Invent what you like, but at the end, you communicate-with to develop relationships. Even Roberts and Sorrell now say this of advertising!!

Only a few days ago in Rome Kevin Roberts, the global Ceo of Saatchi, addressing a professionally mature corporate audience, said something like ‘ the most dramatic change which is disrupting the advertising markets is that we are now required to develop relationships with customers’. Sir Martin Sorrell , Ceo of WPP, said more or less the same about one year ago in New York.

Storytelling, Public Relations and The Drum Beat… a wealth of suggestive cases from the world

As our global public relations community intensifies its discussion and analysis of the storytelling approach to organizational communication, may I strongly suggest you make good use of this link to the just distributed issue of Warren Feek’s The Drum Beat newsletter, entirely dedicated to storytelling? As editor Kier Olsen DeVries writes in his introduction: This issue of The Drum Beat focuses on stories, asking: what do we mean by the use of oral history, or...

Information overload: a public relator’s risk, but also an opportunity….

In a report here from an Iabc conference last February in Lugano I suggested a thorough consultation of Martin Eppler and Jeanne Mengis ‘s research paper on informaton overload as the best presentation of that conference. I attached the paper, but was immediately warned by a Iabc Guardian that the paper was not for consultation by non Iabc members, and was kindly requested to take it down. I was then (and am today) happy to...

Two ditsy thoughts and one good answer to the question: what now after Grunig? Online Public Relations by David Phillips and Philip Young

In these recent weeks, and in various encounters with professionals and scholars from around the world, I have stumbled more than once on to the question: ‘what now after Grunig?’… as if the Excellence Project happened to be the most recent development for our body of knowledge. I very much disagree with this interpretation, as much as I disagree with those late adopters who (on the other side?) tend to believe that nothing had happened...

Yes we camp. Where does creativity stand in public relations practice?

Yes we camp. Creativity here dramatically overrides any rational argument or concept. I am sure you saw/heard these three simple words during media coverage of the recent G8 in earthquaked Abbruzzo. Another example I vividly remember from Milano’s public walls in the early, highly creative, days of student revolt in the late sixties of the last century: Fascisti porci, domani prosciutti. i.e. ‘fascists pigs, tomorrow hams’. Entire books, millions of bytes would never have been...

Bulgarian blog converses on integration difficulties of social media into public relations practice

Nelly Benova is a forceful and highly proactive figure in Bulgarian Public Relations. She represents the Bulgarian PR Association in the Global Alliance, in Cerp and also manages the CIPR accreditation course in Sofia. This interview she had with me in Vienna a few days ago has just been posted and might stimulate some discussion also amongst our visitors here at PRC.

Freshly squeezed takeaways from the Edelman new media academic summit in DC…

Leaving aside a fastidious reiteration of usual buzzwords such as twitter and facebook, closely followed by obama and engagement, and the conceptual thinness of some of the cases which were presented, more focussed on numbers in relative context, rather than on the why..s of selected operational tools, this event (may I call it a space, also picking up from Richard’s presentation?) was truly an intensive, delightful, warm and fire cracking learning experience. Frankly more so...

The ethical state, social communication and public relations…

How effective are social communication campaigns, specifically when they are enacted by public institutions and their aim is to con-vince publics to modify their day-to-day behaviours? The amount of literature is overwhelming and highly contradictory. Of course governments and other public agencies or institutions, normally advised by many of our colleagues who thrive on the trade and tickle the ego of these organization’s leaderships, tend to overlook and set aside the contradictory evidence. Yet recent...

How frequent, honest communication translates to trust in corporations and leadership

2009 Edelman Trust Barometer Executive Summary “An adherence to transparency is at the core of each of Public Engagement’s pillars. Organizations must be forthright and honest in their actions and communications. When problems arise within companies, stakeholders need to see senior executives take a visible lead in acknowledging errors, correcting mistakes, and working with employees to avoid similar problems going forward. The essence of Public Engagement is the commitment of companies to say—and do as...