PARTICIPANTS
– Jennifer Acree, founder and CEO, JSA+Partners
– Jennifer Barry, MD, Los Angeles, Zapwater Communications
– Karena Bibbins-McKeever, group account director, IW Group
– Keisha Brown, president, Lagrant Communications
– Monica Feig, EVP, Clarity
– Stephanie Graves, CEO and president, Lee Andrews Group
– Jenny Kantor, EVP, group head, corporate practice, Edelman
– Cary Kwok, EVP, Berlin Rosen
– Daniel Lotzof, chief revenue officer, Notified
– Nathan Miller, founder and CEO, Miller Ink
– Jeff Stacey, VP, product, Notified
There’s no doubt technology can help all PR professionals in myriad ways. However, with all that top tech tools and even AI can provide — and they can provide a lot — human analysis and insights are vital for maximum comms impact.
This belief was conveyed clearly by the agency leaders who joined PRWeek and Notified in Los Angeles for this recent roundtable.
Another prevailing sentiment among the group: Clients rely quite a bit on their agencies to be up-to-date on the latest tools and tactics.
Agencies assume educator role
Whether it’s virtual reality, the metaverse or, yes, AI, “clients are expecting us to already be aware of all the new technologies out there,” notes IW Group’s Karena Bibbins-McKeever. “They’re coming to a place of question mark, question mark, question mark above their heads — and we’re expected to be experts.”
In addition, communicators are expected to be a resource for brand news, data, analysis and insights. Ultimately, clients want to know what action to take, shares Edelman’s Jenny Kantor. That is why the agency developed Trust Stream to provide a real-time look at a brand’s trust score based on news, media and events.
So much progress has been made in the quality and breadth of comms measurement. Still, there’s so much more to go in this regard.
“How you customize tools and measurement for different requests for different clients remains a challenge,” conveys Jennifer Acree of JSA+Partners.
The key is to hone in on insights, suggests Clarity’s Monica Feig. Clients don’t care how it happens, they just want to know what to do next — and it’s often the agency who guides them.
Of course, finding those insights is even more difficult with diverse audiences. “With technology, there’s bias,” says Stephanie Graves of the Lee Andrews Group.
“There are different sentiments that go into understanding diverse media and the impact they have in the community,” adds Lagrant Communications’ Keisha Brown. “We work with stations that might not be rated, but those still bring value as investors to our HR, our customers and our community.”
Often, the actual cost of technology that enables those insights is an internal one, explains Berlin Rosen’s Cary Kwok. “What [clients] are paying for is the real-time interpretation of data.”
And while the big client ask is about measurement, PR pros also have to “help educate [brands] on how it’s changing the media relations landscape and how writers work with publications,” notes Jennifer Barry of Zapwater Communications.
(Clockwise from top left) Bibbins-McKeever, Acree, Miller and Kwok
The science of PR
Much talk revolves around how communications is becoming more and more a combination of art and science. With the emphasis on analysis and insights, that is increasingly apparent. In fact, many agencies today have dedicated data scientists on their teams.
“It’s evolving,” points out Kantor. “And it wasn’t even a thing a decade ago.”
“Given client expectations,” continues Kwok, “every single PR person is a data scientist.”
Having true data experts on the team provides such value to a firm, not to mention clients, asserts Bibbins-McKeever.
“Working alongside our data scientists is very beneficial for both of us,” she says. “We often have an idea, but we’re like, ‘How can we back that up?’”
And the truth is, PR agencies actually spend a lot of time thinking about that question and working to ensure that the data they are relying on is accurate.
“I don’t think clients understand just how much time we spend doing that,” Barry reveals.
Miller Ink’s Nathan Miller certainly appreciates the importance of data, but is a bit wary that PR firms can sometimes forget the true objective of understanding what the client’s goal is, who the audience is and how a message reaches that audience to advance the goal.
“That’s where we can be valued as experts in this space,” he notes. “It’s why you need a PR agency and not an AI tool to do all this work.”
(Clockwise from top left) Feig, Kantor, Brown and Lotzof
Troubles with technology
A few of the gathered leaders note how tech tools can be cost-prohibitive for smaller agencies. Concerns about data accuracy for diverse audiences also come up again.
“We are working from a diverse stance and it’s very hard for us to find a lot of value,” laments Brown. “We don’t necessarily need all the general-market stuff.”
Technology also has inherent biases, suggests Graves, reaffriming a stance she noted previously. When looking to improve technology, she thinks the place to start is with cultural insensitivity.
Notified’s Dan Lotzof certainly takes note of PR’s tech needs. He explains that while most AI can be found on public large-scale data models today, brands and agencies will be looking for industry-specific, private, behind-the-firewall applications in the future.
The sheer volume of tech tools is actually a challenge, as well.
Technology offers PR pros access to a lot of more information. As a result, finds Kantor, there is “disruption in your work day when you’re dealing with so many different platforms.”
“From an operational standpoint, it’s amazing how many different platforms everyone has,” says Feig. Meanwhile, adds Bibbins-McKeever, navigating the different platforms and tools has created knowledge gaps both internally and externally.
Considering all this, it’s vital for PR agencies to equip their teams with the right tools.
“If you don’t give them a tool,” warns Lotzof, “they may use something else without you knowing it. [That’s dangerous because] they have no idea about the implications of policy.”
(Clockwise from top left) Graves, Barry and Stacey
Core skills are still key
Technology is changing the comms discipline — and that’s exciting. However, a great opportunity remains “for people who can re-learn the ancient communications arts — how you speak to someone in a way they’re going to understand and that will move them,” counsels Miller. “If you have those fundamentals, these tools give you a boost. They’re not a substitute, though.”
Another core skill is media relations.
“To get anything placed, it’s not really a good press release that does it, it’s your own media relationships,” stresses Graves. “Technology hasn’t overtaken that.”
As for younger professionals, they clearly enter the industry with great knowledge and comfort related to the latest tech tools. However, they need to understand how the core PR skills of “writing a press release, writing a pitch, coming up with a partnership or creative idea connect to the big picture of how [PR is] the connective tissue between products and services and the zeitgeist or the consumer,” explains Barry.
Following up on that, Lotzof brings the conversation back to the irreplaceable role PR pros must play, even as more and more tech tools emerge and AI becomes increasingly prevalent.
Tech tools and AI are often used for sentiment analysis and share of voice. Such data, without proper context, can be misleading, he cautions.
Lotzof provides an example of a brand that recently had a dramatic drop in share of voice that was precipitated by a competitor having horrible press. That rival company gained massive share of voice, but it was clearly a false positive sentiment.
“Technology isn’t fully there,” he concludes. “It requires the human sentiment or human touch on top of it.”
Gut feeling has always been part of the PR calculus. It still can — perhaps even should — be.
“It’s still instinct,” opines Bibbins-McKeever, “but now we back it up with data.”
In the end, it’s up to the PR pro to connect all the dots and map out a strategy.
“The ‘why’ piece of it and that critical thinking will always be the human element,” asserts Feig. “That can never be replaced by a robot [or technology].”
Click here for a recap of the first roundtable in this Notified-hosted series, which took place in New York City. And in December, look for the recap of the third roundtable, which took place in London.
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