Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Today we’re chatting to Nikki Collins. Nikki launched Earnies 1 year ago. She previously worked at W Communications for 9 years and before that at Frank.
Earnies has a fee income of £1m and clients include Taco Bell, Moet Hennessy, ASOS, Typhoo and Meatliquor.

The big news is: The PRmoment Awards are now open. You can download the entry from and take a look at this year's updated categories on the pr awards micro site.

Also,thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors the PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Nikki and PRmoment founder spoke about:

3 mins Consumer PR is doing OK. But it's not an easy market. Most consumer PR firms are either flat or circa 5-8% up year on year. Earnies has put on £1m revenue in 12 months from a standing start and won the likes of Taco Bell, Moet Hennessy, ASOS, Typhoo and Meatliquor. It seems to be outperforming the market when it comes to client acquisition. How come?

“Be it with the media, be it with clients, we’re constantly trying to meet people face to face.”

“We hired a creative director from day one. Which is quite a buck power move from day one. That’s given us creative firepower.”

“It (taking investment) allowed us to turbo charge our growth from day one. It allowed us to make investment hires. Do high profile pro bono work.”

8 mins How many leads has Earnies had from The Romans?

“The bigger agencies and the legacy agencies, want to diversify a lot of what they do…to incorporate different services. For us we’re focussed on earned media and coverage.”

“I believe in the art of PR and what that means.”

13 mins How is the consumer PR market at the moment?

“To have gone from zero to over £1 m in a year, it feels like it’s in a really positive place.”

14 mins Nikki talks about how she’s done an average of 2 pitches or tissues sessions a week for the last 12 months.

“I’ve tried to re-callibrate what a pitch looks like for us.”
“Our role is to look at the stories our clients want to tell.”
“We always do a tissue session, that is mandatory.”

19 mins In a pitch process how deep do Earnies go in the scope of creative ideas and articulation of those ideas?

“It’s a numbers game…We have so many pitches going on. Pitching is not a stressful process for us. We’ll do everything we can in the time that we have, we’re not up until midnight…if we lose something don’t get grumpy about it, we move on. We've probably got another pitch tomorrow.”

21 mins Who’s got equity in Earnies, Joe Sinclair or The Romans?

“We don’t share any of their resources, we don't use any of their creative or their account team.”

23 mins Have Earnies ever pitched against The Romans?

24 mins Nikki talks about Earnies work with Killed Women, which recently won an ESG Award.

28 mins Why did Nikki decide to launch her own biz when she came back from mat leave?

This is the latest in our Birthday series: Manifest is 15 years old!

Manifest has offices in the US (New York and LA), London, Australia and Sweden. The total group fee income is £8m. Interestingly £4 of that is now in the US, £3 in the UK and £1m divided between Sweden and Australia.

On this week’s show Alex reflects on 15 years on Manifest.

Before we start, the big news is that the PRmoment Awards 2025 are open.
All the categories, the updated entry form and the 2025 entry pack can be viewed on the awards microsite.

Also, thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors the PRCA.
Here’s a summary of what Alex and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discuss:

4 mins Alex divides the 15 years since he founded Manifest into 5 year segments.

“When we started we didn't have any clients, didn’t know how to run an agency, no board experience.”

“Brewdog was a star in the ascendance like no other in those first few years we worked with them. That then attracted big brands quite quickly. Everyone was asking how did you do that: The answer was ‘by having more influence that you give your agencies generally.’”

“In the early 5 years, one thing that was difficult was there was pressure of recruiting people and being responsible for their jobs.”

14.30 mins “We (Manifest) have changed the PR industry in lots of ways.”

16.30 mins Alex talks us through years 6 to 10 years of Manifest.

“One of the biggest transitions for me personality, was from founder creative to founder CEO. I’m not sure I’ve ever finished that transition.”

“Not many people are playing the long game, not in agency land anyway.”

23.30 mins How did Manifest’s mix of clients change in the 6-10 year phase compared to the 1-5 year stage?

“After 10 years we were around £5m…the number of people was the big difference.”

27 mins Alex on the last 5 years in Manifest, which includes the toughest part of Manifest's story.

“In the UK, our home market, economics have been a challenge. Brands have temporarily  pulled back from looking at things holistically.”

“There’s a quiet confidence in the PR industry at the moment. But no-one is getting cocky.”

31 mins Alex on why Manifest’s US bridgehead has worked. The US is now Manifest’s biggest market.

“We were able to look at the differences between the different markets and make them work for us.”

34 mins What offends Alex more, Manifest being called a consumer PR firm or an advertising firm?

36 mins Was 2022/23 Alex’s toughest time in business? What happened? And how did Manifest get back on track?

40 mins What are the most important skill types within Manifest now?

“I remember once being called an expert generalist.”

“You need specialist skills and generalist interest.”

42 mins Who have been the most important people in the Manifest story along the way? 

On the PRmoment Podcast this week, we’re talking to James Hewes, CEO of the PRCA. James joined the PRCA in January this year. The organisation had been in an uncertain state for a year or so because of the long-term illness and untimely passing of previous CEO Francis Ingham.

In 2023/4, the PRCA set off on a governance review and subsequently made significant changes to its structure, senior team and member offer. So, I thought it would be good to get James on the show to give an update on his plans for the PRCA and what he’s been up to for the first six months of his tenure.

The PRCA has a turnover of £3.8 m.

Before we start, our PR Masterclass: Agency Growth Forum has now launched. It’s on 12th November 2024, 8:30 am to 5:00 pm GMT. Both face-to-face and virtual tickets are available. The event is held in central London.

The final entry for the ESG and Sustainability Awards deadline is 27th of September.

Finally, thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors the PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what James and PRmoment founder discussed: 

2 mins What state was the PRCA as an organisation in when you started?

“We were probably doing too much stuff. There was a tendency to throw resources and activity at every single thing…rather than stopping and thinking what was the best value for members.”

4 mins Was the PRCA’s governance review worth it?

“The positive outcome of the governance review: there’s a lot more transparency…there’s more opportunity for members to get involved in a structured way.”

“It (the governance review) has simplified things dramatically.”

6 mins James updates us on the PRCA’s finances.

“The numbers were a bit tough for 2023, they’ll be a bit tough for 2024, but the organisation is on a much much more stable footing.”

“The organisation has been a break-even business for a very long time. In a world of great uncertainty, you need to be a bit better than that.”

“We are non-profit making with a good cash reserve…we’re cash generative.”

10 mins Are the PRCA’s membership numbers growing again?

11 mins Over the years, there have been stop-and-start rumours about the CIPR and the PRCA merging. Are there any active conversations on that side of things at the moment?

12 mins Where does James want to take the PRCA under his leadership?

19 mins The PRCA’s Articles of Association talk about growing the organisation internationally. James talks about how that has gone so far.

22 mins Who are the key people at the PRCA now?

23.30 mins What does James see as the most important issues affecting the PR sector currently?

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

On the show today is Jenny Halpern, founder and CEO of Halpern. Today we are talking about PR in the cost of living crisis.

Halpern has a fee income of £5m. It's a consumer PR firm based in London. It was founded in 1993 by Jenny.

Halpern is owned by The&Partnership, which is part owned by WPP.

Jenny sold to business in 2013 to what has become The &Partnership.

Clients include The Co-Op, Unilever and Headspace.

Don’t forget you can purchase your tickets for The PRmoment Awards here.

Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Jenny and I discussed:

2 mins Jenny gives us a brief insight into Halpern's story.

4 mins Jenny’s earn-out is long since finished - she talks about why she hasn’t exited the business.

5.30 mins The intersection of publicity, influencer marketing and consumer PR - have they all become the same thing?

“Affiliate  marketing has changed the nature of our game (PR) - that is the reason (PR) now sells more."

"Consumer PR has become a direct sales channel because of affiliate marketing.”

9 mins What is the role of a consumer PR firm in the influencer, influencer agency and brand triangle?

11.30 mins How impactful is media coverage on sales, compared to influencer channels?

18 mins How is the cost of living crisis impacting the PR and communications of brands?

23 mins What did the great resignation look like for PR firms?

26 mins What are the most popular training courses Halpern runs for its employees?

27 mins Jenny talks about 2 charities she has helped found - the Lady Garden Charity and Access Aspiration.

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Today we’re chatting with Dee Gibbs, founder of Liberty Communications. Liberty is an independent tech PR firm, with a fee income of £1.7 m and this year Liberty celebrates its 25 birthday! So we thought it would be good to get her on the show to chat about 25 years of agency ownership hindsight.

Do check out our latest webinar The implications of changing consumer digital behaviours for PR and communications professionals.

Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Dee and I discussed:

2 mins Dee talks about why she decided to set up Liberty 25 years ago.

3.30 mins Liberty has a fee income of £1.7 m after 25 years. Does Dee regret not growing the business more?

Dee’s 10 lessons of 25 years agency ownership hindsight:

5 mins Lesson 1: The pace of technology innovation and what this means for a technology PR business, in terms of the type of work and the client base.

8 mins Lesson 2: How CEOs are prioritising PR and how agencies need to demonstrate the benefits of great PR

10 mins Lesson 3: The future of the press release

13 mins Lesson 4: Hiring talent - making sure the talent matches the ethos of your agency.

15 mins Lesson 5: How social media has changed PR skill sets

20 mins Lesson 6: Changes in media networking and media relationships

21 mins Lesson 7: The rise of social influencers

22 minsLesson 8: Don’t lose your nerve!

25 mins Lesson 9: Remote working and embracing the way your team want to work.

28 mins Lesson 10: Does an PR independent firm needs to re-invent itself over 25 years

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Welcome to our March review of PR Pitches and mergers & acquisitions in the UK PR scene with Andrew Bloch.

Andrew is a co-founder and non-executive director at Frank PR and is now lead consultant - PR, Social, Content and Influencer at the new business consultancy firm AAR. He is also a partner at PCB Partners where he advises on buying and selling marketing services agencies.

Thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Tickets are now on sale for The PRmoment Awards in London on Thursday 20th April and in Manchester 25th April 2023.

2 mins Andrew gives us his PR pitch wins update

• News of wins for The Academy with Peroni and Marie Currie
• Maven wins The Perfume shop
• Forster wins Transform (a public/private partnership)
• Full Fat wins a raft of festival brief
• PHA win Lucozade, Ribena and Orangina
• MSL win Renault’s social media brief

10 mins Are PR firms winning more social media briefs from their social media agency peers?

“PR agency’s should always have an edge when it comes to generating engagement”

“There are noticeable differences in the way different (types) of agencies approach it from a strategic perspective”

“9/10 the creative I see coming out of PR agencies is right up there with the best in the world, it’s the other elements that sometimes let them down”

14 mins Andrew talks about what the future looks like for influencer marketing agencies

16 mins Andrew completes his review of this month’s pitch wins 

• Hope&Glory win Trainline
• The Romans win Candy Crush
• Tin Man wins Smart Energy GB

18 mins Andrew’s PR M&A update

• Finn Partners acquire Hyderus
• JIN buy Opinion Act
• News of Martin Loat’s exit from Propeller

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Today we’re chatting with Clarity CEO Sami McCabe. 

For PR industry observers, Clarity has been an interesting watch over the past few years. It’s had investment from Matthew Freud (which was bound to draw attention), it’s hired some expensive senior talent and it’s acquired 7 or 8 businesses.

So today we’re going to talk to Sami about the business, its acquisition and growth strategy and where he sees the future of an earned media consultancy.

Clarity is a $20m PR firm with about 200 employees and offices in London, Cornwall, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Amsterdam. It was founded in 2012.

Before we start do check out our latest webinar The intersection of PR and SEO 2023.

Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA. 

Here’s a summary of what Sami and I spoke about:

2 mins Sami updates us, briefly, about the story of Clarity so far.

3 mins Clarity has taken investment from an early stage. Matthew Freud invested in 2019 and institutional investors Thincats in 2022. Sami talks about why investors see PR firms as an attractive proposition.

“Not everyone is looking for a Unicorn”

6 mins Is Sami surprised more PR firms don't take external investment?

“If we were doing this buy-and-build strategy off our balance sheet and with cashflows, it would be a very slow and painful process but capital gives us the ability to go out to the market and acquire businesses much more quickly than would have been able to do otherwise.”

“Some deals take 2/3 months, other (deals) are much slower”

12 mins Sami identifies his top buyer priorities when Clarity is buying a PR firm.

16 mins How do you maximise the chances of success of the integration of 2 agencies

“It’s a change management process…we massively over-communicate!”

18 mins Sami lists the agencies Clarity has bought over the past few years.

21 mins In our pre-show chat, Sami reckoned Clarity will grow at 50% in 2023, so presumably, he intends to continue to go shopping?

22 mins Sami on how he intends to build Clarity into a $250 firm in 5 years.

“On an annual basis, we are looking to acquire $25m of revenue per year for the next 5 years”

24 mins Which vertical sectors are the investment priorities?

27 mins Clarity hired quite a few expensive senior people quite earlier in its story - how much of a risk was that and has it paid off?

29 mins Why Sami's move to the US, which initially didn’t work out as he had intended, led to the acquisitional strategy of Clarity.

