Powerscourt to handle Jupiter Asset Management’s comms

Powerscourt to handle Jupiter Asset Management’s comms

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Jupiter Asset Management has selected Powerscourt as its financial and corporate comms adviser following a competitive pitch.

The brief covers the company’s integrated corporate and capital markets financial comms. The account will be run by the Justin Griffiths, who is a partner at the agency and leads its Financial Services and Real Estate practice.

Kate O’Neill, head of corporate development and communications at Jupiter, said: “We picked Powerscourt because they presented a plan which was thoughtful, yet ambitious, and because of the blend of strategic rigour and creative flair they demonstrated through the pitch process.”

Rory Godson, chief executive of Powerscourt, added: “We’re delighted Jupiter has chosen us to support its communications strategy.”

  • Pictured: Rory Godson
Ex-Times journalist Alexandra Frean joins Starling Bank

Ex-Times journalist Alexandra Frean joins Starling Bank

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Mobile-only bank Starling Bank has appointed veteran The Times journalist Alexandra Frean as its head of corporate affairs.

She joins the bank after working at the newspaper for 25 years. Her roles have included seven years in the United States as New York business editor and Washington bureau chief, while she was also a business columnist in the UK with a focus on technology and diversity.

Frean said: “Starling is on a mission to make banking more user friendly, to break the dominance of the legacy big banks and to help people have a healthier, and happier, relationship with their money.

“Its founder and chief executive Anne Boden is an absolute inspiration in the worlds of banking and technology.”

Boden added: “Alex is a seasoned journalist with an unusually broad range of expertise and interests. She will help drive our corporate affairs team at a critical time in our development as we become a major force in banking.”

  • Pictured: Alexandra Frean

AI and the future of sentiment analysis in PR

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Jason Edelboim is President of Cision Americas where he oversees sales, customer service and operations for the US, Canada and Latin America, as well as Cision’s Global Product organisation. He is responsible for developing and executing the company’s go-to-market strategy to drive revenue growth and profitability.

Jason Edelboim

We have all heard the buzz around machine learning and artificial intelligence, but a term that is relatively new to many, and extremely relevant for those of us in the comms profession, is natural language processing (NLP).

Why? Because this is the essence of machine learning and artificial intelligence as it relates to our world of PR and communications.

Natural language processing is most simply defined as the ability of a computer program to understand and analyse human language as it is spoken. In the 1950s, Alan Turing made history when he said that “a computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human.” The famous “Turing Test” would be passed if and when a person consistently failed to distinguish between human and computer communication.

While this took nearly half a century, the Turing Test was officially passed in June 2014, and today’s technology for natural language processing only continues to grow smarter with time. Consider the latest innovations in smart home technology:

“Alexa, add milk to my shopping list.”

“Hey Google, play “I Want it That Way” by Backstreet Boys on Spotify.”

“Siri, call Mom.”

Do you see where I am going with this?

But how can we, in the comms world, tap into the power of NLP and these advancements in artificial intelligence? The capabilities of natural language processing cover a broad scope of use cases, but the ability to automatically identify audience sentiment is key for communicators when it comes to planning and executing impactful earned media programs.

Automatically and accurately determine audience sentiment
Sifting through coverage to identify stories and company mentions that had a desired impact on target audiences can take a lot of time and resources. When it comes to sentiment analysis, that process is not just as simple as locating keywords but requires a person to read through an article at length to interpret its tone.

Early technology implemented simple logic-based algorithms to identify words as either positive or negative, but often missed the nuance of human communication and left many terms unclassified.

Today’s automated systems are equipped to interpret context and attribute true meaning, growing smarter over time. With a natural language processing engine built into your monitoring solution, you can quickly and easily determine sentiment from a simple string of text across any relevant channel.

Proactively shape messaging for future campaigns
When it comes to crafting earned media campaigns, it is important to understand the sentiment of your target audience around both your brand and your coverage. This type of insight helps to demonstrate how well messaging is resonating and whether it is having a positive, negative, or neutral impact on your business.

By understanding the tone of your coverage on top of the sentiment of specific company mentions, your comms teams will be able to proactively shape upcoming campaigns and programs. For example, push more of the messaging associated with a positive audience sentiment and avoid stories that provoked a negative perception of your brand.

