PR Resolution podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

In a world where trust is declining, confidently communicating the success of communications has never been more crucial. Even slight confusion or mistrust in metrics can damage stakeholder relationships and impact budgets.

In this episode of the PR Resolution Podcast, I bring the most frequently asked questions on measurement from PR teams to two leading independent measurement consultants: Paul Hender and Steph Bridgman.

Both are impartial on platforms and data points and serve as board members of the Association for Measurement and Evaluation (AMEC). Paul also leads the AMEC Measurement Diploma course—so we’re in safe hands!

We cover:

> Core principles of data and how they relate to communication objectives

> How tools and data sources have evolved, and whether AI is accelerating or holding us back

> Who should be responsible for evaluating PR

> Key skills for sourcing and analysing data

> What PR teams need to trust their data—and earn the trust of stakeholders in 2026

In this special episode of the PR Resolution Podcast, Stella is joined by Alex Jukes, founder of Jukebox PR and host of the Loud and Unfiltered podcast. They discuss the unique culture at Jukebox, where team members live and breathe their industry; dance music.

Just like the fast-paced nature of the music, the conversation bounces from launching the latest super club, sharinmg their secret to making new tracks 'go viral' and to how they sell out global events with their unique approach to PR.

With a client roster that includes major global brands like Pacha and Ministry of Sound, Jukebox PR leverages its industry knowledge and innovative techniques to drive real business impact, which is often breaking records in music downloads or selling out festivals.

The conversation also touches on the significance of data-driven decision-making, the value of building long-term relationships in the industry and....how this has led Alex's personal growth goals too.

Whether you're in the music or PR business, this interview is inspiring. Watch now.

Special Guest: Alex Jukes.

How healthy does your agency feel? Are there uncertainties around budgets? Are some of your retainers switching to projects? Is your pipeline flowing or in need of some work?

If your agency finances are feeling like a challenge right now you’re not alone.

Research has confirmed that PR budgets are being reduced. Data gathered in June 2023 from the world’s 100 most powerful communicators (Provoke 100 research) found that there has been a drop in public relations investment in the past 12 months of more than $1bn, from $4.8bn to $3.7bn. 

Although agencies can’t control client budget decisions, there are efficiencies that can be made in how fees are managed and how agency finances are protected.

To help guide you through this tricky time, Stella is joined by agency Chief Finance Officer Simon Collard. With over 30 years experience as an Agency CFO, Simon is an expert as safely guiding agencies to larger margins and consistent profitability, whatever the industry climate may be.

Stella first met Simon at digital PR and marketing agency Propellernet. Alongside a talented management team, Simon lead the agency to triple margin, quadrupled the revenue and generated 10x more profit. All without pressure on staff; the agency won Best Place to work in the UK 8 years running during this period of growth.

In this interview Simon shares his wisdom on;

• Pricing and fees; Should PR be time or value priced? Or should we charge by output and outcome bonuses?
• The importance to demonstrate the problems you are solving for your client, always.
• Resilience; how to build it and where conscious over-servicing fits in.
• ‘Profit vampires’ and how to deal with them.
• Why the profit and loss sheet is a lagging indicator to an agency’s health & noticing negativity in the P&L means it could be too late
• Numbers; The % of revenue you should spend on people, and cost per person
• And the golden key in all agency profitability; time and resourcing and the best ways to manage it.

Special Guest: Simon Collard .

In episode 40 Stella interviewed Rebecca Jolly and Joe Bellioti; the authors of best-selling book; ‘How Music Grows Brands’. They discussed the benefits music can have on a brands business but what about the other side of the partnership?

The music artist.

How does the involvement of a track in a PR campaign, advert, or TV show affect the artist?

What does it mean to the target audience?

Can it make or break an artist?

In this episode, Stella Bayles interviews Jelena Grozdanich, director of film and television at Columbia Records to find out.

Jelena explains how, just like brands, artists also have audience objectives & how the right partnership can be very powerful for both parties.

She shares the benefits of working with new artists and how finding a match of niche interest points between both parties can be mutually beneficial as often ‘niche interest points’ = a passionate and very engaged audience.

Jelena explains the changes to her role as the music industry has changed and what she expects to see emerge in the next 5 years.

Whether you’re a music PR or are interested in having music as part of your marketing strategy this episode is for you.

Timestamps
3:44 - Do you have an audience strategy for your artists?
7:29 What kind of difference or impact have you seen by placing an artist on a particular show or a particular game?
10:33 How important do you think it is for a brand and artist to be aligned?
15:27 Use of music on TikTok and Instagram
17:23 How do you measure whether a partnership has been successful?
26:00 Where do you see the industry developing in the next 5 to 10 years?
29:00 What do you do to maintain the work and life balance?

Special Guest: Jelena Grozdanich.

In this episode I’m joined by Martin McGlown who was once a crime journalist at the London Evening Standard newspaper and went on to head-up media relations at the world's leading cancer charity; Cancer Research UK.

We talk about the moment Martin made his career-defining decision and why he and the charity have never looked back.

We cover the changing media landscape and how Martin’s journalism background and skills have shaped the way his team operate as a newsroom.

Martin shares the Cancer Research UK overall objective and how that flows into his team’s strategy and KPIs.

He also talks about the importance of budget scrutiny in the charity sector and the work his team does in-house in order to make the most of the donations made to Cancer Research

Martin also shares some of their memorable campaigns that PR delivers so well; educating and raising awareness of prevention and treatments to help people live longer and better lives. And ultimately Beat Cancer.

Special Guest: Martin McGlown.