From losing £500K of client fees in 3 weeks in Q2 2020 to selling Taylor Herring to Publicis in April 2021 - we get the inside track on perhaps the most tumultuous couple of years of any agency in recent history

On the show this week we talk to James Herring about the story of the last few years of Taylor Herring. 

In Feb 2020 things were looking rosy and James and Cath were no doubt planning their summer vacation in the South of France. Then in 3 weeks, their agency lost £500,000 in monthly fee income.

Today we talk to James about the turnaround job which resulted in Publicis buying Taylor Herring in April 2021 and how the agency reported a 40% increase in annual revenue in 2022 (£6.72m, up from £4.9m.) 

Recent client wins include Nintendo, Natwest, Iceland and McVities. The likes of Samsung, Easyjet and Disney are long-term clients.

On the show, today James and I will also talk about where he sees the future of earned media within integrated communications.

Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA.

2.30 mins This is a story that starts at the beginning of the pandemic. What did the pandemic do to Taylor Herring?

"For 6 weeks we spent quite a lot of time scratching our heads thinking about whether there was going to be a business at the end of all of this"

4 mins During the worst depts of COVID - how many people were on the team, so those not on furlough?

4.30 mins At the start of the pandemic, Taylor Herring lost £500K in monthly fees in 3 weeks. You’d spent nearly 20 years building Taylor Herring and seemed it seemed to be disintegrating before your eyes?

8.30 mins Why did the PR market come back much quicker than we all anticipated?

"We had a resoundingly good summer probably better than the summer of the year before…it was a boom summer in terms of spend"

9.30 mins Did Taylor Herring approach Publicis or did they approach you? 

"I was mowing the lawn at 5:30 pm on a Friday afternoon and Chris (McCafferty) called"

11 mins Why were they interested in a business that had so recently lost so many clients and fee income?

12 mins What was the due diligence process like?

"There were 2 bits to it, the informal due diligence process…and the harder end of the legal and financial due diligence - it was a full-time job for 8 weeks."

"Cath runs an extremely tight ship when it comes to the organisational side of things"

"The process took about 18 months in all"

14.30 mins Since the deal was done Taylor Herring’s fee income has increased by 40% - so the earn-out is going well? 

"Internally we called it the third runway, it was about putting that infrastructure in ahead of the growth"

"We've grown from 25 to 55 people over that 2-year period"

16.30 mins Is this a rare example of a PR acquisition that has worked?

"We've declined more pitches than we ever have before - because when you add up the money spent on those pitches it adds up to hundreds of thousands (of pounds) in terms of the hours"

"The blending of social and PR and content and brand and events means there is a much bigger playground"

19 mins Do Taylor Herring and MSL share many clients?

20 mins How does it feel for James not owning his own business anymore?

21 mins In our pre-show chat, James said prior to the sale to Publicis he'd "basically run Taylor Herring as a lifestyle business for 19 years” James talks us through what he meant by that.

23 mins What is the opportunity for PR-integrated briefs? 

"Integrated is the single biggest opportunity for a con

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Today we’re chatting with Rachel Allison founder and CEO of Axe & Saw about whether there is a tension between using inclusive communications that are able to reach a diverse audience and the most one size fits all approach in most marketing campaigns. 

We’ll also talk about what Gen Z and minority groups want and need from their PR employers.

Axe & Saw has 10 employees, a fee income of £600K and was founded in March 2021.

Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA. 

Here’s a summary of what Rachel and I discussed:

2 mins Is there a tension between inclusive communications and the one size fits all approach used in most marketing campaigns?

3 mins Communicators now have a proliferation of channels and multiple customer segments - does that mean multiple and varied bespoke marketing campaigns will become the norm or are scale and consistency still important?

“There is a need for both…talk about people on the fringes of your community”

6 mins To what extent do we all think and feel differently depending on our ethnicity and background?

8 mins How can a better understanding of these differences help brands better plan their communications?

9 mins An important part of this change is the need for the communications teams to include a diverse range of communicators. How are we doing?

12 mins What does success look like when it comes to the diversity of PR and communications?

15 mins What do minority groups need from their employers?

“Class can play a huge impact on whether you feel that your voice is heard”

23 mins There are plenty of stories of larger agencies hiring aggressively from smaller firms that have a diverse workforce. How much of a problem is that at the moment for smaller independent agency owners?

26 mins Rachel’s agency employees work 4 days a week. How does that work? Does Rachel employ 20% more people because the agency works a 4-day week?

30 mins What do Gen Z employees want from their employers?

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Welcome to the latest PRmoment Podcast with me Ben Smith. Today we’re catching up with David Hart. David has had over 20 years of experience working in corporate affairs - both in-house at the likes of Coca-Cola and SAB Miller and agency side at Fleishman Hillard and Burson Marsteller (now BCW.)

Before Christmas, I saw him posting about the lessons he wished he’d told his younger corporate affairs self and so we invited him onto the show to talk in more detail about his nine lessons of corporate affairs.

Before we start do check out our latest free-to-attend webinar The intersection of PR and SEO 2023.

Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA.

Here is a summary of what David and I discussed:

2 mins Why did David decide to write his 9 lessons of corporate affairs?

5 mins Lesson 1: Be bold, creative, take risks and help to sell

“When done right the power of comms is massive…it surprises me when some organisations don’t want to communicate”

8.30 mins Lesson 2: Be confident and bring your sixth sense of “perspective” to a crisis

11 mins Lesson 3: Make your job sustainable by understating the detail of ESG

14.30 mins Lesson 4: Don't just be a story writer

“The worst view of any business is the view from the window of the headquarters”

“Don’t just focus on the leaders…everyone within the business has a story to tell”

18 mins Lesson 5: Stop the press release

21 mins Lesson 6: Be like Jack Reacher - hope for the best; prepare for the worst!

“You're going to have a lot of difficult conversations with a lot of senior people”

“It’s about making sure the team is prepared (for a crisis)”

“There are 2 important pages in any crisis manual…”

26 mins Lesson 7: It’s an exciting time to work in Corporate Affairs - enjoy it

“I’m convinced more corporate affairs and communications professions… will in the future be CEOs - the ability to talk, the ability to engage, the ability to open and to lead discussions around business-critical issues are vitally important to that (the CEO) role“

30 mins Lesson 8:  Give yourself a break

“It (the corporate affairs role) can take over your life”

33 mins Lesson 9: Embrace change

“You want to be ahead of the innovation curve”

 Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast. 

Welcome to our February review of PR Pitches and mergers & acquisitions in the UK PR scene with Andrew Bloch.

 Andrew is a co-founder and non-executive director at Frank PR and is now Head of PR at the new business consultancy firm AAR. He is also a partner at PCB Partners where he advises on buying and selling marketing services agencies. 

Thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here are a few of the highlights that Andrew and I discussed:

2 mins News of big wins for Citypress with Siemens, The Romans with Heineken and BCWwith Swissair.

“The best corporate agencies think with a consumer lens”

PHA bag a couple of wins 

Andrew talks us through wins for Ranieri and Stir.

“It’s a never-ending journey between appointing specialists and consolidating agencies”

12 mins Finn Partners win Wagamama’s and Greater Palm Springs.

14 mins Good Relations wins the Kuoni account.

15 mins Andrew gives us his rundown of this month's PR M&A activity, including the big Markettiers deal.

16 mins Andrew explains the Social Chain deal.

18 mins Clarity continues its acquisition strategy by purchasing Australian agency Sefiani Communications.

20 mins Andrew talks about ANM’s vertical acquisition strategy.

21 mins Spider buy a Tiger!

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Today we’re chatting with 3 Monkeys Zeno UK managing director Jo Patterson about the encouraging trend of female leaders occupying more of the big PR agency roles in the UK.

When Jo and I talked about this in our pre-show chat it got us thinking and here is a non-exhaustive list of top female PR agency leaders in the UK:

We’ve got Jo at 3 Monkeys Zeno, Jo-ann Robertson at Ketchum, Jo Carr at Hope&Glory, Nicola Todd at Ogilvy PR, Pippa Arlow at Smarts, Ruth Kieran at Cirkle, Ruth Allcurch at WE, Sian Morgan at Cow, Sharon Bange at Kindred, Rebecca Grant at BCW, Ali Maynard at Manifest, Cath Taylor at Taylor Herring, Angie Moxham at The Fourth Angel, Kate Stevens at Axicom, Georgina Blizzard and Nicky Regonzonni at The PR Network, Mandy Sharp at Tin Man and Emma Kane at SEC Newgate, Fenella Gray at Porter Novelli and Bibi Hilton at Creative Access.

And to be clear there are loads more I could mention - but you get the point. There seem to be more female leaders in top agency positions than there have been in recent memory - perhaps than there has ever been before. And one of the things Jo and I will talk about on the show today is the potential reasons for that.

For those of you that are not aware 3 Monkeys Zeno has a fee income of £9m in the UK and 80 employees. Zeno started out as Edelman’s conflict shop but has grown into a global agency with a fee income of about $150 m. About 70% of Zeno’s revenues are in the US.

Jo became the UK MD of 3Monkeys Zeno in October 2020. Previously she was UK MD at Porter Novelli and a board director at Red.

Zeno bought 3 Monkeys in 2016. I always think of Zeno as a fairly new agency but for any PR agency history buffs out there, it was founded in 1998.

Before we start do check out our latest free-to-attend webinar “The State of Social 2023: Channel Disruption, Influencer Growth and The Great Data Integration Challenge.”

Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA. 

Here is a summary of what Jo and I discussed:

3 mins Jo talks about why we’re seeing more women PR agency CEOs.

“We’re (women) still only tracking at about 40% for leadership roles.”

7 mins Jo talks about the benefits of female leadership traits in a progressive working environment.

“It’s the people you surround yourself with… charismatic leaders who are prepared to stand up and shape their organisations…and having the freedom to do that.”

10 mins We’ve probably seen a rise of misogyny in society. There seems to be an upward trend of obnoxious macho culture.

13 mins How do we make sure that in PR we don’t lose those gains that we’ve made?

“Greater protection for the challenging life stages that people go through”

“Enshrining policies into governance”

“Openness and confidence go hand in hand”

17 mins Jo talks about the role models that have helped her in her career - Lesley Brend at Red, Fenella Gray at Porter Novelli and Barby Siegel at Zeno.

“I like working with good people regardless of gender”

20 mins How is the Zeno business doing both globally and in the UK?

“About 50% of our work now is global”

21 mins In the UK 3 Monkeys was known for its consumer work, how has that evolved since the acquisition?

23 mins You are the first leader of the business in London who wasn't part of the original 3 Monkeys team. Has that been an advantage or disadvantage for you do you think?

25 mins When an agency like Zeno buys an agency li

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

This is a bonus podcast where we chat about Rajar’s latest results. For those of you that aren’t aware of Rajar - it was established in 1992 and operates the single audience measurement system for the radio industry in the United Kingdom

Each quarter it publishes the listenership figures for UK radio and this offers a really interesting insight for PR people on how the UK public is engaging with this important channel. 

On the show today we have Alex Williamson, senior newsroom producer at Markettiers to talk us through the latest Rajar results for Q4 2022

Before we start do check out our latest free-to-attend webinar “The State of Social 2023: Channel Disruption, Influencer Growth and The Great Data Integration Challenge.”

Before we start, thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

1 min Alex gives us the highlights of this quarter's Rajar results.

2 mins 49.7 m people in the UK listen to the radio each week with an average of 20.3 hours per week

3 mins The BBC has a 47% share of radio listening, but which BBC stations are on the rise?

4 mins How did commercial radio do and which commercial stations are on the rise?

5 mins A discussion of the rise of targeted radio channels, including Boom Radio and The Greatest Hits Radio Network.

12 mins What are the opportunities for brands on the radio?

Today, we’re chatting with Billy Hamilton-Stent and Jon Lonsdale from Publicis Pro. For anyone who’s forgotten, the business was previously called Octopus Communications, and they sold to Publicis back in 2021. The firm specialises in B2B communications.

Jon and Billy got in touch because they’ve been on their own AI journey for Publicis Pro and on the basis that a rising tide lifts all boats, they are keen to share their experiences with their PR agency peers and what better way to do that than on the PRmoment Podcast.

Before we start, do check out the programme for our PR Masterclass: Agency Growth Forum. It’s on 12th November 2024, 8:30 am to 5:00 pm GMT. Both face-to-face and virtual tickets are available. The event is held in central London. Face to face tickets are expected to sell put, so if you do want to come along, don’t hang about. Testimonials from previous delegates on the PR Masterclasses microsite. It really is an incredible programme, a great atmosphere and well worth your time if you are an agency leader out there.

Also, the the final entry deadline the ESG Awards is 27th of September.

Thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors the PRCA.

3 mins AI exploded into our consciences in 2023, it's been a bit of a process for lots of people: from scared, to discovery, to embrace and disappointment. Billy and Jon talk about their AI journey.

“We set about how to build a management system using AI”

9 mins Has AI overpromised and underdelivered so far in PR?

“It’s quite easy to see what AI’s limitations are quite early on.”

“We didn’t go into this thinking our teams were going to be 10 x more productive by the summer.”

“We have created a management overlay on a set of large language models.”

12 mins Billy talks us through how Publicis Pro’s AI tool Otto does: “It's a tool that allows us to adapt, refine and be more effective as an agency. Its uses are manifold.”

