PR Futurist | Stuart Bruce | Purposeful Relations - 🤖 PR Futurist #48 | Racist AI | Data story telling | Soaring value of PR

Welcome

More AI shenanigans, data story telling and the soaring value of PR

Welcome back to our fortnightly smorgasbord of articles on issues in and around the practice of communications. Clear communication in politics is vital for effective campaigning so the data visualisation at kamikwasi.tax is a peach. It forgoes the standard communications measure of ‘things’ such as the London bus, football pitch, or the size of Wales and uses area to represent some very large numbers indeed. Effective and very simple, one to be ‘influenced’ by.

Long-time readers will know that we are sceptics and realists about the hype around AI. This week we get to again sharpen our sarcasm over the hype versus reality of systems that take large amounts of data from the internet and produce racist, sexist, frankly illegal almost everywhere outputs. The old computing adage of rubbish in = rubbish out endures.

Finally, a little self-promotion—Stuart has revised his primer on the Metaverse for his recent CommsHero presentation. A useful starter for curious colleagues and food for thought when reviewing areas that your communications practise should address.

Corporate affairs

FTSE 100 communications research reveals serious lack of professional PR

I've blogged about my thoughts on the Chartered Institute of Public Relations research which analysed the boards and executive management teams of the FTSE 100. It found almost half have no director of communications, director of corporate affairs or similar dedicated (or hybrid) position at this senior level.

Stuart Bruce

Ipsos's latest Reputation Council report looks at reputational risk of social media and ESG

The IPSOS annual Reputation Council report is out. It's based on the views of 117 senior, in-house communications practitioners in 16 countries. Some issues it explores include:

1) Reputational risk of social media - the risk reward ratio 2) Crisis communications 3) ESG, regulation and purpose 4) Fake news, misinformation and disinformation

Stuart Bruce

Data, measurement, analytics

You MUST CLICK to see this amazing data visualisation

Excuse the clickbait headline, but it felt appropriate. Take a look at this amazing example of data visualisation. You've got to click and have a play to see what we mean.

Data should tell a story.

When we work with our communications and measurement clients we're always looking to make data come alive to grab the attention of the C-suite and make it easier to understand the business impact of communications and public relations.

Tim Bailey

Research and reports

Perception of PR value soars amongst business leaders

I've blogged my thoughts about the latest PRCA research asking business leaders about their perception of the value of public relations and communications.

The study of CEOs and CFOs from large organisations with more than 250 employees indicates that 92% of respondents believe their communications teams played either a ‘very important’ or ‘important’ role in helping their business deal with the seismic external challenges since the start of 2020.

Stuart Bruce

Professional practice

Pitch imperfect: power relations in the public relations pitching process

Sheffield Hallam University (UK) academic Liz Bridgen has published some fascinating research into public relations pitches - the process where companies and organisations appoint public relations (PR) agencies or consultancies.

You probably don't even need to read it to know that the process is pretty poor and isn't really set-up to provide the best outcome for either side of the relationship.

Stuart Bruce

AI, digital and social

What is the metaverse, why does it matter and how does it work?

This week I spoke at the CommsHero conference about the future of public relations and communications. I covered everything from artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain to digital humans and the metaverse.

In this blog I explain what the metaverse is (or do I?) and why it matters for public relations professionals.

Stuart Bruce

Google’s newest AI generator creates HD video from text prompts

If you were impressed by the ability of DALI-E and Dream Studio to create images and art from just a text description then you'll love this. Read this exciting news about Google's new AI generator that enables you to type a description and it creates a video.

And then read the next story.

Tim Bailey

Google not releasing new video-generating AI because of small issue with gore, **** and racism

This is why we can't have nice things.

Anyone remember Microsoft's Tay AI bot for Twitter?

It was nice while it lasted.

Stuart Bruce

How bots corrupted advertising

If you've ever talked to Stuart about communications measurement and evaluation (and if you haven't, you should!) you'll have heard him explain that claims by digital marketing about attribution and measurement are often inflated.

Actually he's usually a bit more robust than that.

A big reason why PR people often think marketing is 'better' at measurement than communications, is simply that marketing is more confident about its bogus numbers.

Botmasters have created a Kafkaesque system where companies are paying huge sums to show their ads to bots. And everyone is fine with this.

Tim Bailey

Communities

McKinsey identifies communities as the next big thing in brand, marketing and PR

We've long known the power and potential of communities - professional communities, communities of interest or practice. But in the last couple of years it has really exploded.

We see helping clients with community strategy, management and measurement as one of the big growth areas for Purposeful Relations.

It's not just us. McKinsey has now identified communities as the next 'big thing' in communications and marketing.

We've got some exciting developments coming soon. Speak to me or Tim if you want a sneak preview.

Stuart Bruce

Get in touch

Are you intrigued?

If you've been intrigued by anything you've seen in this issue of PR Futurist then book a free chat to talk to us about how we can help you with communication measurement and evaluation, communication technology (CommTech), professional development or the future of crisis communications.