Programme View the Programme for the AMEC Virtual Summit 2021. All session timing is BST Jump to: Wednesday | Thursday | Badge Sessions Wednesday - 26th MayDay One – Wednesday 26th May 09:30 - 00:00 AMEC Summit 2021 opens 10:00 - 10:15 Welcome and Introduction Johna Burke, Global Managing Director, AMEC and Richard Bagnall, Chairman, AMEC and Co-Managing Partner, CARMA 10:15 - 11:00 Opening Keynote: ‘Truth Be Told’. How Business Wins in the Purposeful Age David Gallagher, President, Growth and Development, International, Omnicom and John O’Brien, EMEA Managing Partner, One Hundred Agency Takeaways will include: Insight into how Purpose is influencing all businesses How a Human based Truth is the key to performance and reputation How it shapes corporate culture and leadership How telling the story engages key audiences and drives success 11:00 - 11:20 AMEC – The First 25 Years and Member Survey Results Richard Bagnall, Chairman, AMEC 11:20 - 11:40 Using research to create change: Seeing women in sport in New Zealand Ngaire Crawford, Insights Director, ANZ, iSentia and Phil Clark, Strategic Communications Manager, Sport New Zealand A discussion of how research into the representation of women in sports news in New Zealand is contributing to structural change in government policy, and creating an accountable media environment. This presentation will discuss the wider communications strategy and industry infrastructure in New Zealand that supports the participation of women and girls in sport and active recreation, and the role that research, particularly into media and representation has contributed to government strategy and policy, and is changing the default settings of sports news. Takeaways will include: Sometimes a research question can be simple (and obvious) but the impact of evidence is powerful and important. A clear, sustained, evidence based communication strategy can impact policy decisions and investment in research. Encouraging and measuring behaviour change in media is crucial to tackling broad issues of representation. 11:40 - 12:00 Communicating during a Pandemic Robert Hoge, Executive Director – Strategic Communications, Queensland Health To help the community navigate a once-in-a-generation pandemic, Queensland Health centred insight and actionable communications. In this presentation, Robert discusses the Queensland Government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. That response included generating significant and ongoing insight that helped inform both the public health response and the communications that supported it. Queensland’s history of dealing with natural disasters meant the state’s politicians and public servants had a strong framework to deal with an ongoing emergency, and that the public was responsive to communications about it. Understanding key communications priorities, how audiences wanted to receive them, and how they could be adapted during the pandemic response was vital for Queensland Health. Robert discusses key insights, strategies, tactics and results. Takeaways will include: How strategic communication and measurement have added value to Queensland citizens during the COVID crisis Where to start measuring in a global health crisis What to measure in a global health crisisKeys to successfully embracing a measurement mindset in the public sector 12:00 - 12:20 The Bad and the Ugly: Bots, Influence Campaigns and Deep Fakes Ori Sasson, Founder, S2T Unlocking Cyberspace Social Media started with a good intent of increased collaboration and sharing (and perhaps targeted advertising). Over the past decade the increased use of social media and its role in shaping opinions have attracted numerous actors to create influence campaigns over such platforms in particular to achieve political objectives. While influence campaigns have received some attention and platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are proactively trying to counter threat actors, the new frontier is deep fakes. Using AI technology, it is relatively easy to create videos of a person where it appears they are saying or doing something they never said or did. Creating deep fakes of voice is easier and has given rise to a widespread practice of “vishing”. We will discuss what are the potential implications and possible countermeasures. Takeaways will include: Discover how easy it is to control the narrative by making a hashtag trending on Twitter in a nation of over 1 Billion Learn how any podcast, clubhouse talk, or interview of you that is published can be used as a blueprint to create audio of you saying anything Learn how easily deep fake videos can be produced, what are their current weaknesses, and what are potential future applications 12:20 - 12:40 Data + Insights + Creativity = Winning Campaigns Deepshikha Dharmaraj, CEO, Genesis BCW Using Data- and Analytics-Driven Insights to Grow a Campaign from Strength to Strength The session will talk about building, sustaining and growing a 5-year programme based on actionable insights gained by combining data analytics and human intelligence. It will focus on how analytics can help with scaling up a campaign, making it more ideas and purpose-driven while consistently delivering the right message for the right impact. Takeaways will include: • How to layer data analytics with human intelligence to arrive on clear, actionable insights. These insights then help you arrive at the creative ideas. • How you can strengthen the campaign by using results from one year as data for the next year’s insights • What you can do to scale up the breadth and depth of the campaign 12:40 - 12:50 Networking Break 12:50 - 13:10 The Why Matters Most – Planning for Success Nikhil Dey, Executive Director, AD Factors PR A look at how asking the right questions helps to architect success. Using the anology of the coaching world, and how each person is able to find success with the help of a coach, only after they define together where they want to go. In coaching parlance, that is the ‘ coaching agreement’ – If a client comes to me staying, I am stuck help me, as much as I want to I don’t know where to begin. IF the same client after one