PRmoment Podcast

Welcome to the PR Pepper Challenge where PRmoment founder Ben Smith interviews leading in-house communicators. On the show this week it’s Jay Ward, director, Ford of Europe product communications. But this is an interview with a twist. Our guests have to agree to take the PR Pepper Challenge when they come on! The challenge involves them answering three questions - if they get the question right B...

Here's the latest PR Pepper Challenge, produced in association with our good friends at Meltwater . On the show today we've got Kev O'Sullivan, senior partner at Fleishman Hillard on the show. Kev and I are going to be talking about creativity in PR alongside a bunch of other stuff. The reason we're calling this series of interviews The PR Pepper Challenge is that interwoven be...

On this week's podcast we’re talking to Giles Peddy who joined Missive last year having previously been at Lewis. We’re talking about Missive’s recent research paper which hypothesizes that brands are over-indexing on lead-gen marketing and under-investing in brand marketing. Before we start, make sure you’ve taken a look at the PRCA’s National Conference which is a face to face event and you...

On this week's podcast we’re talking to Scott Wilson, President Europe & Africa at BCW Global. Scott joined BCW in 2010 having previously been at Porter Novelli and Weber Shandwick. He currently leads BCW across Europe and Africa and today we’re going to chat about PR trends post COVID, including what PR clients are currently buying, the resurgence of corporate PR and whether there's...

On this week's podcast we’re talking to Clive Booth, CEO of the ESG Foundation. Clive has worked in a number of agency and in-house roles, including JLL, Lansons and Lewis. He founded the ESG Foundation in March 2020. The foundation exists to focus the attention of organisations on the importance of environmental, social impact and corporate governance behaviours. Do make sure you’ve taken a...

On this week's podcast I'm chatting to Rosie Bannister, managing director UK at Axicom and Kate Stevens, president of Europe at AxiCom. Currently the PR world, alongside many other sectors, is trying to figure out the right balance between working from home and office working in a post pandemic world. On the show this week I talk to Rosie Bannister and Kate Stevens about how Axicom has c...

On this week's podcast, we talk to Angie Moxham, founder and CEO of The Fourth Angel and Sarah Perry, managing director of The Fourth Angel. Previously, Angie was the founder and CEO of 3 Monkeys which, as many of our readers will know, was sold to Edelman and became part of Zeno. Angie founded The Fourth Angel in March 2019. Sarah joined The Fourth Angel in December 2019 as managing director...

On the show today I'm talking to Warren Johnson, chairman and founder of W Communications about the state of the UK public relations market at the moment. W had a turnover of £10m in 2020 and despite the COVID economy, it had its most successful H1 ever in the second half of 2020. Warren appointed Rachel Friend as W’s CEO in July 2020, so 9 months in, it seems like a good time to catch up abo...

This week on the PRmoment podcast we're talking to Engine Mischief managing director  Greg Jones about what he sees as the challenges in the consumer PR market at the moment. Thanks so much as ever to the podcast sponsors, the PRCA . Here’s a summary of what Greg and I discussed: 1.30 mins Why does Greg believe there is an increasing commoditisation of the consumer PR market in the UK? 2.30 m...

On the PRmoment podcast this week, I'm talking to Matt Wilcock and Mark Perkins of Cow PR about being a creative director in public relations. 10 years ago there weren't many creative directors working in PR but now there are quite a few! In this podcast, we're going to look at the role of the creative director in public relations. Thanks so much to our PRmoment podcast sponsors, th...

On the show today I'm talking to Victoria Cross, managing partner of Instinctif. There's a huge amount of discussion in the business world about the importance of ESG as an investment criteria but it is also important for communicators.  On today's show we're going to be looking at why ESG is so important for modern communications professionals. Thanks so much to the podcast sp...

This week on the PRmoment podcast we're talking about virtual pitching. Virtual pitching is clearly an area that's become more important during the Covid lockdowns and today we're going to be talking to three guests with different perspectives on the pitch process Andrew Bloch is Lead Consultant PR for the AAR, an agency referral company. Also on the show is Rebecca Wagstaffe, Busin...

This week on the PRmoment Podcast I’m talking to Alex Grier, Managing Partner of Frank PR. Alex has worked at Frank for 16 years, he joined the firm in 2005 when there were 15 employees and he saw it sold to Photon (which later became Enero) in 2007. Alex has recently been part of the management team which has bought the agency back from Enero. Frank was originally bought by Photon for just over £...

