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For the second year in a row, Coca-Cola turned to artificial intelligence to produce its global holiday campaign. The new ad replaces people with snow scenes, animals, and those iconic red trucks, aiming for warmth through technology. The response? A mix of admiration for the technical feat and criticism for what some called a “soulless,” “nostalgia-free” production. Shel and Neville break down the ad’s reception and what it tells us about audience expectations, creative integrity, and the communication challenges that come with AI-driven content. Despite Coke’s efforts to industrialize creativity — working with two AI studios, 100 contributors, and more than 70,000 generated clips — the final product sparked as much skepticism as wonder. The discussion explores: Why The Verge called the ad “a sloppy eyesore” — and why Coke went ahead anyway The sheer scale and cost of AI production (and why it’s not necessarily cheaper) Whether Coke’s campaign is marketing, corporate signaling, or both How critics’ reactions reflect discomfort with AI aesthetics in emotional brand spaces Lessons for communicators about context, authenticity, and being transparent about “why” Links from this episode: Coke’s AI Ad Isn’t Just Marketing. It’s Corporate Communications. Coca-Cola | Holidays Are Coming (YouTube) Coca-Cola | Holidays are Coming, Behind the Scenes (YouTube) Coca-Cola’s new AI holiday ad is a sloppy eyesore Coca-Cola Sparks Backlash With New, Entirely AI-Generated Holiday 2025 Ad, Insists ‘The Genie Is Out of the Bottle, and You’re Not Going to Put It Back In’  Coca-Cola Is Trying Another AI Holiday Ad. Executives Say This Time Is Different What Coca-Cola has learned on its generative AI journey so far Coca-Cola’s AI Chief Dishes on Why the Brand Went Ahead With Another AI Holiday Ad Hilarious graphic shows how bad the Coca-Cola Christmas ad really is Remember kids, without the creative, we just have blank squares. It’s ALL about the CREATIVE.  The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, November 17. We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email fircomments@gmail.com. Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music. You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients. Raw Transcript Neville Hobson:Hi everyone, and welcome to For Immediate Release, episode 488. I’m Neville Hobson. Shel Holtz:And I’m Shel Holtz. Coca-Cola is back with a holiday spot created using AI for the second year running, and the blowback is about as big as the media buy. If last year’s criticism centered on uncanny humans, this year they tried to sidestep that by leaning into animals, snow, and those iconic red trucks. The problem is that a lot of viewers still found the whole thing visually inconsistent and emotionally hollow — more of a tech demo than Christmas magic. The Verge didn’t mince words, calling it a “sloppy eyesore.” This wasn’t a lone creative prompting a model in a dark room. According to The Verge, Coke worked with two AI studios — SilverSide and Secret Level — involving roughly 100 contributors. So when people say AI is taking work away from humans, this example complicates that argument. The project generated and refined over 70,000 clips to assemble the final film, with five AI specialists dedicated to wrangling and iterating those shots. If you think of AI work as cheap and easy, that scale tells a different story. This was massive, industrialized production. Despite all that, audience reaction has been harsh. Delish collected consumer responses labeling the ad “soulless,” “nostalgia-free,” and — my favorite phrase — “intentional rage bait.” In other words, people felt provoked, not moved. The general sentiment is familiar: “Just bring back the classic trucks or polar bears and let real filmmakers work their craft.” The level of blowback reflects a mainstream discomfort with AI aesthetics invading a beloved ritual. So why is Coke doing this again? Partly for speed and efficiency, sure — but the more interesting rationale is signaling. As Forbes argues, this isn’t just marketing, it’s corporate communication: a message to investors and partners that Coke is a modern operator experimenting across its value chain. In that sense, the ad is a press release in moving pictures — “We’re innovating.” Whether consumers cheer or jeer, the signal still gets sent. For communicators, I see three takeaways. First, scale doesn’t guarantee soul. You can throw 100 people and 70,000 clips at a film and still end up with something that feels off. Craft and continuity remain stubbornly human problems, and current video models still struggle with temporal consistency and art direction. Second, context beats novelty. Holiday ads are about rituals and memories. When the urge to adopt AI clashes with audience expectations for warmth and authenticity, “innovative” can come across as “indifferent.” If you’re going to bring AI into sacred brand moments, you need strong creative guardrails — and maybe keep flagship storytelling human-first until the tools catch up. Third, be explicit about your “why.” If your real audience is Wall Street or prospective partners, say so — ideally without sacrificing the consumer experience. Coke’s narrative of blending human creativity with new tools can work, but only if the end result still feels like Coca-Cola. Otherwise, you’re asking consumers to bankroll your R&D with their attention during the most sentimental time of the year. These trucks will keep rolling — and so will the debate — until the models solve for continuity and feel. Brands risk trading wonder for workflow, and audiences know the difference. That said, I watched this ad last night during Monday Night Football. Looking at it through that lens, I didn’t see what the critics were talking about. I suspect most of the audience didn’t either. The vast majority probably aren’t aware it was generated with AI and didn’t see any problem with it. I think the hypercritical responses are mostly from people who are following the AI conversation closely — and maybe looking for an excuse to slam something that wasn’t made by human creators. Neville, what do you think? Neville Hobson:I watched the video on YouTube — both the global version and the one Coca-Cola uploaded for European audiences. Honestly, I couldn’t tell the difference. They’re exactly the same length. Like you, I thought it was well done. It was pretty clear to me within a few seconds that it was AI-generated — not because it looked AI-generated, but because of the scale and scope. You just know they’d use AI for something like this. Coke has used this theme for years — the trucks, the snow, the feel-good singing. This time, there aren’t any humans front and center; it’s all animals. But as storytelling, I thought it worked. That said, I did see some severe critiques, particularly from design industry voices. Creative Bloq, for example, called it an example of “how a company risks decades of hard-won brand equity through the use of nascent tech that’s still not up to the job.” I think that’s a bit unfair and shows a lack of understanding of what Coke was really trying to do. There’s also a fascinating behind-the-scenes video Coke posted. It’s narrated by AI voices — the same ones from NotebookLM, actually — so it’s an AI explaining an AI. And the prompts they show are incredible: dozens of paragraphs for a single shot. This wasn’t a one-line “make a Christmas ad” job. That explainer reinforces your Forbes point — this could be as much about corporate signaling as marketing. Personally, I see it more as a brand experiment than a corporate ad, but I can see both perspectives. And yes, some critics are inevitably Coke detractors. One UK designer, Dino Berberich, posted screenshots showing technical errors — missing truck wheels, misaligned shots, and so on. Maybe Coke fixed those later, maybe not. But if they take that kind of feedback seriously, it’ll be invaluable. Overall, I think it’s what you’d expect from Coke. Set aside the fact that it’s AI — it’s actually quite good. It continues the “Real Magic” theme they’ve been running for years. I remember one a couple of years ago with paintings in an art gallery coming to life when they got a Coke — also beautifully done. So this feels like the next step in their evolution. Most viewers won’t realize it’s AI unless they’re already thinking that way. Awareness is growing, but the average person just sees a nice Christmas ad. Of course, we’re now in a world where people start by asking, “Is this AI?” before saying, “Wow, what a great image.” That mindset can distract from the story — but it’s part of the landscape now. This kind of work will only get better, and Coke is helping to move it forward. Shel Holtz:Yeah, I agree. And if you look at Berberich’s LinkedIn post, you can see the issues he points out, but that’s not how most people watch ads. They’re not stopping every frame to analyze wheel placement. They’re watching during a football game or between shows. Most people just see a Coke commercial with some fuzzy bunnies. One critique I read said the ad couldn’t decide whether it wanted cartoony or semi-realistic animals. I didn’t notice that. If you go in looking to criticize AI, sure, you’ll find something. But again, that’s not most people. The YouTube comments are full of people saying things like “I’ve never wanted a Pepsi more in my life.” But honestly, nobody’s switching brands because of an ad like this. People drink Coke or Pepsi based on taste, not commercials. As for Forbes’s point about corporate signaling — I don’t think this was meant as a corporate ad, but rather a way to say, “We’re embracing AI.” And the fact that they released a behind-the-scenes explainer reinforces that. They’re telling the world they’re leaning into this technology, iterating, and getting better at it. You know, I don’t remember this kind of backlash when animation shifted from hand-drawn to CGI. That shift also displaced artists — the inkers and colorists who worked on traditional cells. This feels like a similar transition. You still have people giving thought to story, design, and imagery — but the tools have changed. Does it have the same soul as a Pixar film? No. But then, Pixar doesn’t have the same soul as early Disney animation either. Time marches on. Deal with it. Neville Hobson:Exactly. And a lot of the negativity is just the nature of online discourse these days. Anything posted publicly attracts critics, trolls, and nitpickers. Among them, there are some valid points, but it’s hard to find them amid the noise. The explainer video also includes a section showing how Coke evolved its Christmas ads — from sketches to animation to AI-rendered realism. It’s fascinating to see how deliberate that process was. Again, Coke released this publicly, which supports your point: this is about transparency and experimentation. So yes, critics have a right to their opinions, and some make constructive points. But for most people — what we’d call “Joe Bloggs” here in the UK — it’s just a nice Christmas ad. They’re not thinking about AI strategy. From real trucks to AI ones, Coke is pushing creative boundaries. Some say they should’ve shot it live and hired more people, but there’s no crime in trying something new. They’re pushing the envelope, and I think they’ve done a pretty good job. Shel Holtz:And to reiterate: they did employ people. Two studios, probably dozens of professionals. I doubt they saved much money doing it this way. They’re just moving forward with the technology — and that’s the point. And that will be a 30 for this episode of For Immediate Release. The post FIR #488: Did a Soda Pop Make AI Slop? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the growing concerns surrounding AI in the agency world. They highlight the irrational fears and cyclical nature of technological disruptions, drawing comparisons to social media and content marketing trends of the past. The hosts argue against the notion that agencies should discount services due to AI efficiencies, emphasizing that AI should be seen as a tool to enhance productivity and strategic value rather than a cost-cutting measure. They stress that agencies should focus on delivering more value and maintaining regular client communication instead of simply protecting existing revenue. The discussion also touches on the importance of transparency in AI use without oversharing minute details. Finally, they underscore the benefit of quarterly planning to align agency efforts with client business goals, thus fostering stronger client relationships and ensuring mutual success. [read the transcript] The post ALP 288: AI myths agencies must avoid appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

What happens when the AI conversation turns from a quiet side road into a crowded superhighway? Recently, Martin Waxman — digital strategist and LinkedIn Learning instructor — pressed pause on the churn to make room for curiosity, quality, and quiet. He’s not quitting; he’s recalibrating: publishing less often, thinking more deeply, and reminding us not to let AI do the thinking we should be doing ourselves. For communicators, that raises bigger questions: When do we slow down? How do we trade volume for value? And what does “good enough” look like when our audiences are drowning in near-identical insights? Neville and Shel dive into this topic in today’s short, midweek episode of “For Immediate Release.” Links from this episode: Knowing Where to Start and When to Make a Shift What If You Redefined What Work Means to You? The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, November 17. We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email fircomments@gmail.com. Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music. You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine. You can catch up with both co-hosts on [Neville’s blog](https://www.nevillehobson.io/) and [Shel’s blog](https://holtz.com/blog/). Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients. Raw Transcript Shel Holtz:Hi everybody, and welcome to For Immediate Release. This is episode number 487. I am Shel Holtz. Neville Hobson:And I’m Neville Hobson. In this episode, we have a story that’s less about technology itself and more about what happens when you pause to think about the pace of it all. A few days ago, Martin Waxman published a reflective piece on LinkedIn called “Knowing Where to Start and When to Make a Shift.” Martin, as many of you will know, is a Canadian digital strategy consultant and LinkedIn Learning instructor. He was our guest in an FIR interview in January. Martin writes the AI and Digital Marketing Trends newsletter, which has become one of LinkedIn’s most successful, now reaching well over half a million subscribers. It began humbly in 2020 when Martin set out to explore the intersection of AI and marketing at a time when few others were doing so. His goal was to reach maybe 10,000 readers—he’s now 50 times past that. But this isn’t a story of relentless growth or scaling up. It’s the opposite. We’ll explore this next. Martin’s post isn’t a farewell—it’s an adjustment. After years of writing about AI’s impact, he’s decided to slow the pace of his newsletter and make space for deeper thinking. In his words, the AI conversation has moved from a path less followed to a crowded superhighway. Everyone seems to be writing about the same things and the constant noise can be exhausting. So he’s taking stock, reevaluating his direction, reshaping his LinkedIn Learning course, and thinking about how to bring a fresh human perspective to the next stage of this conversation. There’s a generosity and humility in that move that feels rare today. He talks about resisting the temptation to let AI do the thinking for us—stop relying on AI as a crutch, embrace the blank page, don’t give up on your brain. He’s reminding us that creativity and discernment still start with people, not prompts. And he’s choosing to slow down—to step back from the rapid churn of publishing and make room for curiosity, quality, and quiet. That theme of slowing down connects powerfully with a discussion I led in September in an IABC webinar on redefining what work means. The answer may not be doing more or moving faster, but taking the time to notice, reflect, and realign what we do with what really matters. Martin’s story feels like a practical expression of that—an intentional deceleration that invites us to think more deeply about purpose and pace in our professional lives. As we unpack his post today, perhaps the real question isn’t just about how communicators keep up with AI. It’s about how we decide when to slow down, how to add meaning amid abundance, and what to let go of so our work and our thinking can stay human. With everyone producing AI-related content, Martin’s pivot reflects a move from volume to value. How can communicators preserve credibility and originality when audiences are saturated with near-identical insights? Martin’s post isn’t just about pausing; it’s about reclaiming agency in how we learn, create, and lead with AI. It invites communicators to redefine productivity, not by the speed of output, but by the depth of thought. Shel Holtz:I was very taken with Martin’s post and I’m very happy for him that he has come to terms with this and made decisions that will make him happier. It’s not for me, however. I see this notion of slowing down in two ways. One is slowing down so you can take the time to produce quality output. I confess that I use AI to write things I don’t want to take the time to do. They’re not important enough that I need to be the author; they’re fairly rote. I give notes to AI, it cranks out a serviceable first draft, and I take 20–40 minutes to edit and revise rather than spending two or three hours. Nobody has ever questioned the provenance of these pieces. In fact, I’ve gotten praise for some of them, which makes me chuckle. I do this so I can appreciate the blank page and write the things where it’s important that it be me at the keyboard, in my voice. The other way to look at this is simply slowing down in life. I appreciate people who want and need to do that—and especially people who find a way to accommodate that need. I want to go faster myself; I want more hours in the day to get more done. If I’m not being productive, I feel at loose ends and anxious, wondering what I can be doing now. Just this weekend, after a sleepless night, I wandered into the garage, noticed a box out of place, and the next thing I knew I’d been straightening the garage for an hour. That’s my personality: I have to be doing something almost all the time. So I think you have to look at what’s right for you. Don’t feel pressured to slow down if that’s not going to make you happy. Martin’s prescription is a good one for people who are overloaded and overwhelmed, and I understand his interest in dialing back commentary on AI when so many are producing similar content. He has a unique perspective—he’s a thought leader and tends to be ahead of the curve—so I’d continue to pay attention to him. But scroll through LinkedIn and two-thirds of the posts seem to be about some angle on AI. Neville Hobson:I understand you, Shel. I’ve known you a long time, so I know that anxiousness about not doing stuff. I was like that. Each person is different; this applies to individuals, not a universal formula. The starting point is wanting to change—professionally, personally, or both. I went through that after moving a year ago to a rural part of southwest England from a busy urban area. That change catalyzed others, which is why Martin’s post resonated so strongly with me. Now I take more time deciding what I need and want to do—not everything must be done right now. I still work late sometimes, but only when I feel like it, not every day. I’ve also been able to make changes and still pay the bills. I spend more time with my grandkids and my wife, take days off in the work week, and sometimes work on Sunday—with purpose. Going back to the IABC webinar on redesigning your work and life, doing things such as what Martin described fits into that bucket. We ran a quick poll at the start: “How aligned do you feel with