session with me says I am unable to navigate an interview, I have tried for the last three years to get a new job with no success, help me prepare myself better for interviews, with the objective of getting a new job in the next one year, I now know what my objective is. Measurement of that becomes relatively easy. Takeaways will include: Power of asking the right questions to start with the “why” and new ways to tackle the same problem Integration of learnings from Coaching; real life PR advisory experience and Measurement 13:10 - 13:30 Beyond Share of Search – What Matters for PR James Crawford, Managing Director, PR Agency One and Stella Bayles, Director, Coveragebook AMEC and PRCA research findings Takeaways will include: What is share of search and how to use it What share of search tells us (and what it doesn’t) What other methodologies are there 13:30 - 13:50 Beyond Deep Fakes: How AI Generated Video will transform Media and Communications Daniel Fountenberry, Partner, Videologic Beyond Deep Fakes will provide an overview of the most cutting edge technologies in the field of Synthetic Media (AI-generated content) and discuss how these technologies can enable Media and Communications professionals to create hyper-targeted content. . Key Takeaways will include: • What’s possible today – and in the near future – with AI Generated Video • How AI will transform the day-to-day work of Media and Communications Professionals • What are the ethical implications of using AI Generated Video in media and communications 13:50 - 14:10 Reputation Management in a data-driven world Petra Masinova, Global Director of Reputation Intelligence, Kantar In 2020 earned media took to the main stage and helped organisations maintain and build trust amongst their audiences during uncertain times. As paid media suffered from decreased exposure opportunities and budget cuts, PR has become a more critical function to organisations. At the same time, data has become a more critical tool for communications leaders, helping them to demonstrate accountability and prove the impact of their teams’ work. As we return to ‘normality’ to what extent will these changes stick against a backdrop of wider macro shifts across the whole media ecosystem? Using insights from Kantar’s new 2021 pan-European Media Navigator study, our presentation will explore the role of data in the communications leaders’ toolbox both now and in the future. We’ll look at wider industry changes including the proliferation of news aggregators and shifts in audience trust towards different content sources. To what extent will these influence communicators’ work? Combining the views of audiences and the communications industry across Western Europe, we will offer a unique perspective into the tools the communications leaders of today and tomorrow require to enable them to design and realise smarter communications strategies. Takeaways will include: The changing role of evidence-based communication strategies How big is the threat from news aggregators to building and maintaining your audience Where the optimum balance lies between tools and insights in order for leaders to demonstrate accountability and prove the impact of their work 14:10 - 14:40 Changing behaviour, protecting the NHS, saving lives: demonstrating the benefits of the Government’s Covid-19 communication activity Alex Aiken, Executive Director of Government Communication; Catherine Hunt, Head of Insight and Evaluation and Matthew Walmsley, Deputy Director Insight, Evaluation and Behavioural Science, UK Government Communication Service The scale of the Coronavirus crisis has been unprecedented, and like other countries around the globe, the UK Government had to act swiftly to stop the spread of the virus, save lives and protect its health service whilst at the same time supporting businesses and the economy. Communication has been an integral part of this response, with the biggest ever paid-for campaign in history working with announcements, digital and social media and partnerships with the public and private sector to change public behaviour, provide support to businesses and sustain trust and longer-term compliance. Setting up an evaluation programme at speed to measure the impact of activity at this scale and then providing results quickly enough to inform emerging priorities whilst still delivering value for the taxpayer required new approaches to setting KPIs, gathering data and demonstrating impact and ROI. In this session, we cover our evaluation strategy, including our consistent approach to setting KPIs, the innovative approaches that we took to gathering and analysing data and how we were able to link the paid-for campaign and communication to lives saved. 14:40 - 15:10 How to plan with the AMEC Integrated Evaluation Framework Richard Bagnall, Chairman AMEC & Co-Managing Partner, CARMA Deb Camden, Principal, PRISM Communication Architects Alex Judd, Head of Impact and Planning, Clarity PR Allison Spray, Managing Director Data Analytics, Hill+Knowlton Strategies A presentation and live Q&A, launching a new series of member resources all about planning. Find out how the AMEC Integrated Evaluation Framework – our flagship measurement strategy tool – can help you to plan your campaigns, plans and programmes too 15:10 - 15:30 78-Weeks Later – This is how data and measurement informs all parts of business a year and a half after Covid struck Paul Parton, Group Chief Strategy Officer, Golin The consensus is that life will begin to return to some kind of normal in September this year. 78 Weeks after we were first locked down. We need to start helping company’s prepare for what’s to come. What will life look like for their customers then? What will they carry forward and what will they leave behind? And how should they connect to an adapted culture? 