In this episode I interview Anthony Hayes, founder of the Hayes Initiative, based in NYC. We discuss his experience of upholding ethics in public affairs PR, where responsibility lies in mis-information in the media and why following your heart in communications is so important. Hayes Initiative, a certified LGBTQ-owned and operated public affairs firm, was recently recognized with an honorable mention at the 2021 PRWeek Awards for “Best in Public Affairs”. This was for their work with...

Understanding how people interact with news and media sites is essential in PR planning and measurement. It has been an on-going challenge in Public Relations to understand the true volume of people arriving on news sites due to publishers' secrecy on traffic figures. There was further focus on this topic recently, when UK news site, The Guardian reported that The Telegraph online is planning to link journalists’ pay to traffic and popularity of their articles. So, in this episode, I...

Understanding your audience is the most important stage in developing PR strategy. It’s impossible to influence and change opinion without a full understanding of who you are talking to and how they feel. And with more data available than ever before, where on earth do you begin that kind of research? Step forward Alex Judd, Alex is the head of Impact and Planning at Clarity PR. Alex is passionate about combining the art of communications with the science of research and data. In this...

In this episode Stella interviews Brendon Craigie, the co-founder and managing partner of Tyto. A global PR agency that uniquely has a team working across multiple communications disciplines and international borders, without physical offices. Brendon shares his experience in setting up and running a completely remote global PR agency, not because of lockdown restrictions but because their ‘PR without borders’ strategy truly engages local markets and delivers the best possible results for...

In this episode Stella interviews Sarah Waddington, founder and curator of the FuturePRoof book series and discusses the latest edition, 'celebrating BME talent'. Stella and Sarah explore representation in Public Relations, from an inclusivity perspective on the communicators side but also our responsibility in truly understanding, connecting and relating to the public. As well as curating the FuturePRoof books, Sarah Waddington is managing director of Astute communications, an agency in...

The second episode in our ‘public feeling’ mini-series, Stella Bayles interviews crisis communications expert, Amanda Coleman, on why understanding ‘how the public is feeling during a time of crisis’ is paramount to PR strategy. With 20 years' experience working in emergency services communication, Amanda Coleman is the former Head of Corporate Communications for Greater Manchester Police. During that time, Amanda managed the public communications during significant crises including the...

With huge adjustments in how we live and global events reaching us in real-time, there is constant change in public feeling. Whether it’s uncertainty, mistrust, frustration or comradery, understanding the way we, the public are feeling has never been so important in Public Relations. In this episode I speak to Stephen Waddington. Wadds is an advisor and consultant on communications, he has led the CIPR and authored multiple PR books including #BrandVandals, ShareThis and Brand...

'Share of voice' is a term used to describe how a brand is being talked about against it’s competitors. Share of voice is worked out very differently in Public Relations in comparision to other areas of marketing. This is mainly down to earned, owned and paid media all having different data and what we're allowed access to. At the end September 2020, Mark Ritson wrote an article for Marketing Week, which pitched why 'share of search' could be a better alternative measure of how popular a...

Public Relations professionals excel in storytelling. PR has also been known not to use data as well as other areas of marketing. So when I came across the wisdom of Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, the founder & CEO of storytelling with data, I had to interview her on the PR Resolution Podcast. Cole is the author of the best-selling book, ‘storytelling with data: a data visualization guide for business professionals’ and, through her courses has helped thousands of people around the world tell...

The PR industry has had to adapt to a huge change recently. Not only have many comms strategies had to change, we've never had a news agenda like this. In this episode I'm joined by news experts from 72Point, part of SWNS Media Group which is an independent press agency working directly with major news-desks in the United States and the UK. I interview Daniel Johnson-Kim and Rick Maughan, Heads of Editorial and Media Liaison at 72Point Inc, New York, to discuss the changes at the major...

Since the world went into lockdown, millions have turned to Amazon. The online retailer is due to release sales and profit figures on 30 April, however analysts have already forecast a sales increase of at least 22%. It’s been predicted that during the pandemic Amazon has experienced sales of $10,000 every second, day and night!! wow. Just before the pandemic was announced, I met Jim Hawker, co-founder of agency PR & marketing agency, Threepipe to find out about a new growth area for...

It's 2020, integrated marketing is the norm, but could we be delivering better campaigns if we understood paid media better? In this episode I interview Shanna Apitz, the Executive Creative Director and head of innovation at Hunt Adkins, a paid media specialist agency in Minnesota. Having developed her career in the paid media space, Shanna has helped hundreds of US brands grow their business through interactive and integrated campaigns. I wanted to find out how a leading paid agency...

In this episode I step out of Public Relations and interview an expert in marketing measurement; Russell McAthy. Russell has been helping businesses attribute success (often revenue) to various lines of marketing for years. Without his insight into customer behaviour, millions in marketing budgets are likely to have been misspent. The term 'attribution' has come up a lot recently in PR recently so, I wanted to get back to basics. Russell and I cover what 'attribution' means, how PR fits...

