Episodes

On the last episode of the podcast, we discussed how the public relations industry is under serious threat from the pandemic. In this show we outline a template for the future that will ensure that communications agencies not only survive, but thrive. There is a new breed of communications professional that is challenging the status quo and doing things differently to what has come before. It’s a hybrid of PR, marketing, creative and SEO that has strategic communications at its heart, and follo...

Public relations is at a crossroads. Years of failing to adequately address the measurement issue, ignoring associated disciplines like SEO and a steadfast refusal to understand the viewpoint that PR is a tactical function rather than a strategic discipline have created a position where the industry is now in serious danger of being absorbed into marketing once and for all. An annual study in America shows that progressively less public relations professionals report into the C-Suite, while the...

The last 4 months have played havoc with us as individuals, both physically and mentally. In the marketing industry we’re having to create or adopt new business models, tactics that used to work no longer do, and in some cases we’ve lost our jobs. In the face of this, staying positive can be difficult. In the current environment, resilience and adaptability are valuable character traits whether you’re a business owner, an employee, a freelancer or whether you’ve been made redundant. So how do w...

It is estimated that 70% of people experience feelings of inadequacy, self-doubt and of being a fraud at some time in their career. And in marketing, where it’s easy to compare yourself with others’ creativity and knowledge, incidence of imposter syndrome may well be a lot higher. I’m no different, and frequently look around at my peers in awe and think ‘I don’t deserve to be among these people’. At the current time, with revenues falling and redundancies on the rise, self-belief could be an im...

During 2019 the global ecommerce industry grew by 18% to almost $3.5 trillion. In 2020, with a worldwide rolling lockdown in place, online sales have rocketed further. Amazon’s groceries business has boomed, and in March it announced that it would hire an additional 100,000 staff to cope with demand. At the same time, consumers have become increasingly accustomed to online ordering and click-and-collect services. This raises big questions over the future of bricks and mortar stores, many of whi...

In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, articles started to appear that predicted the end of influencer marketing and the death of ‘influence’. They were prompted by reports of content creators using their positions for privilege during COVID-19 and the fact that influencer jobs had dried up. This episode of the Digital Download podcast looks at the issue from both the influencer marketing side and the content creator side. It investigates what effect the current crisis has had on the industr...

Just a few short months ago, social networks were coming under intense fire for, among other things, data privacy, toxicity and their negative impact on mental health. The reputations of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter were at an all-time low. But recently, things have changed. Since the middle of March user behaviour has become more positive, and the likes of Facebook and Twitter have become more supportive places to hang out and connect with friends. So could COVID-19 actually provide somewha...

After the dotcom crash of 2000, 9/11 in 2001 and the global financial crash of 2008, COVID-19 is the fourth major economic crisis in the working lives of many senior communications practitioners. But arguably unlike any of the crises that have come before it, the current situation has put the marketing communications industry on the verge of radical and lasting changes. The levels of anxiety, everyone working remotely, the prevalence of video calls and the very human distraction of worrying abo...

As marketing communications agencies and in-house teams struggle to get to grips with the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, business continuity has leapt to the fore. 77% of PR firms around the world are expecting a loss of earnings as a result of the crisis, while national newspaper sales fell by 20% in the last two weeks of March. The questions leaders and brands face today are around both short-term survival and long-term strategic planning, and how to reconcile the two. This episod...

Covid-19 has knocked the marketing communications industry for six. Projects and campaigns have been cancelled left, right and centre, leaving many in-house teams on pause and many agencies and freelancers with plummeting revenue. Although it’s only a matter of three weeks since the economy collapsed, such has been the impact of the coronavirus that it now seems difficult to remember normal business life before it. But there was a time less than two months ago where the marketing world was just...

Use of private messaging apps like WhatsApp, Messenger and Telegram have boomed in the last few years. As long ago as 2016 they were more popular than social networks, and with the recent announcement by WhatsApp that it now has 2 billion users, it’s very clear that they’re here for the long-term. Businesses, and particularly marketers, have struggled to get to grips with messaging apps. Their very nature means that users view such apps as private spaces where they can chat to friends without t...

On 15th February UK TV presenter Caroline Flack took her own life, after years of being hounded by the tabloid media. Between September 2019 and her death, The Sun, The Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror published 120 articles about her, ranging from salacious gossip about her mental health, her relationships and her career, to vicious accusations. Intense coverage of her life had dominated the celebrity columns and the front pages since Caroline was accused of assaulting her boyfriend in December...

