short, medium and long-term implications of a reputational crisis?

22 mins What are the impacts of a reputational crisis on the different stakeholders? From the leadership, to employees, to customers...

“In a crisis, initially you feel under attack, which can lead to persecution bias...and you can only deal with a crisis if you’ve accepted the problem.”

“Your employees can feel disillusioned by the corporate’s response”

24 mins How quickly do customers desert an organisation over a reputational crisis?

26 mins What does the CEO want from their communications leader in a crisis?

28 mins What is the most common mistake people make in a corporate crisis?

“You see a lot of leaders do flight to fight”

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Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.
Welcome to the latest PRmoment Podcast with me Ben Smith. Today we’re catching up with David Hart. David has had over 20 years of experience working in corporate affairs - both in-house at the likes of Coca-Cola and SAB Miller and agency side at Fleishman Hillard and Burson Marsteller (now BCW.)
Before Christmas, I saw him posting about the lessons he wished he’d told his younger corporate affairs self and so we invited him onto the show to talk in more detail about his nine lessons of corporate affairs.
Before we start do check out our latest free-to-attend webinar The intersection of PR and SEO 2023.
Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA.
Here is a summary of what David and I discussed:
2 mins Why did David decide to write his 9 lessons of corporate affairs?
5 mins Lesson 1: Be bold, creative, take risks and help to sell
“When done right the power of comms is massive...it surprises me when some organisations don’t want to communicate”
8.30 mins Lesson 2: Be confident and bring your sixth sense of “perspective” to a crisis
11 mins Lesson 3: Make your job sustainable by understating the detail of ESG
14.30 mins Lesson 4: Don't just be a story writer
“The worst view of any business is the view from the window of the headquarters”
“Don’t just focus on the leaders...everyone within the business has a story to tell”
18 mins Lesson 5: Stop the press release
21 mins Lesson 6: Be like Jack Reacher - hope for the best; prepare for the worst!
“You're going to have a lot of difficult conversations with a lot of senior people”
“It’s about making sure the team is prepared (for a crisis)”
“There are 2 important pages in any crisis manual...”
26 mins Lesson 7: It’s an exciting time to work in Corporate Affairs - enjoy it
“I’m convinced more corporate affairs and communications professions... will in the future be CEOs - the ability to talk, the ability to engage, the ability to open and to lead discussions around business-critical issues are vitally important to that (the CEO) role“
30 mins Lesson 8: Give yourself a break
“It (the corporate affairs role) can take over your life”
33 mins Lesson 9: Embrace change
“You want to be ahead of the innovation curve”

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Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.
Today we’re chatting with 3 of Google's communications team to give us an inside view of how a modern PR and communications team works.
On the show are Jo Ogunleye, B2B communications lead, UK, Julie Dilger, head of external communications, Google Ireland and Olivia O'Brien, senior associate, product communiou can still purchase your tickets for The PRmoment Awards from the awards site PRmomentAwards.com
Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA.
I’d also encourage you to check out this week’s Good and Bad PR on PRmoment. As ever there’s a range of highlights and lowlights but one of my favourite stories this week was that Pepsi has rolled out a new visual brand identity and also revealed that it would include 57% less sugar.
Exclusive analysis from Meltwater shows how the news exploded across social media resulting in 137k mentions and 1.03m engagements.
Do check out this week’s Good and Bad PR for more insight on that from Meltwater.
Here’s a summary of what Jo, Julie and Olivia and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:
2 mins Jo, Julie and Olivia have very different job titles and here they each tell us a bit about their jobs, how their roles are different but also how they work together.
4 mins Jo talks about her 20% role (a Google initiative to enable its employees to work on passion products) and how that enables Jo to work on building networks of diverse communities within the communications industry.
8 mins There are only 9 people in the UK and Ireland Google comms team.
8.30 mins A discussion of how Google uses agency support.
“I would be lost without my agency...when you get a good agency you hold onto them with both hands and hope the personnel don’t change too much!”
10 mins There are so many specialisms within communications and a brand like Google uses the full breadth of comms capabilities - from crisis communications, to exec comms, to corporate and public affairs, to brand, consumer, product PR and B2B comms.
How do in-house communicators coordinate that?
13 mins How much of Google's communications are proactive and how much are reactive?
“If it’s a big issue it’s all hands on deck”
“Some people thrive in a crisis”
“We have issues comms at least once a week”
“A lot of PR is problem-solving...reactive requires a completely different part of your brain”
“Where my agency comes into its own is when they burst by bubble...I spend so much time in Google land.”
“My expectation of them (my agency) is 100% all-around creative and strategic ideas”
“We might not go 100% of the way but we might go 25% of the way - and that’s us innovating.”
“I don’t want to feel like a client all the time...I want to feel like we’re colleagues”
25 mins What are the suite of measurement KPIs for Google's comms team?
29 mins How does Google get a balance between the standardisation of the message and localised communications?
31 mins With Google’s development and rollout of AI tools - is this a priority for Google's comms team at the moment?