Margo Neely is the Chief Creative Officer of Neely & Daughters a New York based start-up business consultancy. She is also the creator of the Neely Air TR-808 “Disturb the Peace” drum machine shoe concept: a digital tap shoe (of sorts) that allows the user to create digital beats and rhythms with movement. 

This interesting breadth of experience has a one key point in common; PR. and specifically how PR coverage helps attract investors and gains funding.

Margo experienced this first hand when her concept design of the sneaker that made music with movement, had stayed static as an idea for years until it went viral. Through the vast amount of exposure and engagement Margo was able to gain the attention of investors and engineers she’d only dreamed of years before.

Margo now shares her PR to investment strategies with start-up businesses and charity organisations so they can do the same.

This episode is absolute gold for any organisations that need to raise funding. It’s also a brilliant example of the true power of PR.

Special Guest: Margo Neely .

Due to its success ‘Secret Cinema’ isn’t so secret anymore. The London-based entertainment company that specialises in immersive film events now has fans throughout Europe and has recently launched in the US.

The magic of the immersive performances has led to a cult following. But how much of the following is driven by PR and marketing and how do they retain and grow that audience?

Stella Bayles interviews Simon le Grice the new VP of Marketing at Secret Cinema to find out!

Having originally come from a performance marketing background Simon is very results driven and although he has been in the Secret Cinema role for just four months (at the time of interview) he is already making an impact. He is building a team and is on the search for strategic agency partners both in the UK and US.

Simon shares his vision for a successful growth and retention marketing strategy. He tells me how he sees the best ways for owned, earned and paid to work together and the very important role for PR.

Because of Simon’s focus on audience growth he shares how he doesn’t appreciate ‘meaningless data’ in reports from agencies such as ‘reach’. He discusses how highly he values PR, not just because of the brand awareness it delivers but because of huge the impact it can have on SEO traffic.

He has a message for comms agencies not reporting on SEO and a more positive one for agencies that specialise in events in the US…;)

This episode is full of insight from the client we all want! This one is not to be missed….here’s Simon!

If you're inspired by Simon's marketing approach and would like to try adapting your PR reports to include meaningful data such as estimated views and SEO metrics try https://coveragebook.com/

Special Guest: Simon le Grice.

As a rule I don’t discuss PR agency’s values on the show. They are for staff and should stay on slides or post-its. But when I heard this story of how one ‘agency value’ resulted in a team helping to evacuate 54 orphans from Ukraine, I broke that rule and dedicated a whole episode to it!

I interview David Fraser, the Founder & Managing Director of Ready10, who are a consumer agency, best known for creative digital PR for the likes of McDonald’s, Paddy Power, Flora and Brewdog. However it's the launch of their for-good arm ‘Ready to Help’ that we cover and specifically their (no-fee) project with Save a Child and Magen David Adom, that saw them helping to evacuate a group of children from Ukraine.

David shares the full account of how one phone call turned into the most complex but rewarding project the agency had worked on

How the whole team (with other clients understanding) pulled together to help Save a Child and Magen David Adom 

How David’s past crisis management experience came into play

And importantly whether it was a success and how the children are now

David also reveals how the agency survived COVID, didn’t accept UK government furlough grants, paid bonuses and managed to carry out this amazing project on zero budget.

This story is an inspiration.

Special Guest: David Fraser.

In this episode I interview PR measurement experts, Richard Bagnall and Darryl Sparey on their latest joint research that explores the effects PR has on attracting investors and gain funding for tech start-ups.

We delve into the research results including the types of business that see this success, the PR approach needed to gain these results and specifically how important a CEO or founder can be in the process.

This conversation is fascinating, not just because of the correlation the research found between PR and financial funding but because both Darryl and Richard have so much experience in this area of PR work (b2b and reputation) and importantly how to measure it.

Darryl is the MD and Co-Founder of performance-driven marketing and comms consultancy, Hard Numbers.

Richard is the co-managing partner of evaluation firm CARMA. He’s been awarded CIPR President’s medal for his service to PR, he won the AMEC Don Bartholomew Award and of course was also the chair of AMEC between 2016-2022 too.

Together they share wisdom and practical advice from their own experiences throughout the interview.

We cover;

• How they researched 64 startup unicorn businesses & analysed over 65,000 pieces of coverage
• We look at the sectors that have the most potential for funding
• Darryl shares tips on how best to work with busy senior leaders & why a ‘Get to text’ approach is best
• I challenge correlation vs causation in the results and Richard shares brilliant wisdom in how we can all apply these lessons to our own measurement plans.

Special Guests: Darryl Sparey and Richard Bagnall.

In this episode I delve into the power of music; how it shapes cultures, grows brands and can drive business.

I’m interviewing two people who’s deep understanding of music & culture has led them to work on brand partnership deals that have built reputation and grow businesses.

I’m joined by ex-Head of Global Music at Coca-Cola, Joe Belliotti and Rebecca Jolly who is a global business consultant focused on growing business through culture.

Former MD at Mixmag and now MD at new generation media company Woo from ITV, Rebecca has extensive music media experience and has teamed up with music brand partnership expert Joe Belliotti on new book ‘How Music Grows Brands’.

Its the first of its kind and is already an Amazon Best Seller, the book helps PR and marketing teams bring music into strategies and connect with audiences in a way that will drive business. It also helps all parties in the partnership navigate the modern music industry so artist, label, brand and media all benefit.

Our interview covers; How having music as part of your brand strategy is measurable, the difference music can make to a brand’s reputation and and how to navigate shared objectives.

Whether you’re in an agency, a brand team, label side or artist, I’m confident this episode will be hugely helpful!

Special Guests: Rebecca Jolly and joe belliotti .