On this week's podcast, I talked to Carrie Rose, CEO & Co-Founder of Rise at Seven . To give you some context, just over 2 years ago Rise at Seven barely existed, one year ago it employed 14 people with a turnover of about £1.5 million and today it employs 64 people and has a turnover of over £4 million. So it really is a story of incredible growth especially when you bear in mind that th...

This week on the PRmoment Podcast I’m talking to Justin Westcott, Edelman’s chief operating officer of Edelman UK and Ireland and head of technology, Edelman EMEA. Edelman had a fee income of circa $840 million dollars in 2020, down from about $890m from the previous financial year. So Edelman’s revenues decreased 5.9% in 2020 - which, most observers seem to reckon is a pretty decent result, beari...

On this week's show, I'm chatting to   Francis Ingham, Director General of the PRCA about what the PRCA describes as “an ethical divide (that) has emerged between those willing to embrace ethics and professional standards, and those unwilling to adopt such values.” A PRCA spokesperson has said “almost half (of lobbyists) are happy to be unregulated and unaccountable. And within this grou...

On this week's podcast, I'm chatting to Chris McCafferty, group CEO MSL UK.  Chris has been at MSL for about a year and a half. Previously he worked for Red, Microsoft, Weber Shandwick, Myspace and Shine. In 2010 Chris launched Kaper PR which was a JV with Karmarama. The Karmarama Group was sold to Accenture in 2016.  MSL employs about 150 in the UK and is owned by Publicis. Thanks so mu...

This week on the PRmoment podcast I chatted to Elena Davidson, CEO of Liberty Communications. Liberty is a boutique technology public relations firm based in London with a fee income of about £2 million.  The business was founded by Dee Giibs in 1998. 75% of its fee income is from the UK and mainland Europe and 25% from the US. There’s a link in the show notes to an interview I did with Dee back i...

On this week's show, I'm chatting to Chris Hides, managing director of The Academy. Chris joined The Academy in December 2020 having previously been co-founder and MD of M&C Saatchi Talk, which was the merged business of M&C Saatchi PR and Talk PR. The Academy employs 50 people and has revenues of £4.4m. As many of our listeners will know it was founded by Mitch Kaye and Dan Glov...

On this week's podcast I'm chatting to Ondine Whittington, group managing director of Golin UK and Virgo Health. Ondine has worked for Virgo since 2006 and stayed with the firm when it was bought by Golin in 2014. She became the UK MD of Golin Virgo in March 2020. Golin employs about 70 people in London and Virgo about 60. Golin is well known for its consumer work but it also operates ac...

This week we're talking about whether PR has an ethics problem. Are PR ethics absolute? Are they relative? Or are they personal to all of us? If you were an outside observer of the Twitter chat of various PR thought leaders you’d have thought that bad ethics is a real and present danger to the business of public relations. But is it? How much bad practice is there? And what does that poor pra...

This week I'm catching up with Nicky Regazzoni, co-founder of the PR Network, talking us through her career story in public relations. For those of you that are not aware, Nicky launched the network 15 years ago with Georgina Blizzard. The PR Network now has a fee income of £3.8 million and recorded an impressive 13 percent growth in 2020. Clients include Purple Bricks and Snapchat. These day...

This week we're talking around the idea that during lockdown we all seem to be super busy- but it’s not much fun! There seems to be a relentless nature to working from home that many hadn’t expected. In this podcast, we explore whether this repetitive, somewhat joyless for some, way of working can be avoided and discuss the impact it is having on PR teams. On the show this week are Jackie Ell...

This week on the PRmoment Podcast we chat to Victoria Usher, CEO of Ginger May about how the Covid crisis has reawakened many people's entrepreneurial spirit. Thanks, as ever, to the PRmoment Podcast Sponsors the PRCA. Don’t forget to take a look at the PRmoment Awards categories . The early bird deadline for entries is Friday 26th February . Here’s a summary of what Victorial and I discussed...

Today on the PRmoment podcast I'm catching up with Marc Allenby, ECD of both Harvard and Eat the Fox; the tech Marketing & PR agencies, part of the Chime Group and Daniel Maynard, vice president, Communications, Media (Television & Direct-to-Consumer) Europe & Africa at The Walt Disney Company. Before we start just a reminder for all of you that the PRmoment Awards are now open fo...