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Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

This week we’ve put in a bonus podcast where we chat about Rajar’s latest results. For those of you that aren’t aware of Rajar - it was established in 1992 and operates the single audience measurement system for the radio industry in the United Kingdom

Each quarter they publish the listenership figures for UK radio and this offers a really interesting insight for PR people on how the UK public is engaging with this important channel.

On the show today we have Howard Kosky, CEO of markettiers to talk us through the latest Rajar results.

Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 are now open for entries - do check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.com

Thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Howard and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:

1.30 mins A record 49.7 million adults listen to the radio every week, 89% of the UK adult population, over 1 billion radio hours consumed each week and the average listener listens to 20.6 hours of live radio each week.

3 mins 63% of people are listening to the radio at home, 23% of people are listening in the car and 14% at work or in places like the gym.

4 mins How technology and changes in consumers working practices post-COVID have evolved people’s radio listening habits.

4.30 min 13% of people listen to the radio through a smart speaker and 23% listen to the radio via online listening (streaming), DAB has dropped to 39%, Apps 10.2%

“The technology is driving the trend”

7.30 mins What is the opportunity for PR people in the modern radio market?

“There are more choices a listener, which means the opportunity to reach a more indexed audience is greater from a PR and communications perspective but it means more effort.”

“If you’re trying to mobilise a behaviour at a local level or at an age demographic or a profile demographic then the ability to reach tight audience group is absolutely there.”

9.30 mins What are the main content opportunities for PR people within radio?

“They are radio stations first but increasingly multimedia platforms”

13 mins Commercial radio has had a phenomenal year - “all commercial” radio is up from 36.8 million to 38.2 million, and local commercial radio is up from 24.4 million to 25.8 million.

“I take my hat off to how the likes of Global and Bauer have implemented a strategy...to give listeners choice...They have recognised there is an opportunity to provide targeted programming output to reach a particular audience group”

19 mins Why the BBC is trying to drop the age bracket of Radio 2 by not renewing the contracts of the likes of Steve Wright.

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Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.
On the show today, I’m chatting with Lewis Iwu, founding partner at Purpose Union, about the intersection of Purpose, ESG and CSR.
Are the terms interchangeable? Has Purpose superseded CSR and how much confusion is there both amongst communicators and consumers about the crossover between these terms?
Purpose Union was co-founded by Lewis in 2019, has about 20 employees and previous clients include Natwest, Sky and The Wellcome Trust. The agency specialises in corporate counsel and communications strategy. All its work is purpose-related.
Before we start, we’ve got some huge news - The PRmoment Awards 2024 are now - OPEN!
There are some exciting changes this year; we’ve tweaked the categories and refined the entry form, and with no additional entry fee, we’ve launched a regional champions scheme so we can reach the work right across the UK. The final entry deadline is 26th January.
Do check out the PRmoment Awards microsite.
Also, thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors the PRCA.
2.30 mins From a communications perspective, how does Lewis define the differences between purpose, ESG and CSR?
“ESG is investor relations communicating to markets about your credentials as a sustainable business, a business that cares about society.”
“There is a movement away from CSR... Companies have become more sophisticated.”
7 mins To what extent have brand purpose and ESG been negatively impacted by the anti-woke movement?
10 mins What is the role of comms in purpose policy within a business?
13 mins As a comms agency, is your role to help companies find their purpose or is the assumption that they already know that?
15 mins Purpose Union has developed a scorecard model that helps companies decide whether they should speak out on specific issues. Lewis talks us through how that model works.
17 mins How do companies balance the risk of not speaking out versus the risk of not speaking out?
21 mins Has an organisation's purpose become more important for its employees than its customers?
24 mins Does the structured nature of the B2B buying process make purpose more important for some B2B brands than those targeting end consumers?
26 mins Do most consumers really care about the purpose positioning of one company, compared to its competitors? Don’t consumers care more about the product, the price and the convenience of the distribution?
29 mins What are the three questions Lewis asks organisations before they respond to purpose-related issues?
34 mins The CEO is completely crucial to an organisation's purpose strategy, right? If they don’t get it, you're doomed, aren’t you?
35 mins The purpose and environmental event caravan grows every year. What are the roles of events like Davos and COP? Do they help drive progress, or have they become a distraction?
37 mins What is the role of the comms director in setting and driving an organisation's purpose strategy?