Julian March

Good morning today spent with one of our clients at 44 Communications Ltd talking through the results of recent research into one of their core channels. In the past (read: pre-covid) we used to run semi-regular Focus Groups to find out what employees were interested in for the channel. Whilst they were valuable, they took a lot of time to organise and pulled hard-pressed workers off the job for an extended period of time. Not easy to do when there are deadlines and priorities competing for attention. So, this time we worked with the client on a programme of 'Speed focus groups' - fast conversations with employees asking a set of questions and quickly exploring themes. No more than a few minutes of time but some great insights and ideas raised. Added to survey results, these give some flavour and life to the numbers, helping us work with the client to frame an action plan. It's not the first time we've done these. It can be hard getting opinions from front line workers whose priority is service delivery on tight schedules and with limited resources. So, it's important we take time to design measurement approaches that fit their world rather than demand they fit into ours. Just goes to show, research and insight can be done even when operating circumstances may make it seem difficult. It's always worth asking the question "what do you think about...". #internalcommunications #research #engagement #measurement #channels

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PR has an image problem and we should do something about it. Register to hear my thoughts + Q&A this Thursday 13 June 24 at 12.00 GMT/UCT (1pm in UK🙂) - an IPRA International Public Relations Association thought leadership webinar. Across the world our industry helps governments win elections, companies survive crises and launch new concepts, but so often we’re just called PR. I'll be talking about the problem, whether there is a PR industry any more and what PR people should do differently, day to day. I'll be referencing Bernays, Freud, Trump, Obama, Stephen Covey, June Jordan, Edelman, Brunswick Group, Farner | Team Farner, FGS Global, Louvre Abu Dhabi, Olivia Pope, #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo and much more. Hope to see you there... How to join Register via image below at Airmeet. (The time shown should adjust to your device’s time zone.) A reminder will be sent 1 hour before the event. Background to IPRA IPRA, the International Public Relations Association, was established in 1955, and is the leading global network for PR professionals in their personal capacity. IPRA aims to advance trusted communication and the ethical practice of public relations. We do this through networking, our code of conduct and intellectual leadership of the profession. IPRA is the organiser of public relations' annual global competition, the Golden World Awards for Excellence (GWA). IPRA's services enable PR professionals to collaborate and be recognised. Members create content via our Thought Leadership essays, social media and our consultative status with the United Nations. GWA winners demonstrate PR excellence. IPRA welcomes all those who share our aims and who wish to be part of the IPRA worldwide fellowship. #prmedia #publicrelations #Strategiccommunications #PR #Financialcommunications #Reputationmanagement #Stakeholderrelations #Corporatecommunications #Internalcommunications #Governmentrelations #Employeeengagement #Publicaffairs #Digital #consultant #Lobbyist #Socialmedia #Adviser #Advisor #Publicist #Mediarelations #IPRAmoment #crisis #crisismanagement #reputation #issues

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"About two-thirds of the agencies taking part in this year’s PRWeek UK Top 150 Consultancies project continue to have all-white boards." PRWeek UK Does this come as a shock? No, Not really for people working to build a more inclusive industry. These numbers were to be expected. I feel some anger and more despair..............It is not just me but research shows that most DEI efforts since BLM and COVID were performative and opportunistic, so they were doomed to fail. Within our industry there has been a disproportionate focus on diverse hires, numbers and representations - but at lower levels. Here we are talking about some of the most powerful agencies in the world and the UK. They advise clients on reputation, DEI, sustainability and are asking their clients to change to be relevant in the future! Ironical considering they are not willing to or see the need to change. Change does not happen when you maintain status quo. Change does not happen when you don't invest time and money into enabling that change. Change also does not happen without a vision. And change will definitely will not happen without the buy in from industry leaders and board members. Incremental change is good, but increasing representation at leadership levels and in the C-suite requires transformational thinking, a willingness to adapt, to recognise that this is an imperative, allocate resources and hold themselves accountable. To see any real change in my working life we need to recognise that ethnic minorities with leadership aspirations face (and will face) the broken rung, the glass ceiling, glass cliff and a system stacked against them, that encourages homophily. Small comfort that the number of black and ethnic minorities in the industry has increased from last year, but we know leadership aspirants will drop out when they cannot see role models or people like themselves leading. Industry leaders know that DEI can no longer just be a talking point or tick box, it is a fundamental building block of social justice and a human rights concern. We will be held to account! So, let's see leaders step up, and be accountable not just for profits but for building a fairer industry. Well done PRWeek UK on the insights👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 #buildbackbetter #inclusionandbelonging #rolemodels #ethnicminorityleaders

