Inside PR 3.11: We’re baaaack…

October 13, 2012 • admin • PR

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Well, it’s fall 2012, our extended summer vacation is over and we’re excited to be starting a new season of Inside PR.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our collection of interviews and want to thank our listeners for being patient and to welcome all of you back.

This week, we catch up by mentioning a few of the changes that have happened since our last recording including the fact that Google has eclipsed Microsoft as the second largest technology company by market cap. Byng is getting closer to Facebook and that’s making it a more relevant search engine. And Twitter’s closing the gates to their API and leaving some of the developers who’ve helped build the service behind.

As many of you know, Gini has just finished 25 weeks on the road, launching her new book, Marketing in the Round and she talks about some of the things she’s learned.

She said she was most surprised by the length of the process – a full year to sign a contract, write, edit, publish a book and then another few months for people to start reading and talking about it and for the authors to know if they’re making an impact. That’s very different from the instant gratification we get from blog posts and online social interactions.

She also found traditional sales measurement lacking. It takes a couple of weeks to receive reports and they only track hardcover sales and not special sales or ebooks. She says she’s used to working in a fast-paced world and publishing is more traditional and slower.

So what’s on the horizon for Inside PR? We’re happy to be partnering with PRSA again. Joe and Martin will be at the International Conference recording video and audio interviews with some of the speakers and thought leaders. Martin’s also presenting a session called Social Media Barometer. So if you’re there, please say hi.

We’re also excited to be sponsoring MeshMarketing 2012 in Toronto. We’ll be talking to some of the presenters including Kristina Halvorson and the organizing team and will be roving reporters at the event – which always features innovative thinkers in the social and digital space.

And we’re interested to hear from you and any ideas you have about what you’d like us to discuss.

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Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe 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.

Inside PR 3.08: Rob Flaherty and the PRSA 2012 International Conference

September 17, 2012 • admin • PR

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This week, we air a special episode of Inside PR. Martin Waxman catches up with Rob Flaherty, the co-chair of the PRSA International Conference and CEO of Ketchum.

The 2012 International Conference takes place in San Francisco between October 13 and 16 and focuses on the intersection of technology and media. Here’s where to go to register online.

Flaherty talks about his role, and how he, along with his co-chairs Jack Martin, Global Chairman & CEO, Hill+Knowlton Strategies and Janet Tyler, Co-CEO & Founder, Airfoil Public Relations, worked on planning the conference. He says it took a lot of bright and intelligent people to bring together such a strong line-up for 2012.

Flaherty also talks about an exciting panel on The Agency of the Future, hosted by himself, Jack Martin, Tyler and Fred Cook, CEO of Golin Harris.

If you are attending PRSA, you may catch Martin at this panel. You can also catch Martin at his own session, Social Media Barometer, on Sunday.

This year’s conference theme is ‘The Future is Now’, which represents how we are entering a new era of public relations and communications. Everything from radical transparency to globalization of PR.

To support the theme there will be keynotes by some of North America’s leading entrepreneurs, thinkers and innovators:

Biz Stone, Co-Founder, Twitter
Tim Westergren, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Pandora
June Cotte, Ph.D., Consumer Behavioral Expert
Michael Steele, Political Analyst, MSNBC

But, PRSA is not all about the keynotes, there are a variety of networking opportunities to meet other greats minds in our industry.

If you have the opportunity we encourage you to check out the conference in San Franciso between October 13 and 16. Make sure to look out for Inside PR we hope to see you there!

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Inside PR 3.05: June Cotte, PRSA International Conference keynoter, on ethical consumption

August 27, 2012 • admin • PR

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This week, Martin talks with PRSA International Conference keynote speaker, June Cotte, associate professor at the Richard Ivey School of Business in London, Ontario and the school’s George and Mary Turnbull Fellow.

Professor Cotte studies consumer behavioural and purchase issues, also the subject of her presentation, ‘When Will Consumers Pay to Be Good’.

Cotte and her colleagues conduct research on socially conscious consumption including recent experiments where consumers are exposed to certain purchase conditions and then asked to respond in order to determine how and why people behave the way they do and when they’ll pay more for ethically produced products.

In addition to paying a premium for ethically produced products, she found consumers will penalize brands by paying a lower price for goods when a company’s corporate behaviour is in question. Consumer attitudes are cyclical and Cotte observed that ethical consumption was important in the ‘70s though less so in the ‘80s and ‘90s. The current prevailing sentiment toward socially responsible behavior began to emerge again in the 2000s. She contends a cultural zeitgeist drives the change and that is where PR can come in, to explain the story and the benefits of an organization’s positive behaviour to consumers. This is especially important in an economic downturn where price becomes more of a consideration.

And because firms can get into trouble when they oversell a claim, communicators can help organizations strike a balance between explaining what they’re doing and the effect it has and help them deliver the story in the right tone.

It’s a fascinating study and you can hear more at the PRSA International Conference, October 13 to 16, 2012 in San Francisco.

Gini, Joe and Martin will also be at the conference and we look forward to meeting you there.

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Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Kristine Simpson.