Blog posts
Avoid stories about the opening of an envelope
I suffer from cobbler’s children syndrome – I always put aside things I need to do for my business as I’m too busy doing PR for my clients! So, I’ve only just found the time to review Muck Rack’s annual State of PR 2023 report. It says that the top concern for PR pros is […]
Will AI replace the PR Pro?
This is quite a hot topic of conversation amongst my PR friends. The prospect of your hard-earned and learned skillset being replaced by a bit of software is quite a terrifying prospect! However, the current reality is that natural language processing tools driven by AI technology, like ChatGPT and Google Bard, still require humans to […]
Public Relations – too good to be true?
Is good news too good to be true? Tell someone something is excellent and they will usually want to know what is wrong with it.
Smoke and Mirrors
In PR Week’s Agency Doctor column, Richard Houghton questions ethics in the public relations industry. It struck a chord with me, as one of my friends often refers to my job as ‘smoke and mirrors’, and the first paragraph of Richard’s column refers to peoples’ perception of PR consultancies as being a ‘black art’, ‘spin […]
Phone phobia
I’ve just read a PR Week article which looks at phone pitching to journalists, and it seems that things are getting worse in the media relations business. I’ve run my own company for five years now, but before I left my last agency I had noticed that junior staff were becoming increasingly reluctant to pick […]
Good restaurants in Hampshire
In my ‘formative’ PR career years I worked and socialised in London. However, since I moved down to Hampshire seven years ago I’ve realised that there is life outside both the City and the Homes Counties. I also often notice that restaurant reviews in the national media are focused on London. As I adore good […]
Throwing the lamb to the lions
In the latest issue of PR Week, its editor (Ruth Wyatt) makes a very good point about agencies that rely too heavily on junior staff. Poorly briefed and with little or no experience, juniors are often thrown to the lions when they are asked to call journalists. Ruth gives an example of what she says […]
A strategic strategy
The CEO of Dunkin Donuts referred to a “strategic strategy” on BBC Breakfast this morning. Isn’t that like having a “planning plan”? Surely you’d expect a strategy to be strategic? I thought it was a nervous slip of the tongue, but have subsequently found out from an American friend that it’s quite a popular expression […]
Body Talk
I read recently an article in PR Week that covered five tips to engage audiences. The first tip was ‘use your body to make a first impression’ and this reminded me of my old boss and his mantra that “the first few minutes of a meeting are what counts”. A few years ago, Carol Kinsey […]
