Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

We start this week on a sad note as we remember Arthur Yann, vice president PR, PRSA, who passed away suddenly in June. Arthur was an industry leader, a man of integrity and intelligence and a good friend of Inside PR. His untimely death is a big loss for the PR industry and we want to send our deepest condolences to Arthur’s family and colleagues at PRSA.

You can read tributes to Arthur by Gini and Martin.

We also congratulate Louise Armstrong on becoming the new president of IABC Toronto, the organization’s largest chapter.

This week we talk about two things – some of the innovations advertising has been making in recent months and whether or not PR is in danger of being commoditized – again.

Martin recaps a blog post he wrote on recent changes to the ad landscape including the launch of Instagram video, hashtags on Facebook and Google/YouTube training advertisers how to make their videos more viral.

Gini wonders if PR is just not creative enough as an industry and perhaps that starts with the way we name our agencies, like lawyers and accountants. Joe suggests that it’s not an industry that innovates, it’s the people in it.

Martin mentions an observation by Dave Jones, one of IPR’s founders, who made the leap from PR to the ad and now digital worlds.  Dave suggests PR people default to one of three strategies when they develop campaigns: celebrity spokesperson, charitable component or survey. And if you can work in all three, that’s the holy grail. He says the industry needs to liberate itself from that mindset.

And speaking of a new mindset, Joe talks about AirPR, an online platform, just out of beta, that claims it can match clients to PR agencies more effectively than RfPs. Joe and Gini think it may be worth trying, while Martin feels it’s a step in the wrong direction because it places no value on relationships.

And finally we want to thank podcaster and video producer Steve Lubetkin for leaving a comment on Inside PR 3.36.  We appreciate your thoughts on the subject of visual storytelling. You can read more of Steve’s insights here.

That’s a wrap for this week. We’d love to hear what you think.

********************************************

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Kristine Simpson and Ashlea LeCompte.