The Little Questions

Welcome to the third annual Little Questions PR heroes and villains. This is our excuse to look back over the year that almost was and consider who nailed their comms and who jumped straight into the proverbial pile of steaming. In previous years we've considered caterpillar shaped cakes, Union leaders, ferries taking on German auto giants, some famous pieces of stone, the odd city, a book shop an...

Well into our fourth year of podcasting here at The Little Questions, we've been fortunate to have some excellent guests visit our virtual broom cupboard and share with us a little of their wisdom. From FTSE100 CEOs to Climate Campaigners, neuroscientists and actors, it's been an extensive and eclectic group. Deliberately so, for ours is nothing if not an eclectic trade. Or is it a profession? Scr...

In this episode we consider why it's so difficult to define a working person (as our government is finding out) and we consider if the days of PRs doing 'dodgy' desk research is over. We'll discuss the praise Macdonald's has been enjoying in the way it handled the visit of one Donald Trump and how Airbnb has been going into Comms battle with the residents of Primrose Hill, or as it's better known...

It would seem that many of the ills which today befall the UK are apparently linked to how productive or otherwise we are at work, individually, and collectively as a nation. Apparently we're just not as good as we used to be. With this in mind, we've devoted this episode of The Little Questions to how we as corporate communicators and corporate affairs professionals can ensure we attain and remai...

It's that time of year again. The sunshine grows weaker, birds and non-Doms fly south for warmer climes and the political parties gather in seaside towns to moan about the state of the nation and each other. However, there is a shaft of light that cuts through the gloom. Little Questions is back up and running after our summer break. We're here to cast our critical PR eyes over the issues of the d...

About 15 years ago, frustrated by his inability to persuade his leaders at the time to use real language when communicating financial results, Apella's Andrew Brown tried to find other firms that offered inspiration. Depressingly, he could only really find one. But what a one! This CEO of a rising star of the FTSE250 (which would eventually become a FTSE50) had that year opened his CEO statement b...

'Content is king' has been our clarion call on many a podcast. What we often leave out is the equally important point of how you say something, as well as when you say it and where. As Corporate Affairs and Comms professionals we are often the director of the presentations our spokespeople give to key audiences. The 'stage' could be a physical stage at a conference, or a virtual results presentati...

We've talked about the many great things that Comms and Corporate Affairs professionals bring to an organisation – clarity of message, bringing the outside in, creativity and so on. However, one area that still seems to defeat all our Comms and Corporate Affairs colleagues – inhouse or in the agency world – is to get actionable insight from data. For some it's a case of swimming in the stuff and t...

Like us at Little Questions you're probably keeping, at the very least, a partial eye on how the election is playing out. So, this time, we're going to focus this episode on said general election.  We'll look at messaging, how to deal with unexpected events, how grids are planned and unplanned. We'll ask whatever happened to the daily press conference? Is this the first ever Tik Tok election? And,...

Penny James has a 30 year career at, and leading, some of the world's largest financial institutions.  A Chartered Accountant by training, from Chief Risk Officer at the Pru she joined Direct Line in 2017 first as CFO, becoming CEO in 2019. Penny now holds a suite of board positions: Senior Independent Director at Hargreaves Lansdown, Non-Executive Director at QBE Insurance Group and Mitie Group p...

This is another of our topical episodes where two aged, bitter and sceptical Comms practitioners try to make sense of the stuff that's been making the headlines over the last few weeks. And hopefully we can say something useful to all those 100k people who work in our industry grappling with how to communicate with clarity and honesty in our ever-complex world. Today we're talking about:   The SNP...

"The brand is our promise, our reputation is how well we live up to it. Or not." Is that really the case? Is it that binary? Isn't branding all about design and badges – the colours and shapes we can and cannot use as defined by the infamous brand police? Oh, and the odd expensive ad campaign or three?   Isn't influencing and curating the firm's reputation what we comms and corporate affairs peopl...