“The people in Publicis Pro that use Otto most are the strategy team.”

“Train the AI around your clients. We’ve got Otto trained on tone of voice and (client) spokesperson.”

Because of the nature of the technology, you have to stop talking about it in the way you might conventional tech…it’s less linear…it’s collaborative.

“(AI is) less of a tech race and more a change management race.”

30 mins Will AI change the structure of PR firms?

31 mins. How has AI impacted PR roles differently at a junior, mid-level or senior level?

32 mins How can agencies integrate AI into their workflow?

“Pick one or two things you do a lot of and it (AI) can really help. Less is more.”

33 mins Did Otto cost a fortune to build?

34 mins Is AI going to improve the margins for PR businesses?

“Otto has added a percentage point to our profits this year.”

“Just think about how inefficient an agency can be.”

36 mins How can AI help PR firm's employees collaborate more effectively?

“Collaboration is a cultural point in an agency, not a technological one.”

37 mins Are the holding companies at an advantage when it comes to AI, in that they have the scale to build stuff?

39 mins Will AI ever do creative well?

42 mins Do external AI tools still get Jon and Billy excited?

On the show this week we talk to Howard Kosky, founder and CEO of Markettiers4DC.

Kosky founded Markettiers4DC in 1994. Clients include Rolls-Royce, Linkedin and Unilever. The business employs a team of 150 people in the UK and UAE

As many of our regular podcast listeners may know, last week Waterland Private Equity took a majority stake in Markettiers4DC for a reported amount of £50 million. The business has been well known for its broadcast PR credentials in the UK for decades but it’s grown significantly in the last couple of years - with the growth of its research business Censuswide and its digital production firm Through The I.

On the show today we’re going to talk to Howard about the deal and what it means for the future of Markettiers4DC and his role within the business. We’ll also be talking to Andrew Bloch from PCB partners about its role in the deal and how the valuation of Markettiers4DC was made.

Do check out our latest free-to-attend webinar “The State of Social 2023: Channel Disruption, Influencer Growth and The Great Data Integration Challenge.”

Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA. 

Here is a summary of what Howard and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:

2 mins Howard talks us through why he decided now was the right time to sell.

“We were very pleased with everyone’s reaction internally to the shift in behaviour (required) to working remotely…with that productivity increased, broadcast popularity increased, the use of technology in virtual events increased and the use of data increased.”

“Rather than sell the business, we looked for an investor, a backer.”

“In professional services consultancy businesses, if you can get the people management right, you can flourish”

6 mins Why Howard believes the culture of Markettiers4DC is better now than before the pandemic.

“It’s not work-life balance, it’s just life. It’s where work sits within the parameter of people’s lives.”

7 mins Howard talks us through the shape of the Marketteirs4DC group in terms of the venues and headcount.

8 mins The reported deal value is £50 million. Is that what Waterland bought the majority stake in Markettiers4DC for, or does that include their future investments in acquisitions? 

“They (Waterland) shared our ambition with the desire to create a war chest for us to match our M&A plan and ambition.” 

10 mins Is Howard trying to replicate the broad shape of the UK Markettiers4DC business in America?

“North America is a huge opportunity for us.”

10.30 mins The revenues of the Markettiers4DC group are about £30m and the business has grown by about £10m in revenue (30% or thereabouts) in the last 24 months. That’s going some, how did they do that?

13.30 mins Markettiers4DC have been purchased by a private equity group. Did they consider a trade sale?

15 mins As a sell-side advisor to the deal, Andrew Bloch from PCB partners talks us through what his role was in helping put the deal together.

17 mins The private equity debt market is a tough one at the moment, did that add a layer of complexity to the deal?

“We were probably at a stage where we had agreed on the numbers 3 months before…”

23 mins When you’re agreeing on the final number, is it basically a game of poker?

“Waterland is a buy and build specialist”

29 mins Howard talks us through the due diligence process and the psychometric tests!

“When these guys come in they put a periscope us every part of y

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Today we’re chatting with Andrea Hartley, founder and CEO of Skating Panda about the role of communications in organisations' approach to ESG.

For those of you that are not aware -  ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) is a set of standards measuring a business's impact on society, the environment, and how transparent and accountable its governance is.

Skating Panda is a social and environmental impact creative consultancy in London

Do check out our latest free-to-attend webinar “The State of Social 2023: Channel Disruption, Influencer Growth and The Great Data Integration Challenge.”

Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA. 

Here’s a summary of what Andrea and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed: 

2 mins What is the role of communications within the ESG strategy of most organisations?

5 mins Thinking about the internal ESG stakeholders within an organisation, how do you see the role of each? Who needs to own ESG within a firm?

8 mins Where is the intersection between the financial reporting investor relations part of ESG and the softer communications strategy?

8.30 mins How often is the central ESG role of the PR/comms team to simply PR the ESG report?

12 mins How PR and comms people can grow their ESG knowledge? Subscribe to PRmoment’s weekly ESG review here.

13 mins Is the PR/Comms team best placed to write a company’s ESG Report?

14 mins Take a look at some good ESG reports on the ESG Foundation’s website.

16 mins Andrea highlights the Global Reporting Initiative and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) as ESG frameworks for you to look at.

18 mins Andrea discusses the difficulties of greenwashing, ethics authenticity in the communications of ESG and purpose.

“We have planetary boundaries, there are boundaries to what our planet can do and we’ve got to remember that”

23 mins Andrea talks us why are the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals a useful way to understand, formulate and plan an organisation's approach to sustainability and ESG.

26 mins Much of the work that PR and marketing people do has the objective of persuading people of the need to buy more stuff. To what extent can the ever-increasing demand-led consumerisation of modern society correlate with the need for us all to consume less?

“The risk is to confuse increasing revenue with buying more stuff.”

Here is some more information about The ESG Awards.

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Today we’re chatting with the senior team at John Doe:  Pamela Scobbie, managing partner and CCO, Gin Trewhella, partner & group CEO and Lee Beattie Partner/Joint CEO.

We cover a few different themes. Wire was merged into John Doe almost 2 years ago to the day - so we’re going to talk about why 2 independent agencies decided to merge and what Pam, Lee and Magin learnt in that process.

Also, one of the interesting aspects of John Doe is that 33% of their employees across their Manchester, Glasgow and London offices are people of colour. So we’ll also talk about how the agency had been so successful at building a diverse workforce.

The third thing we’ll talk about is the type of work coming out of the agency. In our pre-show chat, I asked CCO Pam Scobbie which agency she wanted to model John Doe on, and her reply was Uncommon. So we’re going to talk about the type of work coming out of the firm.

John Doe is a 60-person creative PR firm with 3 offices in the UK. Lee and Pam founded Wire in 2009, which then merged with John Doe 2 years ago. Gin has been at John John Doe for 5 years

John Doe’s clients include Under Armour, Guinness, Captain Morgan, Instagram, Iron Brew and The Scottish Government. It has a fee income of £5.2 which has almost doubled since 2020 - so it is an agency on the rise.

Before we start the final entry deadline for the PRmoment Awards is on 27th January - check out PRmomentAwards.com for all the info you need, including downloading this year’s updated entry form.

Finally thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Pam, Lee, Gin and I discussed on the show:

3 mins The merger between Wire and John Doe was almost 2 years ago. Why did these two independent agencies merge?

5 mins Wire was the bigger form so why did they decide to keep the John Doe name?

12 mins What was the role of The PRmoment Podcast and Rachel Bell in the Wire/John Doe merger?

14 mins How do they merge 2 agency cultures together?

18 mins Why recruitment for PR talent is just as tough outside the M25 as it is in London.

20 mins 68% of the agency is from a working-class background, 33% of the firm's employees are people of colour, and 50% of the London office are people of colour. All PR firms want to build a diverse team - how come John Doe has been more successful in doing this than most?

“We will always prioritise non-white candidates for the first interview”

“It (finding non-white talent) gets easier as you go on, it becomes a virtuous circle. People want to work for agencies where it (diversity) is part of the agency’s DNA.”

“Diversity is a fundamental decision for agencies, it can’t be an optional extra. We (John Doe) don’t want to pick up a diversity award.”

“We did a campaign for Tinder at Pride. Almost the entire team that we put on that brief identified as queer…which means that work was just that much more authentic to the audience.”

“We’ve got clients (which) as part of their procurement process ask for statistics on diversity and change payment terms to 1-week payment instead of 2 months based on the relative diversity of your agency against the rest of their roster - that’s a really clear and interesting example of big businesses that are taking diversity seriously”

32 mins Are there are a bunch of consumer PR firms in the UK at the moment who are pushing each other hard, resulting in a very competitive, innovative market?

“You can see the ad agencies trying to catch up with the channel-agnostic perspective…most of them will still pitch a TV spot because that’s wh

This week on the PRmoment podcast I’m interviewing Greg Jones, European chief executive at Smarts.

Smarts has a fee income of approximately £12.5m and employs 150 people. It’s an agency headquartered in Belfast with offices in  London, New York and Edinburgh.   Smarts is owned by MSQ.

Greg started his career at Shine, before stints at Slice, M&C Saatchi, Splendid and finally back to Engine joining Mischief as creative director before getting the CEO job in 2019. 

He left Mischief to join Smarts last November.

If you haven’t already make sure you download the PRmoment Awards entry form, the deadline for entering is 27th Jan.

2 mins Why did Greg leave Mischief to join Smarts?

6 mins How successful have PR firms been building themselves into integrated PR firms?

“There are winners and losers, there are those agencies that have grasped the opportunities… and there are those that have been left behind, so much of it comes down to client opportunity.

Can you create the opportunity to broaden the type of work that you do for your clients beyond the box that some clients put you into and have you got the people in place to take advantage of those opportunities?”

7 mins What do we mean by (integrated) PR today?

8 mins The implications of the increased agency services on agency businesses.

10 mins What are the expertise areas a modern PR firm needs to have?

11 mins Is it better to have social first people or SEO first people working in a PR firm today - or is it better to have PR people who’ve gained experience within these specialisms?

“I would rather have experts in the room that I know will be able to answer the questions”

“Most agencies will have invested in a head of strategy or a head of creative, that’s almost become a client expectation these days.”

13 mins Most of the creative directors in PR have a PR background: “An earned first creative thinker is worth their weight in gold.”

“There’s not so much of a leap from being an advertising planner to being a PR planner”

16 mins Will community specialists be the next big job title we see emerge from PR firms?

17 mins The need for earned first internal comms specialists within PR firms.

“Internal comms has been largely overlooked…in terms of growth and futureproofing your agency it’s a great opportunity.”

20 mins The difficulty is making it all add up! Is there a fee level you need to get to to be able to bring in these specialists?

23 mins PR has been given a huge opportunity, it’s challenge is not to mess it up!

24 mins When going into an economic downturn agencies will need to get their attack and defence right: Greg talks us through what his Boxing analogy means in practice for PR agency owners.

25 mins How do integrate your offer? 

“It tends to get brought together by client opportunity.”

26 mins A discussion of the investment PR firms need to make in technology tools: As PR has broadened its offer across more channels, so has the need to purchase channel-specific analytics tools.

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Welcome to our January review of  PR Pitches and mergers & acquisitions in the UK PR scene with Andrew Bloch.

Andrew is a co-founder and non-executive director at Frank PR and is now Head of PR at the new business consultancy firm AAR. He is also a partner at PCB Partners where he advises on buying and selling marketing services agencies.

Before we start the final entry deadline for the PRmoment Awards is on 27th January - check out PRmomentAwards.com for all the info you need, including downloading this year’s updated entry form.

Finally thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Andrew and PRmoment podcast host Ben Smith discussed on the show:

2 mins Andrew gives us his rundown of this month's biggest pitch wins in UK PR, including:

• Premier PR and the Booker Prize
• Organic and The Apprentice (with a shout-out to Taylor Herring’s long-term work with the Apprentice.)
• Splendid and Flock win the Ginster's brief
• MHP and The Royal Mint (again with a shout-out to Hope&Glory’s work on the account over the last 10 years)
• H&K Strategies and Hills Pet Nutrition
• Capture PR win Gala and Foxy Bingo 
• Praytell and Sonus

“The average decision-making period for a decent size pitch is about 6 months.”

“A real lesson for me was that…the period between the pitch and the decision is so critical - show your hunger and determination.”

“It was a 30 agency pitch…that is a huge amount of agencies. You have to be respectful of the agencies' time… it's all about the size of the prize at the end.”

“Making sure the (pitch) process is fit for purpose, respectful and informed”

12 mins A discussion about whether the of trend clients consolidating the number of agencies they use will continue.

13 mins Pitch wise “this is the busiest January I can ever remember.”  Andrew talks us through why there is so much new business activity in the PR market at the moment.

15 mins A discussion about the Tulchan Teneo deal - which saw Teneo acquire UK financial PR specialist Tulchan in a reported £65m deal.

“Teneo gives Tulchan an international footprint.”

16 mins Andrew talks us through how the Tulchan deal is likely to be structured and how the ratio of profit to revenue is important in a valuation of a business.

“Tulchan is obviously a very, very well-run company.”

“We’re seeing consolidation, the importance of scale and building a global footprint”

“The right time to sell is not when you’ve reached your peak, it’s when you feel you’ve got great growth.”

