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.
Kristin Cahill, Incoming CEO (Jan.2021), GCI Health, shares best practices for pharma and healthcare organizations to effectively communicate with their stakeholders. She emphasizes the importance of individuality when navigating messaging between different stakeholders in different regions of the world.
Kristin also provides insights on onboarding new clients in the remote environment and tips for communicators for 2021.
Jennifer Beugelmans, CCO at Groupon, discusses how the company navigated massive change internally and externally on a global scale. She emphasizes the importance of authenticity and transparency when managing communications on the merchant level as well as the customer level.
Jennifer also shares some of the internal changes that Groupon has implemented to tackle social justice issues and create a safe space in the workplace.
Marc Banks, National Press Secretary at the NAACP, discusses how organizations can maintain the social justice momentum created in 2020 heading into the next year. He urges brands to work with organizations like the NAACP to educate themselves and incorporate the ongoing issues into their messaging.
Marc also emphasizes the importance of creating not just short campaigns, but complete initiatives centered around racial justice to facilitate change.
Jonathan Adashek, CCO at IBM, shares his experience of taking on a leadership role at the company shortly before COVID hit. He discusses how the impact of the pandemic on communications affected his leadership style.
Jonathan also provides insights on navigating communications on a global scale, staying consistent with core values of the business, but adapting to the specific markets at the same time. Lastly, Jonathan offers his outlook for 2021, and tips for communicators to prepare for the new year.
Michael Smart, CEO at MichaelSMARTPR, shares best practices for pitching to the media heading into 2021. Michael discusses the findings of a recent study his team conducted on journalists’ opinions about various pitches they’d received (grab the ebook here).
He provides practical tips that communicators can immediately implement into their pitching strategy to see more effective results. Michael also breaks down some of the internal stresses when it comes to navigating what’s needed to pitch a story successfully.