your current work?” A third (33%) said, “I feel aligned—my work reflects my values and energy.” Sixty percent said, “I’m actively rethinking how and why I work.” Another 7% felt stuck or disconnected from what matters. So only a third felt aligned; nearly two-thirds are rethinking how and why they work, and some feel completely disconnected. In the chat, people said they now feel the need to question things they hadn’t been questioning—and that they aren’t happy. Not everyone has the luxury to change, but there are things you can control. This isn’t a whole-life overhaul. It can be incremental—small steps. What Martin’s doing, as I interpret his post, is a small-step pivot in how he publishes his newsletter and updates his LinkedIn courses. He says he’s slowing his publishing frequency from twice a month to a less regular schedule—perhaps monthly or whenever something genuinely strikes him. Most comments I’ve seen are supportive. He offers useful tips. “Stop relying on AI as a crutch” is a good one—don’t use it for the easy way out; use it to push you in unexpected directions. Embrace the blank page. For me, starting and stopping, taking a walk, doing something else often unlocks progress. Another tip I liked: aim for higher quality than before. Do less, take more time, and produce better work. That makes sense—rushing often reduces quality. Of course, that assumes you can do it. Shel Holtz:We’ve got deadlines out here in the real world, you know? Neville Hobson:You do, and you’ll still have them. But not everything has to be dropped immediately. This gives you empowerment to choose: that report due in ten days doesn’t have to be mapped out right now unless you want or need to. The key is deciding what you want to do about your life—and measuring it in a quantifiable way if that helps. Martin seems to have made an honest assessment of where he’s at, prompting further thoughts for his training and writing. Do you think this represents the visible front end of a trend among communicators choosing depth over frequency—slowing down to produce better quality work? I’m not sure I see it broadly, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s behind what some people are doing. Shel Holtz:You could connect this treatise with what we’re seeing from employees pushing back on full-time return to the office and preferring hybrid schedules. People want to be with their kids, care for elderly parents, or simply avoid traffic—as I did this morning behind a gnarly accident, hence our late recording. People are reevaluating how they work, and organizations will have to come to terms with it. Look at Glassdoor reviews and a common complaint is being worked to death—long hours and expectations that you’ll put in the time. There’s another way to interpret this. Martin was on a panel I moderated at an IABC World Conference in Toronto a couple of years ago on AI. Someone asked about using AI to write—is that acceptable? Martin said most of what we do in communications just has to be “good enough.” If AI writes “good enough,” why is that a problem if it frees up time for other work? The way I choose to interpret Martin’s post is: I don’t have to slow down across the board. I can slow down one thing to make time for another. Example: there are two of us in the communications department where I work, and we were swamped. As people learned what we could do, requests multiplied. Juggling them without letting anything fall through the cracks became hard. My boss suggested two things. First, open a ticket system. We use ServiceNow, so now anyone who calls with a request is asked to open a ticket. We can better manage work, keep notes on what’s been done, questions asked, and promises made. Second, we had to learn to say no. If we want more resources, start saying no more often. We have—“Sorry, we don’t have time for that. It’s important to you, but it doesn’t rise to a top priority for our department based on leadership expectations.” Saying no frees time. Does that time fill up? Yes—but it fills with higher-priority, more interesting, more relevant work. So slowing down doesn’t necessarily mean slowing down overall. It means slowing one thing to make time for another—maybe more time with family. In my case, it’s more time on the work that matters and less on the work that doesn’t. There are multiple ways to interpret and apply what Martin has presented. Neville Hobson:I agree, Shel. To repeat your point, each of us is different. On saying no, I learned that too and put it into practice this year by turning down opportunities for paid work because they weren’t the right fit or interesting enough. I felt great. Instead, I learned, read, wrote blog posts—things I wouldn’t have had time for. I saw my grandkids more; my wife and I went out to lunch and visited places. I sleep well now without the worries and stress. I do miss some things, but the balance now outweighs any of that by a big margin. Martin looks ahead and wonders what comes next once we’ve mastered the tools. When AI becomes mundane and the question shifts to meaning and impact, what might the next conversation look like? He asks how communicators can lead the dialogue on quality, ethics, and human contribution in a world where automation is taken for granted. That’s at the heart of much of what we’ve been discussing—and what I want to keep exploring. What do we say when automation is taken for granted? What are your thoughts? Shel Holtz:I think it’s consistent with the old Melbourne Mandate from the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management. It positioned communication at the center of the organization as, more or less, the conscience of the company. What the conscience focuses on varies with circumstances, but maintaining humanity in the organization fits that model well. We need to present leadership with data supporting the need to do that, along with ideas for how to do it without losing momentum. It fits squarely with that notion. Neville Hobson:We’ve shared some good thoughts here, Shel, and I’m curious what our listeners think. If anyone has a perspective—agreement or disagreement—let us know. Shel Holtz:You know where to reach us. That’ll be a 30 for this episode of For Immediate Release. The post FIR #487: Beyond the Churn — Slower Publishing, Deeper Thinking, Better Outcomes appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this episode, inspired by a newsletter from David C. Baker, Chip and Gini discuss the authentic motivations and realities behind agency mission statements and values. They emphasize that many agencies publish values that are either not reflective of their true operations or are overly broad and similar to others. The hosts stress the importance of being honest about the core purpose of a business and aligning public statements with actual behavior. They argue that values should stem from the owner’s true beliefs and actions rather than aspirational ideals. They also caution against spending too much time wordsmithing values for marketing purposes, as clients are more interested in results. The conversation touches on the impact of leadership behavior on agency culture and the pitfalls of misrepresenting agency values. [read the transcript] The post ALP 287: Do agency mission and values statements matter? And is yours even accurate? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss a Reddit post about an agency leader going MIA and the repercussions for the team. They elaborate on the importance of communication, perception, and flexibility for agency owners. The conversation includes personal anecdotes from both hosts, highlighting the need for frequent touchpoints, setting clear expectations, and maintaining a balance between taking personal time and being present for the team. They also stress the significance of transparency during challenging times and the benefits of empowering employees to reduce bottlenecks. [read the transcript] The post ALP 286: Are you ghosting your own agency? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Sentiment analysis has become a default metric for communicators. If sentiment is positive, trust must be high. But if your company’s words are diverging from its actions, trust could be eroding while sentiment remains constant. You won’t know until it’s too late. The new metric to consider is “trust velocity.” Neville and Shel unpack it in this monthly long-form episode for October 2025. Also in this episode: Is rage bait a valid marketing tactic? Lloyd Bank’s CEO and executive team are learning AI to reimagine the future of banking with generative AI A McKinsey report recommends that public affairs teams begin to factor geopolitical issues into their thinking When conduct, culture, and context collide: Three crisis case studies reviewed German firm launches ad campaign after its lift is used in the Louvre heist In his Tech Report, Dan York reports on AI browsers and Mastodon’s approach to BlueSky-like starter packs, but in a consent-based manner. Links from this episode: How thirst traps and rage bait affect workers on the clock Lloyds to put chief executive and all top bosses through six-month AI course Lloyds Banking Group's CEO and top bosses learn AI | Geoff Kates posted on the topic Lloyds Bank AI training course criticized as outdated and unnecessary Lloyds Banking Group scales adoption of Microsoft 365 Copilot to supercharge their AI transformation Upgrading corporate affairs for a new geopolitical era Q3 Crisis Review: When Conduct, Culture, and Context Collide FIR #483: How Tylenol Handled a High-Profile Falsehood AI Models Measuring ‘Trust Velocity’ AI and Reputation: Trust Data You Can Use ‘Quiet as a whisper’: German firm launches ad campaign after lift used in Louvre heist Louvre heist lift-maker seizes the moment with new ad campaign German Company Launches Viral Ad Campaign For Lift Used in Louvre Heist: ‘Quiet as a Whisper’ The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, October 27. We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email fircomments@gmail.com. Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music. You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine. You can catch up with both co-hosts on [Neville’s blog](https://www.nevillehobson.io/) and [Shel’s blog](https://holtz.com/blog/). Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients. Raw Transcript Neville Hobson: Hi everybody and welcome to For Immediate Release. This is episode 486, the long-form episode, the monthly ones we do for October 2025. I’m Neville Hobson in the UK. Shel Holtz: I’m Shel Holtz in the U.S. and we have a jam-packed episode for you today. So we’re going to jump right into it. Before we get into anything substantive though, I do want to ask that if you have any comments to share with us, and we always hope that you do, we have a number of comments to share with you today, please leave them on LinkedIn, where we share our posts, on Facebook, where we share our posts. You could even do this on threads or what’s, not WhatsApp, Blue Sky. That’s the one, Blue Sky. Yeah. You can send email to fircomments at gmail.com, attach an audio file. We haven’t had one of those in forever. You can record those audio files on our website at firpodcastnetwork.com. And you can always leave your comments right there on the show posts at firpodcastnetwork.com. Neville Hobson: Blue sky. Shel Holtz: And we do appreciate your ratings and reviews as well. So let’s get started with the rundown of our episodes from the last monthly episode in September till now. Before we do that, though, we had a couple of comments come in for some earlier episodes. You know, I was thinking, geez, these aren’t the episodes that we did between the last monthly and now. Then it occurred to me that, it’s a podcast. People can listen whenever they want. And apparently that’s what Sally Getch did. She said, yes, I am months behind listening to episodes, but I can’t believe no one mentioned the public library website is a way to get around paywalls. Contra Costa County Library gives you access to a ton of newspapers and magazines. So if you’re trying to get around a paywall, check out your local library’s website. They may provide access to that. And I have to confess, not something that occurred to me. Then episode 478, we have a comment from Steve Davis in Australia. Steve Davis says, Hi, Shel and Neville. I haven’t heard the term AI doomer before, and I don’t know if it’s right for me or not. We’ve been integrating AI tools for about two years in our practice, but we’re very focused on integrating them in a nuanced way. Maintaining the primacy of the human aspect of our creative and marketing business is key, and it’s what brings a lot of value. Neville Hobson: Me neither. Shel Holtz: AI tools and particularly large language models helped me do some grunt work in pulling some of our ideas together, but always on a short leash. Because of the name of our business, we have a great affinity with Oscar Wilde. There’s only one thing worse than being talked about, and that’s not being talked about. So I start every workshop with one of his quotes. However, at a recent one using AI in a thoughtful way, I actually wrote a song for Oscar to sing. You’re welcome to use any or all of this if it helps illustrate an approach to thinking about our charming little robots. I have a couple of thoughts on this before I go to his comment on episode 479. The first is, well, thank you for that little ditty, Steve. And rather than the usual music we use to play out the episode, we’ll play that and we will include a link to your musical channel on YouTube in the show notes. But in terms of P, the Doomer, these are the people who believe that AI is going to end humanity. And P-Doom is the percentage of risk that you think there is around the potential for AI to end the world. And in AI circles, they tend to ask each other, what’s your P-Doom? And everybody knows what that means. Oh, 70%, right? So. That’s what that means. I don’t necessarily subscribe to this concept, although I did listen to a podcast with a guy who’s been working in AI since the 1990s. And he has come around to actually believing very strongly that this is a likely scenario. So it’s always something worth considering. Neville Hobson: It’s totally new to me. I’ve not heard of that term before. Shel Holtz: It may be an American term that we bandy around here, although I hear it on podcasts all the time and you can listen to those anywhere, right? For episode 479, Steve writes, hi guys, I’m not sure you get these emails. And that’s because I only check our email once a month before this episode. We don’t do comments during our short form midweek episodes. So Steve, that’s why you didn’t hear us reference it, but. Neville Hobson: That’s true. You Shel Holtz: Do appreciate these. says, I’ve just been listening to episode 479 and the noble idea of creating a community site to get authentic content and attract LLMs. The problem is that increasingly people are contributing AI generated content into these places in lieu of actually writing content themselves. LinkedIn has basically become a cesspool. I hold little hope for new communities to thrive unless there is some mindset shift or mechanism to ensure what’s being shared is being communicated directly by humans. If not, these community projects will become yet another source of plastic information. That’s probably not as harsh a reading of the situation as the Oscar Wilde song I sent you last week, but it shares some common ground. And to that, I would only say, I guess your experience on LinkedIn is based on who you follow, because most of the people I follow are definitely still writing their own content, and I’m able to speed through anything that looks disingenuous or as you say, Steve, plastic. But I also think that those communities in some regard are alternatives to being found in search engines. Building the community and having those people engage in conversation I think may find its way into LLMs, but it’s also an alternative for getting your content out to people as opposed to having them go to the 10 blue links on the first Google search engine results page. Just a thought. Neville Hobson: make sense? Totally. No great comments, Steve and the the song really super I must I enjoyed listening to that good voice singing that’s really super. So let’s look at the few episodes that we’ve done since the last monthly. That was episode 482 we published it on the 29th of September. The lead story in that like all our long form episodes. This has six topics. That’s why they they take long. The lead story in this one, though, was talking about work slop. So it’s kind of like AI slop except in the workplace. So it’s the latest term referring to low quality AI generated content in the workplace that looks professional but lacks real substance. So we explored the sources of this, how big a problem it really is, and what can be done to overcome it. A couple of other topics in that episode, notable to mention, Chris Hewer is at work on a manifesto for the H Corporation. And he had an online session, which I participated in, of people interested in this, which is, in a sense, making organizations human centered. It needs a lengthier narrative to go along with that to help you understand what it is. But he covered that in what we commented on, which was a summary, lengthy summary in a post on the recent online discussion leading up to talking about the H Corporation. So it’s definitely worth listening to that. And then one other. Shel Holtz: Well, we have a comment actually from… I’m sorry, I’ll make a time code. I thought you were moving on to the next episode and we have a Chris Hewer comment. Neville Hobson: Okay? Okay? No, no, I was going to mention one of the other topics we talked about. That’s okay. That’s okay. You can have to do a bit of tricking editing here because I’ll just go straight into mention. Okay. And one other topic we talked about, which we’ve talked about a few times on the podcast, communicators everywhere continue to predict the demise of the humble press release. But one PR leader has had a very different experience with that intriguing snippet, you can dive in and take a listen to that. So that was 482. Shel Holtz: And we had a comment from Chris Hewer, in fact, thanking us for adding so much incredible value to the conversation on H Corp Manifesto. I am truly honored to have had your friendship and support now for almost 20 years, but in this big moment, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Particularly important in our efforts to define the human-centric organization is a point you raised that I hadn’t properly considered. The role of communicators in all this is to ensure that the attention of leadership and stakeholders is placed beyond the short-term efficiency gains and into the impacts of tomorrow. Not only in terms of thinking about the unintended consequences of layoffs, rifts, such as that experienced by Duolingo and Klarna earlier this year, but also in terms of the longer-term consequences of markets losing customers because they don’t have income to buy the organization’s products or services. Maybe we can collaborate on a kit for communicators to lead or host some of these conversations internally. We’ve already created a conversation guide to ethical AI integration stemming from the work Shel and others have done as research fellows of the Team Flow Institute, which we can use to get started. Neville, you replied to that. You said, thanks. Communicators are ideally positioned to frame these discussions in ways that resonate with both leaders, leadership and employees, ensuring the focus isn’t limited to today’s efficiency gains, but also encompasses the longer term human and societal impacts. It’s about helping organizations see beyond immediate cost savings and recognize the broader consequences of their choices for their people, their markets, and their reputations. That perspective feels more important than ever in shaping how AI is integrated into the workplace. Neville Hobson: I forgot and I left that comment. Thanks for reading it out. Yeah, that was a good comment from Chris, I must admit. So waiting. Yeah, I think