15:30 - 15:40 Networking Break 15:40 - 16:00 Assessing the Risks to Online Polls from Bogus Respondents’ Courtney Kennedy, Director of Survey Research, Pew Research Center As online polling has become more ubiquitous, Pew Research Center’s methodologists have examined whether variability in methods of recruiting online respondents has consequences for data quality. In this session, Director of Survey Research Courtney Kennedy will discuss the risk to online polls from untrustworthy, or “bogus,” respondents that impact the quality of survey data. Key takeaways will include: Not all online polls suffer from this problem. Sourcing affects data quality – online samples fielded with widely used opt-in sources contain small but measurable shares of bogus respondents (about 4% to 7% depending on the source). Critically, these bogus respondents are not just answering at random or “adding noise,” but rather they tend to select positive answer choices introducing a small, systematic bias into estimates like presidential approval. No method of online polling is perfect, but there are notable differences across approaches with respect to the risks posed by bogus interviews. Crowdsourced and opt-in survey panel respondents were more likely to give bogus data than those recruited offline via random sampling of addresses. To help the public better differentiate trustworthy and untrustworthy polls, it would be helpful if poll methodology statements mentioned what checking, if any, was performed. Some poll questions are more affected by bogus respondents than others. Questions that allow the respondent to give a positively valanced answer show larger effects than those that do not. Two of the most common checks to detect low quality online interviews – looking for respondents who answer items too fast or fail an attention check (or ‘trap’) question – are not very effective when it comes to identifying bogus respondents. Some 84% of bogus respondents pass a trap question and 87% pass a check for responding too quickly. 16:00 - 16:20 From Coverage to Capital – Proving a Link Between Press and Pounds Raised by Fast-Growing Businesses Darryl Sparey, Managing Director and Co-Founder, Hard Numbers Hard Numbers and research partner CARMA sought to find a direct link between media coverage and cold, hard cash! They researched the impact of PR and media coverage on the fundraising efforts of around 120 businesses in the UK that were raising VC funding. In this presentation Hard Numbers MD and media measurement industry veteran Darryl Sparey will take you through an overview of the results, showing how media coverage correlated between successful fundraising, and what PR and communications professionals can learn from this analysis. Takeaways will include: How media coverage correlates to successful fundrasiing for early stage businesses How you can make the business case for greater investment in PR and communications in your organisation How to maximise the impact of PR and media coverage, based on case studies from fast-growing businesses like Curve, Crowdcube, HelloDone, Phos and Cytora 16:20 - 16:40 SAS’s COVID Communications Strategy: A Measureable Success Kristy Zach, Marketing Sciences and Technology Analyst, SAS Alison Williams, Director of Client Services, UK & USA, CARMA When an organization has to pivot in the face of a crisis like Covid-19, that’s where quality measurement really shines – providing vital insights to adjust strategy and reset goals to meet the moment. Kristy and Alison will discuss how the communications team at SAS: Pivoted a major annual event with a date-driven strategy Measured and reported meaningful results back to the business Leveraged their measurement programme around SAS’s Covid response to strengthen relationships with key stakeholders across the business 16:40 - 17:00 Politics, Polarization And Purpose Fred Cook,Chairman, Golin and Director, USC Center for Public Relations and Jonny Bentwood, Global Head of Analytics and Data, Golin This presentation will highlight the implications of Polarization on the public relations profession during an unprecedented time in communications history. Representatives from Golin and The Annenberg School at the University of Southern California will preview The Polarization Index, a proprietary tool they have developed in conjunction with Zignal Labs. Based on an algorithm that analyses how millions of media stories are transmitted through political echo chambers, The Polarization Index will help communications professionals understand and navigate the increasingly complex issues facing their companies and clients. Focusing on the most controversial topics of the day, the Polarization Index will help brands anticipate emerging issues and develop positioning and messaging in real time. 17:00 - 17:20 Data Governance: Best Practices and Key to Data Driven Culture Devshree Golecha, Head of Business Intelligence & Analytics and Data Council lead, TDECU Data has been increasing exponentially and organizations today are facing a rising tide of data. As per predictions, by 2023, 103 trillion gigabytes of new data will be created. And given that, of the 33 trillion gigabytes created in 2018, 86% was replicated data, we will continue to struggle with a lot of duplication. Managing data ineffectively hampers the digital transformation efforts and the overall success of the organization. There is a strong need for solid data governance framework and structure as part of the data strategy. In this presentation, I will cover the framework of data governance and how to establish a data driven culture through robust data governance structure in the organization. 17:20 - 17:40 Creating long-term value from planning research and analytics Nicole Moreo, Senior Vice President, Analytics, Ketchum Have you ever spent a lot of time and money on analytics/ research, been impressed by the output, even used immediately used it for a campaign/idea… but, then never reference it again? In this session we discuss how to get more out of your data. What questions do you ask at the beginning to better understand not only what you are hoping the research will answer- but how you can then use the research as a “living” document. This session will focus on showcasing how research should never be a “one -off” expensive project and will bring to life how organizations are turning their research into toolkits for planning, employee engagement, customer retention, content creation and strategy optimization. Key takeaways include: How to create research that solves multiple business problems. How “planning” research can and should be used throughout a program’s life cycle. What are some real-world examples to bring this to life. Questions to ask your team to make sure you are getting the most out of your research. 