The Little Questions

Trump is back. And back with a bang.

Be it old age or the fog of Covid but Little Questions had forgotten quite how discombobulating the stream of consciousness from the 47th President of the United States really is.

From waking up in the morning wondering, what has he said or done now, to then trying to work out what he meant, and if the latest u-turn was a u-turn or not. All before the coffee has properly kicked in.

There can be no question that his return has encouraged a wider shift to more conservative social and political stances and a celebration of capitalism. Across many sectors, businesses are either doing away with, watering down or simply trying to hide their DEI and ESG programmes – the find and replace function in Windows has surely never been busier.

Some business leaders have gone further, speaking out on previously controversial issues, no longer afraid of being cancelled.

For some the shift is a breath of fresh air. For others a return to darker times.

How on earth do we Corporate Communicators, the last bastions of common sense in an increasingly mad and angry world, respond? Are we ducking and covering hoping for things to return to normal in four years? Do we pragmatically and gently reposition? Do we rail against the dying of the light and to hell with the commercial consequences? Or do we drill baby, drill?

This episode is hosted by Andrew Brown. Formerly Director of Communications and Public affairs at Ageas Insurance, Andrew has more than ten years’ experience leading the corporate affairs functions for global, listed, multifaceted firms across a range of regulated and unregulated sectors. He has considerable experience in issues, crisis and change management as well as reputation sentiment analysis and insight. Formerly Director of Communications at Drax Group plc and Group Corporate Affairs Director at Regus plc.

You can get in touch by emailing [email protected] and please consider leaving us a review.

And this time we're joined by Apella colleague James Kirkup, former DG at the Social Market Foundation. James spent over 20 years in high-profile Westminster roles including Political Editor of the Daily Telegraph and Director of the Social Market Foundation. Extensive experience of thought leadership and advocacy work, with a particular focus on the relationship between business, politics and public policy.

Find out more at apellaadvisors.com.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

We’ve talked about the many great things that Comms and Corporate Affairs professionals bring to an organisation – clarity of message, bringing the outside in, creativity and so on. However, one area that still seems to defeat all our Comms and Corporate Affairs colleagues – inhouse or in the agency world – is to get actionable insight from data.

For some it’s a case of swimming in the stuff and trying to make sense of what it’s telling you. For others, it’s lack of data and where to procure something that adds value to an organisation.

So, this Podcast is all about getting meaningful data that provides insight to inform decision making. Do we have all the answers? Of course we do. This is The Little Questions - probably the best podcast focused on the needs of communications professionals in the world!

Some of today's little questions include; has progress been made in the use of data and insights in Corporate Affairs? What are the challenges CADs face Why do these challenges persist and what can be done about it? To answer these and more are Little Questions regulars and Apella Advisors Partners Matt Young and Andrew Brown and fellow Apella Partner, Mike Granleese formerly of IPSOS.

You can get in touch by emailing [email protected] and please consider leaving us a review.

Matt Young has 25 years of experience across media relations, public affairs, regulatory development, employee engagement, brand development, competition and CSR. Group corporate affairs director at Lloyds Banking Group, part of the senior team which rescued the bank and rebuilt its reputation following the financial crisis. Formerly communications director at Santander UK and board member of the BBA.

Andrew Brown; formerly Director of Communications and Public affairs at Ageas Insurance, Andrew has more than ten years’ experience leading the corporate affairs functions for global, listed, multifaceted firms across a range of regulated and unregulated sectors. He has considerable experience in issues, crisis and change management as well as reputation sentiment analysis and insight. Formerly Director of Communications at Drax Group plc and Group Corporate Affairs Director at Regus plc.

Mike Granleese; formerly the Deputy Managing Director of Ipsos Corporate Reputation, Mike has over 20 years’ experience across roles in insights, consultancy and academia. He specialises in helping clients understand insights within the context of their organisation and advising on the actions needed to drive reputation growth and protect license to operate. Previous clients in financial services include Aviva, Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Nationwide and MasterCard. He has also worked closely with Coca-Cola, Heineken, EY, PwC and The World Bank. Mike holds a PhD in economics.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

This is another of our topical episodes where two aged, bitter and sceptical Comms practitioners try to make sense of the stuff that’s been making the headlines over the last few weeks. And hopefully we can say something useful to all those 100k people who work in our industry grappling with how to communicate with clarity and honesty in our ever-complex world.

Today we're talking about:

• The SNP & the Greens (and net zero targets)
• Co-op Live: ‘how to communicate when it all goes pear shaped’
• FCA: ‘naming and shaming firms under investigation & how to handle them from a PR perspective.’
• PR Week: ‘agencies made double the number of redundancies in 2023 vs 2022. Why and what does it mean?’
• Sunday Times editorial on Teneo: ‘has Comms failed when it becomes the story’.
• Tired, money for old rope advice: ‘time with the editor, journo roundtable’. Has PR run out of new ideas? Have we lost the creative touch?
• Why has re-branding become an exercise in removing vowels?

As ever, for you as a listener in the world of comms and beyond, we’ll extract the lessons learnt from all these stories and deliver them in this episode of The Little Questions.

You can get in touch by emailing [email protected] and please consider leaving us a review.

Matt Young is an Apella Advisors partner with 25 years of experience in corporate affairs. He was Corporate Affairs Director at Lloyds Banking Group, part of the senior team which rescued the bank and rebuilt its reputation following the financial crisis. Formerly communications director at Santander UK and board member of the BBA. Experienced in corporate communications; public affairs and policy; regulatory affairs and risk; industrial relations; crisis and complex issues management; reputation turnarounds; campaigns, competition; and ESG. Former Head of Public Affairs and Public Policy at TSB Bank. Previously a Partner at a global communications agency and has worked in the media and politics.

Andrew Brown is an Apella Advisors partner, a former Director of Communications and Public Affairs at Ageas Insurance. He has more than ten years’ experience leading the corporate affairs functions for global firms across a range of regulated and unregulated sectors, developing considerable experience in issues, crisis and change management. Formerly Director of Communications at Drax Group plc and Group Corporate Affairs Director at Regus plc.

Find out more at apellaadvisors.com.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach

"The brand is our promise, our reputation is how well we live up to it. Or not."

Is that really the case? Is it that binary? Isn’t branding all about design and badges – the colours and shapes we can and cannot use as defined by the infamous brand police? Oh, and the odd expensive ad campaign or three?

Isn’t influencing and curating the firm’s reputation what we comms and corporate affairs people do?

Let’s accept that every organisation does need a brand and that brand needs to be managed. The little question is then; how can we comms people best work with and help our always snappily dressed brand colleagues down the corridor with their coloured pencils and fancy computers?

To discuss this little question are two Apella Advisors partners, Andrew Brown and Matt Young.

Find out more about Apella Advisors at www.apellaadvisors.com and you can get in touch by emailing[email protected] and if you enjoy this episode, please consider leaving us a review.

Matt Young is an Apella Advisors partner with 25 years of experience in corporate affairs. He was Corporate Affairs Director at Lloyds Banking Group, part of the senior team which rescued the bank and rebuilt its reputation following the financial crisis. Formerly communications director at Santander UK and board member of the BBA. Experienced in corporate communications; public affairs and policy; regulatory affairs and risk; industrial relations; crisis and complex issues management; reputation turnarounds; campaigns, competition; and ESG. Former Head of Public Affairs and Public Policy at TSB Bank. Previously a Partner at a global communications agency and has worked in the media and politics.

Andrew Brown is an Apella Advisors partner, a former Director of Communications and Public Affairs at Ageas Insurance. He has more than ten years’ experience leading the corporate affairs functions for global firms across a range of regulated and unregulated sectors, developing considerable experience in issues, crisis and change management. Formerly Director of Communications at Drax Group plc and Group Corporate Affairs Director at Regus plc.

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Christmas and the New Year are nearly upon us and it's the season of TV repeats and compilations. Our chance to laugh again at the things we laughed at just a few months ago. We’re no different at Apella Advisors. With our world leading sustainability commitments, reuse and recycle is our mantra, so we’ve produced our very own Little Questions Podcast Xmas highlights.

This is all our best bits from 2022.

Our thoughts on everything from the merits of having activist investors on your books to thinking about how to consider brain friendly changes through organisational transformations. From what a journalist wants from a Comms team to our favourite PR heroes and villains.

Hopefully, faithful listener, you’ll agree with our choices. If you don’t, you can, of course, go back and relisten to all our previous episodes at your leisure!

We’d love to hear what you think. Get in touch on social media or email [email protected]

This edition of The Little Questions podcast is presented by Matt Young and Andrew Brown.

Apella partner Andrew Brown is a former Director of Communications and Public Affairs at Ageas Insurance. He has more than ten years’ experience leading the corporate affairs functions for global firms across a range of regulated and unregulated sectors, developing considerable experience in issues, crisis and change management. Formerly Director of Communications at Drax Group plc and Group Corporate Affairs Director at Regus plc.

Matt Young is an Apella partner with 25 years of experience in corporate affairs. He was Corporate Affairs Director at Lloyds Banking Group, part of the senior team which rescued the bank and rebuilt its reputation following the financial crisis. Formerly communications director at Santander UK and board member of the BBA.

Find out more about Apella Advisors at www.apellaadvisors.com and you can get in touch by emailing [email protected]

This podcast was produced by the www.thepodcastcoach.co.uk