I did. You sounded quite eloquent saying all those things. So thanks very much for that comment, Chris. So moving on to the next episode, 483. We published that on October the 9th. This was a very timely one. Again, this is something we’re going to talk about a bit later too, the kind of political consequences of political intervention in topical business issues. And this related to President Trump with the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. declaring that the product of Kenview, which is the owner of Tylenol these days, changed hands quite a bit over the years, that this product Tylenol leads to autism in children when taken by mothers during pregnancy. As you probably might expect, the reaction to that almost universally was, don’t be stupid, it doesn’t do that at all. And I’ve noticed some of the commentary here in the medical profession was a little more forthright than they have done in the past, to be very deferential to Trump to not offend him. That was different this time, it seemed to me. So nevertheless, we talked about that, the crisis. made a reference to the big one for them back in the 1980s, with the poison tampering of the products in Chicago that led to a number of deaths, how they recovered from that. Okay, that was then, this is now, but nevertheless, they still did well, as we noted, the stock recovered, it dropped dramatically. After one day, thanks largely, we said, to Tylenol’s Savvy, an almost perfect response to the crisis. So that was pretty good. We don’t have a comment on that one. So let me move on to 484. Yeah, this is kind of interesting one that we talked about the public relations industry, maybe having its Tilly Norwood moment. You might remember it’s not front of mind for everyone these days, but Tilly Norwood is a manufactured AI actress who caused quite a kerfuffle. it was unveiled, uncanny realistic realism was quite extraordinary. So is this the Tilly Norwood moment for the PR industry with the introduction of Olivia Brown, a 100 % AI PR agent that will handle all the steps of producing, distributing and following up on a press release? Is this PR’s future or just part of it, we said? Debate is still going on about that and I believe we have a comment on this one, Joe. Two, okay. Shel Holtz: We have two, the first from Sally Slater, who says, is so fascinating. I had brief aspirations of trying to automate the whole cycle end to end, but chatted with some journalist friends first. They hell-nodded real quick. Journalists in particular are sensitive to AI disruption. Their jobs are as much as, if not more, at risk as comms and content writing pros. So they really don’t like the idea of dealing with a robot instead of a human. Which is interesting because one of the items that I toyed with making one of my reports today says that the research shows, and this is in the US, that journalists are fine with PR people using AI in their pitches and in their relations with them. By and large, it’s not 100%, but it’s up there. You replied to Sally’s comment, Neville, so you get to hear your words in my voice again. That’s such an insightful point, Sally. It’s easy to frame this as an efficiency debate for communicators. But your comment highlights the other side, the impact on journalists themselves. The erosion of trust isn’t only about what we send, but also about who journalists are dealing with. Once they sense that they’re talking to a robot instead of a human, the relationship changes entirely. And when that robot is reportedly relentless in its follow ups, there’s really no escape from the machine. And then we had a comment from Andy Green who said, I can envisage many. Digital agencies embracing this to cover what they perceive as the PR dimension to a campaign. These people think in numbers, not stories, and not understanding societal issues. Neville Hobson: Yeah, it’s a big topic. I think the bit that tends to excite people in this particular story was the way in which I’ve seen other people commenting on this, this is an end to end solution in a sense, that you tell the PR, the virtual PR what your campaign is all about, it goes away, plans it, prepares the press release, handles all the follow up and therein lies the interesting bit because… I’ve seen words used to describe it as relentless follow up. It will not stop. And that’s the bit I’ve seen a number of journalists saying, I got to find a way to ditch this damn thing. And that’s not really what they are expecting here. And I can see that offending a lot of people, you know, but is this part of the future? Again, the debate is still ongoing on this. It’s a great topic, though, isn’t it? Shel Holtz: It is. Neville Hobson: So then 485 is the last one we did before this monthly episode. We did that one, published it on October the 21st. Is it time to stop trying to go viral? We asked in that one. Crafting content with the intent of going viral has been part of the communication playbook for more than a decade. There was never a guaranteed approach to catching this lightning in a bottle, but there didn’t stop marketers and PR practitioners from trying. So we said this effort is increasingly futile. We talked about how several marketing influencers have suggested that it’s time to move on from the attempt to produce content specifically in the hopes that it will go viral. We talked about, or rather we shared some data points on that and debated whether going viral should remain a communication goal. We disagreed on a number of issues here, but I think we were aligned in the word viral being the kind of confusion point here, because if we take viral out and talk about just the marketing aspect where you’re trying to achieve an outcome from something that is more than just a viral message, but we talked about that some length in this episode. So is it time to stop trying to go viral? We said, yes, basically, didn’t. Shel Holtz: We did, and Katie Howell agreed in a comment. said, platforms already reward return visits over one off reach and the clever brands are catching up. If your brief says go viral, you’re chasing a metric that won’t help you keep your job. Repeat engagement with the right people is the proper goal. Less glamorous, miles more useful. And another comment from Andy Green, good clarification over strategies, but also need to recognize viral, AKA meme friendly, is at the heart of effective communication. Also greater recognition of the impact of zeitgeist. Check out Steven Pinker’s latest book, When Everyone Knows. Neville Hobson: Good comments. No question. Shel Holtz: Yeah, and thanks everybody for your comments. They really contribute a lot to these monthly episodes, so keep them coming. Neville Hobson: Yeah, we’ve had discussion that is not part of our kind of rundown list of topics. So it’s really good to have this kind of off the cuff stuff entering the discussion. Shel Holtz: Very quickly, I just want to let everyone know that the latest episode of Circle of Fellows is up on the FIR Podcast Network. This is the monthly panel discussion among fellows of the International Association of Business Communicators. This was a really interesting discussion about the fact that the role of the communicator keeps evolving, but the goal of supporting the business and the business plan remains absolutely fixed. And how do you square that particular circle. had Laurie Dawkins, Mike Klein, Robin McCasland, and Martha Lozichka on this episode. It is up now. We’ve just recorded it this past Thursday. It’s available for your listening pleasure. Episode 122 is on November 20th at 5 p.m. Eastern time. And another interesting topic, it’s about preparing the next generation of communicators. And we will have five fellows in addition to me moderating this episode. It will be Diane Gajewski, Sue Heumann, Theomari Karamanis, Letitia Narvez, and Jennifer Wah. So put that on your calendars, November 20th at 5 p.m. for that conversation. And now we’re ready to jump into our stories for this episode, but first, we’re going to try to sell you something. Social media and the e-tension. E-tension. Everything gets an E in front of it now. Social media and the attention economy are both changing how we communicate externally and how we engage internally. There’s an article I read, a really fascinating article, that asks whether marketers should lean into rage bait, the use of content designed to provoke anger and engagement. The second article that I read on this topic, also very fascinating, looks at how social media content and consuming it, including contentious posts and RageBait style content, is affecting the mood of people at work, how it’s affecting productivity and how organizations might respond. So something here for those of you who are considering using RageBait in your marketing and something here for you who deal with internal communications, all about this issue of RageBait. So let’s start with the external lens. The piece from Morning Brew via their brand strategy column is titled, Should Marketers Lean Into RageBait? makes the basic point that in an era where attention is the scarce commodity, brands are increasingly tempted and some are already experimenting with campaigns designed to provoke outrage. They stir up audience reaction, they polarize conversations, and all of this drives engagement. The article lists examples. Brands like American Eagle, ELF, The Ordinary among them have been accused of or credited with rage baiting in various forms. The proposition is actually compelling. It does drive clicks, it drives shares and visibility. But the caution coming from the article is just as strong. Not all press is good press. Building exclusion or anger into your brand could carry long-term risks to trust, reputation, employee sentiment, and ultimately consumer loyalty. Now, switch to the internal lens. This is an article from HR Dive. It was titled, How Thirst Traps and Rage Bait Affect Workers on the Clock. Reports on research from the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, researchers surveyed workers over two studies, asking them to reflect on the most salient social media posts they saw that day, how it made them feel, and how productive they were. The results? When people saw fit pics or family posts, they felt more self-assured and engaged, but when they consumed contentious content, politics, rage-bait-style posts, They felt anxious, withdrawn from coworkers and less likely to engage productively. The takeaway content that triggers emotional turbulence may carry hidden organizational costs from distracted employees, reduced collaboration, maybe even increased attrition. So what should organizational communicators, that would be all of you, do with this convergence? Let me offer four action points. First, Be intentional about how your external messaging may echo internally. If your brand is experimenting with provocative campaigns, know, calling out norms, stirring up debate, maybe even courting a little outrage, ask yourself, what are the internal ripple effects? An external campaign that invites polarizing reactions may energize some audiences, and I would argue possibly just in the short term, but internally, it could signal to employees, our company is comfortable being controversial. That could boost excitement for some, but raise discomfort for others. Communicators need to work with HR and talent teams to assess sentiment inside the organization. How are employees reacting, especially those who engage on social media during the day? Are we inadvertently creating internal friction or disengagement by the tone we adopt externally? Second, create and enforce thoughtful social media consumption policies and supports. The HR Dive article suggests a practical approach. Treating social media use at work like a smoke break. Designate pause time, especially during heavy project phases because volatile content can hijack someone’s attention. As communicators, you should partner with HR and IT to provide guidance and structure. For example, quiet hours of connectivity, guidelines for personal device usage during high-focus times, and training about the emotional contagion of negative or polarizing social content. Document the rationale. productivity, wellbeing, and team cohesion. Third, align external and internal narratives around emotional tone and brand purpose. If your brand decides that provocative is an acceptable part of your tone, then the story you tell employees must reconcile with culture. Yeah, we provoke debate, but we do so respectfully, grounded in purpose and we value inclusive dialogue. That alignment prevents cognitive dissonance. You know, our brand is edgy externally, but our culture is conservative internally. And it supports trust, which we’ll be talking about in greater detail later. It also gives you a stronger foundation if things go sideways. You’re always defining the why behind your tone and you’ve prepared employees for what that means. And fourth, monitor, measure, and respond, both externally and internally. Externally track engagement metrics, brand sentiment, media coverage, social listening signals after campaigns that lean into controversy. Internally, partner with HR to monitor employee sentiment, surveys, pulse checks, be ways to do this. Collaboration indicators, retention metrics, maybe productivity signals tied to social media exposure. If a campaign triggers backlash, you should have a response plan. How would you communicate internally? How will you support teams to cope with any fallout? How will you pivot? Look, we’re working in a moment of heightened sensitivity. Clearly, socially, culturally, digitally, The attention economy is powerful, but the rule book is not what it used to be. What once was any attention is good attention is not universally true anymore. For external campaigns, building outrage may bring short-term visibility, but a thoughtful internal strategy, may undermine employee morale, productivity, and trust. I just said that wrong and it’s bad enough that I need to reset. For external campaigns, building outrage may bring short-term visibility, but without a thoughtful internal strategy, it may undermine employee morale, productivity, and brand trust. And inside the organization, the invisible cost of consuming polarizing social content is real and measurable. So the role of the organizational communicator becomes as much about internal ecosystem design as external narrative design. You’re not just pitching or broadcasting. You’re orchestrating tone, channel, culture, and consequence. If you lean into controversial creative, do so with your eyes open. Prepare your employees, monitor sentiment, align culture, and build in the feedback loops that show you’re aware of the risk and capable of navigating it. Neville Hobson: Yeah, interesting. Listen to what you’re saying, Shel. My own thought is I have almost an inbuilt instinct that this is a bad thing, rage bait. And indeed, reading the marketing brew piece you a comment from a TikTok creator called Dulma Altan, who posts about business strategy struck me as probably summarizing the whole thing. If rage bait becomes a widely adopted strategy, she says, she anticipates that audiences might unfollow brands to avoid seeing it. And there to me is a big alarm bell. I recognize the interest many marketers have in provocative kind of content, whether whatever we call it, rage bait, okay. Example, I suspect would be something that’s very topical. is the American Eagle’s controversial Sydney Sweeney campaign for genes. Just one recent example, Marketing Brew says, it got plenty of people talking. Company execs defended the campaign, which drew backlash over the summer for its reference to genetics. And the chief marketing officer, Craig Bromance, told Marketing Brew that the campaign wasn’t designed as intentional rage bait, but instead aimed at sparking a conversation about optimism, confidence. and self expression. You can spin it any way you want, frankly, but he says so far, the company has reported initially positive results. So therefore I could say, okay, basically what you’re saying is the the end justifies the means then right? Is that what you’re saying? Well, you got great results for something that offended and upset a lot of people. Therefore, it’s okay is what I hear your message. I think you’re dead wrong, mate. That’s really not what you should be doing at all. So I wouldn’t support this at all. I don’t see any redeeming feature of this that has honor attached to it at all. you know, there’s other examples we could talk about, but the American Eagle one I did find quite interesting how that played out. And there are other examples too. And it’s interesting the angle you’ve brought into it, on the impact it will have on employees. And I often wonder whether marketers don’t really take that into account when they do some of these things. So this is not good, in my opinion. Shel Holtz: Yeah, I agree with you. I don’t think marketers consider the impact of any of their campaigns on employees. Employees are not their audience. Although employees are, let’s face it, expected to reinforce and support the message of marketing. So your employer brand could take a hit unintentionally from something like this. But you also referenced from that article that the people who are offended by it could stop following you. What that means is that the people who are still following you are the people who are likely to succumb to this kind of rage and enjoy getting worked up and angry and hurling invectives at other people in the conversation. Is that the market you really want for your product or service? So, yeah, I think there are some long-term consequences of engaging in this kind of marketing that you really have to sit back and consider. It’s a very strategic approach to, it’s a critical thinking approach. to taking on this particular type of marketing activity. Neville Hobson: Yeah. And again, going back to marketing brews article, they had some interesting comments from people they talked to about this. One in particular struck me from Megan Morris, the co-founder and CEO of a creative agency called Full Fat. She commented, quite interesting, if a brand is intent on courting controversy, she pointed to a Doritos campaign from early this year in which the brand implied it might change its signature triangle. chip shape into a square as exemplary an example for example the campaign drew some backlash and plenty of online chatter but all in good fun that is really nicely done rage bait if there is such a thing morass said megan trust me there is no such thing as nicely done rage bait okay it’s right it’s it’s nothing serious said morass it’s not going to create any emotional or behavioral triggers so Shel Holtz: It’s faux rage bait. It’s what it is. Neville Hobson: You could do that. Why would you not do that? Why would you go ahead and do something that seriously offends people, risks damage to your brand and your audiences across social channels and elsewhere who could have dropped you and don’t talk about you except in negative things? Why would you want to do that? This is good. But let’s not call it rage, please, no matter how nicely done it was. So that was a good one, Shel. So let’s talk about AI, actually. We haven’t talked about AI yet. Yeah, I found this a very interesting one. And it’s in the financial services industry. I doubt it’s unique to this particular institution, Lloyd’s Banking Group. But they’re doing something at sending a very public signal about AI, starting at the top. Shel Holtz: AI, yeah, we should talk a little bit about AI. Neville Hobson: The CEO Charlie Nunn and the entire executive team are enrolled in a six-month, 80-hour generative AI program designed with educational technology company Cambridge Spark and University of Cambridge experts with hundreds of senior leaders also in scope and more than 110 already through the course. Lloyd says that the program blends hands-on sessions, virtual master classes, and real-world projects with potential future Gen.AI use cases put forward to progress to pilot phase. These include using Gen.AI to support market insights, customer relationship management integration for commercial