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@ Work questions:

1. What’s your career background, in brief?

My career background prior to PR was in journalism. From work experience at my local newspaper, The Peterborough Telegraph, to graduating with a sports journalism degree at Sunderland University just under three years ago. I have also been fortunate enough to work as a freelancer for the Peterborough Telegraph covering my beloved Peterborough United (The Posh) on match days, while also reporting on the local greyhound racing and Speedway.

All of my experience has been invaluable since I joined the Whiteoaks team as a Junior Account Executive in 2016, before really putting my media skills to full use as an Account Executive towards the end of the year. I have since progressed to Account Manager where I now head-up simply the best team in the agency (slightly biased), Team Taurus. Joining the agency from the bottom and working my way up has been a brilliant experience and learning how each job role works gives you a great platform to pass on experience and knowledge to fellow colleagues at every level.

2. What’s the most challenging job you’ve ever had?

While being an Account Manager is always busy, no pressure compares to when I covered some of The Posh’s league matches for the Peterborough Telegraph. Making sure a full match-report is uploaded to the newspaper’s website five minutes after the final whistle is a different kind of pressure, especially if a late goal goes in.

3. What apps, technology items and gadgets can’t you live without?

My phone is an obvious one, but I’m a self-confessed FIFA nerd, so life without a PS4 wouldn’t be as enjoyable. Amazon’s Alexa is also becoming pretty influential in my life; now I can play Pointless whenever I choose.

4. What’s the best advice you’ve been given? (life or career advice)

To always prepare.

5. Name one thing about your job that gives you a sense of satisfaction or makes you leave the office smiling…

Receiving good feedback from a client that the whole team has worked hard to achieve, delivering on and exceeding realistic expectations.

6. Do you personalise your workspace?

My workspace is very football themed. On my desk I have a personalised Peterborough United mug and coaster that was a birthday present from my team – they both keep me dreaming of a place in the starting 11.

7. What’s the first thing you do in the office in the morning?

I hang my coat up, make a cup of tea in my special mug as I mentioned above and plan out my priorities list for the day ahead.

8. What are you reading, watching or listening to at the moment?

I don’t really read much other than the news. At the moment I’m watching Sky drama Chernobyl and listening to That Peter Crouch podcast on my commute to work, which is well worth a listen!

Retail has changed, both for better and for worse. Gone are the days of visiting a store and finding the product you want is out of stock or ordering something online and waiting days for it to arrive. Now, order before 11pm and you’re guaranteed next day delivery. Everything now revolves around convenience which, as a consumer, is great. At the same time, the high street is struggling. Almost every day we see another news story about a profit warning or a chain going into administration due to the “challenging retail climate” and “changing consumer habits”. However, there are plenty of actions going on behind the scenes that don’t quite make the national news, of technological developments ticking away in the background of the retail sector, all with the aim of revitalising the high street.

VR/AR

Virtual reality and augmented reality (VR/AR) is a widely discussed topic across all industries, not just retail. In fact, over the next few years its use is predicted to increase, from architecture and manufacturing, to interior design and medicine, as well as its use in gaming. VR allows designers and consumers to ‘see’ new cars, factories and houses before they’re built, or for surgeons to study a 3D duplicate of human organs to accurately diagnose conditions.

Although there’s still a way to go, we are seeing progressive take up of VR/AR innovation in the retail sector. For example, John Lewis recently announced it was implementing augmented reality for its customers to see what make up looks like on their faces prior to buying, with more than 300 lipstick brands to choose from. Similarly, M&S has invested in specialist fitting technology that uses 3D scanning to allow customers to find clothing that best suits their shape and size in a bid to cut down returns and bolster sales. Whiskey distillery Jack Daniel’s also released a new interactive AR marketing tool, that turns any bottle of its product into a pop-up like book that tells the story of its brand and history. The technology here is still evolving, but with the innovation in progress already, it will be exciting to see what more VR/AR can bring to the retail sector.

