The Stream

Dan Whitney, managing director of the marketing innovation team, Europe, and global creative services lead at Allison+Partners, shares insights on the campaigns that caught his attention over the last week.

Allison+Partners UK has promoted Dan Whitney to managing director, marketing innovation team, Europe + Global Creative Services. He will lead the integrated offering alongside partner and managing director, UK + Ireland, Jim Selman.

News of globally recognised brands falling victim to cyberattacks are no longer a rarity, and it’s not just cybersecurity teams that need to be prepared. Cyberattacks can be hugely detrimental to brand reputation, and PRs must take note. 

Of course, the extent of reputational damage as a result of cybercrime depends on the severity of the attack – the extent to which employee and customer data were breached, how much data was compromised and if an attack stops the brand from functioning, for instance, if the breach disrupted sales.

No matter how long you’ve worked in PR, seeing a crisis come to fruition and having to execute a crisis communications plan is never a nice feeling. Unlike announcements you’ve planned weeks in advance, crises can unfurl at the worst of times and you might fall into panic mode.

So, how should you best respond? Here’s my three-point plan.

Two years into COVID-19, on a global scale, we are truly tired of everything being “unprecedented.” The daughter of our CEO, Scott Allison, works as a news anchor, and I think speaks for us all in saying she cannot wait to finally be given some news that is “precedented.”

The news cycle has remained an overwhelmingly busy one throughout this time as we contend with so much political and social tension alongside the ongoing pandemic. Brands need to be more sympathetic and smarter than ever in their storytelling to capture even a tiny share of consumer hearts and minds.

At A+P, although our work spans integrated paid, earned, shared and owned campaigns, we strongly believe in an earned-first approach to brand storytelling. Having started my career in consumer PR, the principles I learned when writing my first press releases and media pitches are still etched in my mind on the daily as I develop brand and content strategies for clients now. Here’s why three key principles for this framework are particularly important during times of crisis, and how you can apply them.

Welcome to Part 2 of our primer on all things Metaverse. In case you missed it, the first part of Allison+Partners’ guide to entering the metaverse is here. We already covered the origins, what people can (and will) do there and the basics of business in the metaverse. Now we address the trillion-dollar questions:   

Perhaps unsurprisingly in our digital-first world, people spend an average of three hours and 15 minutes on their phones every day. This means we’re all keyed into the latest news, announcements – and downfalls. 

To keep up with this pace and reach their audiences, brands must have an always-on approach, tapping into the latest trends, taking over media headlines and sharing strong stances on social media. But this 24/7 strategy opens the door to errors from time to time, and how a brand responds determines its future among consumers and stakeholders. 

So, if your brand is in a crisis, how do you best come back from it? Take deep breaths and then rest assured, because we’ve got some tips to help you bounce back. Still, act quickly throughout each step below, as there’s a window of 24 hours to course-correct and get your message out there post-crisis.

After the racial “awakening” of summer 2020, many agencies were asked to reflect and commit to change to cultivate a more equitable agency where the racial diversity representation was representative of society. As a result, PR agencies across the globe made commitments to increase racial diversity and set target percentages. 

Yet, many organisations failed to meet their goals.