21 mins We chat about Penta’s acquisition of Dublin-based corporate PR firm Hume Brophy.

“For Penta, this deal gives them global reach”

24 mins Andrew predicts that 2023 could have a lot of trade deals in the M&A space.

“There are a lot of big trade organisations and holding groups which are sitting on piles of cash and they need to spend it…to keep their share prices high (acquisitions will bring them growth.)”

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

This week we’re talking to George Hutchinson founder of River Effra Communications about the expanding area of risk methodology in crisis communication.

It’s an interesting area which takes another perspective on PR’s increasingly complex intersection with data.

The central concept is to use risk methodology to model and understand the reputational consequences for an organisation if it behaves in a particular way.

George set up River Effra earlier this year, previously he had senior roles at Teneo and BCW.

Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 are open for entries - do check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.com

Thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here is a summary of what George and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed on the show:

2 mins George talks us through the use of risk methodologies in crisis communications.

“The time has come for increased use of risk methodologies in crisis communications…to help potentially avoid the crisis in the first place.”

4 mins What are risk methodologies and how do you use them in crisis communications?

“Reputational risks are always secondary, they don’t come from no-where”

7 mins So is this approach about putting a “threat” cost on reputations by modelling various crisis communication scenarios?

“The idea that your corporate affairs director can somehow relationship your way out of a crisis just doesn’t work”

10 mins George suggests that communication and reputation crises are actually pretty predictable - Black Swan crises are rare.

12.30 mins What are the riskiest areas of crisis currently?

16 mins How cyber security crisis can become business critical.

17 mins Are poor CEO behaviour the most common reputation crisis for most large organisations?

“There are businesses that I have advised where the CEO has had to go…you can’t treat your leadership team differently from the rest of the organisation”

19.30 mins What are the short, medium and long-term implications of a reputational crisis?

22 mins What are the impacts of a reputational crisis on the different stakeholders? From the leadership, to employees, to customers…

“In a crisis, initially you feel under attack, which can lead to persecution bias…and you can only deal with a crisis if you’ve accepted the problem.”

“Your employees can feel disillusioned by the corporate’s response”

24 mins How quickly do customers desert an organisation over a reputational crisis?

26 mins What does the CEO want from their communications leader in a crisis?

28 mins What is the most common mistake people make in a corporate crisis?

“You see a lot of leaders do flight to fight”

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

This week we’re chatting with Zoe Ward Waring from Sunny Side Up and John Higginson from Higginson Strategy about how and why their respective organisations have become a BCorp.

On the show, we talk about what being a BCorp is all about and what the process to becoming BCorp looks like.

To put the discussion into some context in the UK there are 1375 BCorp organisations, in the US there are 2226 and globally there are 5711. So it’s predominantly a UK and US scheme.

21 UK PR agencies are a BCorp including Freud's, Third City, Don't Cry Wolf, Sunny Side Up, Higginson Strategy, Milk & Honey and Kindred.

Being a BCorp is about transparency and if you are interested you can view any organisation’s BCorp results on the BCorp website.

There is also a useful How to become a BCorp handbook that you can buy. 

The PRmoment Awards 2023 are now open for entries - do check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.com - there are lots of new categories this year and an updated entry form with added criteria. 

Thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Zoe, John and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discuss:

2 mins For anyone out there who is not aware of the BCorp scheme - Zoe and John explain what it is all about.

4 mins Why are organisations becoming BCorps?

7 mins How difficult is it to become a BCorp?

“Anyone can go on (the BCorp website) and begin to self-assess”

“Once you go through the process you get an assessment report”

“There are 5 sections: Governance, workers, community, environment and customers”

“It’s really important to get the whole business behind it.

16 mins John talks to us about the process to become a BCorp. 

18 mins How long does it take?

“I’d say (the application process) took about 100 hours”

20 mins Is the PRCA’s Consultancy Management Standard a useful starting point for a BCorp application?

20.30 mins How much does it cost to become a BCorp?

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Today we’re reviewing the biggest PR disasters of 2022 with crisis communication consultant Amanda Coleman. 

Just to confirm we’re talking today about events and disasters where communications played a key role, we’re not suggesting all of these examples are crises driven by poor PR - although in a number of the cases we talk about on this show a poor communications strategy made a bad situation worse!

Amanda is the author of the excellent book Crisis Communication Strategies which looks at how brands can prepare, control and recover from any kind of crisis.

Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 final entry deadline is on 27th January, check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.com for all the details.

Thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.
Here’s a summary of what Amanda and PRmoment Ben Smith founder spoke about:

2.30 mins January: Bad weather got the UK off to a bad start!

4 mins February saw the start of the war in Ukraine - Putin’s murderous slaughter of the Ukrainian people has been well documented but as ever, sadly, communications have played an important part in the war - both for government communicators and brand communicators.

5.30 mins A discussion of the multiple stakeholders President Zelensky has needed to communicate with during the war in Ukraine.

9 mins March saw the beginning of the Johnny Depp: Amber Heard legal case.

10 mins A chat about the infamous Will Smith Slap of Chris Rock.

11 mins April: A Kinder Egg product recall because of a salmonella outbreak, just a couple of weeks before Easter!

13 mins May: The Uvalde Texas shooting: an unimaginable act of evil and Amanda talks us through some of the communication responses of the police that could have been improved.

15 mins The Wagatha Christie trial began. The result came in October but while “there were no winners but there was definitely a loser.”

18 mins June: The Afghanistan earthquake with a 5.9 magnitude caused terrible destruction. Amanda talks about the “almost paralysed response of the West to a humanitarian disaster.”

20 mins The UK Summer and some extreme heat.

22 mins Boris finally went - the culmination of many months of one of the worst reputational scandals the UK has ever seen.

23 mins Sept: Did Liz Truss’s incompetence unwittingly rescue Boris’s reputation?

26 mins The Mini Budget: Is Kwasi Kwarteng that dangerous mix of being both arrogant and wrong?

27 mins How the Monkeypox outbreak benefitted from the communications lessons learnt during Covid.

28 mins The death of Her Majesty The Queen: An event long prepared for but that still took many people by surprise.

29.30 mins October Sunak takes over and he’s brought stability - “which was about all he was going to be able to do given the difficulty of the brief.”

31 mins November The cost of living crisis had been building since the summer but in November it came home.

32 mins How the increase in costs has shocked society.

33 mins The challenge of the energy providers: Will they lose consumer confidence when their financial results report huge profits?

“It feels like it’s building to something”

35 mins China Covid Protests: In unexpected news President Xi bows to public opinion!

36 mins December: A month like no other when it comes to Industrial action in the UK

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Welcome to our final PR Pitches and merger & acquisition trends in the UK PR scene with Andrew Bloch.

Andrew is a co-founder and non-executive director at Frank PR and is now head of PR at the new business consultancy firm AAR. He is also a partner at PCB Partners where he advises on buying and selling marketing services agencies.

Before we start the final entry deadline for the PRmoment Awards is on 27th January - check out PRmomentAwards.com for all the info you need.

Finally thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Andrew and PRmoment podcast host Ben Smith discussed on the show:

1.30 mins Andrew gives us news of a couple of tourist board wins for Lotus and PRM Global.

3 mins News of a big win for Smoking Gun PR.

4 mins Andrew brings news of The Academy’s Decathlon win.

5 mins Another win for Frank PR with Meridian Foods

5.30 mins Brands2Life win Vitality Insurance’s consumer brief.

6 mins Axicom win Sage’s multi-territory brief.

7 mins Andrew talks us through the M&A trends in the PR sector.
“The main challenge at the moment is debt financing”
“It's a positive (market) for trade deals”

10 mins News of British Growth Fund’s investment in Komi.

11 mins Born Social is acquired by Crowd.

15 mins SEC buys a Mexican agency to build its South American offer.

18 mins Tyto has bought Cuban Eight

19 mins Media Zoo has been on the acquisition trail again.

20 mins News of acquisitions for 4 Media Group and Jargon Group.

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Today we’re chatting with Shayoni Lynn, chief executive officer at Lynn Group about behavioural science theory and the implications of the application of behavioural in PR and communications.

Shayoni previously worked as a journalist and then in the in-house team of Cardiff University before launching Lynn Group in 2019.

Lynn has a turnover of £2.6m and 30 employees.

Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 are now open for entries - do check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.com. We’ve amassed a stellar line-up of judges this year - including 75 senior in-house communicators, who are amongst the most important buyers of public relations services in the UK.

Also, thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here is a summary of what Shayoni and Ben Smith founder discussed:

2 mins Shayoni gives us an intro to the basics of behavioural science theory.

“Behavior is an outcome, science is a process”

“Behavioral science helps unlock why people do what they do”

“There are lots of drivers for behaviour - psychological drivers, sociological environmental drivers…”

4.30 mins Is there an accepted theory of behavioural science?

6 mins Do different people react to behavioural science-based messages in a uniform way?

8 mins What are the implications of behavioural science theory on PR and communications?

9.30 mins Hasn’t PR always been about behaviour change?

“We have introduced a scientific approach to communications”

12 mins Would a better understanding of behavioural science change most PR and marketing campaigns?

14 mins Which area of marketing is the use of behavioural most widely applied?

16.30 mins How did Shayoni learn about behavioural science theory?

22.30 mins Is the tragic reality that the misinformation campaigns that we’ve seen over the last few years - such as Brexit, Trumpism, and Putin’s various attempts at propaganda, particularly inside Russia  - are using advanced behavioural science techniques more effectively than anyone else?

“Disinformation actors are very organised and sophisticated in their understanding of human behaviour and they are using behavioural science and psychological tactics really effectively and they are weaponising it to radicalise communities.”

25.30 mins Are social media algorithms in essence a misinformation campaign?

“The question is how do we get to the disinformation before the misinformation journey starts”

30 mins What behavioural science resources are out there for communications people listeners to read/watch/listen to?

On the PRmoment Podcast this week, we’re talking to Sandy Lindsay MBE about her career in PR. Sandy is the founder and chair of Tangerine Group & non-executive director of various organisations, including The Rugby Football League.

Sandy launched Tangerine 22 years ago, and the business has grown to have 120 employees with an income of over £7 million in fees. It became an employee-owned trust back in 2017, and it was one of the first PR firms to do so.

Before we start, our PR Masterclass: Agency Growth Forum has now launched. It’s on 12th November 2024, 8:30 am to 5:00 pm GMT. Both face-to-face and virtual tickets are available. The event is held in central London.

Also, the early entry for the ESG Awards deadline is the 13th of September, and the final entry deadline 27th of September.

Thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors the PRCA.

Here is a summary of what Sandy and PRmoment founder discussed:

4 mins Sandy launched Tangerine back in 2002. Did she always want to launch her own business?

5 mins Sandy talks us through why you left Harrison Cowley to launch Tangerine.

“PR is more ethical now than it used to be.”

8 mins The plan for Tangerine was always to run national accounts as a Manchester agency. Has that worked out?

9 mins Is there still a perception amongst some that large national accounts should be run out of a London baked agency?

11 mins Sandy’s previous employer, Harrison Cowley, was well regarded as a regional agency. Why did she not want to follow that model?

13 mins Who were Tangerine’s original clients? What type of work does the agency specialise in now?

14 mins What mistakes has Sandy made along the way?

“We launched the obligatory London office…it was a bloody nightmare…We just didn't need it.”

“It’s fine to make mistakes. If you're not, you’re not trying anything. You’re not taking risks.”

“Your comfort place is fabulous but nothing ever grows there.”

17 mins How do you know when to knock new launches on the head?

20 mins Sandy talks us through the growth of Tangerine. 

“We’ve never gone up and down (revenue-wise), but we have plateaued.”

23.30 mins Sandy on why Tangerine launched the digital marketing training provider Juice Academy.

“600 apprentices have been through the Juice Academy for over 13 years.”

26 mins How does the Juice Academy apprenticeship scheme work? 

30.30 mins Tangerine got into social early. Was it quick off the mark, or were the established PR agencies a bit slow?

32 mins What type of work do Tangerine do for Specsavers?

34 mins Sandy describes why Tangerine expanded significantly during the Covid period.

36 mins Who have been the key people in Tangerine’s story?

38 mins As a founder, when do you know it's time to hand the baton on to the next generation?

40 mins Sandy is a non-exec of the Rugby Football League. What makes a good non-exec?

“A non-exec gives you a helicopter view.”

“I would not only recommend agencies get them (non-execs), I would also recommend agency leaders do them.”

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Today we’re reviewing 2022 from the perspective of a PR agency with Warren Johnson, founder of W Communications. 

W has a fee income of £13m, offices in London New York and Singapore, Edinburgh, Kuala Lumpa, Los Angeles. It employs approximately 160 people globally and 126 in London. 

If Year in Review Podcasts are your type of thing then do have a listen to our Year in Communications show with Charlotte West, executive director of global corporate communications at Lenovo.

Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 early entry deadline is on 16th December, check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.com for all the details. If you miss the early deadline the final deadline for The PRmoment Awards is January 27th. 

Thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Warren and I discussed:

2 mins Despite what’s been a pretty tough year for most - PR firms had a pretty decent 2022 didn’t they?

3 mins Have there 

“H1 and H2 felt quite different!”