17:40 - 18:10 Reimagining Your Strategy, Success Metrics and Outcomes for Virtual Events Ben Chodor, President, Intrado Digital Media Sylvie Harton, SVP, Global Head of Strategy, Intrado Digital Media Deborah Greif, Director, Corporate Relations and Business Development, American Society of Anesthesiologists Press events, conferences, product launches and other event experiences continue to transform. Online and virtual events have set a new standard for event-driven data by providing comprehensive insights on audience behavior that are difficult – or even impossible – to track in an in-person event. As the traditional event format evolves, so too must the ways in which we establish objectives and measure outcomes. In this session you’ll learn to think differently about how to align success metrics to your events, from monetization to media coverage, whether you’re hosting or presenting at a virtual event. Key takeaways include: • How to define a ‘pre-during-post’ event strategy against clearly defined set of objectives • How to measure impact metrics message pull-through, audience penetration, and brand lift • Why it’s important to think like a marketer and dive deep into event data 18:10 - 18:30 Mission-driven measurement: Lessons from UNICEF’s Global Communication and Advocacy Strategy Natalia Vaccarezza, Monitoring & Evaluation Specialist, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Key takeaways include: How to align your communication and advocacy work to your mission and organizational goals How to build a global communication strategy that inspires, motivates, and rallies communication teams around a shared vision of success and common KPIs – in 190+ countries How to measure results from integrated communication, advocacy, and fundraising initiatives How to use social listening and audience insights develop more effective content and grow your supporter base 18:30 - 18:45 Day One Re-cap Johna Burke and Richard Bagnall 18:45 - 19:15 Entertainment 19:15 - 19:30 Closing Remarks Thursday - 27th MayDay Two – Thursday 27th May 09:00 - 09:10 Summit Welcome & Housekeeping Johna Burke, Global Managing Director, AMEC Richard Bagnall, CEO Europe and The Americas, CARMA 09:55 - 10:00 Welcome Johna Burke, Global Managing Director, AMEC 10:00 - 10:45 Opening Keynote – Marketing: Challenges of Brand Management and Impact Margaret Molloy, Global CMO, Seigel+Gale and Ben Osborne, Head of Insights + Analytics, Siegel+Gale EMEA 10:45 - 11:05 Beyond reach – estimating article-level readership Maya Koleva, Head of Research and Insights, Commetric and Rune Kleveland, CTO, Opoint Technology The panel will explore how combining statistical data and standard web metrics helped come up with a reliable, scalable estimation of article-level readership – a data point driving significant interest in the media communications measurement and evaluation space, particularly as measurement professionals and communicators seek to replace inflated, “vanity” metrics such as domain0level reach or “opportunities to see”. Opoint Technology will outline how and why they added this additional piece of metadata by making use of crawler observations and Commetric will share how this data point was used to answer client questions, meet their measurement needs and amend existing earned media evaluation programs. 11:05 - 11:25 Trust & Expectations at a Time of COVID Sandra Macleod, Group CEO, Echo Research Assesses the pandemic’s impact on trust among business leaders and the general public, and the financial implications of a greater strategic commitment to ESG through reputation valuation. Key takeaways include: Assesses the pandemic’s impact on trust among business leaders and the general public, and the financial implications of a greater strategic commitment to ESG through reputation valuation. COVID-19 has dented the general public’s perception of trust in the US and UK. Some 65% of people still trust small businesses, way ahead of Government which remains at a consistently low 32%. Most people disagree that employers are thinking of people more – just under half (48%) in the US agree that that employers are thinking of people more, while only 36% in the UK feel that way. Majority of adults agree that they are changing their behaviour to lessen their impact on the environment – 62% of adults in the US and 52% of adults in the UK. Nearly two thirds of adults polled do not believe that society will change for the better as a result of COVID-19. 11:35 - 11:45 Networking Break 12:05 - 12:25 Measuring News Consumption in a Digital Era Amy Mitchell, Director of Journalism Research, Pew Research Center The news media’s transition to digital platforms has brought major upheaval to the industry, including a multitude of new providers and ways to get news. And just as news organizations have had to reevaluate their business models, researchers trying to measure public news consumption need to reexamine the traditional ways they’ve done so. In this session, Director of Journalism Research Amy Mitchell will discuss the Center’s methodological study examining how best to measure news consumption in the digital era. Key takeaways include: Americans are familiar with newer digital platforms, but few use them for news, limiting the topics researchers can reasonably ask about in surveys. The June survey finds that while U.S. adults are broadly familiar with five newer digital technologies asked about in the survey (streaming devices, internet streaming services, push notifications and alerts, smart speakers, smartwatches), few say they use them regularly for news consumption, and results from the cognitive interviews suggest that many don’t even think of these platforms as ways to get news. Only 9% of U.S. adults are “very confident” they can tell if a news organization does its own reporting, though just over half (55%) say they are at least “pretty confident.” When asked whether six sources do their own news reporting (ABC News, Wall Street Journal, HuffPost, Google News, Apple News and Facebook), nearly a quarter of U.S. adults (23%) could not identify correctly whether any of the six sources do so. When asking respondents whether they pay for news, survey researchers need to carefully specify what they mean in an era of changing media business models. For example, when asked a general question, “In the past year, have you paid for news?” most Americans (83%) say they have not paid for news. More specific questions, however, reveal that this seemingly straightforward question does not capture the full range of how Americans pay for news. When asked a specific follow up question about whether they had paid for a “subscription to a newspaper, magazine, or news website” or “donation to a public broadcaster or other news organization,” some Americans who said no to the initial question about paying for news reported that they or their household actually had paid for news in one of these ways. While there is no “silver bullet” for perfect survey measures of news consumption, the split-form survey experiments reveal that a series of refinements could drive marginal improvements, such as around the goal of reducing overreporting of news consumption. Some changes do not affect overall measures of news consumption, but may make important differences for measuring consumption of specific platforms. The study tested a number of concepts including adding a reference period when asking about news consumption frequency. For instance, adding a specific reference period appears to get more accurate measures of radio consumption (e.g., asking how many days respondents got news from public radio “in the past week” vs. “in a typical week”) 12:25 - 12:45 Measurable Crisis Preparedness: A Systematic New Approach Rod Cartwright, Founder, Rod Cartwright Consulting If there is one word that has been used almost as much as ‘lockdown’ during 2020 it is ‘crisis’. That is unlikely to change for the foreseeable future, as we all adapt to the new abnormal of the COVID-19 era. As we gear up – corporately and individually – for the undoubted risks of 2021, it has never been more crucial to be systematically and measurably prepared for the issues and crises likely to lie ahead. This session will explore how you can adopt a more systematic and measurable approach to preparing for reputational crises, enabling you to enhance your personal confidence, team unity, organisational resilience and business performance. Leading crisis communication expert and EACD Crisis & Risk Communication Working Group Chair, Rod Cartwright will discuss the crisis communication challenges facing us all in 2021 and outline how best to respond. Rod will explore MATCH FIT – a new five-part crisis preparedness and diagnostic model, designed to stress-test and improve an organisation’s crisis communication processes, reputational resilience and team preparedness. Key takeaways will include: An understanding of the true definition of the often-misused term ‘crisis’. An understanding of the nature and characteristics of reputational crises. Access to examples of good, bad and ugly crisis communication. An introduction to the ‘human imperative’ as a powerful crisis communication tool. 12:45 - 13:05 The opportunity in the new reality – How the pandemic gave importance to internal communication measurement and why PR should care Paula Diaz, Operations and Innovation Manager, BUHO One of the biggest challenges for companies during the pandemic was understanding how the working from home new reality was affecting their overall performance and culture. Most of the cultural statements were happening on digital channels and companies started to play a significant role in keeping the employees safe and informed. Based on the development and implementation of new measurement and evaluation of internal communication product and using real data from buho tm, this presentation walks the audience through understanding how the pandemic gave us the chance to prototype and prove the importance of understanding how the internal comms efforts are supporting the strategy in uncertain times. The storyline will focus on our key findings on: The internal and external comms function merge trend. How the “Job to be done” is similar across internal and external communication. Which are the relevant variables to understand the context and impact of the internal comm efforts? The importance of corporate culture and employee engagement on building an internal reputation. How internal communication actions can support the PR strategy and reputation. What types of insights and recommendations help those responsible for internal comms to make decisions aligned with the company’s performance. The increasing relevance of internal communications measurement on a remote work reality. The final part of the presentation will propose a discussion on why these findings are relevant to PR, how employees are potential spokespersons with the power to affect or endorse the company’s reputation, and why that is a powerful reason to understand and align internal communication efforts with the overall comms and reputation strategy. 