Digital Download with Paul Sutton

Measurement has been a monkey on the public relations industry’s back for as long as anyone can remember. But sometimes it helps to look at where the industry is now compared to where it was a few years ago and to determine whether progress is being made. In this episode of the Digital Download podcast, that’s precisely what we’re doing. Richard Benson is co-founder of Nectarize...

Do we need an app? It’s something that’s now heard very often in marketing circles, as if building, maintaining and marketing an app is the easiest thing in the world. But the technical complexity of ‘an app’, not to mention the competition for app space on our mobiles, cannot be underestimated. In this episode of the Digital Download podcast, we talk about what it actually...

The last two years are starting to take their toll on us. Stories of struggling with the relentlessness of social and economic unrest are common, and motivation can be harder to come by than a full tank of petrol at the moment. On World Mental Health Day, we take a look at how those in marketing communications are particularly vulnerable. We’re all hyper-connected. Facebook, Instagram, Twitt...

The online abuse targeted at Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka after England’s Euro 2020 final defeat was sickening. And yet it was entirely predictable, and is the latest in a long line of serious trolling incidents involving public figures. The social networks seem either unwilling or unable to step in until after the fact, but this is simply not good enough anymore. In today&#...

In the last few years the lack of diversity in the public relations industry and the over-indexing of private school-educated practitioners has come under increasing scrutiny. However, not much has changed. A new charitable PR school project called Socially Mobile aims to tackle this. Focused on delivering management training to those from lower socio-economic backgrounds as well as under-represen...

In the last year leaders have had to make difficult decisions, push through very uncomfortable situations and be resilient when things got really tough. More than 50 such people launched new PR agencies at a time when the world was in turmoil, while others had to pivot their businesses as the bottom fell out of the industries they traditionally served. All of these leaders demonstrated extreme cou...

Podcasting continues to go from strength to strength, with over 180% more monthly downloads in 2020 than in 2019 according to Chartable. With demand at an all-time high, creators are launching more shows than ever before, and many businesses are wanting in on the action. But the demands of running a successful podcast are not insignificant, and around one in three shows launched only ever publish...

In the last 9 months, fashion retailer Boohoo has been investigated for modern slavery, been accused of making people work with no social distancing during lockdown, and been found to price the same garments at significantly different prices across its different retail brands. These are just the latest in a number of historic failures to address its supply chain. And yet in the last year its reven...

During the last year communications agencies and marketing departments everywhere have adapted to remote working and a virtual business model. But while for most it has been a bootstrapping exercise, for others it’s been second nature. As a result, debate and speculation about the future of the office has been intense. One of the options that has been gaining increasing support is the concep...

During the pandemic the thorny topic of public relations measurement and evaluation has taken a back seat to things like, well, survival! But now that the business world is creating new ways of working and new methods of marketing, it’s back on the radar. Effective measurement goes a long way beyond evaluating campaigns or proving the industry’s worth. It also impacts job fulfilment an...

Clubhouse is being heralded as the latest breakthrough app in the social media world. Despite still being in beta, invite-only and not yet available on Android, the app reached 10 million weekly active users by the end of February. Critics, however, are yet to be convinced. Concerns over data privacy and security, lack of native recording functionality, poor discoverability, dubious quality conten...

Over the last year, the amount of time we have all spent on screens has grown significantly. It’s been less of a choice and more of a necessity. The average adult now spends around four hours per day on mobile devices or TVs, and two thirds of parents with school age children are more concerned about screen time now than they were before the pandemic. But in a world where the way we live our...

In the last year 10% of marketers were made redundant due to the impact of COVID-19 and another 13% were put on furlough. The latest data from the Office of National Statistics showed a record 395,000 redundancies in the UK between September and November 2020, and as many as 45% of us are made redundant at some time in our working lives. Dealing with redundancy is extremely complex from a psycholo...

Content marketing started to take off as an independent discipline in the mid 2000s as social media provided a new way for information and websites to be shared quickly and easily at low cost and at scale. A lot has changed since then, and perhaps even more so in the last year than at any time in the last 15 years. This episode of the Digital Download podcast explores how content marketing has evo...

The internet and digital communications technology has become fundamental to our way of life in the last year. A fast and reliable broadband connection has been vital in feeding ourselves, entertaining ourselves, educating our children and continuing to work during the pandemic. We’re not going back to the way we were, so how will the internet develop in the future? Today’s guests have...

In the final show of the year, five senior figures in the marketing communications industry discuss what 2021 may hold in store for brands, agencies and individuals. We discuss technological adoption, behavioural change, brand purpose, diversity, innovation, agency start ups, social media and a whole lot more. This episode of the Digital Download podcast is the second of two special shows to close...

The COVID-19 pandemic, social unrest on either side of the Atlantic, Brexit, a vitriolic US Presidential election and mass redundancies are what 2020 will be remembered for. And while the human cost has been massive, with 50 million cases of coronavirus and over one million deaths to date, the impact on the marketing communications industry and those working within it has also been significant. Th...

Until now, podcast discovery, research and outreach has been an arduous task. Trying to find relevant podcasts in a specific topical niche has largely been a manual job, while publicly available listener statistics and analytics have been non-existent. However, a new service for marketers and communications professionals promises to make the entire process easier, quicker and more transparent. Thi...

At this time of year thought leaders start predicting what will happen in marketing communications over the next 12 months. But most of those predictions are based upon opinion rather than data. That criticism cannot be levelled at the likes of Global Web Index, which tracks trends in digital consumer behaviour across 46 countries worldwide. This episode of the Digital Download podcast looks at so...

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Transvision Vamp was one of the most popular alternative bands in the UK, with a number one album and five top 20 singles. No stranger to controversy, lead singer Wendy James was renowned for her rebellious and straight-talking attitude as well as her sexually-charged performances. Thirty years on and Wendy has now recorded six solo albums, the most recent of whi...

Brilliant user generated content is seen by some marketers as the holy grail. UGC can create greater engagement, build trust and affinity, and provide endorsement for other marketing activities. Above all, 60% of consumers think that user generated content is the most influential form of content in purchasing decisions. However, generating brilliant UGC is not an easy task, and many brands come un...

The Chartered Institute of Public Relations was founded in 1948 and currently has around 10,000 members. In common with most organisations, the CIPR has had to adapt rapidly to minimise the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and is being looked to for guidance by the rest of the industry. The last three Digital Download shows have explored what the future holds for the communications industry from t...

In part two of a duo of shows focused on the communications professionals who are shaking up the industry, we discuss conventional agency models and their limitations, selling results not time, the importance of transparency, ditching the pitch process, and taking responsibility for change rather than waiting for someone else to do it. The special guests in this fast-moving and impactful episode o...

On the last episode of the podcast, we discussed how the public relations industry is under serious threat from the pandemic. In this show we outline a template for the future that will ensure that communications agencies not only survive, but thrive. There is a new breed of communications professional that is challenging the status quo and doing things differently to what has come before. It&#821...

Public relations is at a crossroads. Years of failing to adequately address the measurement issue, ignoring associated disciplines like SEO and a steadfast refusal to understand the viewpoint that PR is a tactical function rather than a strategic discipline have created a position where the industry is now in serious danger of being absorbed into marketing once and for all. An annual study in Amer...