PRmoment Podcast

This week, in the latest of our PR Reset series about how the PR world and the wider economy might reset post the Covid-19 lockdown, I’m talking to PRCA director general Francis Ingham.  It’s explosive stuff, the highlights are below, but Ingham believes approximately 5,000 UK PR people are likely to be made redundant and claims “ The majority of people on furlough within our industry have no idea...

This week, we're starting a new series called PR Reset, where I'm catching up with the CEOs of some of the UK's most prominent PR firms to talk about how they see their business, the PR world and the wider economy resetting post the Covid-19 lockdown.  First up, we've got the founder of W Communications Warren Johnson. Frankly, Warren’s on even more punchy form than ever! Here’...

Today, on the PRmoment Podcast, I'm talking to Julian Obubo, brand strategy director at Manifest London about "How to be an anti-racist company." Julian is a member of the leadership team at Manifest and, I know, has been a vital part of the agency's impressive growth in recent years. As has long been discussed, the diversity stats in PR are embarrassing with approximately 92%...

Today we’re talking to Ruth Kieran, CEO of Cirkle, about how an independent firm like Cirkle has coped and responded to the Covid-19 crisis so far. Here’s a summary of what Ruth and I discussed: How has the Covid-19 pandemic impacted the business?      How the crisis has been very specific in the way it has impacted firms. For example, Cirkle has a lot of food and drink clients including Morrisons...

This week on the PRmoment podcast, we've got Phil Hall, chairman of The PHA Group. For those of you that are not aware, Phil was the editor of the News of the World from 1995 to 2000. His old bosses included Piers Morgan and Rupert Murdoch – he was at the pinnacle of British tabloid journalism before he left it all behind in 2005 and founded Phil Hall Associates (Now The PHA Group). He starte...

This week, we welcome Tariq Ahmed, ex-group head of corporate communications at Liquid Telecom, to the PRmoment podcast.  Here’s a summary of what Tariq and I discussed:  In the context of the George Floyd racism protests in the US and throughout the world, including here in the UK, Tariq and I talk about his decision to change his name from Tariq Ahmed to Daniel Jacobs back in 2002 – when Tariq f...

This week we’re going to return to our roots - by going back to our regular career stories theme. We’ve pretty much covered the Covid-19 angle of PR and agency management if you want more info on that then have a listen to the past 5/6 episodes of the podcast, or have a look at the 25 plus Covid-19 articles on PRmoment.com - I think you’ll find all you need to know. It’s quite a body of work. This...

On the PRmoment podcast this week, we’ve got Adrian Talbot who is the FD of Hotwire PR. He’s one of the most experienced FDs in public relations, having been at Hotwire for over four years, before that he was at BBH, College Hill (now Instinctif) and Burson Marsteller.  As quick plug from me, if you haven’t booked already, then you don’t have long to book your tickets to our series of Lite events:...

On today’s show, we’ve got Chris Talago, VP PR and communications JAPAC and EMEA at Oracle. Chris is going to be giving us an in-house communicator’s perspective on the Covid-19 lockdown.  Here’s a flavour of what Chris and I discuss:  How have the comms team at Oracle coped with the Covid-19 crisis so far? What message is the comms team trying to get across at the moment?       Why Covid-19 requi...

This week I’m interviewing Amanda Coleman, Ex-head of Corporate Communications at Greater Manchester Police and author of the book Crisis Communication Strategies . Amanda has recently founded her own agency, Amanda Coleman Communications. Amanda and I are going to be looking at the UK governments’ communications performance since the Covid-19 crisis began. To emphasise, we are not attempting to a...

On today’s show, we’re talking to Mandy Sharp, founder and CEO of Tin Man Communications. Mandy and I are going to be talking about her experiences of running a consumer PR firm during the Covid-19 lockdown.  Here’s a summary of what Mandy and I discuss:  How has it been for Mandy and Tin Man since the Covid-19 crisis kicked off?       Why one of the problems for consumer PR firms has been that a...

On today’s show, we’ve got Crispin Manners and Richard Houghton, co-authors of ‘Grow, Build, Sell, Live: A Practical Guide to Running and Building an Agency and Enjoying It’, talking about the implications of the Covid-19 crisis for PR firms.  Here’s a summary of what we discuss: Most agencies have now dealt with the short-term demands of the Covid-19 crisis, but how helpful have the various gover...

Today on the PRmoment podcast were chatting with Julietta Dexter who is Founder and CEO of The Communications Store. Julietta has recently launched the book ‘ Good Company: How to Build a Business without Losing Your Values ’ which talks about Julietta’s personal story of lessons learned in the workplace and how to navigate a successful career while holding onto one’s personal beliefs and values....