AI and Machine Learning

Numerous retailers currently use machine learning, but AI is still yet to be fully adopted in retail. The primary difference is that machine learning adapts to provide a human with the data and basis to make an informed decision, whereas AI adapts and makes the decision itself, so it’s arguably understandable that many aren’t quite yet at the stage of relying on robots. Yet the industry can establish trends and patterns that can tailor the consumer experience. On the retailers’ side, this is beneficial in ways such as cost saving, as machine learning today can identify changes in the weather or current affairs, for example, and over- or understock accordingly. And McDonald’s recently introduced AI technology that automatically suggests a McFlurry ice cream on hot days, as well as using number-plate recognition to offer customers their usual food order. Walmart also unveiled its new ‘store of the future’ last month, including AI-powered cameras to monitor inventory levels to determine whether shelves need restocking, or if fresh items have been sitting out for too long.

At the moment, these developments are new enough to be exciting, but given the accelerating speed of technological innovation, it’s only a matter of time before they’ll become commonplace in the retail sector. And with that in mind… surely the high street will then experience a real resurgence?

@Work questions:

1. What’s your career background, in brief?

After graduating from university I moved into local newspaper journalism and spent a few years covering everything from local council meetings to major court cases. I loved my time as a journalist and still use my short-hand today. I then moved into the world of PR, starting with insurer Allianz in Guildford before spending the next decade at in-house PR roles in FTSE 100 organisations. I joined Whiteoaks in 2017 and now enjoy a (usually) pleasant drive to our Hampshire office rather than the often-delayed train journey into London.

2. What’s the most challenging job you’ve ever had?

I had a number of jobs during holiday periods while at university, from picking strawberries to making pizzas. But the most challenging job was trying to sell windows; hours on end cold calling householders only to have the phone slammed down within seconds. I admire anyone with the tenacity to succeed in sales!

3. What apps, technology items and gadgets can’t you live without?

I’m a bit of a social media addict —Twitter recently alerted me to the fact that I have been on the platform for 10 years!

It’s great for keeping track of tech journos — what they are writing about and any requests for information and quotes. And as an avid football fan I like to keep up to date on anything to do with my team; Southampton. I’ve also recently started using Garmin watches — one for use during the day to keep track of steps, heart rate, etc., and one for when I (too infrequently) run to keep a record of distance, pace and routes.

4. What’s the best advice you’ve been given? (life or career advice)

The nature of the roles I have had means that I have been involved with a large amount of crisis communications. When you first get a call from a journalist there is often a sense of panic, but I enjoyed the ‘war room’ mentality, ensuring all relevant stakeholders were involved in gathering the information to help us craft a response. The best advice I had when first starting in PR is that the key to crisis comms is preparedness — both in scenario planning and spokespeople training — and keeping calm. It’s PR, not ER!

5. Name one thing about your job that gives you a sense of satisfaction or makes you leave the office smiling…

The biggest kick I still get from PR is getting national coverage for clients. There is nothing better than seeing the hard efforts of your team result in coverage that surpasses expectations. At Whiteoaks we are particularly strong in helping our clients make their voices heard in breaking news stories, such as a major cyber attack. Preparation and speed are key; being ready to contact the right journalists, at the right time with original, compelling commentary.

6. Do you personalise your workspace?

We like to keep our desks fairly clear at Whiteoaks, but I do have a picture of my kids and a mug coaster of my football team.

7. What’s the first thing you do in the office in the morning?

Make a strong black coffee before checking emails that have come in overnight, mainly from clients and partner agencies we work with in the US.

8. What are you reading, watching or listening to at the moment?

My big passion at the moment is the BBC series Line of Duty, the drama about a police anti-corruption unit. For me, it’s the best BBC thriller of recent years and creator Jed Mercurio – who also wrote the excellent Bodyguard – is one of the nation’s finest TV writers.

Measurement. It’s the topic that public relations and communications professionals regularly debate and want to improve – but doing so is a continual challenge.

The softer arguments for investing in marketing of any kind, for a combination or all of the goals of brand awareness, brand development and relationship-building with new and existing customers, are generally accepted.

However, demonstrating return on investment is something that in-house and agency-side communications practitioners still need to justify to their Directors.

First of all, it is almost impossible to set firm KPIs from a PR campaign built around a monthly retainer. If your main scope of work is filling in a timesheet, then deliverables and activity can be mere sideshows. This traditional way of working is one of the reasons PR has developed a bad name.

Fortunately, the tide is changing. As awareness of the need to measure PR output grows, supported by the recent AMEC Integrated Evaluation Framework, the adoption of systems and processes to manage marketing communications measurement have increased accordingly.

