PR Resolution podcast

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 approach earned media, where Shanna thinks paid and PR fit in the marketing mix, how the two specialisms should work together, and how powerful an integrated campaign can be for a business.

Special Guest: Shanna Apitz.

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 into overall marketing evaluation and how you can talk about it to your stakeholders.

Russell also tells me about how an update to cookie data happening in February 2020, that is going to make a MASSIVE difference to PR and paid, and we all need to know about it!

Get ready to learn.

Special Guest: Russell McAthy.

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 revenue share deals.

If you haven't heard of affiliates before, don't worry. The guys explain exactly how the process works for agencies, brands and influencers.

Rich also also explains why, as a PR agency founder he is branching into this new growth area and why it's making their current clients very happy.

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 work?

In this special ‘measurement month’ episode I’m joined by AMEC members and analysis experts, Steph Bridgeman, head of Experienced Media Analysts and Maya Koleva, head of Insight at Commetric to share their knowledge.

We cover how to manually track sentiment, how machines are learning what positive and negative descriptions are in social and news posts, how to tackle international campaigns and steps you can take in your own evaluation. This really is relevant to everyone in Public Relations.

Special Guests: Maya Koleva and Steph Bridgeman.

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 uncover how a CEO really views marketing and what he wants in terms of ROI. Why a consumer creative from a b2b agency worked so well and why having PR throughout a business can have such a positive impact.

Special Guests: Doug Bairner and Jon Lonsdale.

'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 years and now working with them in PR.

Is still trust in this influencer group, how much longevity do they have and should they be in our marketing plans? Listen to find out.

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.

With shows like Love Island in full swing this summer, the meme machines have been 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 Instagram profile 'Awful Banter'. They know what creates the thumb-stopper moment!

Now working with brands, Elliott and Ricky explain what 'meme marketing' is, how to do it and the huge reach and engagement a brand can expect from this form of communication.

Special Guest: Elliott Kurjan & Ricky Williams .

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 audience engagement is leading the change.

Special Guest: Danny Bell .

Stella interviews Katie Paine 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 Paine .