customers, freeing up time for strategic high-value client engagement, and improving overall customer experience and retention. This sits alongside a group-wide scale-up of Microsoft 365 Copilot. So it’s not training in a vacuum, but part of a platform commitment and an enterprise change program. Reactions unsurprisingly are mixed. Supporters say you cannot lead what you do not understand. Executive fluency creates permission, governance and budget for real change. Critics call it AI theater, a costly slow course in a fast moving field and argue a sharp briefing cadence would beat a six month syllabus. Both can be true. Literacy without delivery is performative. Delivery without literacy is reckless. If this is more than theater, we’ll see it in KPIs, resolution speed, onboarding time, and front-line productivity, not in slide decks. So glancing at some of the reactions on LinkedIn illustrates all of this. One supportive post on the business network said, I think this is a great move by the bank. The only way to understand and gain the full benefit from AI is a full understanding of the benefits and problems from the top downwards. One commenter said, being a little deliberately controversial, I do wonder if some of the staff and directors will return from these courses with a very different view of AI’s potential, not just for good, but for harm too. Other comments included empowering leadership with AI literacy as a foundation of sustainable innovation and bold move and sets a strong message internally and to the industry. But another post is more critical saying that Lloyd’s AI training courses are a waste of time. and money and a weak attempt at demonstrating that they’re staying up to speed on tech developments. What they learn in month one will be mostly obsolete by month six. One commenter on this post said, most AI education is not as good as what you’d get if you just asked the AI to teach you about it. Well, according to Lloyds, their entire executive committee and senior leadership team are expected to complete the program by the end of 2026. The communication question. is whether this becomes a credible narrative of capability and control or raises expectations that the bank cannot possibly meet on customer experience, risk or productivity. Is this smart leadership signaling that builds real execution muscles or a well-packaged promise that will be hard to cash? I do wonder. Shel Holtz: I think this is a great idea. I am 100 % behind this. We had the conversation on Circle of Fellows day before yesterday. Remember, the theme was that the role of the communicator remains fixed. It is to support organizational objectives and goals. However, the way we do this continues to evolve. And one of the questions that came up was, how do you learn new technologies? When you are a chief communication officer, for example, you’re pretty busy. How do you learn new technologies? And one of the answers was, well, reverse mentoring. I don’t think reverse mentoring is adequate for AI. The implications for business, for your business, are too huge to rely on a young employee saying, here’s how I use it. Isn’t this cool? Look what you can do. I think you need to understand strategic implications here. I think you need to understand how this is going to affect the way your business is managed, the way the work gets done, the way your organization interacts with customers and other stakeholders. How are things going to change? I think, you we’ve talked about a lot of these implications in previous episodes. The fact that there are going to be job displacements. The fact that entry-level jobs are going to change dramatically if 75 % of the work that an entry-level person does, because it tends to be more grunt work. If that can be done by AI, what does that do to entry-level jobs? You have to have entry-level jobs where your future higher-level employees are going to come from, if not from those entry-level jobs. So there’s a lot of thinking that has to be done around this. And what I see in most organizations is training being pushed down to the people who do the work, not the people at the senior level of the organization. They’re the ones endorsing training for everyone else. They’re not learning it themselves. And how can they lead the organization through this kind of change? And let’s be clear, we’ve never seen the kind of change that’s coming before. And I think this is the way to do that. You get your leaders completely immersed in it and trained in all the dimensions that are going to have an impact on your organization. I think it should be a requirement. And I think it’s actually kind of sad. that there’s an article about an organization that’s doing it because that means that most of them are not. Neville Hobson: Yeah, I’m with you on that. And I agree fully that I think this is an extremely good idea, a very good initiative. When I was researching and looking into it, it became clear to me that this was truly immersive up and down the every hierarchical level in the organization. So that at the end of this 80 hour program over a six month period, the leadership team and the whole executive committee are going to know what it is, how it works, what are the impacts in X number of areas in the business throughout the entire business to understand the magnitude of what this means. And it puts them in a very good position, I think, to ask questions, to support it, to debate it. If they don’t want to support it, they don’t think it’s very good, that’ll stimulate further discussion. So it’s kind of like They are on the same level as the folks lower down the organization who doing all that grunt work you mentioned. And they will understand more about the value of that and what support those people need elsewhere in the organization. So it is interesting and it’s totally unsurprising to see some of the criticisms out there that is just illustrative of people’s different opinions. And I think the fact they’ve done this and then the scale up of Microsoft 365 pilot. in parallel with this in a wider part of the organization. They’re taking this extremely, extremely seriously. And I’m sure other institutions in the financial industry are doing similar things, bet, except I saw Lloyd’s writing about it themselves. I saw media reports on what Lloyd’s Lloyd’s press releases about some of the stuff they’re doing were extremely well explained what this is all about. So I think it is something that is worth paying attention to how they’re doing with this. So it’s good that they have shared this information. Shel Holtz: I’m baffled at the notion that there’s criticism of this. You don’t want the leaders of organization to be up to speed on the technology that’s going to change the entire world. mean, come on. I just don’t get that. These are the people who are going to be guiding the organization through this change. And if they don’t understand it, they’re not going to guide the organization very well. Neville Hobson: Go figure. Shel Holtz: Yeah. Well, there’s a new report out from McKinsey. They are a report machine. They are a report factory. So there’s always going to be new reports out from McKinsey. This is a good one, though, and one that as we are so focused on AI and some other issues that organizations face on a daily basis is one that’s sort of bigger. And we may not be seeing the forest for the trees. The role of corporate affairs is being redefined in a world of rising geopolitical and geo economic complexity. If your eyes glaze over, that is probably part of the problem. Because if you work in communications, external affairs or stakeholder relations, this really is something you need to pay attention to. They begin this with something that we all are sensing right now that geopolitics is back and in a big way. After decades of a relatively stable global order, we’re now seeing rising trade policy shifts, export and import controls, sanctions, regulatory fragmentation, and governments using economic tools in strategic ways. These changes are putting new pressure on companies, not just on operations or supply chains, but on how they engage externally, how they structure themselves, and how they tell their story. McKinsey’s research finds something really intriguing. While executives view trade policy change and geopolitical instability as major risks, only 28 % say trade policy change is a top leadership priority and just 15 % say geopolitical instability is. So there’s a gap between risk and attention. That is where we step in. The article lays out a five-point playbook for upgrading the corporate affairs function. I want to walk you through these and then we’ll talk about what you can do in practical terms. Number one is map the world. Which geopolitical trends matter for your business? When you’re exposed, what the value at stake is, who the key stakeholders are. Many companies don’t quantify their exposure. McKinsey says only a small share do rigorous modeling. Find your corner solutions, you know, your best case and worst case, so you know what you need to be prepared for. Next, hone your narrative and strategic offering. Once you know the terrain, you need to refine how you talk about it. McKinsey notes that language matters. For example, the difference between the word advocacy and the word lobbying. And leaders are increasingly expected to act as commercial diplomats. For communications people, this means your story can’t be generic. It needs to reflect the geopolitical context behind the business and tailor the message accordingly. Third, optimize your engagement. It’s not enough to hope that someone will listen. You need to engage proactively with regulators, governments, associations, third parties, and choose the right level and channel. For example, you might find local or state or provincial officials more relevant than national ones, or you might use a trade association forum rather than a press event. It’s about effectiveness, not volume. Fourth, adapt the function’s organizational structure. Corporate affairs can no longer be an above the line support activity. It needs to be embedded in the business units, aligned with key metrics and operationally relevant. For communicators, that means moving from being message makers to being strategy partners with influence on business decisions and operational design. How much do we talk about wanting a seat at the table? Wanna know how to get one? Finally, the article calls for upgrading skills, analytics, geopolitical insight, and even AI. McKinsey notes that while AI and analytics can help, communicators must be paired with these AI tools in order to provide that human judgment. This means getting comfortable with new tools, but also building the strategic thinking around them. So what does this mean for you, the organizational communicator right now? First, advocate for and help lead the map of the world exercise. Partner with your risk operations and strategy folks to identify the top geopolitical and trade policy issues that affect your organization. Which markets are exposed? Which supply chains cross sensitive jurisdictions? What’s at risk if things change? Number two, revisit your messaging to reflect these stories and risks. If your company is operating in geopolitically sensitive markets, your external and internal narrative should acknowledge that and not simply assume a Global will work the same way everywhere, story. Choose language that resonates with regulators, governments, local stakeholders. Point three, review your stakeholder engagement plan. Are we talking only externally when something goes wrong? Are we connecting with the right offices and arenas? Should we be attending different forums, using different channels, working with different third-party partners? This is your chance to make the engagement smarter. The fourth action point, elevate your role in the organization. Use this geopolitical context to show how communication really matters to the business’s license to operate. Work with business leaders. What do they need? What are the key risks for them? How can you help structure narrative engagement and intelligence so it’s not just a communication afterthought? And action point five, embrace new tools and insight. You don’t need to become a data scientist overnight, but you should start experimenting. Just one thought, use scenario planning for external affairs. build a what-if narrative for potential trade disruptions or create a dashboard tracking emerging regulatory actions. We’re not just talking about a world where communications can add polish. We’re talking about a world where communications and external affairs and by extension, organizational communication has to be strategic, agile and grounded in real business context. As McKinsey puts it, your function can either shape the geo-economic environment or be shaped by it. If you’re in communications, raise your hand and say, let’s upgrade how we do this. Let’s map our exposures, refine our narrative, engage more smartly, embed ourselves in the business, and build new capabilities. Because this change isn’t going to slow down anytime soon. Neville Hobson: That’s a very interesting report from from McKinsey, I think you did. You did a pretty good job in in in summarizing the whole thing and those very steps you mentioned. It’s hard to pick a topic that is that you that you didn’t cover. In fact, you you cover them all. But the one that I would definitely reference is the is the towards the end of the report where it talked about leveraging AI. It made me think instantly of the Lloyds Bank executive training. So this talks about leading enterprises are creating AI lighthouses. Now that’s a new phrase to me, but I can visualize a lighthouse. I mean, I kind of get where they’re going with that. That incorporates analytical, generative and agentic AI to reimagine their corporate affairs workflows. So for example, it says an AI agent can automate a communication campaign cycle from setting the requirements to generating content to testing messages to tracking impacts. Teams can also use GenAI. to create briefings, combine the external sources of insight on stakeholders with internal insights on policy positions and lines to take. The shift is certainly taking hold, says McKinsey. So that’s just one example. But that illustrates to me that you need to have the kind of thrust of this overall argument in this story, in this article, made aware within the organization at the senior levels in particular, the whole spectrum. that helps them understand why they need to do this. And I wouldn’t be surprised if this or some form of this or an element of this is part of what Lloyds Bank is doing in their executive education program that they’re running. know, McKinsey quotes Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, among other things, has gone so far to predict Wait for it. 95 % of what marketers use agencies, strategists and creative professionals for today will easily, nearly instantly and at almost no cost be handled by AI. Now that brings in another element of these kind of elements that are popping up. was in a, what do call it? It’s not a webinar exactly. It was more a Zoom presentation via LinkedIn yesterday on. changing the billable hours function in consulting firms from hourly billing through to value-based charging. Now, I didn’t hear much new in that session, to be honest, but I keep hearing people talking about this topic now. And there’s something I’ve written about two years ago when I was getting interested in it. How would you do this? I said to myself in a blog post. So I sort of said it to everyone basically. How would you change your model suddenly? yet recognizing that your clients who are some of these leading enterprises, are tweaking it quite straightforwardly, very clearly, that, wait a minute, I’ve hired this person or this firm to work with us, and they’re charging us X by the hour, and yet 80 % of that time, they’ve got an AI doing it. So what are we paying for? So those questions are being asked. And indeed, some consultants are asking those, how do I change this before my client asks me to change it? So that’s part of the picture. So leveraging AI to me is part of that very much so. Shel Holtz: absolutely. And at the speed with which these geopolitical and geo-economical events are happening and the fallout is happening, we absolutely need to be using the tools that can help us stay on top of it and analyze the data that comes in. So I think the workflow recommendation, not just, gee, how can I help it? how can it help me write a headline or edit a press release? We really need to be looking at the data analytics capabilities and how agents can collect information, analyze it, and then do something with it on our behalf, with human guardrails, of course. But I agree with you. If this McKinsey article had come out a couple of months ago, I would say I’d Bet those folks at Lloyd read this, but they’ve already taken their action by the time this came out, which means that they’re even more on top of things than the people reading this and going, hey, I ought to be doing this. Neville Hobson: Yeah. And I suppose the good thing to mention to conclude, particularly this 95 % thing that Sam Altman talked about, is what McKinsey says that as AI gathered intelligence, they start to say, however, as AI gathered intelligence becomes increasingly commoditized, teams need to supplement it with direct knowledge of events only humans can provide. So that means you need to reinvent yourself slightly, I would say maybe more than slightly to be positioned and perceived and indeed deliver if you can precisely on that. So you’re part of the, I’m going to say the 5%. I mean, it’s not quite like that, but you’re someone with direct knowledge of events only the human can provide. So you will leverage AI to support you. in delivering whatever it is you’re delivering to your client or your employer as part of this big picture of what you need to do in this new geopolitical era. So it’s no small feat this. If you’re not thinking about it, and these kind of warnings people talk about all the time, but it must be clear, I think, to most people. You get a sense of momentum is really building in this. We keep seeing articles. and opinion pieces, the reports you name it almost daily on this about AI, that about AI, along with the critics as well. So it’s a rather muddy picture to understand. who should I pay attention to with all this? But it’s relentless. It’s coming at us left, right and center. we need to be on top of that. Communicators are well placed to help their company employ and navigate this. Shel Holtz: Yeah, there’ve been a couple of posts lately. There was one from Chris Penn yesterday talking about how you can’t opt out of AI anymore because of the AI browsers now that all of the browser providers are baking into it. But I also see a lot of posts on LinkedIn, several every day, from marketers and communicators saying, AI is never going to take our jobs because of this human requirement and that human requirement. They’re trying to make themselves feel better. And they should be doing exactly what you just said, reinventing themselves. Neville Hobson: Yeah, it’s an essential thing to do now and you need to get on top of that. So we’ve got down now, right? Yeah. Can we take a quick P break? No, I didn’t. I had lots of water though before that. So listen, the last time I did this, I went out with the earbuds plugged in. When I came back, I completely screwed up the audio. So I’m taking them off. I’m taking them off. I may need to still recalibrate them when I come back, but I’ll leave them off here. Right, I’ll be back ASAP. Shel Holtz: Yes. and I need to make a time code. Yes. Did you have a code zero? So leave the earbuds there. Okay, no worries. Neville Hobson: Yadoke. Let’s see, do we still have these things plugged in? Can you say something? Shel Holtz: Check one, check two. Neville Hobson: It It worked. Good. Now. Shel Holtz: getting dark outside. We’re expecting rain today. Neville Hobson: Yeah, we, our clocks go back overnight tonight. So I think you’re next weekend, right? Shel Holtz: I was going to ask when that happens. I even made a