No navel-gazing here

There’s never been a better time to have a cause that you’re passionate about while working in PR. Over the past year we’ve seen a range of environmental and social issues play out that have sparked debate, dialogue and protest.

On the run up to the Chancellor’s Budget announcement, we worked with PensionBee to pitch out expert commentary from their CEO, Romi Savova around issues affecting the pensions industry. Romi was interviewed on Sky News Ian King Live and Jazz FM discussing her views on proposed Chancellor plans to freeze the lifetime allowance for pensions and how this would impact consumers. The team also secured commentary from Romi in several national outlets, including the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, The Daily Express and MSN Money resulting in a total of 23 pieces of coverage and a total reach of 668M.

In March we worked with Budweiser Brewing Group to announce its investment of over £115m in UK breweries as part of our Q1 Economic Resilience campaign. Positioning it as corporate storytelling exercise to show key stakeholders how the client is driving the industry’s COVID-19 economic recovery, we delivered widespread national, regional, trade, and broadcast coverage, in both print and online media.

No this isn’t a blog about THAT runaway hit from the United Kingdolls – but if you do want a discussion about the merits of various Drag Race bangers (special shout out to ‘Break Up’), then hit me up.

Instead, this is a look at whether COVID is fostering a new era in consumer PR – whether it’s creating a culture of kindness, forcing us all to dig deeper into how brands can support consumers and deliver genuine value to them and their communities.

The word influencer often has negative connotations. One quick check of the Daily Mail’s side bar of shame, which I have to add that I only ever look at to monitor for client coverage, shows countless stories criticising so-called influencers for anything and everything.

Headlines blaming them for bragging about their holidays and exploiting grey areas when the country is in lockdown, dominate the tabloids. But, the reality stars that Priti Patel loves to criticise only form a tiny proportion of influencers.