Platform Adoption: The Marketing Automation Stack (MAS)

Take CRM systems as a first example. They should never be purely the domain of the sales team to log and prioritise leads.  They should provide marketers with significant data, which can be analysed to demonstrate the value of and better PR and communications – and ideally, that data should come from both potential and current clients.

In our recent research report, ‘A Perfect Match: ABM and ABS’, 59% of 200 senior B2B Sales and Marketing decision-makers said they use a CRM system to gather, retain and take action on information about both groups. As more and more marketing teams understand the possibilities of automation, the needle is beginning to shift around measurement.

At the centre of any good PR campaign is strong content creation. Content is fundamental to securing opportunities with the media, analysts and other influencers.

So it’s natural, we would argue, that a strategy must demonstrate how this content is delivered in a tailored, relevant and timely way to each audience segment, through as many channels as possible. Integrated marketing is proven to be more effective in terms of awareness, recall and consideration, than single-channel marketing. Not only does this approach increase return on investment, but it retains the consistency of messaging to the audiences, regardless of how they consume information.

Which brings us onto marketing automation software, sometimes combined with a CRM system, or integrated with it. By connecting social media channels, blogs, forms, email marketing and more to a platform such as Hubspot, savvy marketing teams can track leads directly from content created by the PR and communications agency.

Delivering Marketing Leads to Sales Teams

Take our client, Omnico, for whom we launched the first, and now established, Retail Gap Barometer – created to chart the gap between consumer expectations in an omni-channel world, and the reality of retailers to deliver upon them – at the start of our engagement.

Rather than taking the survey data, creating a press release and simply delivering a quality volume of media coverage, our partnership with the client has led to a vast variety of asset creation, including reports, eDMs, sales brochures, eBooks and more. With this approach, Omnico was able to attribute more than £12million in qualified sales leads to our work alone by tracking the campaign through their marketing automation platform.

It’s results from projects like these which prove multi-channel marketing can have a demonstrable benefit in generating sales opportunities for B2B brands. Encouragingly, our research found that 89% of both professional groups agreed with the statement that their company’s marketing efforts have a positive impact on sales efforts and lead generation.

Evolution not Revolution

Armed with the impact and measurement of our work for Omnico and other clients, we have been able to put metrics against our work which grab the attention not just of the sales and marketing teams, but the boardroom too.

And it is a key starting point for us with prospects and clients.  The question “Do you use a CRM and marketing automation system?” has become one of the first we ask senior marketers and PRs at our first point of engagement. It can fundamentally alter the capabilities of and deliverables in our campaigns and moves the conversation from one of coverage volume to sales leads – right from the start.

By Susan Richter, Head of Marketing Communications

Deliver Integrated Campaigns

Andrew Bailey, the FCA’s chief executive spoke last week of his “fears” that the city regulator would be left behind by technological innovations including blockchain and artificial intelligence. The comments came as the regulator released its new annual business plan. He wanted to stress the fact that without regulation in close harmony with technological advances, financial firms could be left vulnerable to making bad business decisions and, as a worst-case scenario, even go bust. Although I’d argue that two other joint worst-case scenarios are data breaches and mistreatment of personal and business customers, both of which remain significant compliance and regulator risks…

A lack of appropriate regulation could potentially undermine the strength of London as a leading financial centre as funds and resources continue to be allocated to the cost of Brexit. “The more money we have to spend on Brexit, the less we have to spend on other areas“, he added. With the FCA set to spend an extra £22m on Brexit preparations, the effects on the organisation’s budget is clear to see, especially with further delays to Article 50 possibly pushing this figure higher. Therefore, finding the budget to keep up with the rapid pace of technological innovations will only become more challenging.

The traditional financial services firms are investing in technology such as AI to speed up decision-making, create efficiencies and improve customer experience. It’s also to keep up with the competition posed by specialist Fintech and Paytech start-ups, something my colleague John Broy recently blogged about in more detail. The commercial advantages are clear for these businesses, but Bailey stressed that changes in technology could bring risk to the operational resilience of our financial system. This poses the question of how accountable firms are for the effects of decisions taken by machines. It’s important to also consider the risk to consumers who could make ill-informed decisions without the adequate guidance that humans provide, compared to machine algorithms alone. This could potentially leave us all more exposed to financial scams and leave some of the less tech savvy generations struggling to participate in a technology-driven banking system.

