This week in PR (20 November)

News in brief

• PRCA has announced 22 new Fellows (among them Richard Bagnall, Tony Langham, Shayoni Lynn, Arun Sudhaman, Laura Sutherland and Sarah Waddington).

Events

Please check our PR Calendar and send us links to your events

• Tickets are available now for the BME PR Pros Winter Series 2-11 December

Covid-19 and comms

Consulting, teams and careers

• Adam Tuckwell and Jon Wilcox with Penny Mairoudhiou: Life happens in a Costa [podcast]
  ‘My mum said I switched overnight into a mini Edina and became a bit shouty. Then in my teen years I turned into Patsy. That was my journey into PR: I thought it was all going to be all AbFab and champagne, client lunches. Yet my first job was in B2B tech and I quit after six months.’
• Laura Sutherland: Laura talks to Angharad Planells about Leadership in PR [podcast] (no date)
  ‘The leadership role was fast tracked by the pandemic. I needed to be that calm voice of reason.’
• Sophie Shaw: Remote brainstorming needn’t be dull for your team (no date)
  ‘How can you switch people on? Meetings seem to take a bit of time to get going and participation isn’t always volunteered.’
• Rachel Miller: How to set your professional goals for 2021 (15 November)
  ‘If I look back, 2020 has been a year of growth, but not in the way I imagined when I set that intention and chose the word a year ago.’
• Shayoni Lynn: Scaling a communications agency in a pandemic (13 November)
  ‘Creating an agency atmosphere in a virtual world has been challenging. Where we could have bonded in the pub, celebrating a win after work, these opportunities have just not been there.’

Wellbeing, gender and diversity

• Avril Lee, Sara Hawthorn, Katrina Marshall and Melissa Lawrence: Doing diversity differently [podcast] )
  ‘The ‘Race in PR’ report was no-holds-barred. Yet people are still happy to work in the industry and be part of the profession. All of the answers are in that report of the changes we need to make. I do think we are at a turning point now.’

Public and third sectors

• Dan Slee: 30 days of human comms #72: Black Country Museum’s warm reassuring TikTok video (13 November)
  ‘We hate the idea we’re being sold to but we put up with being sold to every now and then if there’s something to entertain us. Like the best social content, this connects on an emotional level.’

Politics, public affairs and public sphere

• Stuart Thomson: Trial By Select Committee (16 November)
  ‘The resignation of the Chairman of the Football Association, Greg Clarke, over his frankly outrageous comments and language provided a stark example of the dangers of not taking Select Committees seriously.’
• Darren Lilleker: Resist the temptation to see Dominic Cummings as a svengali (16 November)
  ‘When advisers fall, their every dark act is exposed and their demise celebrated. Meanwhile the political leaders are given a second chance. But is it fair to pin the failures of a government onto an individual appointed by that leader?’

Campaigns and creativity 

• Mark McGinn: Putting action first: IKEA and #BuyBackFriday (19 November)
  ‘Last month, we helped IKEA launch their #BuyBackFriday campaign with the ambition to make climate change the biggest deal on Black Friday by giving thousands of pieces of furniture a second life.’

Brands, storytelling, and influence 

• Adam Driver: Always. Beat. Chester. (19 November)
  ‘Wrexham, as with most sports teams, have a rival; “Always beat Chester“ is repeated three times, last one in CAPS.’
• Sophie Moore: The Bottle Guide to Influencer Marketing (17 November)
  ‘Influencer marketing sits quite nicely between earned PR and paid for social advertising. This means the metrics we look at for these digital PR tactics are not dissimilar to those we like to look at for Influencer Marketing. Like other digital PR tactics, you can set clear performance goals.’

Measurement and evaluation

Internal communication

• Joanna Goodwin: How to use content design for internal comms (18 November)
  ‘Content design is still a fairly new discipline. Sarah Winters (was Richards) first introduced the job title while she was at the Government Digital Service over a decade ago. In a sentence, Content Design is answering a user’s need in the best way for the user to consume it.’
• Katie Marlow: Shush, listen… (17 November)
  ‘I realised through experience that it takes humility and vulnerability to listen in a way that really makes a difference. And that is hard to do, especially in many corporate settings. What’s more with a competitive edge in many organisations, the system works against us showing our own limitations or supporting those with greater potential. If only we could all be a little more human at work.’
• Laura House: Leading through a screen: part one (17 November)
  ‘Some leaders struggle with the switch from old ways of communicating to new, so our role as communicators is to help leaders to get comfortable with those channels too. We need to help them to learn how to be visible and find ways to engage with their people that feels authentic and natural.’
• Martin Flegg: Tone deaf (15 November)
  ‘As a practitioner, the ‘Who’s listening’ research and report has often caused me to reflect on what is stopping me and other internal communicators really listening to employees and I think there are a few big things that need to be addressed if we are to ever make the grade.’

• Jenni Field, Advita Patel and Trudy Lewis: How to Build and Manage Your Personal Brand [podcast] (12 November)
  ‘For a man, you have that starting point of what to wear. But for a woman, you don’t often have that luxury. There isn’t that uniform. Clothes are a huge part of your personal brand.’

Technology, media and digital

https://twitter.com/NigelSarbutts/status/1329008800796471296

Academic, education and training

#prstudent #bestPRblogs

• Megan Laura Harris (Liverpool John Moores): Press Day: My Experience (19 November)
  ‘As a student, I don’t have many contacts in PR. This experience was the perfect opportunity for me to network with others. I was able to network with many different people, from TV presenters, to producers. Don’t be afraid to talk to others and make valuable contacts.’

• Babett Kürschner (LCC/UAL): Socio-cultural understanding: A major factor for growth (no date)
  ‘Socio-cultural understanding refers to a business’ thorough knowledge of its stakeholders’ social factors and cultural contexts.’
• Eloise Newman (Solent): Green Marketing or Greenwashing: Is it always ethical use the environment as a PR and Marketing tool? (19 November)
  ‘Green marketing is not an unethical promotional tool if the product is genuinely good for the environment and the organisation is making steps towards reducing their negative impact on the environment.’

• Maryam Umar-Baba  (Leeds Beckett): My Thoughts on Sainsbury’s​ Christmas Video (19 November)
  ‘One would think that in 2020 regardless of the current chaos, there would be a bit of love and understanding of each other’s race to go around especially a month before Christmas time.’

• Daisy Dunn (Leeds Beckett): The Year the ‘Live’​ Music Died: how Leeds based musicians practice promotion in 2020 (19 November)
  ‘It feels obvious to state that live music revenue will fall drastically this year and that the mass closure of smaller independent venues will have a huge impact on the career development of emerging artists.’

• Rory Skillen (Ulster): Covid19 – It’s Made Me A Better Student. (19 November)
  ‘Whilst there is no denying how horrible the events of the last year have been, I want to focus on the positives instead.’

• Ellen Turbett (Ulster): Molly-Mae leads the way (17 November)
  ‘Molly-Mae Hague, you either know everything about her, or nothing at all. That is the beauty of influencers; megastars to their interested audience but not quite A-Lister household names.’
• Larissa McIlrath (Ulster): The forgotten industry of Covid – Beauty is going Bust (16 November)
  ‘In September after 7 months of furlough, the reality of this pandemic hit me square across the face, and I was told I’d lost my 20-hour contract with bareMinerals.’

• Rachael Thompson (Sunderland): A Day in the Life – Creative Industries Week Edition (13 November)
  ‘Creative Industries week at the University allows students to take part in a wide number of talks & workshops relating to the Arts and Creative Industries faculty. Today, we were very lucky to have a ‘Meet the PR Practitioners’ workshop featuring a number of past students.’