The Cision® Difference
With the latest release of Cision Communications Cloud®, we delivered improvements to natural language processing for auto-sentiment. These enhancements result in smarter and more accurate toning for our customers. How so?

Take advantage of superior differentiation for words associated with multiple meanings and interpretations.

For many comms people, auto-sentiment tools might not be accurate enough to identify when a word, commonly associated with something negative, is actual being used in a positive way. For example, in the medical industry, the mention of an illness might always be picked up as negative. But what about when there is an announcement of a cure for that illness? While the mention of the illness is typically negative, the sentiment of the article is actually positive. Cision Communications Cloud’s advanced sentiment technology uses proximity parameters around keywords to make this type of differentiation, ensuring that comms teams have the most accurate understanding of audience sentiment around their brand and coverage.

Identify audience sentiment at both the company and article level
When identifying audience sentiment, Cision Communications Cloud is able to pick up tone around the mention of a company within a story as well as the tone of the article as a whole. This is helpful because in cases, there might be an article with negative audience sentiment, but the mention of a brand might actually be positive or negative. This level of granularity ensures comms teams have all the data before planning and executing future campaigns.

Search and filter coverage based on tone
Cision Communication Cloud enables communicators to now search coverage by article or company tone. With this type of functionality, teams can quickly identify those articles and company mentions with a positive, neutral, or negative sentiment. They can also filter articles by tone as they are working through their coverage analysis.

Auto-sentiment is a key use case supported by natural language processing, especially for the comms professional. Cision is excited to offer a leading solution in the area of auto-sentiment to ensure our customers get a complete picture of their coverage and continuously evolve campaigns that will resonate with their target audience.

To learn more about how the Comms Cloud™ can help you achieve your goals, get in touch to schedule a demo today.

Sir Martin Sorrell steps down as WPP CEO

Sir Martin Sorrell steps down as WPP CEO

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Sir Martin Sorrell, WPP‘s former CEO, has stepped down after 33 years with the company.

WPP chairman Roberto Quarta will act as executive chairman until the appointment of a new CEO. Mark Read, CEO of Wunderman and WPP Digital, and Andrew Scott, WPP’s corporate development director and chief operating officer, Europe, have been appointed as joint chief operating officers.

WPP owns a number of PR agencies with UK offices, including Hill + Knowlton Strategies, Ogilvy Public Relations, Burson Cohn & Wolfe and Clarion Communications.

Sorrell said: “Obviously I am sad to leave WPP after 33 years. It has been a passion, focus and source of energy for so long. However, I believe it is in the best interests of the business if I step down now.”

Quarta added: “Sir Martin has been the driving force behind the expansion of WPP to create the global leader in marketing services.

“During this time, the company has been successful because it has valued and nurtured outstanding talent at every level – within and well beyond our leadership teams.

“On behalf of the board I would like to recognise these achievements and thank Sir Martin for his commitment to the business over more than three decades.”

New Mason Williams division to help brands conquer the UK market

New Mason Williams division to help brands conquer the UK market

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Mason Williams is launching Brands2UK, a new division within the agency dedicated to helping overseas brands conquer the UK market.

John Williams, Mason Williams’ chairman and CEO, will lead the division. Its senior team will include Nicola Gregson, the agency’s international director, who recently returned to the UK after 10 years in the Middle East.

“We have brought international brands to life in the UK for nearly 20 years and this has become a specialisation in the agency,” said Williams. “It therefore makes sense to set up a separate and specialist division with colleagues who have experience of bringing brands into the UK and showcasing products to the British public.”

He added: “We’ve publicised cameras from Germany, breakfast foods from Finland and boating holidays in the middle of Portugal on Europe’s largest manmade lake.”

  • Pictured: John Williams
Opinion: How to future-proof young leaders

Opinion: How to future-proof young leaders

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Erin Salisbury, senior project manager for Ketchum’s global research and analytics team and PRmoment’s Young Professional of the Year 2018, presents four top tips to help young leaders get the best out of themselves and their teams.

The communications industry is evolving at lightning speed, and is being impacted by ongoing developments in consumer perceptions and attitudes, changes in technology, and increased access to and use of data.