One of the reasons that the FCA is concerned they won’t be able to keep up with the changes in technology is that they could struggle to acquire the skills and resources to match a changing landscape. There is no doubt technology will revolutionise the financial system in the next 10 years but at what rate and to what degree, no one can predict. It is essential that international financial regulators like the FCA continue to invest in resources but more importantly their people. Regulators must continuously upskill existing staff and create an attractive place for new people to join, as technology advances to make sure they can provide consumers and firms with the right advice and products.

2019 marked the 22^nd year that Whiteoaks attended Las Vegas’ NAB Show – the ultimate event for media, entertainment and technology professionals – which is longer than some of the new ‘Oaksers have even been alive!

Held in the Las Vegas Convention Center, this year’s NAB played host to over 90,000 attendees where guests could roam the hall floors to explore the ground-breaking innovations fuelling the media and entertainment industry, including 5G, 8K TV and Artificial Intelligence.

As always, we supported our broadcast clients by hosting journalist meetings; with almost 30 briefings booked across three days, these face-to-face sessions gave them the chance to discuss the latest trends and how their own evolving solutions continue to mould and shape the wider media and broadcasting industries.

One of my highlights included the fact that one of our long-standing clients signed a deal on stand at the show, a first for us and them, and being there live in Pacific Time meant we were able to support the drafting of the press release and distribute it all within 12 hours. This kind of ‘on the ground support’ proved invaluable to our client’s marketing team and once again demonstrated that done well, media relations can still play a vital role in generating new business – something my colleague Simon Coughlin recently wrote about in detail.

Between the Whiteoaks team old and new, apart from racking up well over 250,000 air miles over this time travelling to the ‘Sin City’ of Nevada, it has also meant we have since become quite the experts in knowing how to survive a trade show.

So, whether you’re an exhibition veteran or you’re planning your first trip, here’s five handy tips that will ensure you have a successful show – and have fun too:

1. Comfortable shoes – an absolute must. You‘ll be on your feet for the majority of the day, standing, walking and sometimes even running if you’ve got a briefing booked in a different hall. So be sure you aren’t wearing in a brand-new pair of shoes for the first time and go with something you know you can wear for a few hours.
2. Water and snacks – you’ll need something to keep you going. Sadly, exhibition show food isn’t usually a great culinary experience – more there for speed and convenience – but if you do find yourself busy around lunch time it’s a good idea to keep a quick snack and some water in your bag to give you some energy along the way.
3. Journalist details. So, you’ve done all the hard work before you attend the show and booked in meetings with the client and the journalist, but it comes to your agreed time slot and the journalist isn’t to be seen. Don’t panic, give them 5-10 minutes just to make it to you from any previous appointments. Then give them a ring to see if they can still make or try to rearrange for another time during the event.
4. Take advantage of the free magazines. Many publications will make a special edition version for big industry shows and often give these out for free during the event. Make sure you grab some to show the client that all important coverage secured ahead of the show.
5. Finally, have fun. Trade shows don’t need to be feared. Embrace the opportunity and if you’re lucky enough to have one in Vegas I would definitely recommended seeing one of the infamous Cirque du Soleil shows, watching the Bellagio fountains or going on the New York New York rollercoaster.

We still won’t be relaxing – even though NAB is officially over, there’s all important follow-up calls and emails with the journalists we liaised with – plus it will soon be time to start thinking about IBC in Amsterdam in September!

When the UK AI industry gets together later this month at AI & Big Data Expo, we expect big things about its growing influence on key issues such as cybercrime, process automation, retail, healthcare and customer experience – all areas in which we have clients actively working in.  However, amongst this anticipation to hear about new and exciting innovation, we hope to hear that ethical AI is woven throughout all aspects of the conference agenda.

This is a topic that is gaining momentum, but with AI still something of a catch-all term, many industries have not yet moved on to this crucial next stage of the debate.

To provide some context, Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, is the author and co-author of two best-selling books[1] on one theme: the fourth industrial revolution (4IA).

The first three revolutions all had some form of production as the benefit. Number one combined water and steam to create mechanical production, and the second was led by harnessing electricity to allow us to mass produce. The third mobilised electronics, computers and IT to automate production.

We have, for a handful of years, existed in the fourth revolution – and it’s one where large-scale iteration in production isn’t the single outcome. This revolution is really quite different. Professor Schwab wrote that this “is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.”