Welcome to the latest podcast with Iain Anderson, Executive Chairman at Cicero/AMO. We’ve put our life stories podcasts on pause as they just don’t feel appropriate at the moment - so today Iain and I are going to be talking about Covid 19: The media, the politics, and the communications. Here is a summary of what Iain and I talk about: [00:02:12] Iain tells us how he's finding it as a busine...

We discuss how different sectors are affected, what the impact of the government’s furloughing scheme will be on the PR business, how the government’s business interruption loans can work, and the impact of Covid-19 on employees and clients to date. Here’s a summary of what we discussed: I’m conscious we have international listeners, to confirm the government schemes we’re talking about in this sh...

This week on the PRmoment podcast, we've got Jo Carr, co-founder, and chief client officer at Hope&Glory.    Hope&Glory was co-founded by Jo Carr and James Gordon-MacIntosh in 2011. It now has a fee income of circa £8.5 million, employs about 80 people and grew by 25% in 2019.    [00:01:26] How Jo originally wanted to be a journalist or work in advertising.    [00:03:33] How Jo was or...

It’s a bit of an owned-media special this week!     In the latest show, we talk to Will Sturgeon, head of content and thought leadership at PwC. Will talks us through PwC’s content strategy and explains why he believes the opportunity for owned-media content, distributed via a business’s experts, has never been greater.    In the UK, PwC has 22,000 employees and 900 partners and operates across mu...

This week on the PRmoment podcast, we’re taking another change of tack – we’re talking about virtual agencies with Tamara Littleton, CEO and founder of The Social Element.    There are plenty of virtual agencies around, but not that many have managed to scale to the size of The Social Element. It’s a 300-people (100 staff, 200 freelancers), £9m virtual consultancy business operating internationall...

This week on the PRmoment podcast, I’m interviewing Louise Turner, head of Edelman Intelligence UK & Ireland. Louise talks to us about Edelman’s annual Trust Barometer research for the UK   in a global context. [00:02:23] How trust in the institutions that govern our society collapsed during the 2008 financial crash and has never recovered. [00:02:42] How the Edelman Trust Barometer measures t...

This week on the PRmoment podcast, I’m interviewing Rachel Pendered, managing director of Media Zoo. Media Zoo has a fee income of circa £13m and approximately 130 employees. It’s an independent PR firm in London. It was co-founded by Rachel and Mark Killick in 2003. Before she co-founded Media Zoo, Rachel worked for the BBC and Channel 4 as a TV producer. Here’s a summary of what Rachel and I dis...

This week on the PRmoment Podcast I’m interviewing Mitch Kaye, co-founder and CEO of The Academy. The Academy has a fee income of approximately £4.3m, it’s an independent PR firm in London. It has 50 employees and was co-founded by Mitch Kaye and Dan Glover in 2014.  Mitch previously founded Mischief which he sold to Engine within five years of its launch in 2006. The Academy describes itself as a...

This week on the PRmoment podcast I’m interviewing Greg Jones, managing director of Mischief. Mischief has a fee income of approximately £5m and employs 55 people. It’s part of the Engine Group. Mischief’s sister PR agency within Engine is the corporate shop MHP. Greg’s a rare example in PR of a creative director who has got the top job. He started his career at Shine, before stints at Slice (Engi...

This week on the PRmoment podcast, I’m interviewing Gerry Hopkinson, owner and CEO of Unity. Unity is a £2.7m fee income consumer PR consultancy based in London. Clients include the likes of Axa, Vue, Freesat and AEG. Unity’s fee income has grown by 30% in the last 12 months. Gerry is a Canadian who came to the UK aged 24. His early career was spent at PR agencies QBO and Band and Brown. He also h...

Welcome to the second in a new mini-series of PRmoment podcasts where we interview the authors of books relevant to those who work in PR and communications. In the last year or so there have been a number of books launched by people I really respect in PR. Frankly, I don’t have time to read them all so, partly for selfish reasons, I thought I’d interview them on this show. Today I’m interviewing K...

On the PRmoment podcast this week we’ve got one of PR’s nice guys Justin Westcott. He’s currently got two jobs – not only is he chief operating officer of Edelman UK and Ireland, he’s also Edelman’s head of technology, EMEA. Justin started his PR career at Microsoft, before moving to August One and Inferno Communications. He joined Edelman in 2006. Edelman has a fee income of circa $890 million do...