At the Little Questions, we're always at the forefront of current events – whether that's the Great Fire of London or the Battle of Hastings, we're ready to chew the topical cud on all manner of things but, as ever, wearing our PR and comms hats. Today we're going to talk about:   Whether corporations should dictate what words should and shouldn't be used?  1 in 3 would have 'complete confidence'...

Five years ago, a number of us came together to launch a new strategic communications firm, Apella Advisors. We'd either led large consultancies or held senior roles as corporate affairs directors at some large organisations. But we saw an opportunity to do something a little bit different. So as we reach this five year mark, we thought we'd use this edition of the Little Questions podcast to lift...

In the world of communications, it pays to be current. Whether you are working in-house or at an agency, being the first to say "But have you read that piece in the FT today?" makes you appear as though you have a finger on the media pulse. This week on the Little Questions Podcast, we attempt to sound like we're at the cutting edge of public discourse. Today we're going to chew the topical cud on...

Having a coach in business is a relatively new phenomenon and in Corporate Affairs, arguably even rarer.  But could having a great coach be what takes you and your corporate affairs team from pretty darn good to stand out brilliant?  How do you know when you need a coach and what are the signs? How do you go about finding the right one? Could having a coach be seen as an admission that you're stru...

The world is changing. There appears to be an increasing reluctance amongst CEOs and senior leaders to engage with mainstream business and financial media. From the corporate world's perspective, you can see why this makes sense. Why have your carefully crafted messages interrogated by a grumpy intermediary from the press when you can go direct via your owned channels? From the journalist's view,...

There's no I in team but there is a me. So goes the schoolboy humour level adage. We come together in teams because, as the entire sweep of human history has taught us, we can achieve a hell of a lot more than on our own, or scrapping amongst ourselves. But that doesn't stop us does it? It's in our nature. Especially when a fair majority of those team members are opinionated, creative, dare I say...

We're back again for another chew through the cud that is corporate communications. It's been a while since our last one so there is much for us to consider.   Amongst several items of fluff we're going to muse on: out of touch leaders, ancient and uncool British sports, upcycling, fat shaming and you won't be at all surprised to hear, the horror and tragedy that was, possible still is, the Post O...

One of the longest running game shows on UK TV was Family Fortunes. For more than 40 years, families would compete for big cash prizes, trying to second guess what the Great British Public had answered in a survey of 100 people. Just as opinion polling was the foundation upon which this globally successful game show format was based, so too is it used for PR purposes. Scratching around, waiting fo...

We all have our Christmas traditions don't we? That film you just have to watch every Christmas Eve, Carol singing in the village square, setting up the nativity, betting when Great Uncle Albert will fall asleep in the comfy chair.  At Little Questions towers, one of our Christmas traditions is to take a look back over the year that was.  With dotage fading our memories and entirely unscientifical...

After the roaring success of our October "chew through the topical comms cud" we're back again to cast a critical eye over what was November.   We are going to have a look at: enquiries, unexpected comebacks, codenames, northern supermarkets and AI.   We'll attempt to distil a little insight which we professional communicators can take from how these events played out and what, with the magic of h...

Everyone loves a party don't they? A gathering where you can have a good catch up with those you haven't seen for ages. Make new friends, trade gossip, learn something new and perhaps even let your hair down. But not too much! Parties, or events as we like to call them in the corporate world, come in all shapes and sizes - conferences, seminars, AGMs, award dinners, product launches, journalist tr...

We've decided to go all topical in this episode. What has been happening in our world of PR and comms? How has our profession been advising on some of the current issues? Would we have handled these differently? Of course, we're conscious of commenting on current events as the horrific and tragic events unfold in Gaza and Israel. These are times when PR or comms seem inconsequential to what is hap...

This week's podcast episode was influenced by a chance remark about a haircut...  Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, a CEO of a large corporation knew the corner office was theirs for as long as the shareholders, customers and maybe the government were happy.  Now, they have to delicately navigate a minefield of social norms. It used to be a pretty rare thing for a chief executive to lose...