It is impacting almost every industry in every country – developed or otherwise – and creating change at a speed humanity has never before experienced.

41A has opportunities with risks which need to be proactively managed, and artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly the glue that enables various technologies, devices, applications and systems to deliver the opportunities we are only just starting to realise. At the most fundamental level, AI is already showing signs of improving our world, extending to people’s lives, wildlife, as well as our climate. It’s truly democratic in its potential and applications. And they are vast. PwC research says that AI will provide $15.7 trillion in global economic growth by 2030 and in the UK it’s expected to contribute an additional £232bn by the same year.

PwC breaks down the scope of AI into four key areas:

• Automated intelligence: Automating manual, routine tasks;
• Assisted intelligence: Performing tasks faster and better;
• Augmented intelligence: Helping people to make better decisions; and
• Autonomous intelligence: Automating decision-making processes without people.

Across these four aspects of AI, commentary centres on ensuring ‘safe AI’ – where those key stakeholders I mentioned above are collectively responsible for ensuring it’s developed and implemented to align with general human values.

One of the key risks focuses on social ethics. And it’s a broad issue that is increasingly and encouragingly gaining greater traction and visibility in international discussions in the US and in an upcoming Bias review by the UK Centre for Data Ethics & Innovation. Businesses, investors, policy-makers and the public are all involved with responsibilities. We must collectively learn from the recent scandals which stick in the mind, such as Cambridge Analytica, something which author Bernard Marr has explored in a recent article for Forbes.

However, much like big data in the last decade, a lot of the talk around AI in B2B applications is what it “could do” – it’s largely hypothetical and all about the possibilities. And demand for those possibilities is high. As recently as December last year, $322 million was raised for B2B startups in just one week. Time will tell, but we now need to move on to ‘how’ it should be adopted – and I think responsibility plays a key role in this.

[1] The Fourth Industrial Revolution (January 2017) and Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution: A guide to building a better world (November 2018)

Are you a value-adding brandividual utilising holistic storytelling to leverage your influence and drive agile new synergies? Or do you, like so many others, recoil at the very sight or sound of too many buzzwords?

Type the term ‘buzzwords’ into the Google news tab and you’ll find countless articles decrying their use. Many of these articles appear to be responding to LinkedIn’s ‘Buzzword Beaters Bracket’ launched earlier this month, which has generated, well, quite a buzz.

Presenting a fresh spin on the brackets used to keep track the progress of teams in sports tournaments, the Buzzword Bracket plays common buzzwords against each other to find the most annoying of the bunch. The winner (or loser) that surpassed all other contenders in irritating people the most was ‘disruption’.

For those who aren’t in the know, a buzzword is a word or phrase, often labelled as jargon, that is fashionable at a particular time or in a particular context. You could argue that ‘buzzword’ is in itself a buzzword.

In B2B tech PR, buzzwords are used often and in abundance. Once they enter the business lexicon, they represent a meaning that is universally understood. Rather than taking a whole sentence or paragraph to build context, you can do it with just one or two words.

For example, in supply chain management, the term ‘digital decisioning’ has become widely adopted as a way of referencing the process of making crucial business decisions based on insights that are informed by real-time data from various touchpoints across the supply chain network.

Imagine having to read that description every time a piece of content references the practice of digital decisioning. As the term has entered the lexicon it has become commonly used in content written around supply chain management.

In B2B content it pays to be direct. Buzzwords allow you to do this by writing more concisely while continuing to demonstrate value to the reader. However… there’s a big but…

Sifting through the countless articles that call for the banishment of buzzwords, the reason they’re so reviled becomes clear: people feel they are overused and lack originality. Of course, creativity is key to making your content original, engaging and thought provoking. But this has to be balanced with directness and functionality that gives your content purpose and drives your messaging home to the marketing personas you’ve defined.

And that’s exactly what buzzwords can be: direct and functional. Unfortunately, they’re most often overused, sending readers running and causing confusion about what the brand is really trying to convey. It’s why we ourselves recently set out to ‘break up with the cloud’ in a recent campaign we ran around Cloud Expo Europe.

Our view is that buzzwords can play a limited, focused and purposeful role in grabbing attention and signposting in virtual flashing lights what a piece of content is going to broadly be about. But when it comes to the heart of your content, use purposeful, tailored messaging that resonates with your audience instead of relying on the fallback of the buzzword.