note. So I think for two weeks. Neville Hobson: So I think you’re the first Sunday in November. That’s next weekend. Shel Holtz: I, is it, Alexa, when does the, when do the clocks change in the US? When do we fall back? Daylight saving time ends on Sunday, November 2nd, 2025 at 2 a.m. local time. So, so we’re fine for, yeah, for next Monday. It will be on the same schedule. Right. Neville Hobson: Next week, next weekend. Right, so next week we’re not doing anything. So next Monday, we’ll still, we’ll be back to the normal eight hours difference. So next week was, yeah. So next week we’re seven hours apart, just FYI. So back to normal following week. Okay. So hang on, let have a quick sip. I’ve got this tickly cough and we had our flu jabs on Thursday and I tell you, both of us, we knocked a bit with this. Shel Holtz: Exactly. Alexa, stop! Right. OK. Really? Neville Hobson: I think we had the mild case, not as bad as last year, because last year we had COVID and flu at the same time. This year we didn’t get COVID because the government’s changed the eligibility. And as the cynics say, me included, say it’s because of the same money on the budget probably. So last year it was anyone over 65. This year it’s anyone over 75, unless you’re a special need or all that. So first time since 2020, we haven’t had a COVID yet. Now I could go… to the pharmacy just down the road and pay a hundred pounds and have it done privately. I ain’t gonna do that. Because it’s FluJab and everything else we do is on the NHS, it’s free. Shel Holtz: Yeah, see, had, yeah, we still get the COVID at 65, so, but not younger. Used to be anybody, so. Neville Hobson: Yeah, I think people are looking at budgets more than anything. Anyway, so. Shel Holtz: Yeah, well, we’ll see if there’s another COVID outbreak that leads to a change. Neville Hobson: Yeah. So you could mention Dan. Shel Holtz: Yeah, I’ll say something about Dan and then I’ll throw it to you. Neville Hobson: then we’ll go on to this corporate crisis thing. Shel Holtz: Right, okay. And my velocity thing is actually pretty short. So, all right, 100. Neville Hobson: Yep. Ready? Shel Holtz: Thanks, Dan. I’m sure that was a great report. Neither of us have had an opportunity to listen to it yet. We’ll do that later. But the reports are always great. So I can’t imagine this one’s any different. Neville Hobson: are. No, I’m sure it isn’t. Thanks, Dan. It’s good to have them. So this next topic is an intriguing one, I think. We’re going to take a look at a report by Provoke Media that editors of the magazine, plus invited experts they brought in, weighed in on corporate communication crises involving 14 organizations. So these included Tylenol, Nestle, JP Morgan, Cracker Barrel, Suntory, Intel, Meta, Adidas, Astronomer, Jet Two and more. We talked about Tylenol ourselves in episode 483 in early October. So 14 corporate comms crisis, that’s quite a bit and many will be familiar to you. The report reveals a world where reputation risk is increasingly shaped by behavior rather than policy. and where leadership conduct, cultural context, and digital amplification combine to test corporate credibility in real time. These crises share a clear pattern. Behavior lights the match, culture supplies the oxygen, and context decides how fast the fire spreads. The organizations that recovered fastest moves with speed and accountability, not legalistic hair splitting. They put people first, sought credible third party validation, and treated employees as a primary audience. Where leaders delayed, defended on technicalities, or ignored the cultural moment, issues lingered and reputations bled. We can’t discuss each of the 14 in detail as there just isn’t enough time. What we can do, I’m sorry, we would have been here till 10 o’clock tonight probably, Shale, I mean, it would have been too long. What we can do though is consider three of them to see what happened and what we can learn. And there’s a link in the show notes to Provoke’s detailed report. So what we’re to do is I’m going to outline the three one by one and in between, Shail and I will have a chat about each particular case as we go along. So we’ll start with Nestle, where the CEO’s secret affair tested the corporate compass, mild, mild way of putting it, I think, an undisclosed relationship between CEO Laurent Frick’s and a senior employee surfaced. a clear breach of the world’s largest food company’s code of conduct. It raised questions about power imbalance, conflicts of interest and disclosure standards. The issue quickly moved from private conduct to public governance, forcing the board to weigh privacy against policy and to show whether values apply when they are inconvenient. Fricks resigned roughly a year into the role. Already suffering from a sales slump and bracing for new US tariffs, The Swiss company saw its share price dip after Frex’s departure, compounding its underperformance. Investors, having seen two CEOs exit within a year and a one-third drop in the share price over five years, were not impressed. I think that’s putting it mildly, Shell, to be honest. what do you think of this undisclosed relationship between CEOs and relationships with senior, or maybe not so senior, in some case, employees? seems to be, dare I say, almost a common occurrence to what you read these days. But the consequences, certainly in case of Nestle, of this crisis were quite serious. Shel Holtz: very serious, especially since this company has been going through CEOs as if it was a revolving door. And for the world’s largest food company, little stability at that senior level is probably a good thing. But you’re right, this is becoming a routine thing. Probably the most notorious case recently is the CEO of Astronomer, tech company at the Coldplay concert getting caught with his head of HR on Kiss Cam. Both of them married, but not to each other. You would think that senior executives in these roles would see these things happen and the consequences when these secret affairs are revealed and say, I can’t do this, but we are biological beings, you know, and people succumb. So I don’t know that we can stop these stories from emerging when they happen. I can’t imagine that they’re going to stop happening. The question is, how do we deal with these? what did the Provoke article say about how Nestle dealt with this? it, was their analysis that they dealt with it effectively? Neville Hobson: Well, there’s various comments about that. I was looking at the article because it’s quite lengthy. They moved quickly about appointing a new CEO for continuity, much more than any comment they made about passing judgment on the behavior of the CEO on his romance and more about how his lack of transparency and poor judgment reflect on Nestle. Given that as CEO, he’s the moral compass of the organization. So that was the backdrop behind all of this. And it doesn’t go into any detail about what led Frex to the decision to leave, but he resigned swiftly and left very fast and there was no exit package. And he seems to have vanished now. So I’m just looking to see, yeah, the main comment basically is the share price effect, the negativity of the share price. that was negative on the news of the ousting of the CEO. But public perceptions of Switzerland have not followed suit, they say. According to Calibre, a reputation management firm, the company’s reputation has improved steadily over the past three years, with its trust and like score rising from 50 in the third quarter of 2022 to 69 in the same period of 2025. measure of how much people trust and like the brand on a 0 to 100 scale. This suggests that in Nestlé’s home market anyway, the company is viewed as handling the incident appropriately. It remains to be seen how the change of guard and continued coverage of the story will affect its reputation in the coming weeks and months. So Intrigue is a Swiss company, and the Swiss are different to the rest of Europe in how they regard such things and the behavior. So they were impressed with how it was dealt with within Switzerland, but that remains to be seen how the rest of the world feels about it. Shel Holtz: Yeah, and of course they’re a global company. One thing that I miss, at least I haven’t heard it or seen it in these types of stories, I haven’t seen it in the astronomer story, I haven’t seen it in the Nestle story, is that they take action relatively quickly. This is a violation of our policy, it’s unacceptable, and this executive will be leaving. And we’re going to hire another one who could very likely do exactly the same thing. We never hear what we’re going to do about this to keep it from happening in the future in order to protect the reputation and protect the brand. And I think maybe that’s something that organizations should think about. In any crisis, you’re supposed to say, here’s what we’re going to do to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Here’s something that is clearly defined as a crisis. And there’s none of that with any of these organizations. Neville Hobson: Yeah, and that doesn’t come across at all in this story. One additional comment talks about how Nestle’s bigger challenge lies beyond one wayward CEO. Talk about the new CEO, Philippe Navratil, has his work cut out for him, and it will require clear communication about what strategies he’ll pursue to turn the business around. So it’s not about the wayward CEO, it’s the actual business story. that’s not where the problems stop according to this person. Two abrupt CEO departures can erode employee trust and damage culture. Nestle needs to manage its external positioning and rebuild morale internally. So yeah, that new CEO has got his work cut out for it, I’d say. Okay. So then our next story is on Suntory, the Japanese global drinks company. This case is the hard realm of product integrity. The leadership crisis began when CEO Takeshi Ninami resigned amid a police investigation into suspected illegal supplements, although none were found. Executives moved fast with the press conference, while President Nobuhiro Tōri said the conduct fell short of what is expected of a chief executive. So this is Japan, and the culture of how people apologize and address issues is very different than how would be in the West. So… According to Provoke, crisis experts point to disciplined governance in the response, external counsel engaged early, tight board CEO coordination, rapid public disclosure, and deliberate avoidance of commentary on live legal matters, all of which limited speculation and protected shareholder value. The playbook was cross-functional, legal, HR, and comms, moving in sync with internal stakeholders treated as first order audiences to maintain trust. Context mattered too. In Japan, pre-verdicts resignation signals moral responsibility and respect for stakeholders. Notably, Ninami asserted his personal innocence in his capacity with the business lobby, separating that from his corporate role to reduce the company’s reputational risk. The playbook that works is speed, independent scrutiny, and making customers whole, with visible updates that show the remedy is real. choose legalistic defense and you convert a product issue into a long tail credibility problem. And by the way, Shell, I didn’t see any reference to how would they fix this to avoid this kind of thing in the future. It’s not the same as a relationship imbalance with an employee. If anything, this is slightly more serious, legal supplements being imported into Japan. So how do they prevent this? haven’t seen anything mentioning that yet, but this is again an interesting one. And maybe there are elements of this that would be interesting to learn from a Western perspective, because in Japan it’s very different, the culture. Shel Holtz: Yeah, I don’t think this one requires that, what are we going to do to prevent this in the future element quite as much as one that just keeps happening, right? But this is a case where a guy, if you believe him on the face of it, bought something he thought was legal that wasn’t, and it ran afoul of the company’s drug policy. That’s pretty clear cut. He violated our direct policy. He’s out. And as long as they move swiftly, and I think, you know, your internal communication is probably more important than your external communication on this one. This tells you that there are two classes in the organization, right? If the CEO can be canned for this, means obviously you can too, but in a lot of organizations, the leaders would get away with it because they run things. the employees would be treated differently. So I think there’s a positive message you could actually send to your employees here is that we treat everybody the same. And that might be a message that would be worth taking externally as well. We don’t distinguish between the leaders and the frontline employees. Everybody is subject to the policies of this organization and we executed on this policy. Done deal, moving on. So yeah. Neville Hobson: Yeah, did get, Santori did receive quite a bit of praise from critics. One person, Caroline Shoya, the founding director of the PR group in Australia, said that Santori’s handling of the incident demonstrated strong governance discipline and execution of its crisis playbook. The immediate use of external legal counsel, board CEO coordination and quick public disclosure. help limit speculation and protect shareholder value. Its speed and clarity of communications reinforced accountability and transparency. The company avoided commenting on ongoing legal proceedings, avoiding further risk. And in the case of the employees, this was quite interesting too, that she said, Ninami’s resignation highlights how leadership integrity issues can quickly spiral into company-wide reputation risks. A leader’s personal conduct impacts corporate trust, making it a governance and communication priority. boards and corporate affairs leaders must actively anticipate this risk and be prepared to address it. So that’s part of that overall picture, which clearly, according to the critics, they praised how they dealt with it and the speed at which they did it and the transparency under which they did it too. Shel Holtz: Yeah, and both of these cases are cases of personal behavior affecting the organization. In this case, I think there was an extra dimension to it because of this particular individual status. He was a former advisor to prime ministers before he took this job. He was Japan’s corporate face at the Davos World Economic Forum. He is a very prominent and very well-known figure in global business world and this probably shook a lot of people. But at the end of the day, he took drugs that he wasn’t supposed to, so he’s out. And I think there’s a positive message that you can share with that. Neville Hobson: Yeah, he did consistently talk about he believed that he was doing nothing wrong at all. He was had the right to do this. That’s what he’s been saying. I’ve not seen anyone saying yes, you’re right. No one’s agreeing with that. He’s not getting criticism either. But the consequences are still there. Shel Holtz: I think his message should have been, I truly honestly believe these were legal. I should have checked more thoroughly before I purchased these. I am going to be doing that in the future and I regret my behavior. So easy enough. Neville Hobson: There you go. So that’s a good advice there, I think. So the final look is at a case that’s in the US. Certainly you’re very familiar with this, know you are, Shaldee. The ABC Kimmel, Jimmy Kimmel crisis. It’s a case study in how political intimidation collides with stakeholder power. So after talk show host Jimmy Kimmel criticized the Trump administration live on air for exploiting the killing of activist Charlie Kirk. Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission, that’s the broadcasting regulator in the US, warned ABC the easy way or the hard way, reminding broadcasters their licenses depend on his agency. Within hours, Nextstar, which controls over 30 ABC affiliates, dropped the show. ABC followed. Sinclair went further, demanding Kim will make a payment to Kirk’s family and the right-wing group. The reaction was immediate. Hollywood guilds condemned the move. Protests erupted in New York and Los Angeles and consumers threatened boycotts of Disney parks and cancellations across Disney +, Hulu and ESPN. Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner publicly rebuked. Current Disney CEO Bob Iger, where’s all the leadership gone, he said, sharpening the governance glare. Over six days, more than 1.7 million paid subscriptions were canceled. Advertisers were targeted online. and under sustained pressure the program was restored, even Sinclair reversed. The lesson is not subtle. An easy jerk tilt to appease a hostile regulator ignores the whole stakeholder universe. For communicators, the job is to map power beyond the politician. Customers, talent, affiliates, advertisers, and defend principle with a plan, not a panic. ABC and Jimmy Kimmel is a crisis by choice when commercial caution appears to muddle creative expression. The options are stark. Principles for Sale that invites questions about editorial independence, sponsorship guardrails, and whether a broadcaster can defend free expression while protecting its commercial relationships. Transparency about standards and boundaries beats backstage contortions every time. I don’t know, does that sort of summarize it all pretty well in your take in terms of what happened? Shel Holtz: It does. This was a case of an organization jerking its knee and acting very rashly and very quickly without thinking in terms of the long-term consequences. I think at the executive level, you get very insulated and forget what the common folk might do. But when the common folk band together, 1.7 million of them might cancel their Disney Plus subscription, which is exactly what happened over that. That is a ton. of money for a company that is increasingly reliant on its streaming service for its revenue. So I think that may have been part of the calculus in bringing the show back as quickly as they did. And his opening monologue, which I watched on YouTube, I thought he handled very deftly without kowtowing. He did apologize for anybody who was offended, but he didn’t make the apology that some people wanted him to make. I heard, and I don’t know if this is accurate, but I heard that Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, was contacted relentlessly by A-listers in Hollywood telling him this was bad, you shouldn’t do this, and that that factored considerably into the decision to bring Kimmel back, which, you know, frankly pissed off Trump and his base. But He’s still there. And frankly, his viewership has gone up considerably as a result of this. So for Brendan Carr, the head of the FCC, if he thought this was going to get rid of Jimmy Kimmel, all it did was give him more viewers. So here’s another person who should have thought more long-term and more critically before jerking his knee and making such a ridiculous threat. Neville Hobson: Yeah. So the final comment to add to this is from Provoke’s article where they quote a crisis communications program name to ask not to be identified saying this is about the cancellation. saw that real people still have the power to influence corporate decisions. It was a reminder to communication professionals that they need to remind CEOs that they have to take the whole stakeholder universe into account when they make these decisions. You said something similar, I think. yeah. So three examples. Shel Holtz: Yes. What do I pay? I think I pay $20 a month for a Disney Plus subscription. I mean, they’ve got Marvel, they’ve got Star Wars, they’ve got National Geographic, and several other properties. Now they’re folding Hulu into Disney Plus and ESPN. So for 20 bucks, that’s a bargain. And 1.7 million people said, I’m not going to pay my 20 bucks a month, my 240 bucks a year. multiply 1.7 million by 240, that’s a chunk of change that they can’t afford to lose. So that is power. And when consumers decide they’re going to wield that power, they definitely can’t have that kind of influence. Neville Hobson: Yeah, you’re right. I