The communications briefing: Advertising could soon face talent drain

PR news this week, with thanks to Early Morning Media 

Industry
Ad industry could face mass departures
Research by advertising agency Impero found that 62% of people in the industry have interviewed for a job in another sector over the last 12 months, with the majority of workers only planning to stay in advertising for two to five years. The report also highlighted the need for cultural change within the advertising industry, which has been plagued by concerns over burnout, mental health and sexism. Michael Scantlebury, Impero founder and creative director, said: "In order to avoid a brain drain of the best talent to other, sexier industries like tech, we need to drastically increase our focus on making great work people care about. We need to make funny work, effective work, work that really reaches people, rather than getting lost in a programmatic bubble."
City AM

Gender stereotypes ban considered
Brooke Erin Duffy, an assistant professor of communication at Cornell University, explored the UK's new gender stereotype ban in advertising. The UK has historically had much more aggressive standards in regulating the advertising industry, she began, asserting that she would support the US doing something similar. Advertisements have traditionally exploited individuals’ fears, Duffy continued, but we also have to think about the demographic make up of the industry itself, adding: "My hope is that we’re seeing women and marginalised communities having increased roles within this industry and sort of engage in self-regulation."
Vox

Access Intelligence secures sustained growth
Access Intelligence announced that it had secured sustained growth over the first half of the year after its performance was boosted by an acquisition. The supplier of software-as-a-service said: “In the first half of the year, growth was driven by new business secured by the company’s Vuelio monitoring and intelligence platform. This was supplemented by upselling of services from newly acquired ResponseSource, the journalist enquiry platform, to Vuelio’s existing clients. Integration of the company’s Vuelio platform with ResponseSource during the second half of the year is expected to accelerate revenue growth by expanding the product suite and securing the group’s market leading position for technological innovation.” Over the last six months, the group has delivered an increase in net annual contract value of £0.45m, compared to an increase of £0.36m for the equivalent period in 2018.
Yorkshire Post  StockMarketWire

East Anglia-based agencies 'punching above their weight'
Sarah Chambers profiled several East Anglia-based PR agencies "punching above their weight with award-winning campaigns," which she described as having knock-on social and economic benefits for the region. She outlined recent projects by Genesis, Norwich-based Newman Associates PR, Felixstowe-based Prominent PR (which recently scooped a gold from the CIPR for its work in creating East Cambridgeshire District Council's recycling champion "Michael Recycle”); whilst Erika Clegg, co-founder of Southwold-based Spring, which recently garnered national recognition for its community engagement strategy for Anglian Water, suggested old descriptors  – design agency, PR agency, digital agency  – are "heading into dinosaur territory." Rebecca Scrase, who runs a PR firm near Ipswich, predicted that the freelance sector will continue its "stellar rise" in the gig economy as businesses look for more flexible and cost-effective business solutions, and added: "Multi-platform content creation will see traditional editorial being favoured for video and podcasting and the distinction between marketing, SEO, advertising, PR and even journalism will become increasingly blurred."
East Anglia Daily Times

Indian Railways to get private PR help
Indian Railways is planning to hire private public relations experts to help formulate strategies for social media platforms in the national capital and each of the country's 18 zones. Currently, the mammoth task is handled in-house.
Swarajya

Reputational Risk
Privacy regulator’s website falls foul of GDPR
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) admitted that its own website does not conform to GDPR, saying its use of cookies, small tracking files used to record information about visits to a website, was not up to standards set by the privacy laws. Adam Rose, a lawyer at Mishcon de Reya, uncovered the flaw after sending in a complaint to the organization about cookies, with the ICO telling him it is in the “process of updating” its procedures to comply. Rafi Azim-Khan, a partner at Pillsbury Law, said the matter “shows that even the regulator is not immune from the complexities of getting website notices right”.
The Daily Telegraph

Political

Boris mulling 'dream team' for number 10
The Times' political editor Tim Shipman described how Boris Johnson is planning a reunion of his "most senior allies from City Hall" if he gets to Downing Street. Will Walden, currently a senior executive with Edelman, was Johnson’s chief political adviser at City Hall and has been providing strategic counsel during the leadership election, Shipman notes, and suggested that the frontrunner for director of communications will likely be Lee Cain, a veteran of the Vote Leave campaign who has served as Johnson’s media spokesman since 2017.
The Times

'Fake polls' prompt Trump to tweak pollsters
US President Donald Trump is cutting ties with three of his five voting pollsters to prevent further disclosure of poor ratings  – which he was quick to rubbish as 'fake polls'. One of the firms to go is the Polling Co, which though now owned by conservative advocacy firm CRC Public Relations was formerly run by Kellyanne Conway  – one of his closest advisers. The polling showed Mr Trump behind former vice president Joe Biden in several key battleground states, including by double digits in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
The Independent

Campaigns

Stress in the workplace
Emma Kane, chief executive of Newgate Communications, contributed to a feature underlining the increasing awareness of mental health issues in the workplace  – and a new openness to discussing the topic. "Investing in employees’ mental health carries a fairly significant financial cost but the alternative is far more costly,” Ms Kane began, and detailed a wealth of wellbeing-related benefits her firm offers. Newgate has also trained four of its staff as mental health first aiders so they can spot early signs of stress and anxiety in colleagues and direct them towards support.
The Daily Telegraph

Technology

Kantar launches AI-based solutions
Kantar launched four big data and AI-based solutions that aim to help brands, advertising agencies and media companies more efficiently and accurately build and measure campaigns that have global impact. The first, Context Lab, is a platform designed to create synergy between creative and media strategies. The second, Creative Transport, is a toolset for forecasting how well creative executions designed for one country will perform if transported to other markets. The third, Balanced Attribution, enables marketers to balance short-term sales optimisation and long-term brand equity growth, by enabling companies to find the right mix of online and offline channels for their marketing campaigns. Finally, Enhanced Visual Analytics (EVA) is an online platform that analyses social media imagery at scale to help brand owners understand how their brand and products are being visually represented in broader culture.
Mobile Marketing Magazine

And finally…

In case you were wondering what that was all about… Dream catcher
A company named Anima Technologies, which claimed to have created a "Dream Camera" to help recapture lost dreams forgotten upon waking, is using ads all over the world, including on the tube, as part of a viral marketing campaign for "hotly anticipated" new music from Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke. According to music site Pitchfork, the adverts end with a portion of Yorke’s song "Not the News".
Metro

This briefing has been prepared by Early Morning Media.  If you are interested in a customised bespoke news briefing for you or your client across any vertical, please contact Charles.Webster@earlymorningmedia.co.uk