News Bits: Top D.C. law firm Hogan Lovells is adding communications to its non-legal business offerings. Former Levick president of PR and strategic communications Mark Irion has been hired as a senior adviser to lead the effort and build a team, The National Law Journal reports. The unusual thing here is that the Irion’s communications group will reside within the law firm, not as a subsidiary. Irion will track his time as billable hours, the legal industry norm, as opposed to the retainer and fees usual in the PR industry. – What crisis? Volkswagen was the world’s top-selling car in 2016, besting Toyota by some 150,000 vehicles. A pyrrhic victory: the margin likely would have been larger sans dieselgate and the company has been saddled with more than $4 billion in fines in the U.S. alone. And it rolls down from the top. German prosecutors say they have evidence former VW chief Martin Winterkorn knew about the emissions deceit.
Ogilvy N America
Platform Prater: As expected, Snapchat parent Snap Inc. filed its IPO, Feb 2. Financial details aside, it will be interesting to see how Snapchat, whose un-corporate, informal tone was integral to its charm as a communication tool for brand communicators, will conform as a public entity. One thing brand communicators are seeking as a result of the IPO is enhanced analytics from Snapchat. In October, anticipating the IPO, Kathy Baird, managing director, content and social, Ogilvy N America, told us, “I think we’ll see more analytics in the next year” ( PRNP, Oct 10, 2016). – Ho, hum, Facebook’s Q4 financials on Feb. 1 were impressive, besting estimates. Again. Of importance to brand communicators is Facebook’s monthly active user base showed a healthy increase in 2016, reaching 1.86 billion. Facebook’s daily active user count averaged 1.23 billion last year, up 18% vs 2015. Users accessing Facebook on mobile grew, too, with the company reporting 1.74 billion monthly active mobile users and 1.15 billion daily active mobile users. Nearly lost in all this was word from Facebook chief Mark Zuckerbergthat Instagram now has 400 million daily users. That’s an additional 100 million new dailies in the past seven months. Last month Instagram said it had 600 million monthly users. Apparently a growth driver was the new Stories feature, copied from Snapchat.
PR N. America and author
Book Talk:You know things are moving fast when a PR pro who’s as quick on her feet as Havas PR N America CEO Marian Salzman seems bewildered by the pace of communications. The new president is compounding things, she says. Ironically Salzman began her book tour for Agile PR (AMACOM, 2017) not 500 yards from the White House, meeting with communicators and press at the U.N. Foundation’s offices. The president is “re-writing the rules” of communications, PR and life, she says. In her presentation, she all but discounts several traditional elements of PR: proof reading (“Trump’s tweets are loaded with mistakes, but it doesn’t seem to matter”), spreadsheets, process docs and dashboards (“numbers still talk, but dashboards don’t measure passion”). Even online news sites are passe: “I look at Trump’s Twitter feed 20 times a day…it’s more efficient than watching CNN…he’s moving so fast…he’s flooding us…he never sleeps.” As a communicator, “If you’re driving 60 mph and you have a blowout, you now have to change the tire while you’re driving,” she says. Among her other prescriptions: “brand the hashtag…and keep branding…Trump had a branded story, Hillary didn’t;” act quickly, “always on is the new normal;” spread the good, “lots of people out there are spreading evil;” and be like Brooklyn, “creative and authentic.” Another key for cause-related campaigns is to “occupy the grass-roots space…Try to figure out how you can you get the everyday person to take up your cause, but also make it their own.”
Peppercomm and Vice Chair, N America, AMEC
People: The Hispanic Public Relations Association released its 2017 national board. It includes: president Yvonne Lorie, ReFresh PR; president-elect Veronica Potes, director integrated marketing, NBC Universal; treasurer Lourdes Rodriguez, Saban Community Clinics; secretary Esther-Mireya Tejeda, VP, corporate communications, Entercom; and VP membership/operations Melissa Smith, EVP, Ogilvy. -- Ketchum named KayAnn Schoeneman SVP and director of public & corporate affairs practice in its Washington, D.C. office, reporting to Jerry Olszewski, partner and managing director of the office. Schoeneman joined Ketchum in 2008 and was SVP of its global research & analytics business. -- Kudos to Peppercomm director of research & insights Nicole Moreo on being named Vice Chair for the North American chapter of the Association for Measurement and Evaluation in Communications. -- Congrats to Tom Garrity, president, The Garrity Group, who’s the new chair of the PRSA Counselors Academy, and to Chuck Norman on becoming secretary of the executive committee. Norman is owner/principal of S&A Public Relations.