We've seen a lot of development in comms techniques in 2019. However one area of digital marketing I didn't expect to hear in PR merging was affiliate marketing. That was until I interviewed Rich Leigh and Will Roberts at Radioactve Talent in December 2019. After that meeting, the marketing mix completely made sense! I went to their office to find out how they're bringing years of influencer and publisher knowledge from PR and merging it with Will’s expertise in online affiliate and...

Sentiment is a crucial part of measuring Public Relations. It’s the process of understanding if a brand is being described in a positive or negative light. But what if you’re in a crisis team and most of your clips are expected to be negative? Or you’re running a youth campaign and the social posts include negative/positive slang in multiple languages?! Sentiment is difficult, but without it we’re not fully evaluating Public Relations. So what steps can we take to fully analyse our...

In many cases, Public Relations objectives are often set by a marketing team with little involvement from the CEO. So what happens when a PR agency not only has access to the CEO but they come up with a PR campaign together? You get, Tinder for Cows! In this episode, I interview Doug Bairner, the CEO of Hectare, an agriculture technology business along with his PR agency lead, Jon Lonsdale at Octopus Group to find out how their working relationship formed an international campaign. I...

'Instagram influencer' is no longer just a marketing term. Parents fear them, young people want to be them and the press seem to loathe them. But with so much attention how much influence do they still hold? In this episode I get two opinions. Scott Guthrie, an influencer marketing consultant share his views on the industry. Lucy Piper, a 19 year old PR consultant from TalkerTailorTroubleMaker also shares her and her friends experiences of following influencers throughout their teenage...

With the more content being generated than ever before our hard-earned editorial coverage is being buried on publisher sites faster than you can say 'public relations'! But what if there was a way to keep it in front of people for longer? In this episode, I interview Jerrid Grimm, co-founder of Pressboard on an emerging area of marketing where PR meets paid and editorial stories can be boosted to a bigger audience. Listen to find out how. Special Guest: Jerrid Grimm.

The start of Love Island, Trump visiting & the shock loss for Antony Joshua this week has seen the meme machines in action on social media. But should memes be part of brand marketing? In this episode, I interview Elliott Kurjan & Ricky Williams, the duo behind a new agency Wagyu social. Ricky & Elliott are experts in Instagram influence. They are the brains behind the growth of huge Instagram accounts including Ladbible and UniLad. Elliott is also the meme-king that runs...

Stella interviews Danny Bell, a video director, and producer in the UK and US. He's produced popular shows such as Big Brother and LOVEIsland and had work featured on major TV channels including MTV, C4, ITV, Sky, and NBC. Danny is increasingly working with agencies and brand teams on creating editorial video content for online and social platforms. In this episode, Stella interviews Danny on the development of TV and online video consumption, the change in brand involvement and how...

Stella interviews Katie Payne on social media measurement. Having led the charge on social and PR measurement development for almost 30 years Katie has picked up the well-deserved title of 'queen of metrics'. Katie shares her thoughts on why impressions are a misleading metric in reports and how PR teams can attribute organisational goals to social activity. If social media is part of your campaigns this year, this episode is gold-dust. Special Guest: Katie Payne .

In this episode, I interview SWNS Media Group news editor Jim Rich on his career and experiences in the US news industry. The former New York Daily News Editor-in-Chief was once named one of the most powerful people in New York media by The Hollywood Reporter. He has seen the industry go through huge changes and he is now using his unique experience to help PR teams. Jim talks about the way news consumption has changed publishing, its effect on news teams and knock-on effect to Public...

Steve Strickland is the co-founder of new award-winning PR agency Talker Tailor Trouble Maker. He has led the agency for two years alongside partner and long term colleague, Gary Wheeldon. Before starting Talker Tailor Steve held three creative director roles at agencies; Weber Shandwick, freuds and most recently M&C Saatchi PR. Where he was tasked with safe-guarding the quality of creative product globally across its 8 offices. In this episode, Steve shares how he and his and...

Gini Dietrich is the founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich communications, editor of one of the most popular US PR sites, Spin Sucks and has been pioneering paid erned social and owned (PESO) strategies in communications for years. Gini sets PESO strategies for businesses as well as trains PR pros on how to build plans, work with clients and measure effectively. She is an expert in multi-channel communications. In this episode Stella asks Gini what the PESO model is, how it can help achieve...

Stella Bayles interviews James Alexander, the head of influence and advocacy at global drinks business Diageo. Stella and James discuss the multi-channel marketing campaigns Diageo run and why measurement of the activity is so key to the business. Stella finds out how Diageo marketing teams and agencies use a version of the PESO (paid, earned, shared and owned) model to organise and measure activity. James shares details of how he developed a standardised reporting process to measure...