“(In H1) there were quite a few spurious pitches, second half we’ve opted not to pitch”

“I’m a cheerleader for the industry. There are some really smart people who work really hard (in PR)...and I don’t think you can say that about some of the adjacent marketing services industries.”

5 mins Has PR's moment arrived?

“Advertising is pretty shit now”

“Best idea wins. That suits everyone, including most importantly the client.”

“Taylor Herring’s Peter Crouch campaign was a content piece that just got bigger and bigger”

8 mins Has the dial moved in PR’s market share of the CMO's budget?

9 mins Warren talks us through the different phases of 2022 for PR agencies

“At the beginning of the year there were lots of pitches and not many of them went anywhere.”

“Q1 next year could be quite challenging…but hopefully a rosy summer!”

“It looks like the government’s done a half-decent job in terms of controlling inflation”

11 mins When will the agency financial map of 2023 start to unfold - when do you know when it’s going to be a good one or a bad one?

12.30 mins Are PR firms increasingly starting to compete against in-house teams?

13.30 mins How hot is the PR labour market at the moment?

“There was clearly a moment of madness where we had some average people being hocked around the industry by recruiters…I’m sure we all made some bad hires at that point out of desperation. I think now things have settled down. It feels like there is equilibrium.”

“There has been some mega wage inflation…we’ve now had time to calibrate that.”

“Our wage bill is £500-600K a month, if that jumps 20% - no more Christmas party!”

“We’ve had to have some difficult conversations with clients”

21 mins How is the cost of living crisis impacting PR employees?

22 mins Warren on Frankie Cory: “We’ve admired each other from afar.”

“I saw her as a kindred spirit…who will hustle as hard as I will”

Ben Smith: “So it’s tag team to grow W?”
Warren Johnson: “Yes” 

26 mins Are the independents still having a good time or are the holding groups biting back?

“We are taking money off the holding group but not often the PR division”

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Today we’re reviewing 2022: The Year in Communications with Charlotte West, executive director of global corporate communications at Lenovo.

Charlotte and PRmoment founder Ben Smith talk through the biggest events in PR and communications through 2022.

Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 early entry deadline is on 16th December, check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.com for all the details. The final entry deadline is 27th January.

Thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Charlotte and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:

1.30 mins January started with us all looking forward to 10 good years of economic growth as the economy roared out of the Covid lockdowns…

3 mins Did the tech sector, and Meta’s stock value loss of 26% in one day, give us a clue, even before the war started, that all was not looking quite as rosy as many of us had hoped?

6 mins Then February bought the war in Ukraine with Putin’s unprovoked, brutal attack on the people of Ukraine. The war has been a travesty for the innocent men, women and children of Ukraine.

The actions of Putin’s murderous regime have been well covered in the media and Charlotte give’s us a corporate communications perspective. What steps did communication directors of big global organisations need to take as a result of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine?

10 mins How the war in Ukraine changed the lens of all 2022 communication plans

12 mins Quite rightly the war in Ukraine dominated much of the new agenda for the rest of the year but thinking back to April and May - what else was on the agenda for in-house communicators?

13 mins The role of internal communications in developing post COVID working patterns

“Employees just wanted clarity”

14 mins And then in the summer, The UK’s politics got even more bonkers! Charlotte talks about the implications of this for in-house communicators at the time.

“It was like a soap opera playing out in real life…as comms leaders that becomes a huge distraction.”

“People became fed up with the news”

18 mins How did the chaos in UK politics change the decision making criteria for communication directors during that period?

19 mins September saw the death of her Majesty The Queen - which was a difficult balance for lots of brands in how to communicate during the period of mourning.

22.30 October brought talk of the coming recession - and again comms leaders had to adapt their communications.

24 mins Charlotte talks us through the Just Stop Oil climate change protests and their implications for communicators.

“Who’s next after the fossil fuel companies?”

27 mins Was November was the month of the celebrity CEO or the psychopath CEO?

“About 18 months ago a celebrity CEO was a good thing, it isn’t anymore!” Ben Smith

In the tech sector, some companies have become their leader, and that’s dangerous for many reasons…it’s an issue of good governance for a company.”

“The tech sector has been able to get away with a lot because it's interesting and exciting but regulation is coming….the organisations have to show good governance.”

30 mins Charlotte and Ben discuss the Elizabeth Holmes Theranos scandal - including whether she was treated differently because she was a woman - there are a lot of rogue male CEOs who did not end up in jail.

32.30 mins Was Cop 27 a bit of a damp squib?

“Every opportunity is not a PR moment - a better approach is to do it for wider good”

34 mins The comms issues of The World Cup: a global event with differing perspectives 

36 mins Charlotte’s end-of-year reflecti

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Today we’re talking about career learning and professional development in PR. We’re going to chat about the differences between career education and career training. We’ll discuss why PR (in the UK at least) seems to value PR experience over education  - and ask whether this is a problem.

We’ll also talk about the available courses for PR and comms professionals that do want to do more to educate themselves about communications theory and practice.

A theme of this podcast is that if you work in PR and communications - an understanding of the different communications theories is probably only going to make you better at your job, so it’s surprising that more people don’t take part in these courses.

To be clear, this is not going to be a podcast suggesting that PR is/isn’t a profession and we won’t try and suggest that to work in PR you must be professionally qualified - frankly, that’s a debate here at PRmoment towers we are less sympathetic with but it’s definitely one for another day! 

This podcast is about why more PR people don’t want to educate themselves about the wide body of public relations, communications and marketing academic theory and best practice.

On the show to discuss this are Tasos Theofilou, principal academic in Public Relations at Bournemouth University and Dr Heather Yaxley, Qualified educator/examiner CIPR PR Dip, Public Affairs & Digital Comms Specialist Diplomas.

The topic for this podcast is a bit of a follow-up from a previous podcast we did on “What happened to PR degrees?”

Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 are now open for entries - do check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.com for all the info you need.

Thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here is a summary of what Heather, Tasos and the PRmoment founder Ben Smith spoke about on the show.

3 mins A discussion about what is the best way to be an outstanding PR and communications professional - through experience or through education?

“Education is like rocket fuel (for your career) it can enhance and accelerate your abilities but it also adds a level - the ability to answer the question why not just what you to.”

“Education gives you a different mindset”

4.30 What is the difference between in-career PR training and in-career PR education? 

5.30 mins Why don’t more people take the time in their careers to study PR and comms theory as part of their professional development?

9 mins What types of courses are available for in-career education? A summary of the PRCA, CIPR and other in-career PR education courses that are available.

11 mins An explanation of

• What is a post-graduate qualification
• The CIPR/PRCA foundation course
• The CIPR/PRCA advanced certificate
• The CIPR/PRCA diplomas
• The CIPR Chartered qualification

16 mins A discussion of the low numbers of people currently taking a PR in career qualification: 

About 350 people took part in the PR advanced certificates and PR diplomas compared to 12,500 people who are “currently studying” CIM qualifications.

“It’s become expected that if you work in marketing you study the CIM qualifications.”

20.30 mins Are the in-career PR education courses currently available any good?

21 mins A discussion about why there are so few people taking in-career education courses in PR. Do people not know about them? Do they not have time to study? Are they too expensive? Do they not believe that PR academic

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

This week we’re chatting to Heather Kernahan, global chief executive officer of, Hotwire about her career story. Hotwire has 500 employees globally and about 90 in London.  It has offices in 11 countries.

Heather joined Hotwire when it acquired Eastwick in 2016. She became CEO in 2021 following Barbara Bates’ move to the holding company Enero. Before joining Eastwick Heather had a senior comms role at Autodesk in the US.

Hotwire was founded in 2000 and was acquired by Enero in 2007. It has recently been on something of an acquisition trail: purchasing 3 B2B sales and marketing firms in the last 18 months or so: McDonald Butler Associates in the UK, BGetIT in Asia and San Francisco-based ROI DNA.

Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 are now open for entries - do check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.com, including a bunch of new categories and make sure you download the new entry form because there are a number of changes to that for 2023.

Thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Heather welcome to the show

2 mins As the CEO of arguably the world’s largest Tech PR firm - Heather talks us through the state of the technology PR economy currently

“We see the pipeline is still strong…but people are looking cautiously at the investments for next year (2023)”

“There are different segments of tech, there are resilient segments of tech.”

6 mins Heather talks us through the state of the US PR market at the moment. Is the upward trend of communications the same in the US as it is in the UK?

“We’re not going to see PR and comms backtrack out of the board room…executives need us”

8 mins Are Hotwire making more acquisitions than other PR and communications firms of its size?

8.30 mins Why has Hotwire bought 3 B2B marketing firms in the last 18 months?

9.30 mins Does Hotwire still see itself as a PR and communications firm?

10 mins Will Hotwire will be the last UK-founded PR firm to have a global presence?

12 mins Why did Heather study for an MBA and how has her career benefitted from it? What did studying for an MBA involve and how long did it take?

16 mins Why Heather decided to study Sustainable Enterprise for her MBA

“I use my MBA every single day for my job.”

“You're being trained to be a chief executive, so you better think at that level”

20 mins How much does it cost to do an MBA?

21 mins PR is a lot more business orientated than it was 20 years ago but we’ve got a long way to go, we must keep pushing.

“Agency versus In-house is breadth versus depth”

22 mins Heather talks us through how she went from an employee of the acquired business (Eastwick) to becoming CEO of the acquiring business Hotwire.

26 mins What are a tech PR firm's biggest challenges at the moment?

28 mins How big does Hotwire want to get? Does the business look at Edelman and say that’s where we want to get to?

30 mins Heather credits Canadian paternity leave laws for enabling her family the flexibility which resulted in her husband staying at home to look after the children while Heather concentrated on her career.

“He’s raised the kids…It’s really important to have an open conversation with your partner as your thinking about your careers - what’s this going to look like for us over time as we both add more responsibilities at home but also have aspirations at work.”

“Canada is progressive in their parental policies, so that gave us options”

31 mins Heather talks us through her 3 months in London - giving her perspectives as an outsider on the political changes over the past few months and the London PR scene!

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Today we’re chatting to Mark Borkowski about some of the biggest stories in the media recently.

For those who don’t know, Mark’s had a stellar PR career, starting as a publicist in the theatre and running Borkowski PR for something like 32 years.

Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 early entry deadline is on 16th December, check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.com for all the details.

Thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Mark and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:

1.30 mins Mark laments the lack of curiosity in the news cycle currently.

2.30 mins Mark discusses what will happen to PR and to journalism if Twitter fails.

“We are getting a sense of just how important Twitter is to PR and the media”

7 mins  Does Mark look at the Elon Musk publicity machine in awe?

“Every generation throws up one enormous personality who is bigger than the media that wants to bring him down!”

“Certain people have that ‘stuff’ - the power to understand who his key audience is…and understand how to make money”

9.30 mins What has Mark made of Matt Hancock’s latest reinvention attempt on I’m A Celebrity? 

“The winners out of this are ITV…this is a man in search of a career…he knows his political career is over”

“The power of these programmes is in the (social media) edit”

“The people who come out of I’m a Celeb well are usually comedians or much younger people, more telegenic individuals, who have line and length”

“The audience hasn’t changed their minds about him…he’ll be a low-rate Micheal Portillo. There’s always Panto!”

13 mins Mark gives his perspective about David Beckham and Qatar - has the shine come off Golden Balls?

17 mins Is Joe Lycett better at PR than he is at comedy?

“It was so authentic, it was so well thought through…it captured the media for a good 10-day period”

19 mins Does Mark think that every creative media stunt idea has now been done to death?

“The news agenda and societal and cultural changes refresh the ideas of what a stunt might look like in a specific age. The motivations never change…but it’s the cultural context and where society is both politically and socially that can drive the success of a stunt.”

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

This week we’re chatting to Rick Guttridge, founder of Smoking Gun about his career story in public relations and how he went from a procurement officer for the Royal Mail to PR agency CEO.

Smoking Gun is a £1.5 m PR firm based in Manchester, clients include Interflora, the NHS and Alton Towers. It has 15 employees.

Previously Rick worked for Brazen and Connectpoint PR. He and his wife Vanessa founded Smoking Gun in 2010.

Smoking Gun has had an interesting few years, it was impacted by both Brexit and Covid and Ricks going to talk us through that agency journey on the show today.

And do check out the home page of PRmoment for our latest webinars, including The State of Social Media Report.

Finally, thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Rick, welcome to the show:

1 min Rick talks us through what has been an up-and-down-and-up couple of years for Smoking Gun through Brexit and the Covid period was for an independent.

“We’re living in a world of constant turmoil…you need medication after watching the nightly news”

“Having to let good people go is the hardest part of the job”

“Feb 2020 was our biggest ever month…and then Covid came along”

“How long will the cash last - there’s a horizon here for when the business will fold”

12 mins Did the PR business come back slower in Manchester than in London? 

13 mins What’ shape of the business now?

“Sometimes everything goes against you, sometimes everything goes for you”

14 mins Rick updates us on the runners and riders in the Manchester PR scene

17 mins How the last 10 years has seen a changing of the guard of the biggest PR agencies in Manchester.

“I reckon there’s about a third of the number of staff journalists around that there were when I started 20 years ago”

21 mins Rick talks us through how he made the jump from procurement to PR!

28 mins A discussion of whether too many in-house PRs still see PR as a media relations-only discipline.

