The PRovoke Media Podcast

PR industry veterans Richard Houghton and Crispin Manners, who have run agencies including Shandwick, Ketchum, FleishmanHillard and Kaizo, are the co-authors of a new book for PR agency leaders: 'Grow, Build, Sell, Live.' They join Maja Pawinska Sims in the Echo Chamber to talk about the new book – a PRCA practice guide – and the biggest mistakes that owner-managers make when building their own firms. The duo also discuss how the relative lack of hard business management experience among agency heads is holding individual firms and the industry back.

Mary Pollard has led on purpose at corporate communications consultancy Portland since the start of 2019. She joins Maja Pawinska Sims in the Echo Chamber to talk about the agency's first Total Value Index, which shows the true value of a business when purpose and profit are evaluated together, including the 'opportunity gap' – where companies are not telling their purposeful stories clearly enough – and the 'halo effect', when individual businesses benefit from positive perceptions of their whole sector. 

As vice president of marketing for Panasonic North America, Brian Rowley is charged with changing the perception of Panasonic in the US from a TV and radio company into an operation creating 21st century technology for businesses. He joins Diana Marszalek in the Echo Chamber to talk about the evolution of the brand over the past 100 years, and its shift in focus from consumer to B2B.

When Cindy Krupp, founder of the boutique fashion communications agency Krupp Group, couldn’t find college-age influencers to work with her clients, she created 28 Row, a network of young women well-versed in working with brands. Krupp and one of those influencers, Madison Krause (known as gaptoothginger on Instagram) join Diana Marszalek in the Echo Chamber to talk about why influencers in this demographic are hard to find, and what it takes for them to be successful.

Jamie McLaughlin, president of Capstone Hill Search, joins Diana Marszalek in the Echo Chamber to share his insights on the expectations of job seekers in the communications industry and the people who hire PR talent, as well as where those expectations are — and aren’t — in sync.

In the wake of the Holmes Report breaking the news that the Hong Kong leadership had failed to attract any PR agencies to pitch for a reputation management campaign, Arun Sudhaman, who is based in Hong Kong, talks to Maja Pawinska Sims about why the brief has proved so toxic, including employee activism, ethics, communications around "One Country Two Systems" and the reputation challenges that Hong Kong continues to face. 

Paul Holmes examines the Business Roundtable's recent announcement that shareholder interests do not outweigh the broader concerns of society and employees. It is a seminal proposal for the industry group that represents America's top CEOs, coming after decades in which Milton Friedman's orthodoxy on shareholder returns above all else went unchallenged. But there is plenty to suggest that the Business Roundtable statement will lack teeth unless it can actually be enforced by legislation such as Elizabeth Warren's proposed effort to balance corporate responsibilities to all stakeholders. In conversation with Arun Sudhaman, the podcast follows Holmes' in-depth long read on the concept of 'accountable capitalism'.

NewsWhip CEO Paul Quigley joins the Echo Chamber to talk about how content spreads online. In a conversation with Aarti Shah, Quigley explains how understanding the way content moves online can help the PR industry evolve its approach to predictive analytics and also fight misinformation. NewsWhip has also partnered with the Holmes Report on a multipart series exploring these topics that can be accessed here.

 

 

 

 

 

Holmes Report CEO and editor-in-chief Arun Sudhaman, who is based in Hong Kong, talks to EMEA editor Maja Pawinska Sims about the increasingly turbulent political situation in the city, and assesses whether the Hong Kong leadership or the protestors are winning from a crisis management, communications and PR perspective, as well as looking at the role of technology and the media in the ongoing conflict.

Generation Alpha is described as children of Millennials — or those born after 2010, notably the year the iPad and Instagram launched. In this episode of the Echo Chamber, Hotwire's Laura MacDonald talks about how these technological inventions are changing kids’ minds and what that ultimately means for communications. She also draws upon research that Hotwire conducted (in partnership with Wired) to explore the influence that today's children are having on their parents' purchases. Hotwire also hosted a panel on this topic at the Holmes Report's 2019 Innovation Summit in San Francisco earlier this year, more on that discussion here.