PR Resolution podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Welcome to Episode One, Season Two of the PR Resolution Podcast. We're returning strong! In this episode Stella interviews Lucy Hart, Executive Strategy Director at The Romans; the most awarded PR agency in the industry. Often in PR there can be too much focus on media and not enough on the public. That's why this interview is so inspiring. Lucy talks about her passion for social anthropology and you can tell she means it. Its clear that her deep curiosity in people and the psychology of minds is one of the reasons her agency's campaigns make such an impact. Lucy explains how The Romans global team work with their clients to make the magic happen. She explains their ideation process and the tools and data that feeds each of their award-winning strategies. This is a special insight into an agency doing things differently. Special Guest: Lucy Hart .

In this episode I interview the person that has inspired me the most in my career; Gary Preston. Gary is the founder of CoverageBook, AnswerThePublic and the new (free) PR measurement tool ‘CoverageImpact’. We discuss how the last 15 years of working together in marketing and the last 10 years of Gary being a successful software founder in the PR industry has led to the launch of this new PR tool. In a time when PR budgets are being cut and in-house teams are admitting its often down to lack of confidence in measurement, Gary believes its time for a step-change in the way the industry showcases PR activity outcomes. He also believes this should be accessible to everyone and not just those that can afford high-level measurement and analytics support... Could this new free graph-generator tool that showcases PR outcomes be the answer to the PR industry’s biggest problem? Listen this interview and make your decision! www.CoverageImpact.com Special Guest: Gary Preston .

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 .

This episode lifts the lid on data literacy in one of there world’s most well-known agencies; H&K Strategies. I interview global head of data and analytics - Allison Spray alongside PR Agency One MD James Crawford. James and I co-wrote two chapters in a recent PRCA paper; ‘Data literacy in PR’. We looked at how to use tech to build confidence and improve data use as well as a chapter on how to build a ‘data culture’ in your team. It was the latter chapter that Allison Spray’s team at H&K was noted as a great example of hiring in data expertise alongside training PR practitioners. In this interview, we go behind the scenes and get into the detail. I find out how Allison has increased confidence in data across all H&K teams We reveal the data team’s interesting recruitment process and the mix of skills and sector-specific backgrounds Allison looks for. Allison and James share how they work with clients to gain the data and tech they need upfront Allison also shares tips on how to get started, whether you’re a small team looking to up-skill or planning to to build a data team within an agency Since the H&K data and analytics team has developed and established the agency has won the most amount of awards ever in a year. Coincidence? or does increasing PR confidence in data work? I’ll let you decide… Special Guest: Allison Spray.

In this episode I interview Amar Singh, ex-Evening Standard journalist turned content and digital marketing expert in sport and entertainment. Amar spent time at data-football specialists, Squawka. He worked in-house at Budweiser as Head of global football content and then at West Ham United where, as Head of Content, he helped the club grow its audience to a global level across multiple platforms. Now at MKTG as Vice President of content and communications, Amar and has team are experts at understanding fans on a deeper level and often on a large global scale. In our chat we explore the latest MKTG research ‘modern fan decoded’ and how a change in fan behaviour in the last few years has changed the sport and entertainment industry. We talk about the rise in sports professionals and football players specifically being more influential in 'cause awareness' and therefore brand's activity around them. We look at what generation of fans are more receptive to brand engagement and why the younger generation are demanding more, not just in their experience but how they expect the brand to operate and do better in the world. This interview is full of wisdom and practical tips on collecting insight and behaviour measurement too. You can watch the video of this interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/RqaB_uF1jZU Follow Amar's sports marketing newsletter and on Twitter: https://thesportsmarketeer.substack.com/ https://twitter.com/amarjourno Special Guest: Amar Singh.

AMEC Measurement Month is a time for everyone in Public Relations to level-up their knowledge in evaluation and measurement of comms. Held in November its the perfect time to learn and refresh your approach ready for new KPIs in a new year. There are just over 4 weeks of events and content releases from AMEC (Association of Measurement & Evaluation) members and most are available for free to all. In this special episode of the PR Resolution Podcast I interview the Global Managing Director of AMEC; Johna Burke. We share the best of the month and what not to miss! Johna explores common PR measurement challenges you might be facing and directs you to the best resource to fix it Johna shares the trends in measurement & highlights from AMEC award entries this year For the full calendar: https://amecorg.com/measurement-month/measurement-month-2022-events/ For further help on measurement go to: https://resolution.coveragebook.com/ Special Guest: Johna Burke .