2019 has been a tough year for many in the communications industry. Uncertainty around the economic outlook has placed additional stresses on business leaders, and there are worrying signs for 2020 that mirror what was seen before the 2008 financial crisis. This episode of the Digital Download Podcast is part two of the conversation recorded with Spin Sucks author and head of PR agency Arment Dietrich, Gini Dietrich. Part one was published as S5 E10 on 4th December 2019. In one of the most cand...

2019 has been a tough year for many in the communications industry. Uncertainty around the economic outlook has placed additional stresses on business leaders, and there are worrying signs for 2020 that mirror what was seen before the 2008 financial crisis. This episode of the Digital Download Podcast is one of the most candid, honest and down-to-earth shows I’ve recorded since the podcast started two years ago. Gini Dietrich, Spin Sucks author and head of PR agency Arment Dietrich, returns to ...

Digital transformation is a phrase that is misunderstood by many, and yet the thinking behind it is critical to the success of organisations large and small. With the pace of change getting ever faster and a new decade nearly upon us, planning for change is something that everyone should be thinking about. In this episode of the Digital Download Podcast I talk to Andrew Grill, a futurist and keynote speaker who specialises in the impact of technological change on business. We discuss how digita...

Conventional marketing tactics no longer work like they used to. Consumers don’t want to be controlled or sold to. Social media engagement is down across the board. And two thirds of your marketing is happening without you. In this episode of the Digital Download Podcast I talk to Mark Schaefer, author of Marketing Rebellion. In a wide-ranging conversation that covers many threads of current digital communications thinking, we talk about topics as diverse as fake news, the future of Facebook, t...

Facebook states its mission as connecting people the world over. But while social networks are capable of overcoming the technological barriers to achieving this, there are still mountains to climb when it comes to cultural and societal challenges. In this episode of the Digital Download Podcast I talk to Michael Marquardt, a global business advisor who has spent 25 years living and working throughout Europe, Asia and America. Michael serves on several boards for organisations around the world,...

There are now 100 million homeless and displaced people in the world, and the issue is becoming a major problems for most countries and cities around the world. The World’s Big Sleep Out is a charitable initiative that aims to change that by encouraging 50,000 people to sleep outside in 50 cities around the world to raise $50 million for homeless charities. In this episode of the Digital Download Podcast I talk to Josh Littlejohn MBE, the founder of The World’s Big Sleep Out. Josh contacted me ...

Over the last ten years it’s become increasingly clear that data is the new gold. While the likes of Google and Facebook make money from selling data, new technologies like blockchain and cryptocurrency have sprung up built upon the foundations of data. Getting to grips with it all is a challenging task. In this episode of the Digital Download Podcast I talk to Ste Davies, a digital strategist with a huge interest in all things data. Ste has recently looked deeply into data privacy, digital min...

The public relations industry has a love/hate relationship with the public relations industry. Its own biggest supporter and yet its own biggest critic, the cyclical nature of many of the debates drives some of those who’ve worked within it for many years to distraction. One of those people is Rax Lakhani, a communications consultant with nearly two decades’ experience working with big name brands. In this episode of the Digital Download Podcast, Rax voices some of his growing frustrations with...

Content marketing has become associated with inbound marketing and sales funnels, with communicators in danger of being swamped by advertisers when it comes to the use of creative content. But there is an alternative school of thought which says that public relations is the ideal home for content marketing. In this episode of the Digital Download Podcast, I talk to communications strategist Trevor Young about the strategic use of content marketing for PR and communications purposes, and how it ...

Fake news and propaganda have existed for decades, if not centuries. But with social media algorithms reinforcing confirmation bias and with the advent of deep fake technology, misinformation has reached unprecedented levels. As a result, trust has plummeted and corporate crises are becoming ever-more common. In this episode of the Digital Download Podcast, I talk to Kate Hartley from crisis simulation platform Polpeo. Kate has recently written a book called Communicate in a Crisis that takes a...

The world is seemingly in crisis, with social and political upheaval having dominated the news agenda for several years. Much of the blame for this is laid at the feet of the social media giants, notably Facebook and Twitter, for creating platforms that fragment society and encourage extremism. In the opening episode of Season Five of the Digital Download Podcast, I talk to digital technologist and former manager of the BBC’s DigiLab Euan Semple about the current social media environment and wh...

In 2019 we’re all hyper-connected. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp and dozens of other apps compete for our attention on a daily basis. Those working in the communications industry are, arguably, more exposed than most given the nature of our jobs. So what affect is this having on us? In this special episode of the Digital Download Podcast for #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek, I chat to Leanne Ehren and Alistair Beech, two communications professionals who have not only openly talked about thei...