I recently, and honestly unexpectedly, was named PRmoment’s 2018 Young Professional of the Year. While this is an incredible recognition for me personally, it also shows how the industry is beginning to understand the value and importance of specialists – particularly in the data and analytics field – and how young specialists can drive innovation and smart thinking in the workplace.

On the heels of this award, I wanted to share some advice and learnings from my professional journey. I hope these will help other rising stars across marketing and comms be the kind of employees and young leaders they hope to be.

Get a mentor – or more than one

One of the most useful things I’ve done in my career is to establish relationships with mentors. Luckily, Ketchum has an amazing mentorship scheme where you can choose to be paired with someone in a different location, or to mentor someone more senior than yourself so it’s a true two-way relationship.

As a junior research analyst in Chicago, I was paired with one of our creative partners in San Francisco. Not only has she helped me navigate personal business challenges, such as negotiating for promotions and raises, but she has also been an amazing connection to understand what’s happening and working/not working in another area of our business.

Beyond this, I’ve also learned a lot from those around me. My personal and business achievements are a result of being surrounded by smart, hard-working and dedicated people every day.

Diversify your experience

I started my career as a 19-year-old intern in New York, working on traditional research projects such as survey writing, traditional media analysis and gathering competitive intelligence. Once I was hired full-time in Chicago, I quickly moved into the sphere of digital and social analytics to learn the basics of social listening and digital measurement.

A few years later, I saw and advocated the business case to expand my role internationally, and moved to London to grow the team in the UK – all in the space of three years.

Thanks to these varied experiences, I am prepared to work with data wherever it comes from – which is critical as the access to and use of data continues to increase. It’s also allowed me to think more creatively and strategically about client problems.

Work hard, but also work smart

I used to think staying at work 12 hours a day and taking on as many responsibilities as possible was the only way to demonstrate value. This changed when I received feedback during a review that one of my biggest development areas was delegation.

This was a big lesson for me because I didn’t trust others to do my job “right” and wanted to make sure everything was perfect. In reality, I was missing out on mentoring junior individuals on the team who were also eager to learn. I immediately started delegating projects to the right people, so we could rise as a team and I could take on new responsibilities.

Another aspect of “working smart” is staying abreast of the tools and technologies that can support our everyday jobs. Artificial intelligence, natural language processing and automation are helping us get to the insights we need quicker than ever before – and should be capitalised to maximise efficiency.

Learn the business of the business

In the early years of your career, take every possible opportunity to become ingrained in how your business functions and what goes into the financial admin of keeping it going. Being knowledgeable about running a business efficiently and driving revenue is the most universal skill you can have.

Taking these four steps can help you continue to evolve and adapt to not only stay relevant, but lead in a way that future-proofs yourself, your company and your clients.

Headland appoints Mike Smith and Ed Young

Headland appoints former Tesco and Brunswick stalwarts

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Headland has appointed former Brunswick senior partner Mike Smith as partner and former Tesco comms director Ed Young as director.

Smith’s career spans nearly 40 years in communications and journalism. He began his second stint at Brunswick in 2010, following four years as Finsbury’s UK CEO.

He has advised clients including the National Grid, Sainsbury’s, Dairy Crest, Prudential, Eurostar and Trinity Mirror.

As a journalist, he spent 20 years at the Financial Times in roles including Brussels correspondent, financial news editor and energy correspondent.

Young joins Headland from Tesco, where he was corporate communications director and content and channels director. Before that, he was an associate at Brunswick, where his clients included Tesco, Kingfisher and HSBC.

He began his career with five years at the Conservative Party, where he was a speechwriter to David Cameron and chief of staff to the party chairman. In 2017, he stood as the party’s candidate in his home town of York.

Chris Salt, CEO of Headland, said: “Mike and Ed represent another big step forward for Headland. They bring really significant experience at the very top of the business and political worlds.”

Smith added: “Headland is thriving because it has first class communication specialists who work together seamlessly and are collectively equipped to tackle any communications challenge. I am delighted to be joining a company with so much momentum.”

Young continued: “Headland is perfectly placed to help businesses take a sharper, simpler, more effective approach to corporate communications. This is a fantastic team of people, with a growing list of great clients. I’m thrilled to be joining and can’t wait to start.”

  • Pictured: Mike Smith