Public Relations Stories and Strategies

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode What happens when a conference has no keynote, no formal agenda, and no single expert at the front of the room?   The new IABC International Chair calls this an “unconference” model. And it’s one glimpse of how professional associations can evolve: by creating space for communicators to learn directly from one ano...

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode As a communications professional you’re operating in the most complex information environment in history. Misinformation. Disinformation. AI generated deepfakes of executives saying things they never said. Audiences who have stopped trusting what organizations tell them. Employees who can't tell what's r...

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode Communications has always been built around a sender mentality. We decide what people need to know, we package it, we push it out. That model came from journalism and broadcasting, three networks, eleven o'clock news, one message for everyone. It made sense then.  The infrastructure has changed completely sin...

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode Every communications campaign you have ever built had a choice architecture inside it. The order you sequenced your calls to action. The option you listed first in a petition. The default you set in an employee survey. The way you structured a crisis response.  You made all of those decisions. Some of them deliber...

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode Recognized as the most listened-to PR podcast in the World by Podchaser, Goodpods, and data from Rephonic. Also recognized as one of best Independent Interview podcasts by the Ear Worthy Newsletter https://storiesandstrategies.ca/podcast/ Support the show

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode “Journalism is dead.”  You've heard it. You've probably said it.  And honestly, the evidence seems pretty hard to argue with.  Newsrooms gutted, trust in tatters, cable news turned into a gladiator sport.   But what if that story, the one we keep telling about journalism, is itself bad journalism?  Neil...

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode Every PR professional has sat in a meeting where leaders ask you to “show up in AI” Here’s the problem. The AEO/GEO industry has built an entire measurement apparatus around citations… the moment an AI visibly names your brand. But the research shows that moment is essentially an echo of a decision that was alread...

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode There is a prayer that crisis communicators have been quoting for decades.  “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” It sounds right. It feels grounding.  But maybe it’s been pointing us in the wrong direction the w...

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode This episode first published in April, 2021 We haven't always seen color the same way. Pink used to be for men. Blue for women. People HATED colorful outfits when they first emerged. One aristocrat complained of "loud, swearing colors," because the new bright fabrics distracted him from his reading....

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode This episode first published in July 2024. Those big networking events. Many of us enjoy those but the repetitive small talk can be exhausting and challenging especially when conversations are frequently interrupted. In this episode we look at strategies for engaging storytelling in brief interactions, making mean...

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode This episode first published in January 2025. Communication is the most important weapon a Navy SEAL can carry. More vital than physical strength, endurance, or even firepower. I was in Salt Lake City recently at a conference and saw former Navy SEAL William Branum speak. He served for 26 years with the US Navy an...

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode This episode was first published in May 2021. Nudge Theory burst onto the scene in 2008 when Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler published their book “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness.” The simplest models of economics take preferences as given, but nudge ideas suggest we can be moved, s...

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode You’ve been in that room. Maybe you are in it right now. The table is full, the voices are loud, and somewhere between the agenda and the first agenda item, you go quiet. Not because you don't know what to say. Because something in the room tells you it isn't your turn. You leave and you call it imposter...

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode Your client is wrong. You know it. They know it, somewhere underneath the certainty.  And you have two choices. You can tell them they're wrong, which will end the conversation and cost you the relationship. Or you can find the thing they want more than being right and take them there instead. This is somethi...

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode 50 percent. That's how much of the global population now trusts generative AI when searching for information about companies and brands.  More than Instagram. More than Facebook. More than social media in general.  And that number climbed 7 points in a single year.  The data comes from the Page Society's...

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode Your Organisation says it's aligned. It probably isn't. And the problem starts at the top. Zora Artis and Wayne Aspland have spent 7 years studying the gap between what leadership teams say they're doing and what's actually happening inside organizations. And their findings are uncomfortable. ...

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode Every comms professional knows the playbook. A crisis hits, you move fast. Holding statement, talking points, media plan, stakeholder map. You do it well because you've trained for it. You bring the plan to the CEO expecting alignment and instead you get a polite nod and silence. Not pushback. Not disagreemen...

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode Every PR firm knows the drill. Client says here's my budget. Firm divides by twelve. Monthly retainer, same amount, January through December, whether the work demands it or not.  Need a press release? Flat rate. Need ten? Multiply.  Need an editor or a videographer? That's by the hour, and one minute is...

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode Most communicators assume that if people reject a message, they must not understand it. Lord David Evans argues the opposite. Backlash often isn’t confusion. It’s threat. When people feel insecure, unheard, or looked down on, they don’t lean in. They shut down. And in that moment, facts don’t persuade, values don’...

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode Public relations used to be seen as the function that shaped the message after the decisions were made. That is not enough anymore. In a world shaped by geopolitical shocks, cultural division, AI disruption, and rising reputational risk, communications leaders are being pulled closer to the centre of power. They a...

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode Communications is often described as a female-led profession, but that label can hide a harder truth. Women may make up much of the industry, yet the balance often shifts when it comes to senior leadership, influence, and decision-making. So, what’s still standing in the way, and why has progress been slower than...

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode You know that feeling when you look at your own brand and it somehow doesn’t feel like you anymore? The logo is the same, the words are mostly right, and the message is still “on brand”… but the visuals have started to wander.  A new template here. A new font there. Someone’s “quick” Canva edit. A LinkedIn graphic...

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode What if the best market research started by IGNORING what people say? What if, instead, you started modeling them based on proven behaviour? Right down to the regional level? And what if political polling was done this way too  A new term is showing up in research and strategy circles with major implications for c...

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode In today’s world, PR leaders need to build and protect their brand’s reputation in an AI-shaped, polarized world, where owned media matters more than ever.  Reputation is no longer a soft metric but an economic multiplier and an insurance policy. From the difference between brand and reputation to the growing tens...

Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode Trust used to flow upward. To experts, institutions, and authority.  Then it shifted to “people like me.”  Now even that circle is tightening.  The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals a growing insularity: smaller tribes, hardened perspectives, and a widening mass-class divide driven by whether people believe the...