13:05 - 13:25 Lost in Evaluation: How to understand societal impact using media data Guro Dahl Lindebjerg, Country manager, Retriever Norway and Head of analysis, Retriever Group Some organizations work towards structural change on a societal level, and these effects can be hard to measure. But traces of events, understandings and change can all be found in media data. A manifestation of our common contemporary society lies right in front of us, and can be used not only for social research, but also for communicators working towards their impact goals. In this presentation we will talk about how we have used media data to measure effect on a societal level – in a quite an unconventional manner. Think outside the box to deliver impact measurement using media data! When no official statics is available, you can use media data to measure effects like: • Employments and positions • Decrease/increase in incidents and deaths • GDP! 13:25 - 13:45 PR Trends 2021. The New Normal: is there PR after a pandemic? Lilia Glazova, CEO, PR News Key takeaways include: • picture of where the future of the PR industry lies • what are the most significant trends • what company and consumers should know about the current situation and future trends • how companies should react in this odd, chaotic and difficult times 13:45 - 14:05 ICCO World Report – A Fireside chat with Francis Ingham Francis Ingham, PRCA Director General; ICCO Chief Executive; LGComms Executive Director with Carlos Diaz, General Manager, Globalnews Group 14:05 - 14:25 New Frontier of Earned Attribution Mary Elizabeth Germaine, Partner/Managing Director, Global Analytics, Ketchum and Erin Lanuti, Chief Innovation Officer, Omnicom PR Group Attribution has been a pain point in our industry for a long time. As new technology evolves, we are seeing doors open to new opportunities in the attribution space. This panel will focus on new technology, data innovation, privacy, learning from precision marketing, and breaking down the earned media attribution barrier. Key takeaways include: New data innovations New technology Tech stack implications 14:25 - 14:45 The data driven communicator getting insights from text Alexander Hinckley Rose,Associate Manager, Data Analytics — Digital Transformation in Global Supply Chain and Logistics, Edwards Lifesciences Data are crucial for effective strategies that meet business goals, but the vast majority of data is unstructured, scattered across digital platforms and channels in free text, images, and videos. With the right framework, you can harness this power to stand out from your competitors and recognize both risks and opportunities on the horizon. Using the backdrop of GameStop’s soaring stock prices spurred by Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets community, Alexander Rose, Associate Manager of Data Analytics at Edward’s Lifesciences, shares examples of implementing strategies that can help you understand and use the wealth of information online that exists outside of social media dashboards and media coverage hits. Key Takeaways: • How to analyze the conversations and text that don’t fit neatly into spreadsheets or dashboards • How to derive deeper insight from your social listening efforts and leverage unstructured data in ways that uncover brand opportunities and risks using bigram conversation maps and sentiment analysis • How to quickly analyze the high-velocity conversations that are happening about your brand online and make inferences about their “skeletal structure” using topic modeling, all without pouring over thousands and thousands of brand mentions • How to analyze your brand voice relative to your competitors and quantify how differentiated your brand voice may be using term frequencies and correlation tests 14:45 - 15:05 Using new technologies to measure behaviour change Jon Buckley, Director of Experience and Ellie Madgwick, Strategist, Mind+Matter Jon & Ellie talk about the challenges and considerations when measuring the impact of a digital behaviour change campaign. After an overview of the behaviour change theory underpinning their campaigns and why it’s so hard to measure, they’ll talk you through two case studies where new technologies helped measure the effectiveness of their interventions. Key takeaways include: How behaviour change theory can inform digital campaign design How new digital technology can then be used to measure the effectiveness of behaviour change interventionsH How both can work together to solve client challenges 15:05 - 15:25 Using Analytics to Solve Real Life Problems Dr Pallav Sharda, Strategy Leader, Early-stage technology projects, X – The Moonshot Factory (Part of Google) 15:25 - 15:45 Tracking Diversity across Public Relations and Communications: Challenges and Opportunities Tina McCorkindale, President and CEO, Institute for Public Relations (IPR) and Carmella Glover, President, Diversity Action Alliance (DAA) & Director of DE&I, Page This session will explore the results and implications of the first data collection from the Diversity Action Alliance (DAA) – the industry coalition focused on improving diversity, equity, and inclusion across the profession. With nearly 250 signatories from a wide range of organizations, the DAA is committed to high-impact change. In this session, you will learn: • How the DAA is focused on improving diversity and meaningful change in public relations • The challenges and opportunities of tracking diversity within organizations • An exploration of recent research findings and resources to help organizations better develop their initiatives • How the numbers drive action for accelerated progress 15:45 - 15:55 Networking Break 15:55 - 16:20 Understanding impact! Research to maximise impact in communications Ben Page, Chief Executive, IPSOS Mori 16:20 - 16:50 Understanding blockchain, crypto tokens and NFTs Ryan Berckmans, Strategy & Engineering Consultant, Ethereum Blockchain, crypto tokens, and Non-Fungible-Tokens (NFTs) are going mainstream. But why? What about the technology is novel? And, what can blockchain really do? As well, what may the tools to think about the potential impact of blockchain on my industry? In this session, we’ll answer these questions and more. Key takeaways will include: Some blockchains, such as Ethereum, are also app platforms. Bitcoin is not an app platform. From a product or business development perspective, creating a new crypto token may be useful to align incentives for 3rd parties, bootstrap new communities and networks, or fundraise. Non-Fungible-Tokens (NFTs) are the first truly mass-market application of blockchains. There are many types of NFTs, the most popular being “crypto art”. NFTs are an embeddable technology and may be added to any existing product. 