Luke Lambert, President and CEO, G&S Business Communications, urges communicators not to turn page on 2020 so quickly. It is essential to take time and note the lessons learned in the past year and turn them into best practices. Luke also shares actions that his agency implemented to tackle issues of diversity and inclusion internally as well as with their clients.
Heather Kernahan, CEO, North America, Hotwire, and Board Chair, PR Council, encourages communications professionals to continually find ways to stay inspired in 2021. She shares insights on how more and more businesses are striving to position themselves as tech companies. Heather also anticipates that communicators will begin to own more of the data and analytics within their companies. She sees integrated communications and marketing as the way to think about your organization.
Ronn Torossian, CEO & Founder, 5W PR, urges brands to be extremely cognizant of communications, as its impact has been rising since the past year. Now more than ever, brands need to be careful of what they say and how they say it.
Ronn believes that the communications style is forever changed, and it’s here to stay.
Emily Poe, Chief Integration Officer, W2O, stresses the importance of understanding different elements of how your audiences experience the world before communicating with them. She emphasizes leveraging data and analytics as key to reaching your stakeholders in the most effective ways.
Emily encourages audience-specific tailoring of messages and content on digital channels.
David Imre, CEO, IMRE, encourages communicators to be willing to change and be open to reinventing themselves in 2021.
He emphasizes the importance of spending half of you time on experimenting and trying new things. In order to survive in the industry you need be learning new things constantly, says David.
Mike Paul, President at Reputation Doctor, urges organizations to make accountability a priority in 2021. Mike discusses his hopes for change in the communications industry this year and shares examples that give him optimism.
Gini Dietrich, Founder of Spin Sucks and Arment Dietrich, stresses the importance of resiliency to succeed in 2021. She discusses new opportunity areas resulting from changes in 2020.
Gini is also excited about the increased role of public relations, as maintaining visibility has become more significant.
Charles Mardiks, President at Mardiks PR, outlines what travel organizations need to do to make a comeback in 2021. He emphasizes the importance of patience and gradual planning. Charles also shares strategies that travel brands can employ to effectively communicate with their stakeholders.
Increasing diversity, equity and inclusion; accountability for PR people on the advice they give; understanding words and images matter, building trust and understanding the increased power of local TV news for both external and internal communications—those are some of the top tips shared by 21 agency and corporate leaders. The group includes 18 C-Suite or President level communicators representing a diverse perspectives on the steps that brands, agencies and individual practitioners need to take to meet the moment and find success in 2021.
Morry Smulevitz, VP, Global Corporate Communications, Walgreens Boots Alliance, shares insights on navigating the relationship between a master brand and more well-known and beloved brands. He discusses how the organization has been integrating the ongoing social justice issues into their CSR initiative. Morry also gives tips on setting stakeholder expectations on different levels and best practices for communicators in 2021.