Clean Creatives campaign director Duncan Meisel joins the PRovoke Media podcast to discuss his group's efforts to stop PR firms — most notably Edelman — from working with the fossil fuel industry. In a spirited debate with Paul Holmes, Meisel asserts that such work obstructs urgently needed government action on climate change, and impedes climate justice solutions.

This conversation explores two launches: both in the same sector, during a global pandemic but targeting two very different groups. The Infiniti Motor Company recently  launched its QX55 and QX60 models and the pandemic opened opportunities to experiment with new launch strategies — and ultimately reboot its playbook. The discussion that features Wendy Orthman, Infiniti’s newly-promoted GM of global integrated brand, marketing and communications, in addition to Stephanie Friess, SVP at imre.

Ogilvy PR China president Joe Yu and SVP Simon Webb join the PRovoke Media podcast to discuss how Chinese companies' international communications needs are changing amid heightened geopolitical tensions. The duo also explore the impact on China's goal of building stronger soft power, and the role that American agencies can play in the current environment. 

In this conversation, Aarti Shah talks to Aaron Kwittken, who recently launched PRophet, an AI-driven, SaaS platform designed for and by PR professionals to test and re-test pitches before sending to the media. They talk about how AI will help PR professionals craft targeted pitches, whether AI will transform the PR agency business model, the future of the office, and the changed employee-employer dynamic. Kwittken — who is founder/CEO of PRophet and chairman, KWT Global — was also featured on PRovoke Media's Innovator 25 this year.

01:15: How AI can be used to pitch media 

In a keynote conversation that featured GSK Consumer Health global corporate affairs SVP Dana Bolden and Walgreen Boots Alliance (WBA) chief communications officer Aaron Radelet, H+K New York EVP Avra Lorrimer examined the role that communicators are playing in closing health equity gaps, finding that their role has — in this respect at least — never been more important. 

The leap from communications to business leadership remains rare within major multinational corporations, but it is one that Jackson Jeyanayagam undertook when he became VP and general manager of Clorox's consumer business in 2019.

Jennifer Risi, Cheryl Overton and Alyssa Garnick — owners of The Sway Effect, Cheryl Overton Communications and Agean PR respectively — are part of a growing number of independents who are teaming up to win and service accounts that require more than individual small shops can handle on their own. They join Diana Marszalek on the PRovoke Media podcast to discuss the new network model, and how it’s helped them grow.

As COP26 gets underway, two leaders from strategic communications consultancy Fourtold, Omar Mockbil and Tatu Liimatainen, who head up the firm’s EU advocacy and EU public affairs businesses respectively, join Maja Pawinska Sims on the PRovoke Media podcast to talk about the regulatory and policy milestones around environment, climate and sustainability leading up to the summit, and what it might mean for public affairs and corporate communications consultants, and effective messaging around climate change.

This episode tackles mental health from the pharmaceutical new perspective with Robert Murphy, head of external communications at Otsuka America Pharmaceutical and Kelly Dencker, EVP, Director of healthcare at Coyne PR. We anchor the conversation in a piece that Otsuka published in Forbes' BrandVoice platform: These 3 Changes Can Help Us Overcome The Mental Health Pandemic by Jodi Helmer. In the conversation, we explore each three factors and dive more deeply into the the role that communications can play in each.

Topics covered: 

In this episode of the PRovoke Media podcast, PRovoke Media's executive editor Aarti Shah talks to Gabriel Stricker who has been immersed in Silicon Valley for two decades with senior roles at Google, Twitter, Niantic, the Emerson Collective, and most recently at Color. They talk about how Stricker nearly took on the top communications job at Theranos — and the lessons he learned from that near miss. Drawing upon Stricker's experiences, they talk about what happens when CCOs and CEOs clash on values, ethics and purpose. The conversation happened on the backdrop of Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen's testimony before the Senate. 

Topics: