Kia Motors Global PR Conference @ Seoul Bob Pickard

Chaos Complexity

Visualization

Data Hyperconnectivity

Listening Egomania

Storytelling

Creativity

Design

Speed

Meaning

Psychology Asymmetry

Apology

Retro

Speed!

Speed to command the news cycle

How does the news curve look now?

Chaos!

You tell me…

§  where does internal communication stop and external communication begin these days?

§  what ever happened to the old wall between editorial and advertising?

§  has the line blurred between advertising and PR – not to mention customer service and HR?

§  how much you do actually control your company’s reputation compared to people on social media?

We keep losing control

§  of our time §  of our privacy §  of our own reputation §  of the conversation topic §  of the corporate communications narrative

We receive 5x more information today than in 1986

What’s going on here?

Complexity

Channels, communities, technology

§  the rise of ‘social operating systems’ makes it possible to share more targeted information with infinitely large communities

§  yet the sheer size of our networks is making it more difficult to communicate with people in a genuinely personal manner

§  now we need to ‘know’ vast numbers of individuals and maintain customized relationships with even multi-millions

§  public relations professionals have always been intelligent agents of information-sharing, knowing how to, where to, and when to share information with which people in different sequences so that they do or think things to achieve intended communications and commercial outcomes

What Sir Martin Sorrell says:

§  “Facebook to my mind is not an advertising medium. It is a branding medium.”

§  “I think [Twitter] is a PR medium…it’s very effective word-of-mouth.”

Harvard Business Review March 2013

Communicating crowdsourcing

Hyperconnectivity

Plugged-in constantly

§  24 x 7 and ‘always on’ with smartphones §  more and more customized private information

surfaces, fewer common public ones §  who needs to remember anything anymore when

Google will do it for us? §  so much harder for PR to indelibly engrave §  snippety fragments and partial attention §  perceptions shift and tides turn in the blink of an

eye so momentum marketing is key

Data

Data

§  digital by its very definition is about numbers §  relationship artistry must be – or be seen as –

a measurable science §  decision-makers are often engineers §  every campaign needs a pretty dashboard §  measurability has always been manipulated

and massaged for ‘political’ purposes §  yet hands-on humans must make sense of it all

Design

Communications by design

Listening

‘Listening’

“Talk to someone about themselves and they’ll listen for hours.” §  keep in mind that ‘listen’ and ‘silent’

are made from the same letters §  start with talking, and you tune people

out and often annoy them §  social media creates new mechanisms

for listening and also the greater insistence upon being heard

“Make the other person feel important and do it sincerely”

These are emotional times

§  Whether or not there is listening, of course social media increases the demand to be heard, regardless of merit

§  [Ironic that those demanding to be heard can often seem least interested in listening!]

§  ‘Me’ and ‘I’ narcissism, lack of attention span, rampant impatience, toxic anger and abuse abounds

§  Crowdsourcing intelligence versus mob rule?

The seven deadly digital sins

1.  Lust ‘I want this’ 2.  Greed ‘I need this’ 3.  Gluttony ‘I must have more’ 4.  Sloth ‘I haven’t thought about it’ 5.  Wrath ‘I am angry about this’ 6.  Envy ‘I want what s/he’s got; I am worth it’ 7.  Pride ‘I am better; I deserve this’

Egomania

Communication is selfish

“You are important to us” “We need your opinions to help inform our actions” §  clicking ‘like’ generates ‘likes’ §  know-it-all-ism online; the RT = true expertise? §  ‘sharing’ can be selfish (‘what makes you look good’) §  there are many emotions in play which PR has to

deal with today as never before

The death of deference

Storytelling

Stories tap into the unconscious mind

§  People tend to remember products when they are woven into the narrative of media content

§  They tend not to remember brands that don’t play an integral role in the story because people can see them as being ‘just ads’

Stories have ‘ups’ and ‘downs’

We’re wired for stories

Scientific American Mind (August/September 2008) Source: Hoffman

Visualization

Information + Graphics

Social media is visual media

Social media is visual media

Creativity

Psychology

Metaphor elicitation

§  Research is key, asking people before starting a PR campaign things like: •  When you think about [company], what is the first

thing that comes to mind? •  What do you feel when you see this [product]

image? •  Can you share some of your past experience in

dealing with [area where product offers some benefit]?

Asymmetry

So one-sided it’s not funny

§  corporate communicators have become story catalysts, content creators and conveyors

§  journalists are now outnumbered 5:1 by PR people, and make only about two-thirds of the money

§  media are bombarded with story ideas and need content that’s ready-to-roll

What Richard Edelman says:

“Every company is a media company”

ZDNet February 13th 2013

Corporate content factories

Native advertising/brand journalism

Retro

The forgotten power of analog

§  the impact of handwritten notes §  using phones to make actual voice calls

(and landlines for audio quality) §  scanning newspapers and magazines for

story ideas for social §  posting print placements on social

platforms

Riepl’s Law

Meaning

Meaning

§  articulating what the company stands for §  the role the community plays in the

mission §  everyone’s mouthing purpose rhetoric §  ‘communication with a conscience’ is

nothing new, but it is more important than ever…

What Harold Burson says:

§  “PR is often regarded as synonymous with communication, but communication is actually only one facet of the art of public relations”

§  “The task of PR is actually to improve ‘relationships with society’”

§  “PR’s key role is to advise top officials of companies or organizations about how to act in an ethical or socially correct manner when making a decision on a course of action. In a sense, PR acts as an organization's ‘conscience’”

Asahi Shimbun January 29th 2012

Communicate ‘the golden circle’

Apology communications… Apology

What Lord Chadlington says:

§  “Because PR people are, in general, poorly read they fail in one other important regard. Thinking. If you read a lot then you will learn to think. Thinking - staying abreast of how to think - is what clients pay us to do. So often, even our best consultants, repeat what they have done for others and fail to reflect on what a client needs because they do not think...think...think”

PR Week October 11th 2013

Bob Pickard Kia Motors Global PR Conference @ Seoul