When PRs become the story and brands with no vowels

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