also subscribe to Disney Plus. I don’t pay 20 bucks equivalent, I pay nine pounds, which is about $11, I suppose. Doesn’t give me ESPN, gives me Hulu and a lot of stuff there. It is good. It’s probably, I would say after Netflix, it’s the one I watch the most more than any other. So, okay, so three crises we’ve looked at of the 14 provoke disgust. I would say across all of these crises, the lessons consistent. Behaviour creates the crisis. Values aligned action resolves it. Is it that simple? It seems so to me. Read the room, act at the speed of trust and rebuild with proof. Note that phrase by the way, act at the speed of trust. Rebuild with proof, independent reviews, measurable fixes and ongoing debates. Anything, anything finally you want to add to this topic? Shel Holtz: No, we’re going to move right into the next topic because it talks about trust velocity. So it is a perfect segue. Unless you want to talk about what other streaming services we like. We have entered a new era in how trust works, not just for tech companies, but every kind of organization. In the past, trust was something you built slowly and managed over the time. If you lost some during a crisis like those we just talked about, you worked to rebuild it. Today, trust moves at the speed of attention. It can surge or collapse in a day, especially when people see a gap between what your organization says and what it does. Gee, we ought to maybe call that the say-do gap. That’s the essence of a new concept in reputation analytics. It is called trust velocity. The rate at which confidence in your organization rises or falls based on how closely your promises match your proof. Traditional reputation monitoring focuses on sentiment. whether audiences sound positive or negative, but sentiment can stay flat while risk is growing quietly in the background. For example, imagine your company saying, we’re committed to sustainability while social posts start showing waste problems in your supply chain or community leaders call out a lack of local follow through. Public tone might still sound neutral until suddenly it doesn’t. Trust velocity. picks up that tension early. It doesn’t just matter tone, it measures friction between words and evidence. And this idea aligns with what Edelman calls a trust inflection point in his 2025 AI trust imperative. A report that while focused on AI really applies to every business. Edelman found that people’s patience for vague or unverifiable claims of any kind has run out. The takeaway for communicators couldn’t be clear. If you can’t just say we’re respond… Sorry. You can’t just say, we’re responsible, we care about people or we act ethically. You have to show how. That means documenting your practices, explaining how decisions are made and being transparent about oversight. If there are limits or shortcomings, own them. If you’re learning, show what you’re doing to improve. And if a program or policy is falling short, pause it, fix it and communicate the fix. Because today responsibility without receipts is a reputation risk. Edelman also found that the wider public has a growing sense of grievance. 60 % of respondents worldwide say institutions, whether business, government or media, make their lives harder and serve narrow interests. When that’s the baseline, 60%, that’s a staggering number, trust isn’t a given. It has to be earned through consistent, visible follow through. Now the Pew Research Center adds another layer to this conversation. Their new global study on trust in AI regulation shows very different confidence levels by region. It says a majority of people in Europe trust the EU to handle oversight, but in the US, trust is split down the middle and far lower in many other parts of the world. And I have to throw in a caveat here. I’m not sure if the survey that was conducted by the Pew Research was just the countries of the EU or the broader European. community of nations. So when they talk about trusting the EU to handle oversight, I don’t know if it’s only people in EU countries. That wasn’t listed in that report. But this nevertheless has implications far beyond AI companies. It’s a signal that regulatory trust itself is fragmented. In some places, people believe in strong oversight. In others, they assume institutions can’t be trusted to keep companies accountable. So if you communicate globally, your trust narrative has to flex. In Europe and similar markets, emphasize alignment with recognized standards, transparency, independent audits, compliance with oversight frameworks. In the US, audiences tend to want proof, not promises, clear evidence, measurable safeguards, and third-party validation. Whatever the market, the principle is the same. You earn trust not by saying we’re compliant, but by showing the data, showing the decisions, and showing the people behind them. So how can communicators put this idea of trust velocity to work right now? Start by defining five to seven promises your organization truly makes. Safety, inclusion, sustainability, innovation, customer care. Then set up two lanes for each promise, what we say and what we do. The first lane is the messaging. That would be executive statements, campaigns, internal posts. The second is behavior. Metrics, policies, audits, employee feedback, supplier data, customer experience. When those two lanes start to diverge, your trust velocity drops. That’s your early warning. A simple way to track this is with what some organizations call an integrity board. One slide per promise. What we said, what happened, is trust rising steady or falling? What’s our next move? And when you close the loop, tell people, you said, we did, here’s proof. It’s a simple but powerful cycle. Listen, measure, act, communicate, repeat. The bigger point is that reputation management today isn’t just about messaging, it’s about evidence management. Transparency, data, and openness are now communication tools. So if you’re thinking about how to strengthen your organization’s credibility this quarter, here’s a concise way to put it. We measure ourselves by how fast we close the gaps between promise and proof, and we communicate those gaps Honestly, that’s trust velocity. And in this world where information moves instantly, it may be the single most important measurement of all. Neville Hobson: Now, that’s very interesting, particularly the Pew study I found. It’s interesting the, excuse me, the overall recommendations in this topic. I think the thing that interests me is the governance bit more than anything, so it doesn’t backfire. And I’m wondering, I don’t see this mentioned in plans that touch on this topic, I suppose. Source of truth lists, I like that a lot. name which data counts as proof. So you don’t just bung a report in to back up without specifying what in the report is backing up what you’re saying. I see that a lot, by the way, that, you know, here’s his, his this and then there’s an attachment. That’s a big report without telling you what in it you need to pay attention to. So I think there’s food for thought here, without any doubt. And going on to the Pew one, this to me illustrates differences in Europe and the US. I’m using the word Europe deliberately to brace that whole area. it’s the EU, though the European Union has a particular, how could you say approach to trust. So you will hear reports and comments by people in positions of power and authority, but how much people trust the EU to look out for the interests of the citizens of the European Union. And that, frankly, gives you an indicator of one reason why the Brits are particularly not keen to be part of an institution like the European Union. We’re more of an independent mindset than you see elsewhere in continental Europe. But really interesting, difference, it does it, I guess, is a question really. Does this illustrate the political divide post Trump in the US versus Europe, generally speaking? So for instance, you’ve got the metric from Pew, Americans are split, 44 % trust the government’s regular AI versus 47%, you don’t. It’s almost the opposite of Europe or in the EU in the case of what Pew is reporting. A median. 53 % trust the EU to regulate air effectively. That’s quite significantly more than in the United States. So is that the nature of Americans? I think it might well be, Sheldrake from history, that not trusting the central government so much as they would, you know, their community or whatever it might be. Shel Holtz: Yeah, I think you have both in play in this particular instance. I don’t think people trust the US government to regulate much of anything. It’s very, very slow to respond. It is very, very prone to influence by lobbyists. And it just doesn’t catch up with what’s going on in the country anywhere near fast enough. But in terms of the Trump administration and AI, their view is all gas, no break. We need to be on top. We need to be first. Don’t stop innovating. Don’t stop developing. Stop worrying about the potential risks and win. So if anybody thinks that this administration is going to lead an effort to regulate AI, think again. That regulation is going to happen state by state. California, Governor Newsom has recently signed legislation. He vetoed it last year and then they watered it down a little and he signed it, but it still put some guardrails up. This is not the optimum approach because then AI companies have to develop their products and their services to ensure that they don’t run afoul of 50 separate pieces of legislation. Much better if it was done centrally, but it’s not going to happen. And I think the people who say, yes, I trust the government to do this are probably by and large on the right side of the, and I mean political right, not correct, the political right side of the equation. And they like what this administration does, which is not regulating. They’re deregulating right and left. So is there a great deal of trust that the U.S. government is going to regulate AI? No, absolutely not. They’re not going to. Neville Hobson: there. Yeah, that’s our landscape in that case. So basically, you’re on your own, I suppose you could say in terms of corporate approach to, to, you know, the implications for organizations trying to do business in various markets, whether it’s within the US or elsewhere, you can’t rely on your government, unless you happen to be in Europe, where you more likely to rely on the centralized state. The federal system in Europe is not like the US. There many similarities, of course, but there isn’t, for instance, an EU-wide defense structure with a defense, Secretary of State for Defense, or as you have it, war, as he is now. You don’t have any of that. It’s still national governments, but they defer to the central control of the European Commission and the European Parliament, which is one reason why the UK is opted out, which is a whole separate topic. recognizing the landscape, I suppose, is a key message to take away from this, pay attention to these developments, and make your plans accordingly. Shel Holtz: Yeah, and it’s not just AI. Keep that in mind. Remember, we talked about things like sustainability. It’s the say-do gap. And I find it interesting that the Engage for Success organization in the UK around employee engagement lists the say-do gap, which they label as organizational integrity, as one of the four pillars of employee engagement. I think we need to spread that now and make it the basis of organizational trust. The company I work for, trust is one of the key things our leadership is working on. So we can’t be in a vacuum. I think a lot of organizations are looking at trust as the most important capital they have. How do you build it? Well, not by measuring sentiment. We have gotten very complacent with sentiment as the indicator of how people feel about us. We spend a lot of money on it. There are people out there selling it. Time to move on. I’m not saying ignore it, but we need to start looking at these other indicators as well. Neville Hobson: Yeah, I agree with that 100%. Okay. So then, I guess our final story is a great one to end on Shell, I have to say this is a case study in real time marketing with a moral whiplash is how I’ve titled this. This many of you listening, probably most of you will know what this story is about the days after a Paris gang used a furniture lift to climb into the Louvre Museum in Paris and in less than 10 minutes make off with an estimated 88 million euros in Napoleonic jewelry. So the German manufacturer of that furniture lift, company called Burka, B-O with a normal out, C-K-E-R, the brand is the Agilo Furniture Lift, posted a tongue in cheek ad on Facebook and Instagram. The title of the ad or the headline was When You Need to Move Fast in German, with a copy boasting that the lift moves up to 400 kilograms at 42 meters per minute, as quiet as a whisper. The post went viral, about 1.7 million impressions versus the brand’s usual tens of thousands. Most reactions were amused. A vocal minority called it crass and insensitive to French sentiment. Berker says the lift had been sold years ago to a Paris rental company and was apparently stolen during a demo. The family-run firm admits it was shocked to see its product in the news. But once it was clear no one was hurt, they decided to make the most of the moment. Whether that generates real leads remains to be seen. But marketing chief Julia Schwabat said that after the news report, countless people, our staff, business partners, clients got in touch with us and we thought, wow, we have to do something with this. By Monday morning, the campaign was live. So is this clever, culturally aware nimbleness or opportunism that trivializes a crime and risks alienating stakeholders beyond the meme? The communication question is where you draw the line on humor, harm and brand voice when you are adjacent to a scandal rather than the cause of it. Is this a masterclass in agility, or a case study in playing with fire? Shel Holtz: I think this is a master class in agility. David Meerman Scott would in a heartbeat call this news jacking. So I think the distinction between the kind of news jacking that David referenced in his great book on the topic and this is usually news jacking is when your company takes advantage of news to draw attention, not when the company involved in what you’re news jacking from. does it. So that’s a subtle distinction, but it’s essentially what they did. And I think they did it extremely well. I could see if they’d been caught, the thieves, and had used some other piece of equipment, they could have done something like they might have gotten away with it if they had used ours. There’s so much, again, as you say, nobody was hurt, which I think opens the door to having fun with this. mean, you know, I don’t think most people are viewing this particular crime as some horrifying crime. They’re thinking of it as something that you would watch a movie about, right? I’ve even seen a photo of some dapper dressed young man and there’s all kinds of discussion. about whether he’s the detective who’s going to solve the case or if he’s even real. So people are having tremendous fun with this. I don’t see why the company whose equipment was used by no action of their own can’t join in the fun. Neville Hobson: No, in fact, we we reference back to our conversation about rage baiting, where they comment in there about if you can do something that is a bit of fun, and a paroxysm, positive response or reaction, why would you do the rage bait route? This is sorted in that kind of area. I think, you know, thinking about it, when I saw the, you know, when the when the the heist happened, it was news headlines on every single news channel over here. And I remember seeing the photo of the furniture lift parked outside the back of the Louvre, which was on a public street. And it was parked there. And I was thinking, what is that? Is that something the police are using or what? It wasn’t clear to me until it suddenly came out in the news reports. This is what the crooks used. And I thought, my God, it added an element of, you’ve got to be kidding me that this will happen. Where’s Inspector Cluso? Let’s get him on the phone. And I saw loads of loads of people posting that on Facebook, on threads, you name it, it’s called the Spectaclusa. And so it had that humorous element to it, which I think is exactly on target in this context of what happened. No one was hurt. There are elements of high amusement and comedy even to this. mean, the crooks, it was actually seven minutes they escaped. came down the lifts and of course the velocity that it does it at 42 meters per minute. They were down in no short order. They had motorbikes parked there that they all jumped on and sped off. One of the crooks dropped one of the objects that they’d stolen from the regime, which was a necklace or a crown. can’t remember what. It was one of Napoleon’s prized possessions. They got that element into it. They weren’t perfect, these guys, but they got away and no one knows where they are who they are even. Quite extraordinary. Shel Holtz: It really is. And even the media is having fun with it. I think it was CNN, might’ve been the New York Times, they interviewed a bunch of thieves for their opinion on this. And the consensus was, had to be an inside joke. you know, who’s not having fun? Well, the Louvre’s not having fun with this. And the French police and the French government aren’t having fun with this. Pretty much everybody else is. Neville Hobson: There is that. They’re not. I think there’s some serious elements emerged as I’ve heard and seen on the TV and in the press. For instance, the back of the building, this is one area where they had no CCTV cameras. That’s a fail. That’s a real fail. That is, know, the crooks knew that, the crooks knew that. So anyway, you got it. Shel Holtz: Yeah. Well, again, inside job, right? But yeah, I think this is a reason to go get David’s book and read it and figure out what you need to do to be on top of these things so that you can take advantage of an opportunity when it arises. Neville Hobson: So what’s the title of David’s book? Shel Holtz: News jacking. Yep, that one. It’s very good. Yeah, my favorite story out of that was about the London Fire Brigade. I don’t remember exactly what the story was, but they ended up taking advantage of the story as a way to recruit women into the Fire Brigade. I don’t remember. what precipitated it, but they jumped on that story in order to offer this opportunity and they got good results out of it. So read the book, you’ll get that story. And that will take us to the end of this episode of For Immediate Release, episode number 486 for October 2025. Our next episode will drop on Monday, November 17th. I know that’s… earlier than usual, but Thanksgiving is coming in the U.S. and I’ll be tied up that weekend and I’ll be tied up the weekend before. I’m gonna go down to San Diego and visit my daughter and my granddaughter. So we’re gonna record in the middle of the month. So look for us on November 17th and remember to stick around for a minute and listen to that song because it’s pretty entertaining. And that will be a 30 for this episode of For Immediate Release. The post FIR #486: Measuring Sentiment Won’t Help You Maintain Trust appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Communication professionals today face an environment characterized by rapid change, emerging technologies, and evolving workforce expectations. In Circle of Fellows episode 121, “Evolving Roles and Strategic Goals,” a panel of Fellows from the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) explored how communicators can adapt to emerging challenges while staying aligned with their organization’s objectives. From navigating the impact of AI to addressing ongoing change and strengthening internal communication, this discussion offered insights on keeping your strategies relevant in a digital-first world. The Fellows tackled significant issues facing the profession, including leading change within organizations, supporting business adaptation in an unpredictable global landscape, and keeping pace with a transforming workforce. Whether you’re refining your strategic communication goals or looking for practical ways to enhance your impact, this conversation delivers guidance you can put to work immediately. The session was recorded on Thursday, October 23, with Fellows Laurie Dawkins, Mike Klein, Robin McCasland, and Martha Muzychka, with Shel Holtz moderating. About the Panel Laurie Dawkins, ABC, MC, SCMP, Fellow, is vice president of Communications & Engagement with the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA), one of the largest public sector health-care organizations in western Canada. She leads a team of close to 50 communication professionals in delivering timely, strategic and meaningful internal and external communications, media relations, crisis communications and C-suite counsel to meet the needs of more than 29,000 employees and 5.5 million citizens who turn to PHSA for specialized health-care services provided by BC Children’s Hospital, BC Cancer, BC Emergency Health Services, the BC Centre for Disease Control, and more. Laurie has more than 25 years’ experience in the communications industry, and holds the professional designations of Accredited Business Communicator (ABC) and Strategic Communications Management Professional (SCMP). In 2017, she was delighted to be named a Master Communicator of Canada (MC) by the IABC-Canada. She has hands-on experience in partnering with First Nations and Indigenous leaders to co-create communication strategies that are foundational to PHSA’s organizational vision to “Boldly create an equitable, anti-racist and culturally safe health care system where everyone thrives.” Mike Klein is the Editor-in-Chief of Strategic Magazine, Founder of #WeLeadComms, and a communication consultant specializing in internal and social communication based in Reykjavik, Iceland. A former US political consultant, Mike shifted direction toward internal communication while pursuing his MBA at London Business School.  