16:50 - 17:10 Summary and Closing Remarks Richard Bagnall and Johna Burke Badge SessionsBadge Sessions 00:00 - 00:00 Panel: Conversational Intelligence: The key to a 360-degree view of the consumer Jennifer Bruce, Global Leader of Communications Measurement and Insights, Adobe Brian Wright, Social Media Intelligence Leader, formerly with Wells Fargo Moderator: Milena Schmidt, Marketing Manager, Talkwalker The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way brands and consumers interact, altering expectations on both sides. Companies that want to survive this shift will need to rely on intelligence from consumer conversations to adapt to the new normal. Social listening is only the beginning of the equation for brands that are looking to better understand consumers, predict consumer trends and create innovative customer experiences. Data-driven brands are now looking at much more than social media data: they analyze conversations at scale on a single platform, no matter where they happen: product review sites, forums, call centers, traditional market research and more to extract what we call conversational intelligence. Takeaways will include: How to make the shift from social listening to conversational intelligence The top 5 conversation channels for brands How leading brands are leveraging the voice of the consumer to accelerate their growth 00:00 - 00:00 Panel: What in media measurement and evaluation really can be machine learnable? Panellists: Konstantinos Karakostas, Head of Machine Learning, Commetric Christina Tzogka, Data Scientist, DataScouting Michal Hrones, Head Innovation & Customer Care, NEWTON Media Moderator: Sophia Karakeva, Chair of AMEC Tech Hub SIG and CCO, DataScouting A panel of data scientists working in the PR and marketing measurement and evaluation industry discussing what data scientists and machine learning experts face when they enter our field, what are the most common questions they are being asked, what are the problems they aim to solve, which are the low-hanging fruits and which are the most complex challenges for algorithms and predictive models. Key takeaways include: Easy vs. hard tasks for machine learning in media measurement context? What data is good data? Where to put the human in the loop? 00:00 - 00:00 Panel: Measuring Purpose and Growth Panellists: Rob Key, Founder & CEO, Converseon Dan Beltramo, CEO, Onclusive Moderator: Johna Burke, Global Managing Director, AMEC Communications measurement can go far beyond output. The right data enables you to measure the impact of purpose-driven stories, and even the effect of public relations on business growth. In this session you’ll learn: • What Growth PR means and how to connect PR to business growth • Why traditional metrics don’t to tell the story of the quality of your work • Suggestions for how to best advocate for purpose-driven communications 00:00 - 00:00 The need to measure, evaluate and communicate like a fox in a post-Covid world Presenter: Thomas Stoeckle, Course Leader, AMEC International Certificate in Measurement and Evaluation, PR Academy Pulling together and synthesising the main insights from recent popular business and social science books (as well as first-hand experience from teaching and consulting), the presentation describes the main challenges of operating in a global post-COVID environment, and how best to address these with open, agile and uncertainty-embracing mindset. Key takeaways will include: teach and empower practitioners to think and act like open-minded curious foxes to learn and embrace a ‘wicked problems’ mindset: not everything is easily measured and can be managed through ‘standard operating procedures’ our abundance of data, processing tools, frameworks etc. can create a false sense of control: some critical aspects of communication are outside the realm of data scientists, and in the social sciences, control is rarely possible we need to learn to be confident with a (potential) lack of control, and operate less in a talking, organisation-first mindset, and more in a listening, stakeholder-management mindset 00:00 - 00:00 Purposeful planning: reflecting the organisation’s purpose and values in communication Presenters: Dr Kevin Ruck, Founder and Director, PR Academy Ann Pilkington, Founder and Director, PR Academy This session looks at the importance of reflecting organisation purpose and values in communication. It will cover the process of planning and introduce communication planning models including a look at planning in an agile environment. Take-aways will include: An understanding of organisational purpose and values and how to reflect these in communication Tips and advice for successful communication planning
10:00 - 10:15 Welcome and Introduction Johna Burke, Global Managing Director, AMEC and Richard Bagnall, Chairman, AMEC and Co-Managing Partner, CARMA
10:15 - 11:00 Opening Keynote: ‘Truth Be Told’. How Business Wins in the Purposeful Age David Gallagher, President, Growth and Development, International, Omnicom and John O’Brien, EMEA Managing Partner, One Hundred Agency Takeaways will include: Insight into how Purpose is influencing all businesses How a Human based Truth is the key to performance and reputation How it shapes corporate culture and leadership How telling the story engages key audiences and drives success
11:20 - 11:40 Using research to create change: Seeing women in sport in New Zealand Ngaire Crawford, Insights Director, ANZ, iSentia and Phil Clark, Strategic Communications Manager, Sport New Zealand A discussion of how research into the representation of women in sports news in New Zealand is contributing to structural change in government policy, and creating an accountable media environment. This presentation will discuss the wider communications strategy and industry infrastructure in New Zealand that supports the participation of women and girls in sport and active recreation, and the role that research, particularly into media and representation has contributed to government strategy and policy, and is changing the default settings of sports news. Takeaways will include: Sometimes a research question can be simple (and obvious) but the impact of evidence is powerful and important. A clear, sustained, evidence based communication strategy can impact policy decisions and investment in research. Encouraging and measuring behaviour change in media is crucial to tackling broad issues of representation.
