Page 32 - AdNews April 2020

Feature
“I’m less interested in talking about us versus them or about what we collectively need to do for the brands and partners.
“Who owns creative, who owns messaging, who owns strategy? We all own it and then we don’t. We’re here to drive a client business forward and the client’s needs are forever changing.
“They’re more confused than ever about where, and how, and what, and why they should be spending. But the message we get from clients is they need all of their partners to do more.”
And clients want earned media, a third party media influencer, a partner, wanting to talk about it.
“When we talk about earned media, we’re ultimately talking about having to earn an outcome that is not in a payable owned channel,” says Pace.
“So we come up with an idea with such cultural relevance, or sig- nificance, or impact that media influences, brand partners, key opinion leaders, audiences, stake- holders, they willingly take part, not because they’re being paid to or have been instructed to.
“Ad agencies who are doing it well are being recognised for that because (award) jurors, and com- panies, and brands, and decision makers are saying there’s some- thing in this that makes me feel something in a way that lasts and has impact and relevance with me beyond just the 20 seconds or 15 seconds that I engaged with it.
“It makes it more genuine in a time where trust is at an all time low. People are very sceptical of the world out there.”
PR needs to not just be thinking about media influencers, messag- ing and issues management and all day to day work that keeps a busi- ness afloat.
“We also need to be thinking about the much bigger picture and how what we do can influence paid and owned channels, and con- versely, creative to be doing the same,” says Pace.
“When we’re coming up with creative, digital or shopper cam- paigns, the more there is an earned bent to them, right in their heart, the more likely it is to resonate with the consumer.
“The future is earned- led, socially-enabled content and stories built for devices, which plays well to PRs strengths.” Kieran Moore, CEO of WPP AUNZ’s PR & GR
“For me, it’s not an either/or conversation. We all need to be doing it and the best outcome is we all learn how to be better at each other’s respective field while also respecting there will always be subject matter experts who we should work with and try to move things forward.
“Ad agencies having PR people in their businesses is nothing new, but in the vast majority of instances it is segregated and the process in which they work is not one where everyone is coming at it from an even playing field.”
Some ad agencies have PR but the creators and the strategists are still leading. The PR experts are brought in late.
“Whether the ad agencies bring in PR people or not, it’s not really the point,” says Pace. “The point is having people in your business — PR, creative strategist or not — who understand what earned media is about.”
But they also need a way of working, a culture, where everyone has a voice. “That is far more important than ad agencies getting PR people in the room,” he says.
Teams
Tabitha Fairbairn, managing director of Mango Communications, part of DDB, regularly creates bespoke teams to service unique needs. “These core teams are often made up of discipline leads and execution teams,” she says. “This has changed how our agency model responds to a new brief and who is at that table when the brief comes in.”
Fairbairn says great PR capability is as important to ad agencies as great creative is to PR agencies.