Since then, Mike has been one of the leading voices for empowering communication professionals, and advocating a focus on internal influence and social connection as drivers of communication, integration and performance. His 2011 book, From Lincoln to LinkedIn remains relevant as organizations recognize that personal credibility and connection are critical to communication success in a world where content volumes are increasing and instability flourishes. Raised in Chicago, Mike has lived and worked in seven different countries, and is also a Fellow of the Centre for Strategic Communication Excellence and the Institute of Internal Communication. Robin McCasland, IABC Fellow, SCMP, is Senior Director of Corporate Communications for Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC). She leads the company’s communications team and the employee listening program, demonstrating to senior leaders how employee and executive communication add value to the business’s bottom line. Previously, Robin excelled in leadership roles in communication for Texas Instruments, Dell, Tenet Healthcare, and Burlington Northern Santa Fe. She has also worked for large and boutique HR consulting firms, leading major communication initiatives for various well-known companies. Robin is a past IABC chairman and has served in numerous association leadership roles for over 30 years. She was honored in 2023 and 2021 by Ragan/PR Daily as one of the Top Women Leaders in Communication. She’s also received IABC Southern Region and IABC Dallas Communicator of the Year honors. Robin is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin and a Leadership Texas alumnus. Her own podcast, Torpid Liver (and Other Symptoms of Poor Communication), features guest speakers addressing timely topics to help communication professionals become more influential, strategic advisors and leaders. She resides in Dallas, Texas, with her husband, Mitch, and their canine kids, Tank and Petunia. Martha Muzychka, ABC, MC, speaks, writes, listens, and helps others do the same to make change happen. Martha is a strategic, creative problem solver seeking challenging communications environments where we can make a difference. She helps her clients navigate competing priorities and embrace communication challenges. Martha offers strategic planning, facilitation, consultation services, writing and editing, qualitative research, and policy analysis. Her work has been recognized locally, nationally, and internationally with multiple awards. The post Circle of Fellows #121: The Future of Communication: Adapting, Leading, and Aligning appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Things change fast in the digital world. On the other hand, business tactics can be slow to adapt. Crafting content with the intent of “going viral” has been part of the communication playbook for more than a decade. There was never a guaranteed approach to catching this lightning in a bottle, but that didn’t stop marketers and PR practitioners from trying. That effort is increasingly futile, as the social media companies that host the content have altered their algorithms, and people are paying attention to different things these days. This has led several marketing influencers to suggest that it’s time to move on from the attempt to produce content specifically in the hopes that it will go viral. Neville and Shel share some data points and debate whether going viral should remain a communication goal in this short midweek episode. Links from this episode: Is Going Viral Dead? Evaluating the effect of viral posts on social media engagement We Don’t Care About Viral Marketing Anymore The Viral Effect: Unpacking the Influence of Viral Marketing Campaigns on Generation Z’s Purchase Intentions The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, October 27. We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email fircomments@gmail.com. Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music. You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine. You can catch up with both co-hosts on [Neville’s blog](https://www.nevillehobson.io/) and [Shel’s blog](https://holtz.com/blog/). Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients. Raw Transcript Neville Hobson: Hi everyone, and welcome to For Immediate Release. This is episode 485. I’m Neville Hobson. Shel Holtz: And I’m Shel Holtz, and it is time to stop making going viral the point of our work. I’m not arguing that reach is irrelevant. I’m arguing that virality as an objective is a strategic dead end. High variance, low repeatability, and increasingly disconnected from outcomes that matter. I’ll explain right after this. For years, viral success stories seduced communicators, and I’m among them. There’s a thrill in watching that graph spike, but we’ve learned a few hard truths. First, virality is unpredictable by design. Platforms tune feeds to maximize their goals, not yours. Second, even when you catch lightning in a bottle, the spike rarely results in any kind of durable advantage. A new peer-reviewed analysis of more than a thousand European news publishers on Facebook and YouTube, published in the journal Nature, found that most viral events do not significantly increase engagement and rarely lead to sustained growth. In other words, the sugar high fades, and it fades fast. Meanwhile, veterans of content-led link earning have publicly stepped away from virality as a North Star. Fractal, an agency that once made viral part of its brand, now says flatly, and I’m quoting, “We don’t care about viral marketing anymore, and neither should you.” Their pivot is toward durable metrics like authority, affinity, and relevance. You might think that’s a vibe shift, but it’s not. It’s a strategic correction. Even the classic research on viral ads, the eye tracking work that taught us how emotional arcs and brand cameos drive sharing, was never proof that you can plan a viral outcome, only that certain creative choices improve your odds at the margin. Helpful craft guidance? Yeah, sure. A basis for corporate OKR? That’s objectives and key results? Nope. Layer on platform dynamics and the case gets stronger. Meta’s shift away from news culminating in the shutdown of CrowdTangle, the very tool journalists used to see what was going viral, has reduced transparency and made spikes harder to both trigger and to verify. When the scoreboard moves behind a curtain, playing for highlight reel moments becomes folly. In some markets, we can literally watch viral news get deprioritized. In Australia, publishers report Facebook engagement at all time lows as memes and creator posts fill the feed. If the feed favors entertainment over information, it also favors retention over reach. Your viral playbook ages out fast in that environment. The New York Times captured the cultural angle. The internet that rewarded sudden mass attention is giving way to one that rewards depth: revisit rates, creator loyalty, community momentum. A share count trophy doesn’t impress the algorithm anymore. Sustained, meaningful engagement does. So what should replace viral as the goal? Let’s cover a few things. First, it’s designed for compounding attention, not explosive attention. Planned content is a series, not a stunt. Build episodic formats: office hours, ask me anythings, recurring data notes, anything that trains the audience to keep coming back. The scientific finding I studied earlier is the tell. Durable growth comes from consistency, not from lucky breaks. Second, shift your KPI set. Trade shares and views as headline metrics for return rate, session depth, qualified traffic, assisted pipeline, issue literacy, whatever truly maps to your business or reputation outcomes. Neville Hobson: . Shel Holtz: Fractal’s rationale for de-emphasizing virality in form of authority and affinities is a good model. Third, optimize for platform fit, not platform luck. Where audiences actually engage, optimize to the native behaviors that correlate with retention. A quick example outside our usual stomping grounds, science communities now see richer discussion on BlueSky than on X because the culture and mechanics favor constructive back and forth over dunking. Smaller network, higher quality signal. Build earned elasticity into distribution is the fourth tactic. Yeah, keep a line item for opportunistic amplification. Creator partnerships, timely collaborations, paid boosts that extend life for posts that deserve it. But treat amplification as gasoline for a fire you’re already tending, not a match you light and hope it sets the world on fire. Fifth, prepare for attention risk, not attention gain. The wider your message travels, the less control you have over how it’s interpreted. Your plan needs counter message, clarification assets, and issues response baked in. Meta’s data opacity only raises the bar for preparedness. So when does a viral goal still make sense? Well, there are edge cases, awareness blitzes for entertainment launches, urgent public interest alerts, or short run stunts designed to trigger specific behaviors. Neville Hobson: Hmm Shel Holtz: like getting signups during a defined window of time. Even then, the viral moment has to be tethered to a post-moment system, a next step path, a nurture stream, community onboarding, so the spike has somewhere to go. If you’re still writing, “go viral” on a brief, cross it out, replace it with create repeat engagement among the right people, increase qualified discovery, or raise message salience with priority stakeholders. Those are hard, unsexy verbs, but they’re the ones that move the work forward. And if you’re thinking, “we’ve always chased reach, why change now?” consider the evidence. The platforms don’t reward virality the way they used to. The data windows are narrowing and the best research we have shows spikes don’t stick. Plan for compounding attention. Let virality, if it arrives, be a bonus, not the business model. Neville Hobson: Good assessment, Shel. I had to admit, I was thinking about the two words, viral marketing. And what came to my mind, as it’s not a topic I’m kind of thinking about every day, was what we saw a decade ago, which was spontaneous stuff that largely wasn’t planned, although much of it was planned, but didn’t really work. Things like, for instance, I reminded myself today and I looked at the video, the Chewbacca mom back in 2016, I think it was, that was a surprise hit. I mean, really, it was natural. It was spontaneous. It wasn’t planned. It was brilliant. It was wonderful, actually. But it perhaps illustrated the point you’ve just made, which because that wasn’t part of any kind of plan at all, it was spontaneous. So it didn’t have any kind of road to go down. It just corrupted and grabbed lots of attention. And that was it. The guy whose name I can’t recall nor his company, but who was interviewed on the BBC, sitting in his home office, business suit and tie and all that, and his two little children burst in. One was a little toddler and one was even younger, who came in on like a baby stroller. And then the maid came in behind to drag them out. And all the time the interviewer was asking the questions and he was saying, “I do apologize. I’m very sorry about this.” It was super. And that went viral. I think it was. Yeah, he was in lockdown. So he was doing that. So that that would end about 2020. So I think the, you know, the that time was one where these ideas were emerging, that the the kind of places where you could stimulate this weren’t as widely Shel Holtz: That was during COVID, right? When he was doing the broadcast from home. Neville Hobson: covered as they are today and there’s more of them today. But apart from that, the whole landscape has shifted and mindsets have shifted even. Knowing that this is going to be our topic today, I actually asked Google is something I do quite often, just a simple provocative question, is viral marketing still a thing? So Google search, was not GPT or perplexity, none of that. And the AI overview result was actually quite interesting. Yes, viral marketing is still a thing, says Google, but it’s evolved to be more sophisticated and integrated into social media strategies. While going viral is never guaranteed, it says, the core concept of creating engaging content that people want to share spontaneously remains a powerful tool for brand awareness and can be boosted by social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram and X. And that, I think, makes total sense to me, that qualifier of it, which we didn’t hear very much a decade ago when Chewbacca Mom and the BBC interview guy were the stars of the online world. But that to me always made sense that you don’t do something from a business point of view, just get it out there. Yet lots of people did precisely that without any seeming strategic approach to what was the outcome they were expecting of this other than to get thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people sharing it or commenting or liking it or whatever. What were you going to get from all of that? Where’s your strategic aspiration in that regard? That’s different now. And I did take a look at Fractal’s piece that was actually published back in 2021. That’s quite old. But nevertheless, I’ve seen others saying that’s it, viral marketing’s done. And I think it’s more nuanced than that. You need to qualify it. One thing I did like from the Nature report, the analytical report, almost academic report, Nature did, was defining, or they say, identifying two primary types of viral marketing, which I’ve not really heard many people talking about. They call it a loaded type virality, which manifests itself after a sustained growth period, growth phase, representing its final burst, followed by a decline in attention. The second one is the sudden type virality, with news emerging unexpectedly that reactivates the collective response process. And they talk about quick viral effects fade fast, while slower processes lead to more persistent growth. So this is now a far more evolved and attractive proposition to consider this. So I would say just based on my quick Google AI overviews read up and skimming parts of this Nature report that I think I don’t think it is time to drop going viral from the list of marketing. I’d say you need to prep yourself for the new way of doing this or a more effective way of doing this as part of your marketing strategy. Don’t you think? Shel Holtz: No, I don’t. We’ll disagree on this because if you look at both of the examples you shared, the Chewbacca mom and the guy on the news. Neville Hobson: But don’t forget that was 10 to 15 years ago. Shel Holtz: Yes, it was, but neither of them were trying to go viral and neither of them were representing a brand that wanted to expand reach. They both just happened to catch the attention of people who said, “this is really fun or amazing. I’m going to share it.” And then other people shared it. I remember even at the height of the viral video craze, the agencies that said, “we can help you go viral,” basically were saying, “we think we have cracked the code on what makes things go viral. We are going to develop our videos so that they conform with those things. And maybe one out of 10 that we produce will go viral because there’s also some secret sauce that we haven’t been able to decode yet.” And now on top of the difficulty you had planning for something to go viral back then, now you have the algorithms that aren’t rewarding the kind of content that it did reward 10 years ago when those kinds of videos did go viral. I mean, think about Oreo 10 years ago, 11 years ago when I think it was their 100th anniversary and they had the hundred days of Oreo with different sort of memes about Oreos. And they would replace them with something unplanned when there was a breaking news event and they could come up with a way to design one of these images so that it was consistent with the news that was breaking. And a couple of those went viral. I don’t think they would today. I don’t think the algorithm would necessarily reward them the way they did back then. So I think if you create something that’s clever and entertaining and it happens to go viral, or even if you bake in some of the things that you hope will make it go viral, that’s fine. But I don’t think that should be your plan. I think your plan should be those other things that I referenced, getting people to come back, having repeat visitors and slowly building the audience, building the community. They’ll share, but it doesn’t need to go viral at that point in order to deliver the kind of ROI that marketers are looking for. Neville Hobson: So I think the AI overview bits and pieces that Google popped up from a number of sources say all of that, actually. I mean, all those examples from a decade or more ago, I don’t think are relevant today because of the fact things have changed along the lines that you’ve said. But I think I like the way in which this summary talks about why viral marketing is still relevant, that actually says all the things that you’ve just said. Emotional and entertaining content, share worthy ideas, timely and relevant, audience engagement, that’s what you’ve got to aim for. They also talk about, those by the way, what the results of this search say are the key elements of modern viral marketing. That’s what you said. So whatever you call it, maybe the viral needs to be pushed away into the shadows a bit more, I think, because… Shel Holtz: especially post-COVID, Neville Hobson: Yeah, so, you know, I still hear people not much, I have to admit, but I saw someone writing about it on, I think it was LinkedIn, about creating a viral video. And thinking that you’ve never been able to create a viral video, you’ve been able to create a video that may go viral, but people tend to not quite see that point of view. So what’s changed that I say, using the video as an example, you create a piece of content that you get amplified through social media and set aside algorithms for a second. That’s emotional and very entertaining. Lots of people like it. And it’s part of your plan of other things you’re doing around product X or whatever it might be. And platforms today make it easier than they were even 10 years ago for content to spread quickly. As Google AI says, acting as a