- Chris Foster, CEO, Omnicom Public Relations Group
- Allyson Park, Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer, Walmart
- Bradley Akubuiro, Partner & Corporate Communications Lead, Bully Pulpit International
- Dale Bornstein, CEO, M Booth
- Mike Bako, Executive Vice President, D S Simon Media
- Megan Kessler, Founder, Dark Horse Strategies
- Portia Young, Director of Corporate Public Relations, Sargento
- Darryl Sparey, Managing Director and Co-Founder, Hard Numbers
- Anne Green, Principal and CEO, G&S Integrated Marketing Communications Group
- Elizabeth Rosenberger, VP, Client Services, D S Simon Media
>> Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and others.
TRANSCRIPT:
DOUG, D S SIMON MEDIA: What’s changed in public relations since PR’s Top Pros started their careers? As part of D S Simon Media’s 40th anniversary celebration, we’ve devoted this edition of the podcast to hear from some of those top pros. For me, the most important change has been the amount of stuff, the amount of tools, the amount of content, the amount of content creators that you have to deal with. It’s been a huge adjustment, and it’s only going to continue. Let’s hear what others had to say.
CHRIS, OMNICOM: The biggest change isn’t technology. I think it’s in expectations, right? I think every organization is expected to communicate faster, more transparency, greater accountability, you know, than ever before. And I think that’s put an enormous amount of pressure on communicators and on leaders in business.
ALLYSON, WALMART: It’s got to be the universal trend of media fragmentation everywhere, all over the world.
BRADLEY, BULLY PULPIT INTERNATIONAL: Things are moving faster. The proliferation of information is so much greater, and the ability for folks who want to do us harm, to be able to do it has increased exponentially, but with that, the tools that we have to defend our organizations and reputations have increased dramatically as well.
DALE, M BOOTH: One of the biggest changes is now this consolidation of like uber, uber monolithic holding companies in our business. And that’s just a homogenization of culture and brands. And that’s why dynamic midsize shops really provide the kind of workplace, workforce where, again, creativity will thrive.
MIKE, D S SIMON MEDIA: Trying to figure out what’s next in terms of is it TV, is it radio, is it digital media? Is it using influencers? And now with the influx of AI and GEO, how do we leverage that to meet the audience where they are?
MEGAN, DARK HORSE STRATEGIES: Technology has really stepped in to help take ideas from, you know, an idea to strategy to execution, right? You used to sit somewhere in that mix. Either you were the executor, you were the arms and legs. You were the strategist. You were telling the teams what to do, or you’re the big idea person. You had this big creative idea, and you just hand it to your team, and they go make it real. Today you could have a big idea. You can build a strategy around it, and you can execute it with all the technology, and that is just wild.
PORTIA, SARGENTO: The rapid decline of the mass media concept. There is no more national conversation. The closest we get to that is live sports or the Super Bowl. Everybody can watch what they want to watch when they want to watch it. And the idea of just a broadcast, that’s over.
DARRYL, HARD NUMBERS: The range of channels that have been created and the digital nature of everything we do, it creates a huge opportunity because if everything is digital, everything is far more trackable, and there’s a much greater ability to be able to track the ultimately the impact of what you’ve had for someone by having a link and being able to track referral traffic to a particular page as a result, for example. That huge explosion in sources and the skills that you need to have to be able to communicate across all that different media.
ANNE, G&S COMMUNICATIONS: The fact of so much creative power being put in the hands of individuals of all walks of life, and we’re seeing that certainly now with AI, as you see a bunch of movies at the box office that had their genesis in YouTube. And it really goes back to those moments when you could write to the web using, you know, WordPress and TypePad. And I think that’s been a very, very consistent change. And it’s very much supercharged now.
ELIZABETH, D S SIMON MEDIA: Expansions of platforms and the expectations for brands to engage 24/7 with their audiences. And I also think that and how fast everything moves, the news cycle is non-stop, and clients are looking for content that can work across multiple platforms simultaneously.
DOUG, D S SIMON MEDIA: Want to participate or know one of the top pros? Let us know. Shoot us an email at PRsTopPros@dssimonmedia.com. Thanks for watching.