“The bigger the organisation the more segregation there is. We really need to break down those internal silos”

30 mins Rick talks about an increasing trend of big pitches wanting to include a number of non-London-based agencies.

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

This week we’re chatting to Victoria Dean, chief executive officer of Portland about her career story. Portland has 350 employees globally and 270 in London.

It has offices in Brussels, Paris, Berlin, Washington, Nairobi, Singapore, Doha and London.

Victoria’s career has been a fascinating journey - she has spent the majority of her career working for The British and Commonwealth Foreign Office, in various non-communications roles including head of the political team at the British Embassy, Washington, the British High Commissioner of Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean and the head of strategic finance.

She was also the global head of public policy at Google before taking up the global CEO role at Portland earlier this year.

On the show today we’re going to talk to Victoria about her time at The British and Commonwealth Foreign Office and Google, she’ll be talking to us about what a modern public policy role looks like and how it overlaps with the world of public relations and communications.

Victoria will also no doubt tell us why she left what I would say is one of the top 5 public policy roles globally to return to Portland earlier this year.

Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 are now open for entries - do check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.com

Thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Victoria and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:

2.30 mins Victoria worked in The Foreign and Commonwealth Office for the British Government for 16 years - what are the good and bad things about working for the government?

“When there’s less money about you have to be more thoughtful about recognition”
“The other big thing about working for the government is - Politics… You have to be aware of that and be apolitical”

“The very best secretary of state I worked for was William Hague”

7 mins Is there a sweet spot about how long a secretary of state should serve?

8.30 mins Victoria has had multiple roles in The Foreign and Commonwealth Office - what were her favourites and how did these prepare her for a second career in communications and public relations?

“Diplomacy is PR”

9.30 mins Victoria’s first comms role was as the UK Government’s spokesperson for Europe in Brussels for the Blair government.

13 mins Victoria talks about her time as the High Commissioner of Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean.

15 mins Victoria left her role as the  High Commissioner of Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean because she had lots of experience in Brussels and the UK government was in a panic as a result of the Brexit referendum - she was the 3rd employee of the Department for Exiting the European Union

“For the first time in my career, the advise I was giving was unwanted and not really listened to”

“In papers, I wrote in those early days ‘the situation with Northern Island will be very difficult and here we are 7 years later”

19 mins Victoria reveals the reason she left the Foreign Office was that she feared the UK would make a mess of Brexit.

19.30 mins Victoria talks about her first stint at Portland - learning the ropes of agency life.

20 mins Victoria talks about her time as global head of public policy at Google.
“The reality is there is no business operating anywhere in the world that isn’t increasingly affected impacted by government, politics, regulation (or) legislation.”

“How we, collectively, regulate the internet is one of the biggest questions of our time"

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Here’s the latest of our bonus pod series where I chat to Andrew Bloch about PR Pitches and merger & acquisition trends in the UK PR scene.

Andrew is a co-founder and non-executive director at Frank PR and is now Head of PR at the new business consultancy firm AAR. He is also a partner at PCB Partners where he advises on buying and selling marketing services agencies.

Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 are now open for entries - do check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.com for all the info you need.

Finally thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Andrew and I discussed:

2 mins Andrew gives us his PR pitch wins update with wins for Ketchum, Tin Man, Splendid, Ready 10, Coolr, Four, Talker Taylor, Good Relations, PHA, and Tigerbond.

5 mins Andrew gives his suggestions on how many agencies in-house teams should include in a pitch.

11 mins “The M&A market is volatile at the moment but there are still deals being done”

“Debt is difficult to raise (in the private equity market) due to interest rate rises and this means people are being cautious and that is scuppering some deals and some are taking longer”

“On the trade side (of M&A activity) the trend of building deep specialisms is continuing”

12 mins M&A updates include news from Prime Global’s acquisition of Earthwear and RSK’s acquisition of Copper

13 mins Andrew updates us on a couple of PR MBOs at Rise at Seven and BECG

14 mins A discussion of Carrie Rose and Stephen Kenwright’s story of growth at Rise at Seven and how it’s come to an end.

16 mins Andrew talks about Lord Suger and Mark Wright’s sale of Clime Online for an amount reputed to be around £10 m

17 mins News of Clarity’s acquisition of Political Intelligence

18 mins A wrap-up of why Next Fifteen’s acquisition of M&C Saatchi failed

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Today we’re talking about PR degrees - or rather the lack of them! To confirm there are still a number of excellent PR degree courses available but there are far fewer PR undergraduate places in the UK than there were 10 years ago.

On the show this week we look into the reasons behind this, asking whether it is a UK-centric trend and whether it’s a decline that can be reversed.

Over the past 5-10 years we’ve seen a massive reduction in the number of undergraduate PR degree places available and as a result, this has seen a big reduction in the number of PR degree graduates coming into PR.

Before we start - just to flag, no one is suggesting that PR degrees should be the only way into PR - that would be ridiculous - but today we’re going to look into the reasons why PR degrees in the UK are less popular than they were and whether this is a trend that can be turned around.

Without pointing out the obvious, while PR degrees have become less popular, PR has grown significantly in the last 5-10 years and this has led to a significant increase in demand in the PR labour market.

This increased demand for PR talent has outstripped supply, leading to a shortage of talent being the number one growth limiting factor for most PR firms and in-house teams.

On the show to discuss this are Tasos Theofilou, principal academic in Public Relations at Bournemouth University, Dr Martina Topic, course leader, Public Relations with Journalism at Leeds Beckett University and Dr Sarah Bowman, senior lecturer, Organisational Communications at Northumbria University

Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 are now open for entries - do check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.com for all the info you need.

Thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.
Here’s a summary of what Tasos, Sarah, Martina and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed.

3 mins Is it right to say that there are fewer PR degrees in the UK now than at any point in the last 15 years?

“There are not many pure PR degrees around anymore but there are 232 courses from 59 Universities which have “PR” in the title.”

4 mins What are the reasons behind the decreasing number of pure PR undergraduate courses?

“I blame the increasing fees for the decrease in PR degrees”

5 mins Many PR students didn’t really know what PR was… that lack of awareness has become more of a problem now students have to pay for their course.

6 mins “Schools are the ones that don’t recognise PR…our employment rates are nearly 100% but you can’t study (a subject) that you don’t know is there.”

10 mins For the merged degrees - what is the ratio between PR and the other elements of the course?

12 mins Did UK PR try and kill the PR degree?

“We experience a love and hate relationship with the (PR) industry sometimes”

“In every field, you have people who have very strong opinions and they shout the loudest! But I wouldn't say the majority of the industry is against (PR) education, I don't think that’s true ”

“One thing that is missing from the industry is engagement with events for young people to come and learn - that is what PRSA in America is doing well.”

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

This week we’re chatting about the role of modern corporate affairs with Sian O'Keefe, vice president of corporate affairs, Mars Wrigley Europe, Central Eurasia, Belarus & Turkey.

It’s a corporate affairs special this week and Sian and I talked about the increased breadth and importance of the corporate affairs role within large businesses.

We’ll discuss the reasons behind this change, where the most important intersections are within a business for a corporate affairs leader and how ESG and a rapidly changing stakeholder environment have increased the demands on most corporate affairs teams.

Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 are now open for entries - do check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.com

Thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Sian and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:

1.30 mins Sian talks us through what she sees as the role of modern corporate affairs.

“The role of corporate affairs has changed…our stakeholders expect us to communicate regularly and they want to engage with us regularly…through a variety of different channels and media.”

“Our job is about accessing the external landscape”

4.30 mins What are the key responsibilities of a corporate affairs leader?

2 mins How much has corporate affairs changed in the last few years?

6.30mins How often does the corporate affairs team need to interact with the CEO and on what type of issues?

7 mins What are the other key connections within a business for the corporate affairs director?

“Spot the opportunities to tell our stories”

“People come up with a lot of great ideas but time and resources are not infinite”

10 mins How has the increased importance of ESG changed the priorities of the corporate affairs role?

“Mars’ corporate purpose: The world we want tomorrow starts with how we do business today”

12 mins Sian gives us an insight into how Mars has tried to bring a purpose to chewing gum because it's not the most obvious purpose-lead product.

“The public look to organisations to have a purpose and play a positive role…it can get quite complicated if every brand has a purpose”

15.30 mins What range of skills do you need in a modern corporate affairs department?

“The critical skills in being successful in corporate affairs are adaptability, resilience, innate curiosity…and business acumen.”

16 mins What does the average day in corporate affairs look like, how do you bring a process to the role?

17.30 mins What does a corporate affairs leader want from their agency?

19 mins A discussion about whether the central reason public relations has grown so much over the past 10 years is that stakeholder engagement has become more important.

20.30 mins Do organisations have a choice about whether they will engage with stakeholders, or has it become a cost of doing business?

On the PRmoment Podcast this week, we’re talking to Natasha Hill, MD of Bottle PR.

Recently Bottle has put together research looking at how PR can contribute throughout the sales funnel. Today Natasha will give us an insight into that research and we’ll talk through some examples of the type of contribution PR can make at the top, middle and bottom of an organisation’s sales funnel.

Before we start, our PR Masterclass: Agency Growth Forum has now launched. It’s on 12th November 2024, 8:30 am to 5:00 pm GMT. Both face-to-face and virtual tickets are available. The event is held in central London.

Thanks so much to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors the PRCA.

Here is a summary of what Natasha talked about on the show:

3 mins Natasha talks us through Bottle’s version of the sales funnel from a public relations perspective.

5 mins Bottle’s 3 F funnel: Fame, Findability and Fulfillment.

7 mins How do you measure the impact of the various channels on the funnel in an integrated campaign? 

10 mins How can PR contribute at different stages of the funnel - so top, middle and bottom?

What type of content works at different stages of the sales funnel?

16 mins What the KPIs do you recommend at each stage of the sales funnel?

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

This week we’ve put in a bonus podcast where we chat about Rajar’s latest results. For those of you that aren’t aware of Rajar - it was established in 1992 and operates the single audience measurement system for the radio industry in the United Kingdom

Each quarter they publish the listenership figures for UK radio and this offers a really interesting insight for PR people on how the UK public is engaging with this important channel. 

On the show today we have Howard Kosky, CEO of markettiers to talk us through the latest Rajar results.

Before we start the PRmoment Awards 2023 are now open for entries - do check out the awards site PRmomentAwards.com

Thanks to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Howard and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:

1.30 mins A record 49.7 million adults listen to the radio every week, 89% of the UK adult population, over 1 billion radio hours consumed each week and the average listener listens to 20.6 hours of live radio each week.

3 mins 63% of people are listening to the radio at home, 23% of people are listening in the car and 14% at work or in places like the gym.

4 mins How technology and changes in consumers working practices post-COVID have evolved people’s radio listening habits.

4.30 min 13% of people listen to the radio through a smart speaker and 23% listen to the radio via online listening (streaming), DAB has dropped to 39%, Apps 10.2%

“The technology is driving the trend”

7.30 mins What is the opportunity for PR people in the modern radio market?

“There are more choices a listener, which means the opportunity to reach a more indexed audience is greater from a PR and communications perspective but it means more effort.”

“If you’re trying to mobilise a behaviour at a local level or at an age demographic or a profile demographic then the ability to reach tight audience group is absolutely there.”

 9.30 mins What are the main content opportunities for PR people within radio?

“They are radio stations first but increasingly multimedia platforms”

13 mins Commercial radio has had a phenomenal year - “all commercial” radio is up from 36.8 million to 38.2 million, and local commercial radio is up from 24.4 million to 25.8 million.

“I take my hat off to how the likes of Global and Bauer have implemented a strategy…to give listeners choice…They have recognised there is an opportunity to provide targeted programming output to reach a particular audience group”

19 mins Why the BBC is trying to drop the age bracket of Radio 2 by not renewing the contracts of the likes of Steve Wright.

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

This week we’re chatting to Charles Tattersall, chief executive of Citypress about why he decided to sell his business to his employees through an employee-owned trust, rather than via an acquisition.

In the show today we’re going to tell you agency owners out there what you need to know about taking your agency business into employee ownership. Charles will talk us through why he thinks agency owners should sell their business to their employees and how you can do it.

For background, Citypress is an £11m fee income PR firm which was independently owned and became an employee-owned trust in 2021.

Before we start do check out the home page of PRmoment for our latest webinars, including The intersection of Data, Insight and PR Planning and The State of Social Media 2022.

And thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what  and PRmoment founder discussed:

2 mins Charles talks us through what is an employee-owned trust and how they work.

3.30 mins Who controls an employee-owned trust and how much do the original owners of the business have to pass on to the trust?

“The previous shareholders cannot form the majority of the board on the trust”

5 mins “A trust is the steward of ownership, there are no direct shareholders…it’s a limited company that has directors but its article of association means it’s not owned by anyone, it exists for the employees of the business.”

8 mins A discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the owner selling your business to an employee-owned trust compared to an exit via acquisition (both a trade sale and a private equity sale).

“The challenge with an MBO is ultimately finance…that a big barrier for a lot of organisations”

With an EOT “effectively the funding for the sale comes from future profits”

11 mins Why Charles is amazed that more PR agency owners haven’t gone the employee-owned trust route.

“One of the incentives is capital gains tax relieve on the sale.”