force multiplier for marketing efforts. So I think there’s still mileage in looking at this method of, let’s call it viral marketing. It still has legs in my view, if you approach it the right way and create it or look at it in terms of what you describe, which fits exactly what Google’s AI overview says. This is not about Chewbacca mom or BBC interview guy where it was spontaneous. People thought it was terrific and they shared it. That was it basically. It still shows up, by the way, when you do and the BBC interview guy says he’s indelibly got in his resume now, the BBC interview guy, as it’s called. So people are you without one, right? So I think it is worth considering it. Maybe don’t call it viral marketing. This is really part of your overall marketing strategy that you employ all the things you mentioned and all the stuff that’s mentioned here to. And indeed all the stuff that the Nature report mentioned too about the two types of viral marketing. So I think it’s got legs still. Shel Holtz: In terms of brands, I’m trying to think of something that went viral in the last few years and something that they wanted to go viral. There’s been plenty that has been spread around that I’m sure they wished hadn’t gone viral. But I can’t think of a marketing effort that has taken that path in the last few years. I just can’t think of one. So I’d rather put my energy elsewhere. Neville Hobson: Maybe they’re not doing it. Yeah, they’re not doing it the way they did it before then. So they’re doing it, they’re calling it something else. Shel Holtz: I remember there was one, I remember reading an interview, I think we talked about this on the show at the time, even though it’s probably a decade ago. He spent money to have a video go viral. That was what the agency planned and it didn’t. And he was upset until he started getting a lot of lead generation response. It turned out that it had only been seen by about 1,500 people, but they were the right 1,500 people, because of the tags, was a very technical video, and it actually led to return on investment. I remember somebody saying, “having a hundred people see your video is a win if your target audience was the U.S. which has a hundred members.” So how much reach do you want? You want to reach the right people. You don’t want to reach everybody who’s not going to buy your product or spend money on your service. I’d rather target, I’d rather build an audience. I’d rather focus on episodes and recurring content that brings people back over and over and over again. Maybe one of those will go viral and if it does, it’s a win. Neville Hobson: Well, I think you’ve actually then differentiated that quite well, because the example you gave of the agency who tried to plan the viral video or plan the video to go viral, I don’t know quite, I’m not quite sure how you would do that, to be honest. Is the issue there? What you described in terms of the actual outcome, which sounds like it was accidental, they certainly didn’t plan that. But again, that’s what 10 years ago, I think you mentioned. So now I’m pretty sure that that would not be the case. It would not be done that way at all. They would, I would imagine if they were doing this now, would be definitely well structured, well thought through as part of their marketing activity. And maybe the viral wouldn’t appear anyway. Shel Holtz: could be, but if anybody has planned for something to go viral out there and had success with it, drop us a line. We’d love to know about it. And that’ll be a 30 for this episode of For Immediate Release. The post FIR #485: Is It Time to Stop Trying to “Go Viral”? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Hollywood erupted in debate and discourse when a company unveiled a completely AI actress, Tilly Norwood. The public relations industry may be having its own Tilly Norwood moment with the introduction of Olivia Brown, a 100% AI PR agent that will handle all the steps of producing, distributing, and following up on a press release. Is this PR’s future, or just part of it? Neville and Shel engage in their own debate in this short midweek FIR episode. Links from this episode: Olivia Brown AI – Your 24/7 PR Superagent Introducing Olivia Brown: AI Agent for PR Teams | Fery Kaszoni posted on the topic | LinkedIn Fresh concerns over using AI in PR – where do we draw the line? | City Road Communications AI in Journalism: What Reporters Really Think About Artificial Intelligence Nearly a quarter of corporate press releases are probably written by AI now The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, October 27. We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email fircomments@gmail.com. Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music. You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine. You can catch up with both co-hosts on [Neville’s blog](https://www.nevillehobson.io/) and [Shel’s blog](https://holtz.com/blog/). Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients. Raw Transcript Shel Holtz: Hi everybody, and welcome to episode number 484 of For Immediate Release. I’m Shel Holtz. Neville Hobson: And I’m Neville Hobson. A new name is stirring debate in UK public relations. Not a person, but an AI agent called Olivia Brown. Launched by Search Intelligence, an SEO and digital PR agency, Olivia Brown promises to automate the entire PR process from brainstorming ideas to writing press releases, identifying journalists, and even following up with them automatically. For £250 a month, it’s marketed as a digital PR assistant that can cut campaign time from 16 hours to one, according to its founder, Ferry Casone. Is this the future of PR? We’ll explore that question right after this. Journalists and PR professionals are sounding alarms about Olivia Brown. Press Gazette reports that Olivia Brown has already been flooding inboxes with AI-generated press releases, complete with invented expert quotes and relentless follow-ups, all camouflaged to evade AI content detectors. Alastair McCapra, the CEO of the CIPR, calls this a threat to the very foundations of the profession, arguing that instant automation erodes judgment, relevance, and trust—the cornerstones of ethical communication. Dominic Pollard at City Road Communications goes further, saying this kind of technology flips PR upside down. Instead of starting with a genuine story, it fabricates one designed to match a publication’s existing output—what he calls coverage for coverage’s sake. Supporters, meanwhile, frame Olivia Brown as an amplifier of authenticity, not a diluter of it. On LinkedIn, Cassone describes it as a tool that frees up time for creative thinking while improving productivity. Beneath the surface, Olivia Brown isn’t just about automation. It forces us to confront a deeper issue: when AI can generate stories, quotes, and even relationships on an industrial scale, where does that leave trust, the single most valuable currency in our profession? Let’s unpack what this means for communicators, for journalists, and for the fragile relationship between authenticity and efficiency in the age of AI-driven PR. I’ll start with this question: Is this the future of public relations or the beginning of its undoing? Shel Holtz: Are you asking me? Yeah, it’s somewhere in between, I think. This does not trouble me very much. This is a situation where you have a tool that primarily cranks out press releases. It does some work preceding that, but ultimately it’s about cranking out press releases. We have discussions happening—you and I have discussed these conversations in previous episodes—about whether the press release is dead or not. I happen to believe it is not. But there is far more to public relations than press releases. This is touted as a tool for the agency, not for the client. It’s my understanding based on the little I have read of this that you pay £250 a month to the agency for them to use this on your behalf. It’s not an interface that’s available to the client. Is that right? Neville Hobson: No—the whole website area, the whole dashboard thing—it’s way beyond just press releases, really it is, according to what they say themselves. Shel Holtz: OK, because all I’ve read is this LinkedIn post, and it makes it sound like it’s an augmentation of what the agency does. Either way, I’m largely untroubled by this. Some people will use it. Some people will recognize the value that you get out of having a human PR agency doing your public relations work for you. I don’t know how adept generative AI is at this point at building relationships over the long term. It seems to me that outside the memory that some of the large language models have that recall previous conversations, you don’t get the benefit of having worked with someone over time and getting to know them and getting to know the issues and the challenges and the triggers and these types of things. But some people who maybe have less of a budget will use it. It could be a gateway, in fact, from using an AI public relations agency, if you will, to working with a broader mixed group of humans who are using AI in their work. But the fact is that we have some data that can support this. First of all, research has found that most journalists are untroubled by PR people using AI. There was one from Cision this year that showed that a majority of journalists are not strongly opposed to AI-generated pitches—about 27% are strongly opposed. Concerns that arise are around factual errors, but that’s on the humans in the agency to address. There is other research that says a quarter of press releases that are being distributed right now are already written by AI. So we’re going to see press releases written by AI. We’re going to see PR professionals using AI to help them in their work. And then you have Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, joining a chorus of voices who anticipate that there will be billion-dollar companies run by AI with no humans in them at all. I don’t know how soon that’s coming, but I believe that it’s likely at some point. I don’t see this as an authenticity challenge as long as there’s a human reviewing what’s going out before it goes out—whether it’s a PR person or the client. This is going to happen. But is it going to replace traditional public relations? I don’t see that. This is that old Mitch Joel line of “along with,” not “instead of.” Neville Hobson: Okay, so you don’t feel uncomfortable about the fact it makes up people, makes up quotes, fabricates stories and all that. Shel Holtz: This is a problem. No, I don’t feel comfortable with that. That’s something that has to be addressed. I can’t believe that they actually released it. Neville Hobson: That’s at the heart of their service. That’s what they do. I’m reading Ferri Cassoni’s post on LinkedIn where he gives the steps of a typical “what happens.” Client joins the agency—meaning him. The PR exec starts a new campaign with Olivia. It’s all about how much time all this takes, but Olivia comes up with 100 ideas in five minutes. A PR executive selects five of those ideas. The PR exec goes to the client and asks for expert tips for the five campaigns. The PR exec copy-pastes the expert tips into Olivia. It writes up five press releases with the client’s tips in five minutes. PR exec double-checks the content, tweaks it, and adds their own sprinkle to it if they want to. Once the release is written, Olivia scans 30,000 news articles on news outlets likely to pick up the story and identifies hundreds of journalists for each story separately with high accuracy, creating a personalized, on-the-fly media list—hours saved up to 20, it says. Olivia sends the expert tips via email to all those hundreds of contacts for all five stories. Olivia follows up in two days to see if journalists need any extra info regarding the stories—hours saved, one. And it doesn’t say this, but others have commented, then relentlessly keeps emailing all those journalists: “Have you read it yet? What do you think? Are you going to run it?” Without Olivia, all this would take 16 hours, and with Olivia, it takes one hour. I mean, come on. This is crazy, in my view. If this is the future of PR, I do not want to be part of this, I tell you. You’re right—we’ve seen automated press release stories before. I’m not sure we reported it on FIR, but I wrote a blog post about this podcasting tool that’s industrial scale—creating podcasts completely run with AI presenters and so forth. I think I read it’s 3,000 shows a week. It blasts them all out, and it’s already all over Spotify. So that is part of our future, I suppose. Is it the future we think it should be? I’m not sure. It troubles me hugely, Shel. I have to tell you that this is out there because many people—you know this as well as I do—are just going to take what it does and blast it out. That’s most of the criticism I’m seeing. So I’d love to hear from a client or someone who is reputable using this, saying what experience they got and how they feel about it. But right now, it seems to me this surely cannot be the future of public relations. Shel Holtz: And like I say, it’s not the future of public relations—it’s part of the future of public relations. Right now, as I have said probably 500 times on this podcast, anybody can hang up a shingle that says “public relations” and do work that they claim is sound, professional public relations work with absolutely no background in it. We see press releases written by humans—and we know they were written by humans because we saw them before AI was around—that are just awful. This is just another way to produce awful press releases, but it’s also a way to speed up a process with people in it. So yeah, you’re going to get slop. You’re going to get really bad stuff. You’re getting that anyway from the industry. If professionals can use this to speed up the process and give better outputs on a quicker schedule to clients—with that human intervention of checking the facts—and I’m not necessarily saying it’s this one, this Olivia Brown, but something like it that does a better job of research and fact-checking… I mean, Ethan Mollick just posted over the weekend that people claim, “I use ChatGPT-5 and it makes stuff up.” And he says, not if you use ChatGPT Thinking—it makes up far less. But they don’t know to go in and do that. So we need a tool like Olivia Brown that knows how to basically fact-check and think about what it’s doing rather than just spew the first thing that comes into its digital mind. But this is not the be-all and end-all of PR. Even looking at this entire process outlined in this LinkedIn post, it’s still ultimately about sending out press releases and checking with the reporters. You know that there is public relations work that goes far beyond press releases. There’s PR work that never involves sending out a press release. There’s crisis communication. There’s reputation planning and the kind of work that we do around building or shifting reputation. I always like to remember the case—I think it was Burson-Marsteller working with, I believe, StarKist Tuna—that was caught up in the boycott of canned tuna as a result of the dolphins that were being caught in the nets. The activists who were looking for a change in the rules on how they caught tuna initiated this boycott. StarKist already had policies around dolphin catches. They were already on the side of the activists, but their product was caught up in this. Working with Burson-Marsteller, they were able to get the word to the activists in a negotiation with both parties at the table in the same room—could be done over Zoom now, I suppose. They came to the conclusion that, “You’re the good guys,” so the boycott was amended to say “except StarKist.” There wasn’t a single press release involved there. And Olivia Brown is not configured to do any of that. So I don’t think traditional public relations is going anywhere. This is just a further enhancement of the automated press release concept. We interviewed Aaron Kwittken—he’s doing that with Profit. All this does is add the ideation at the front end and the journalist contact at the back end. Other than that, it’s the same product. I just don’t see it as that big a deal. Neville Hobson: But it makes up people; it makes up facts. That’s at the heart of it. This is what’s here now, and that’s what it’s doing. Shel Holtz: Olivia Brown—this particular product—is not good. The concept is fine. That’s what I’m saying. Neville Hobson: I’m not talking about the concept. The concept is this—this is what’s on the market now. The point is to talk about this in the context of what’s happening right now. It’s attracting a lot of comments here in the UK—maybe it hasn’t hit the US radars yet—but most comments I’m seeing are very critical. Shel Holtz: If it makes up people, it’s problematic. It’s the first shot out of the gate. Neville Hobson: This is not a good thing at all. The notion of this—industrializing PR for coverage’s sake—automates the entirety of it, including the follow-up to journalists, the relentless pursuit of answers. What about your reputation when people start thinking, “I don’t like these people; they keep hitting me up with all this stuff”? Is this the answer to your dreams to get that coverage you’re after? And never mind how you do it—the means justify the end, right? Shel Holtz: Well, this is version 1.0 of Olivia Brown, right? They’re going to get feedback and presumably come out with 1.5 that addresses some of these things. I’m not defending Olivia Brown. Neville Hobson: I wouldn’t hold your breath on that, Shel. I wouldn’t. Shel Holtz: You’re going to have press releases with fabrications get called out, and people are going to point to Olivia Brown as the source of the releases that led to that coverage. You’re going to have clients who are going to be upset when they’re called on the carpet for inaccurate or completely fabricated content. Either this thing is going to be a dramatic failure as clients publicly turn on it, or they’re going to make tweaks and improvements—the way most software is improved. Either way, you’re going to see other people look at this and go, “I can do this better.” And we’ll see more of these. We’ll see some that start to take on other elements of public relations. PR is going to be AI–human hybrid—there’s no question about it. And the workflow that’s outlined in the LinkedIn post seems ripe for AI augmentation. But they’ve got to fix the problems with this. No question. It’s unacceptable to be fabricating in public relations. Accuracy matters. Neville Hobson: I don’t see any signs whatsoever that that’s on the radar to do. This is the product. Your point about AI and automation—I don’t disagree with that at all; that’s what we’re going to see. But this, though, is a whole different thing, it seems to me. Shel Holtz: We should ask them. Let’s interview their CEO. Neville Hobson: Yeah, maybe. I’d like to find out what others say about them—if they’re using them—to see if there’s anything worth talking about. Is this so revolutionary that we would want to do that? So anyone listening who uses Olivia Brown and would like to share their experience, do get in touch. We’d love to hear it. Shel Holtz: fircomments@gmail.com. And that’ll be a 30 for this episode of For Immediate Release. The post FIR #484: Is Olivia Brown the Tilly Norwood of PR? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this episode, Chip and Gini address a listener’s question about the opportunities for growing an agency through outbound sales. They discuss the challenges of outbound sales, particularly in a small agency environment, and highlight the importance of building relationships and a strong brand. Both suggest that agency owners focus on networking and proactive relationship-building rather than traditional cold calling. They emphasize a multi-faceted approach to business development that includes content marketing, warm introductions, and maintaining an active online presence. Ultimately, they advocate for a shift in mindset from outbound sales to relationship cultivation to achieve sustainable agency growth. [read the transcript] The post ALP 285: Outbound sales & your agency appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.