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Really grateful to two market-leading Editors of subscription-led businesses and terrific ex-colleagues of mine, Catrin Griffiths and Alastair McLellan, for spending time with me last week on B2B content strategy. If you want to watch on-demand there is a link below. Highlights for me included: Impact on content strategy of the move to a paid subscription business model 17min46 Building a high value B2B content proposition 14min02, 23min05, & 31min29 How to motivate editors & editorial teams 29min42 & 50min47 Removing Print as a platform 45min02: https://lnkd.in/gbwftfwR

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This BBC/Ipsos report on what audiences think of generative AI is valuable for corporate publishers. https://lnkd.in/e9AExapw Public service media organisations like the BBC are a good benchmark for people who produce commercial editorial because the brand trust requirements are similar. The report lays out in detail what formats and use cases the public will and won't accept. And the "semiotic analysis" that rounds up every AI depiction in film and TV for the last 75 years is an unexpected bonus for sci-fi fans. I realised very quickly that some of my favourite characters are AIs - Hal in 2001, Bishop in Aliens and Ava in Ex Machina. But I digress... Thanks to the Benedict Evans newsletter, where I first saw a link to the report. What will the public accept and what are they sceptical about when it comes to editorial? Acceptable uses: AI in audio production, personalisation (recommendations), editing, reformatting content (from text to audio, for example); reporting on hard facts - weather, markets, sports scores. Acceptable with human oversight: translation, boilerplate content, headline generation, image generation for "filler" imagery (never used to depict real events). Sceptical list: AI in video; AI replacing humans for advice or decisions; personalising social media content; AI newsreaders; AI writing opinion-based articles; researching and drafting reports without human checking; modifying images that are part of news reports about real events. What comes across too are the values that underpin beliefs about generative AI - fairness, transparency and consent. And just how sceptical people are that these values are being applied by tech companies. This is an open goal for organisations to use AI in a way that promotes trust rather than undermining it.

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Will the next government bring increased regulation for the UK advertising industry? The UK general election falls on the last day of MAD//FEST LONDON, so by the time Grace Carter gets on stage to start the party in E1, many of the votes for the political parties will have already been cast. One change that the new government could oversee is increased external regulation and governance of the advertising industry - would that be a good thing or a bad thing for you? Let's take AI for example. Katherine Viner, editor of the Guardian, recently called for AI regulation. She said, "Without quality journalism to train and ground large language models, these technologies would struggle to make sense of the world around them." Without quality, trusted data to train the AI models on, it is easy to see how we could get into a vicious circle of AI choking on its own exhaust fumes: 1 - Incorrect content published 2 - AI reads that incorrect content 3 - AI therefore writes incorrect content Crap in, crap out, as they say in the trade! ;-) I would also add that digital advertising relies on quality content that consumers spend time with, so that the advertising has a chance of having an impact. For example: The difference in dwell time on an MFA site, which uses GenAI to create the content and click-bait to get somebody there, to a page with 10 ads, is a world away from the experience of a subscriber to a premium publisher site, who logs on to consume the content they pay for and only sees a single ad next to that valued content. 💬 - What do you think - more government regulation or not? #ai #regulation #advertising

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A different take on crisis comms from Ken Roberts and Forethought. Like everything Ken and Forethought do, it's based on smart insights and their work with some of the biggest brands in Australia and the US. Yes, Forethought is an SKMG client, but CEOs, CMOs and CFOs who work at organisations that rely on brand reputation and customer trust (so, pretty much every CEO, CMO and CFO) need to read this. #corporatetrust #corporatecrisis #crisiscomms

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Cision's annual State of Media report is always an interesting read, allowing us to get inside the heads of the journalists we pitch. This year's contains great insights on: 💡 The impact of independent journalism 💡 Opinions on AI 💡 Changing audience behaviour https://lnkd.in/eJHy9fsX

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There are few whose names are more synonymous with the UK #PR industry than Matthew Freud. He pretty much invented the concept of networking... Anyone in our industry - or with an interest in politics, the cult of celebrity or the power of the media - should listen to this podcast from When it Hits the Fan with David Yelland and Simon Lewis (you can find it on BBC Sounds). There's so much to unpick, but one fascinating claim Freud makes is that reputation - which the PR function is responsible for - can increase the value of a business by 50%. He argues that if you have two identical, publicly listed companies but one is more 'widely admired' than another, it would command a 100% premium. A powerful statistic. Why don’t PR or communications budgets reflect this? We’ve tended historically to be the poor relation to marketing in terms of spend. Reputation should be the biggest priority for the C-suite; whether that's ensuring the workforce (internal comms) is clear on the values and vision of the business; or sending out the right messages to the market. Also, a good reputation means current and prospective customers will respect, value and aspire to connect with the business. You don't have to be a celebrity or politician to care about reputation - every business should be ensuring that everything they do reflects the values they want to adhere by - whether that's through their #ESG reporting, their #socialmedia community or their #mediarelations. Does the PR industry have a reputation crisis of its own?