11.30 mins If you want more information about EOTs, The Employee Ownership Organisation is a good place to start. 

12 mins  While the advantages of an EOT exit are that it takes the risk and the uncertainty of the sale out of the for the owners of a business, are business owners going to get the same amount of money from an EOT exit compared to an exit via acquisition?

“It depends Ben…it comes down to supply and demand”

“If you run a business you always face a dilemma of what your potential exit is”

“There are a small minority of businesses that are attractive to an outside acquirer”

18 minsWhere does the money come from to form an employee-owned trust?

“There are 3 types of payment our people get - their salary, their performance bonus based on how the business performs each year and when it comes to the profitability of the company, a certain proportion of the profits go to the trust and that is distributed to the people who are working for the business in that given year…so there’s a huge incentive for employees.”

21 mins What is the tax incentive from the UK government or business owners to give their businesses to their employees paid from future profits?

“It’s actually quite liberating (for me) not to be a majority shareholder of the company”

This week we’re chatting to Sheeraz Gulsher, EMEA communications, Snap and co-founder of People Like Us, about whether PR is making any progress in its quest to be more diverse and represent the audience that it aspires to communicate with.

Before we start, do check out the home page of PRmoment for our latest webinars, including The intersection of Data, Insight and PR Planning and The State of Social Media Marketing Report.

1 min Sheeraz tells us about People Like Us and its next event.

4 mins Sheeraz talks us through other communities and programmes for minority groups in PR, namely: BMEPR Pros, The Blueprint, The Taylor Bennett Foundation and The Black Comms Network.

5 mins Sheeraz talks us through how it feels to be part of a minority group and work in public relations.

“There were points when I felt so alone and inadequate.”

8 mins Sheeraz gives us an insight into what the barriers are for people working in PR from Black, Asian, mixed race and minority ethnic people working in comms.

9 mins “We want to show people how brilliant we are”

10 mins How can PR employers become better at employing people from Black, Asian, mixed race and minoritised ethnic backgrounds.

“The Taylor Bennett Foundation is a hugely important organisation… that supports young ethnic minority people getting into comms”

“Having that feeling that you’re part of something - that means the world”

12 mins Sheeraz talks about the work of the Brixton Finishing School as an organisation promoting young diverse talent.

13 mins What are the common themes for PR employers who are not attracting enough people from minority groups?

“No one cares about duvet days or Friday bar anymore - you need to keep it real and show your commitment. What is your representation at the leadership or board level, and what are your commitments to making a more inclusive working environment? … Also, people talk.”

15 mins A lot of PR employers say the reason they don't have more employees from Black, Asian, mixed race and minoritised ethnic backgrounds is they can't find the applicants working in PR. Does Sheezaz agree with that?

“The talent is 100% out there”

18 mins Does PR have a bigger diversity problem than law, design or marketing, for example?

22 mins How does Sheeraz see PR’s diversity problem?

24 mins Sheeraz talks us through the stats behind PR’s ethnicity pay gap.

28 mins Is 25% a sensible diversity target for PR employers?

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

On the show today we're talking to Madan Bahal, co-founder of India's largest PR firm. Madan and I are going to talk about how, as an independent firm, Adfactors has grown from being one of a pack of highly regarded PR agencies in India - to becoming the biggest PR firm in India, frankly by a long, long way.

It's a story that any independent PR firm founder or CEO should hear because while it's become an inspirational story, it's also a story of hard work and risk but ultimately reward.

Many of our listeners of this podcast are from the UK and the US and may be less familiar with the story of Adfactors. For context, it is, by miles, India's biggest PR firm. Adfactors has a fee income of about $50 million. Their nearest rival is less than half of that size and all the big US firms have a presence in India, including Edelman, BCW and Weber.

So, to give it a UK equivalent, the largest independent British-owned firm in the UK is Freuds. It would be like Freud's being more than twice the size of Edelman in London.

So Adfactors is a quite remarkable story and today its co-founder Madan Bahal is on the show to give his insight to independent PR firm owners everywhere on how to scale their business and take on and win against the group-owned firms.

2022 marks 25 years since Adfactors PR was founded.

Here is a summary of what Madan and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:

3 mins Madan, with 25 years of hindsight, reflects on how Adfactors has progressed and his recent induction into the Page Hall of Fame

“History only has so much relevance… I always drive with my eyes on the road ahead.”

“The scale of complexity we are seeing makes me feel worried… the scale of disruption and the scale of complexity we are seeing (means) that the world will expect public (deeper) relations counsel… I don’t think public relations firms by and large are evolving quickly enough to be able to deal with the same level of complexity in terms of its counsel” 

5.30 mins Madan talks us through how Adfactors went from an $18m firm in 2015 to a $50m+ firm in 2022.

“How do you keep investing in remaining relevant over time? How do you invest in your leadership? Adfactors has remained true to the craft and value proposition of public relations … our value proposition is earned influence.”

9 mins As the owner of arguable the world's most successful independent PR firm - what is Madan’s advice for his independent agency peers?

“Today independence is a strategic advantage - the network firms have lost their flexibility and adaptability. If someone buys a laptop in India the CFO has to do the clearance!”

“The important thing is to run your business as if you are never going to sell it!”

“Democratise power, responsibility and problem solving to the smallest possible level - so you are eliminated from the burden of carrying it all on your shoulders”

12 mins Madan reveals when he was close to selling Adfactors.

17.30 mins Madan talks us through his training priorities currently and what is Adfactor’s training budget per head.

“The paradigm of influence has changed”

21 mins Madan talks about his partnership with his co-founder Rajesh Chaturvedi. They have worked together for 25 years. What makes a successful business partnership?

“Professional services sectors tend to grow at twice the rate of GDP”

29 mins Madan talks about PR’s overservicing problem and his approach to solving this challenge.

31 mins 

“Underspending is the best way of overspending…the market is the best teacher - when they (clients) realise the value of reputation.”

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Here’s the latest of our bonus pod series where I chat to Andrew Bloch about PR Pitches and merger & acquisition trends in the UK PR scene.

Andrew is a co-founder and non-executive director at Frank PR and is now Head of PR at the new business consultancy firm AAR. He is also a partner at PCB Partners where he advises on buying and selling marketing services agencies.

Do take a look at the PRmoment home page for details on our latest webinars, including The intersection of Data, Insight and PR Planning.

Finally thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Andrew and I discussed:

1 min Andrew gives his rundown of new business wins, including wins for Havas, Golin, Ready 10, Frank, Stir, Finn Partners, Tin Man and Simon and Simon.

5 mins “Pitch wise it feels busier than ever… but definitely more project work (than retainers) and a slowing in terms of the decision making.”

8 mins Andrew gives us his thoughts on a year-on-year comparison of the number of PR new business briefs.

9 mins“What you tend to see is that for a lot of the big advertising briefs and big media briefs - the PR briefs follow on. I’ve got visibility on the ad world and media world and it’s crazy busy at the moment.” So maybe there are lots of PR briefs coming in the near future?

11 mins Andrew gives his M&A update with some big trade side acquisitions from Finn Partners, kyu’s acquisition of Lexington, Hill+Knowlton Strategies' acquisition of the Jeffrey Group in Latin America and WE’s acquisition of Hopscotch.

This week we’re chatting to Chris Owen, UK Director at The Hoffman Agency about his experience being an alcoholic working in public relations.

Chris has written a number of articles about the period of his life when he drank too much, including Things I don’t miss about alcohol addiction and How the NHS saved my life. 

On the show today we talk about Chris’s problems with alcohol in the context of his career as a PR professional. We ask whether working in public relations made him more likely to become an alcoholic.

Don't forget that this Friday, October 7th is the final entry deadline for The ESG Awards.

Thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Chris and PRmoment founder discussed:

2 mins Chris talks us through when he started drinking too much, the impact it had on his life and when he realised it was a problem.

3 mins When did Chris start his recovery?

6 mins “I was on the phone with my dad one day and he said, we think you should go to The Priory…I was so tired, so exhausted.”

8 mins Chris talks about his recovery journey: ”I just wanted it (my alcoholism) to finish.”

10 mins ”A lot of addiction is based around shame.”

“You’re not a bad person trying to be good, you're an unwell person trying to get well.”

11 mins “In the same way as a person with a peanut allergy can’t have a little bit of a Snickers, I just know I can’t have a drop of alcohol.”

14 mins Chris was an alcoholic before he started his career in PR but did the type of work and the work routine of a public relations job make his alcoholism worse?

15.30 mins Why PR creates opportunities to drink for those who cannot drink safely.

17.30 mins What can PR employers do to either help employees who are alcoholics or reduce the drinking culture within their firms?

22.30 mins “You can foster a great culture without alcohol but alcohol plays a role within our society…there’s a gradient between alcohol being part of the culture that helps people unwind and it becoming part of the fabric of an agency. That’s when it gets a little bit toxic.”

23 mins If you’ve got a drinking problem, or you’re concerned about someone you know, what should you do? Chris signposts us to some helpful resources:

• Alcoholics Anonymous
• We Are With You (formally Addaction.)
• The NHS has some good information on how to get help and also some advice on how to approach your GP.
• Mind has a useful list of resources and advice on how to help someone with an alcoholic problem.
• Turning Point including its rehabilitation services.
• Drinkaware

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

This week we’re chatting to Emma Kane, Chief Executive of SEC Newgate UK and Deputy Group CEO Deputy SEC Newgate S.p.A about her career story in public relations.

Previously Emma founded Redleaf Communications before selling the business to Porta in 2014. Porta combined with SEC Newgate in June 2019 in a reverse merger to form SEC Newgate.

This integrated a number of businesses that had been acquired over the years including Redleaf, Publicasity, Newgate, SEC and Newington.  

SEC Newgate has 43 offices globally, has revenues of about $150m and employs 900 people globally.

Before we start - if you haven’t seen them already - take a look at the categories for The ESG Awards - the final entry deadline is 7th October.

And do check out the home page of PRmoment for our latest webinars, including PR Analytics, LinkedIn as a B2B Marketing Channel, The Most Popular KPIs in PR and The intersection of Data, Insight and PR Planning.

Finally, thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Emma and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed: 

2 mins Emma’s career is a wonderful story of PR agency secretary to PR agency CEO. Here she talks us through how that happened.

“One day my saxophone got exchanged for a briefcase!”

4.30 mins Emma gives us a potted history of her career in PR

5 mins Emma explains how a psychometric test she needed to take for a new job lead to her having a crisis of confidence!

8 mins Emma talks us through when she had an awful experience in one job, “the leadership was feral and the culture was toxic…The catalyst for setting up my own agency was a day when a book that was left on my desk entitled ‘How to dine out and look weight’’

12 mins Emma describes the decision in 2000 to found Redleaf Communications - as the most important decision of her career.

15 mins How significant was Redleaf’s acquisition of Polhill in the company’s growth story?

20 mins How and why did Emma decide to sell Redleaf to Porta in 2019 and how did the original deal with Porta work?

24 mins Emma talks us through how Porta became SEC Newgate.

25 mins Emma became Chief Executive of SEC Newgate UK and Joint Group CEO in April 2018 - here she explains why it was a turnaround job for the UK business at that point in time.

28.30 mins SEC Newgate acquired US firm Global Strategy Group in 2022 - which prior to being acquired had a turnover of $54 million in 2021 - so in PR land that’s a big deal size!

31 mins It seems to me, quite quietly SEC Newgate has had a pretty formidable couple of years. What sort of shape is the business in now? And what type of work does SEC Newgate want to be known for?

33 mins Emma talks us through how in her spare time she is Vice Chair & Chair Global Development Board for the Elton John AIDS Foundation and chair of Target Ovarian Cancer. 

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

This week we’re chatting to Emily Morgan, managing director, operations and innovation at The Red Consultancy.

Emily has worked at Red for over 22 years and she’s recently evolved her role too, as the job title suggests, prioritise innovation within the firm.

The Red Consultancy has a fee income of about £13m and is part of the Accordience, which was previously known as the Huntsworth Group. Red has a fee income of circa £14 m.

The nature of a consultancy business is that to continue to add value to clients, you must innovate and as has been widely discussed the last 5 years have seen huge changes to the PR business and therefore the PR consultancy business - so I thought it would be interesting to get Emily on the show to talk about the innovation predictions and priorities in 2022 and beyond.

Before we start - if you haven’t seen them already - take a look at the categories for The ESG Awards - the early entry deadline is 16th September.

And do check out the home page of PRmoment for our latest webinars, including PR Analytics, The Most Popular KPIs in PR and The intersection of Data, Insight and PR Planning.

Indeed Emily is a speaker at our free-to-attend Most Popular KPIs in PR webinar - so if you like the sound of what she talks about today - do register for that one.

Finally, thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsor, The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Emily and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed: 

2.30 mins Why does Emily believe the pace of innovation in PR firms has increased?

3 mins Emily talks us through the different types of innovation within a PR firm - from client innovation, to service innovation, to employee-related innovations and innovation of the PR tech stack.

6.30 mins The raison d'etre of an agency is pretty much about being able to innovate - isn't that why clients have always hired agencies?

8 mins Emily talks us through the intersection of innovation and operations within a PR firm.

10 mins Innovation is such a broad word - it can encapsulate tiny process changes through to business-critical changes - how does Emily search for innovation within Red?

14 mins How does a modern PR firm's offer need to adapt to updated client needs? Beyond ideas and activation - what else do clients want?

17 mins Culture and sharing knowledge are pretty key to innovation, Emily explains how Red has balanced the desire for employees not to want to be in the office 5 days a week with the need to retain collegiate working practices.

25.30 mins Emily talks us through what the intersection of people and technology looks like at Red.

28 mins What innovations in the PR agency market over the last few years have stood out for Emily?

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

This week we’re chatting to Bradley Tooth, head of social media at Democracy PR about how brands can move from broadcasting content on social media to engaging with their customers and potential customers through social media.

For those vintage social media users amongst our listeners - Brad was one of the guys who got blisters on his hands when 02 attempted to reply to every customer's Tweet during the early days of its Surprise and Delight strategy.

Since then Brad has done some super interesting work for Sage - which we’ll talk about later and now he works for Democracy PR

Thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here are a few of the highlights that Brad and PRmoment founder Ben Smtih discussed:

2 mins How Brad believes so many brands are getting their social media strategy wrong by broadcasting too much content and not engaging with their audiences.

“Of all The Premier League football club's Facebook posts last year, not one of them replied to a customer comment”

3 mins Understanding on-feed and off-feed content on the social platforms

4 mins What sort of content gets engagement?

“Look at Manchester United on TikTok, they wax lyrical about the number of views their content has generated - views are great but TikTok’s basis and antithesis is that it is an engagement problem and they (Manchester United) don’t respond!... It’s madness - the way the platforms work is that when you respond to your customers and you’re a verified account, you get more views”

6 mins How the social media channel algorithms reward engagement

7 mins Can social media engagement be automated?

“AI’s great for lots of stuff, but social networks are for people”

9  mins How brands can manage and respond in an engaging way on social - by scaling up and scaling down.

10 mins Where does a social media engagement strategy meet the customer services team?

“Don’t try and close off conversations on social…Why would you want to stop your customers from communicating with you!?”

14 mins Is the trick to get lots of engagement as a brand - to be funny? And lots of brands don’t want to be funny?

“Engagement doesn’t have to be funny, it has to be authentic…tailor yourself to the room”

16 mins How are brands scaling up and down their social media teams?

“Comms people are best placed to deliver interactions (on social)”
“Social never sleeps and it never stops - sign up to the platform notification updates to see how quickly things change”

18 mins What is the skill set of a good social media community manager?

20 min Good engagement requires specific content across different channels, Brad talks us through what that looks like across the channels.

22 mins What are the best tools to help brands manage their communities across the different social media channels?

“The platforms want you to interact on their platforms”

26 mins Brad discusses the need for brands to adapt their social media strategies according to the platform’s algorithm.

28 mins Brad talks us through “The Sage Boss it 2021” campaign, 

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

This week we’re chatting to Ruth Allchurch, UK MD WE. We’re going to talk about Ruth’s career to date including her time at Diageo, her experience at Cirkle and most recently at WE where she has took the UK income of the firm to close to £7m, from about £3m when she joined as the UK MD 4 years ago.

Currently, 60 people work in London for WE and current clients include Capgemini, Intel, Abbott, Johnson & Johnson, Boehringer Ingelheim and Google Waves.

Before we start - if you haven’t seen them already - take a look at the categories for The ESG Awards - the early entry deadline is 16th September.

And do check out the home page of PRmoment for our latest webinars, including PR Analytics, LinkedIn as a B2B Marketing Channel, The Most Popular KPIs in PR and The intersection of Data, Insight and PR Planning.

Finally, thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here's a summary of what Ruth and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:

2 mins Ruth talks us through how a PR firm with a fee income of £3m turned itself into a PR firm with a fee income of over £6.5m inside 4 years. 

“There is no scope for ambiguity when you're looking to grow a business”

“We were overservicing on low fee accounts…it's not about more clients its about having healthier partnerships with the ones we choose wot work with”

9 mins Ruth was on Weber Shandwick’s first-ever graduate training programme. In PR it seems unfashionable to be a graduate at the moment - would Ruth go to Uni again?

11 mins Are graduate PR schemes still a good idea?

13  mins Ruth started her career agency side at Weber Shandwick and then went to Cohn & Wolfe before she went in-house at Diageo. How important was that period in-house in the story of her career?

15 mins Why did Ruth leave a nice in-house role to go back agency side when she joined Cirkle?

17 mins Ruth talks us through her time at Cirkle.

 “It was probably the steepest learning curve I’ve ever had in my career”

19 mins Why did Ruth leave BCW to move to WE?

22 mins How has the type of work changed that WE UK does in the last 4 years?

“We do much more employee engagement work than we’ve ever done before”

24 mins Has the culture of WE changed in the last 4 years?

26 mins What do you need to do to change the culture of a PR firm?

28 mins Ruth talks us through why she’s not a great fan of the pitching process, and how she’d change it.

31 mins Why Ruth doesn’t believe PR prices itself correctly.

32 mins As a female leader of perhaps the only female-founded international PR network - what mark out of 10 does  Ruth give PR on its gender equality progress?

33.30 mins Ruth talks us through her experience of having a Ukrainian family stay for 4 months.

Welcome to our review of PR Pitches and mergers & acquisitions in the UK PR scene with Andrew Bloch. Here, we discuss the biggest pitch wins and mergers & acquisitions that the PR sector has seen in the summer of 2024.

Andrew is the lead consultant - PR, Social, Content and Influencer at the new business consultancy firm AAR and a partner at PCB Partners, where he advises on buying and selling marketing services agencies.

Andrew launched Andrew Bloch & Associates in 2020.

Before we start, our PR Masterclass: Agency Growth Forum has now launched. It’s on 12th November 2024, 8:30 am to 5:00 pm GMT. Both face-to-face and virtual tickets are available. The event is held in central London.

“There is momentum building. We're going into the golden quarter.”

“My observation is that the same agencies are doing very well, but there are some agencies that are struggling.”

“As always, it’s important to keep an eye on your margins.”

“Brands are being cautious…there’s a fair bit of try before you buy."

“Everything is going in the right direction. The work being done by agencies is bold.”

The summer’s PR Pitch wins:

Castore hires Pretty Green. 

Famous Grouse also hires Pretty Green

B&Q hires The Romans

Ikea franchisee Ingka Centres hires The Romans

Virgin Voyages also hires The Romans 

The Independent hires W Communications. 

All Things Butter hires Munch

ZenDesk hires Axicom

Homebase hires Aduro

 Jammie Dodgers (Fox’s Burton Biscuits) hire Frank

Evri hires Citypress

Brewdog hires Ilk

 UK Export Credit Agency hires Eulogy

WRAP hires Kindred

Open Table hires Launch

National Grid hires nine agencies to its “community agency framework” for the next three years, namely Grayling, Cavendish, Lexington, Aecom, Arup, Camargue, Copper, grasshopper and JBP.

The summer’s M&A activity

WPP exit FGS Global - KKR takes majority control - valuing the company at $1.7B$

AKT Health sells to JPA Health, the US HQ full-service healthcare group.

 Ascential (formerly known as Emap) to be acquired by Informa - £1.2bn cash offer deal.  Ascential owns Cannes Lions and Warc, a deal which is subject to regulatory and shareholder approval. 

Ascential is FTSE 250 - Cannes Lions generated 131M last year with an EBIT of 55M+. 

 Publicis acquires Influential - a leading influencer marketing platform

Havas - acquires controlling stake in Klareco Communications - 3rd acquisition this year to add to global strategic advisory network H/Advisors.

Prime Weber Shandwick – MBO – Swedish creative PR agency bought ten years ago.  Will now operate as an affiliate owned by five members of the leadership team. Will remain a close partner in the network. 

Supreme Group (A US Healthcare and Life Science Comms and Marketing) acquires Bio Strata (a Cambridge based life science pr and marketing.)

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

Here’s the latest of our bonus pod series where I chat to Andrew Bloch about PR Pitches and merger & acquisition trends in the UK PR scene.

Andrew is a co-founder and Non-Executive Director at Frank PR and is now Head of PR at the new business consultancy firm AAR. He is also a partner at PCB Partners where he advises on buying and selling marketing services agencies.

Don’t forget the early entry deadline for The ESG Awards is coming up on Friday 16th September.

Thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here’s a summary of what Andrew and I discussed:

3 mins It’s been a bumper month on the PR agency new business front and Andrew talks us through some of the most recent PR account wins including wins for Adhuro, Ketchum, Edelman, The Academy, Boldspace, news of a shake-up of Direct Line’s agency roster, Kindred, Splendid, Tin Man, Wildcard and Spider.

9 mins Andrew updates us on the PR M&A market: we’ve seen the larger enterprise values (over $50/100m) deals suffer from uncertainty in the market.

11 mins The number of micro deals involving independent PR firms continues to increase with organisations continuing to want to broaden their offer.

12 mins Andrew M&A acquisition update: including Splendid’s acquisition of Riot, Enero and Hotwire’s continued buying spree, Square in the Air and CTP launch of a JV called Chalk+Dog, another Selby Anderson acquisition and PMLR’s acquisition of Health Comms Consultants.

20 mins “You need scale to succeed…to generate organic growth but also as a protectionist measure.”

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

This week we’re chatting to Rebecca Grant, UK CEO,  BCW Global. 

Rebecca has one of the biggest jobs in UK PR. She heads up a team of over 200 people at BCW’s London office and she led the Cohn & Wolfe London operation through the merger with Burson Masteller to a period of significant growth for what was already a big PR and comms operation.

Rebecca joined BCW in 2011, previously she worked for Weber Shandwick and The Red Consultancy. She was appointed UK CEO on 2016.

And do check out the home page of PRmoment for our latest webinars, including PR Analytics, LinkedIn as a B2B Marketing Channel and The intersection of Data, Insight and PR Planning.

Finally, thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here is a summary of what Rebecca and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:

3 mins Rebecca on what it's like running a PR team of over 200 people.

5 mins Rebecca reflects on how PR has changed so much in a relatively short period of time

6 mins Rebecca’s personal story is an interesting one. Her grandmother moved to the UK as a refugee from Zanzibar - so she is living proof of the moral and economic benefits of welcoming refugees into the UK.

10 mins I put it to Rebecca that she’s got the second biggest PR agency job in the UK!

11 mins What is Rebecca most proud of during her time as UK CEO of BCW?

14 mins How has the type of work that BCW has changed in the last couple of years?

“When I started this job (in 2018) the briefs and client problems were contained at a practice level, so you’d have a  consumer brief and a corporate brief or a healthcare brief, the client work we’re doing now isn’t confined by those silos, it’s about a business challenge.”

“As a PR agency, you have a very different perspective on your client’s business than many of your competitors within the marketing (consultancy) world.”

16 mins WPP’s PR Division grew by 27.4% in Q1 2022 - how did the UK bit of BCW fair?

18 mins Has the cost of living crisis impacted the PR agency market yet?

19.30 mins It's been a full-on couple of years at BCW - they had the merger of Burson Marsteller and Cohn & Wolfe and then Covid. What's the shape of the business at the moment? Is the bulk of the revenue still in corporate and healthcare?

22 mins What type of consumer work is coming out of BCW London?

24 mins BCW has just moved into WPP's office in Bankside - does Rebecca worry that it will be an increasing challenge to retain the BCW brands and culture in a multi-firm office?

25 mins A discussion of how multi-disciplinary, multi-agency teams within a holding group can work together.

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

This week we’re chatting to Alex Myers, founder and global CEO of Manifest. Manifest employees circa 70 people globally, has a fee income of over £5m globally, with about $2m of that coming from its fast-growing New York Office. London remains its largest hub. 

It also has offices in Stockholm and Melbourne.

Do check out the home page of PRmoment for our latest webinars, including PR Analytics, LinkedIn as B2B Marketing Channel and The intersection of Data, Insight and PR Planning.

Finally, thanks to our PRmoment Podcast sponsors, The PRCA.

Here’s a flavour of what Alex and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discussed:

2 mins We last had Alex on the show in 2018. How have the last 4 years been for Manifest?

4 mins Alex discusses the challenges of trying to take a British consumer PR firm global.

7 mins Alex talks about the UK PR market - from regulation, culture and media differences. 

10 mins Digital media is very fragmented in the US, so you can’t start with the media - you have to start with the brand strategy.

13 mins “Sustainability is a four-letter word in Sweden, it’s beige level.”

15 mins What was the decision-making behind where Mianfest launched its international offices?

20 mins Why Manifest have just changed its creative team’s structure - making it a centralised resource.

23 mins “I don’t care what room the money is in as long as it’s in the house.”

24 mins “I didn’t set up the business to be a boss, I set up the business to not have a boss.”

24 mins Alex talks us through Manifest’s central strategy of trying to move its work “upstream.”

26 mins “The best articulation of your brand is your product”

31 mins “The challenge with the words “public relations” is that they don’t tell you what it (PR) does”

34 mins Alex argues that PR agencies that are part of networks are in danger of being merged into the holding company's “endorsement brand.”

37 mins “It’s not about efficiency it’s about efficacy - there are too many channels to have a budget for each of them…you need a customer-based strategy, not a channel strategy”