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As ever an insightful article in The Media Leader regarding the GB News and Ofcom situation from Ray Snoddy There is a possibility that GB News are actively undermining the right wing vote by adding to the split between the Conservatives and Reform, thus helping Labour. The presence on GB News of Nigel Farage, a vocal critic of the Conservatives, will reinforce this rift. If so, the losses that Ray refers to in the article will have been even less well-spent.

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We've been creating again. Here's our latest mini-guide to crafting a meaningful PR strategy in a changing environment. What are your key PR concerns today?

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Huge thanks to Lisa Collins and Barbara Lange and the team for inviting me onto the #esgmarketing panel at the Media Tech Sustainability Series yesterday. I spoke briefly about finding your inner #businessactivist, we’re going to be posting a Jump blog about this later but here’s a little snippet of what we feel this means. What are your thoughts on business activism? ✊ #environmentalsocialgovernance #circularbusiness #circularbusinessmodel #circulareconomy #regenerativebusiness #climateaction #reuserestorerepair ♻️ #findyourvoice

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With just over 10 days to go until the General Election, some cracking AI-driven analysis from my brilliant Madano colleagues, picking out some of the new themes emerging from media covering the campaign. Based on 5,000 news articles published over the past week, three new trends emerged: 👉 Rishi Sunak’s good news re. falling inflation was quickly overshadowed by the Conservative betting scandal. 👉 Just 5% of articles focused on topics associated with net-zero, despite around 20% of the public saying that it is among the most important issues facing the UK. 👉 A quarter of all General Election coverage in the past week discussed Reform UK. 

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Proud to announce the first validated score via the ZeroBees Business Impact Tracker. Congrats Diversity Media Sales! DMS performed 26% above media SME benchmark, with strong results in employee and community areas, in line with their mission-led approach. The Business Impact Tracker is a tool designed to support media SMEs (publishers, channel owners, suppliers) to understand where they are in terms of sustainability (across environment, employees, community & suppliers, and governance) and set in motion a plan to systematically improve this - building capacity and knowledge as well as enabling disclosure of where they are on their sustainability journey. Thanks in particular to Legacy Media (Andy Power) for partnering with us on this to enable disclosure though Legacy's brilliant platforms. If you're a media SME interested in understanding and improving your ESG performance - to win investors, clients and more agency traction - get in touch and get your sustainability strategy moving today! #sustainability #media #esg #businessimpacttracker #bit #innovation #goodmedia

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We start tomorrow 💥🎙️🎧👏🏻 Yip my live group online course starts Wednesday 5th June 7pm 🕖 I’m so excited to share my knowledge & expertise in “podcasting for business” 🎙️ So if you’re ready to start your very own business podcast🎙️ Join my exclusive online podcasting course tailored for UK entrepreneurs eager to launch 🚀 This is the first online group - so it’s a beta price - DON’T miss out 🙋‍♀️ All the details are here: https://lnkd.in/eiYRsaTT #PodcastingForEntrepreneurs #UKPodcasters #OnlineCourse #PodcastLaunch #EntrepreneurialJourney #PodcastMastery #DigitalLearning #StartYourPodcastNow

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Not quite as catchy as The Weeknd, and could very possibly leave you numb. Come and find out for yourself at the New Scientist Emerging Tech Summit, where I’ll be talking about weird interfaces of the future… #invention #innovation #technology #tech #interfaces

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How we secured our client 22 high authority, high traffic links with digital PR: First we created 3 news stories. 1 story was aimed at national coverage - we create something interesting, current and directly contact national journalists 2 stories were aimed at local coverage - a data study and analysis that can be repurposed for each country and sent to local journalists - easy wins 🔥 - one of these data studies was specific to the clients niche, while the other 'zoomed out' to get wider opportunity of coverage We outreached to journalists both manually and using tools like Muckrack to create target lists based on the type of story. We waited and followed up over the course of a few weeks. The result from a 10+ minimum campaign? 22 links and counting!

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