11:40 - 12:00 Communicating during a Pandemic Robert Hoge, Executive Director – Strategic Communications, Queensland Health To help the community navigate a once-in-a-generation pandemic, Queensland Health centred insight and actionable communications. In this presentation, Robert discusses the Queensland Government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. That response included generating significant and ongoing insight that helped inform both the public health response and the communications that supported it. Queensland’s history of dealing with natural disasters meant the state’s politicians and public servants had a strong framework to deal with an ongoing emergency, and that the public was responsive to communications about it. Understanding key communications priorities, how audiences wanted to receive them, and how they could be adapted during the pandemic response was vital for Queensland Health. Robert discusses key insights, strategies, tactics and results. Takeaways will include: How strategic communication and measurement have added value to Queensland citizens during the COVID crisis Where to start measuring in a global health crisis What to measure in a global health crisisKeys to successfully embracing a measurement mindset in the public sector
12:00 - 12:20 The Bad and the Ugly: Bots, Influence Campaigns and Deep Fakes Ori Sasson, Founder, S2T Unlocking Cyberspace Social Media started with a good intent of increased collaboration and sharing (and perhaps targeted advertising). Over the past decade the increased use of social media and its role in shaping opinions have attracted numerous actors to create influence campaigns over such platforms in particular to achieve political objectives. While influence campaigns have received some attention and platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are proactively trying to counter threat actors, the new frontier is deep fakes. Using AI technology, it is relatively easy to create videos of a person where it appears they are saying or doing something they never said or did. Creating deep fakes of voice is easier and has given rise to a widespread practice of “vishing”. We will discuss what are the potential implications and possible countermeasures. Takeaways will include: Discover how easy it is to control the narrative by making a hashtag trending on Twitter in a nation of over 1 Billion Learn how any podcast, clubhouse talk, or interview of you that is published can be used as a blueprint to create audio of you saying anything Learn how easily deep fake videos can be produced, what are their current weaknesses, and what are potential future applications
12:20 - 12:40 Data + Insights + Creativity = Winning Campaigns Deepshikha Dharmaraj, CEO, Genesis BCW Using Data- and Analytics-Driven Insights to Grow a Campaign from Strength to Strength The session will talk about building, sustaining and growing a 5-year programme based on actionable insights gained by combining data analytics and human intelligence. It will focus on how analytics can help with scaling up a campaign, making it more ideas and purpose-driven while consistently delivering the right message for the right impact. Takeaways will include: • How to layer data analytics with human intelligence to arrive on clear, actionable insights. These insights then help you arrive at the creative ideas. • How you can strengthen the campaign by using results from one year as data for the next year’s insights • What you can do to scale up the breadth and depth of the campaign
12:50 - 13:10 The Why Matters Most – Planning for Success Nikhil Dey, Executive Director, AD Factors PR A look at how asking the right questions helps to architect success. Using the anology of the coaching world, and how each person is able to find success with the help of a coach, only after they define together where they want to go. In coaching parlance, that is the ‘ coaching agreement’ – If a client comes to me staying, I am stuck help me, as much as I want to I don’t know where to begin. IF the same client after one session with me says I am unable to navigate an interview, I have tried for the last three years to get a new job with no success, help me prepare myself better for interviews, with the objective of getting a new job in the next one year, I now know what my objective is. Measurement of that becomes relatively easy. Takeaways will include: Power of asking the right questions to start with the “why” and new ways to tackle the same problem Integration of learnings from Coaching; real life PR advisory experience and Measurement
13:10 - 13:30 Beyond Share of Search – What Matters for PR James Crawford, Managing Director, PR Agency One and Stella Bayles, Director, Coveragebook AMEC and PRCA research findings Takeaways will include: What is share of search and how to use it What share of search tells us (and what it doesn’t) What other methodologies are there
13:30 - 13:50 Beyond Deep Fakes: How AI Generated Video will transform Media and Communications Daniel Fountenberry, Partner, Videologic Beyond Deep Fakes will provide an overview of the most cutting edge technologies in the field of Synthetic Media (AI-generated content) and discuss how these technologies can enable Media and Communications professionals to create hyper-targeted content. . Key Takeaways will include: • What’s possible today – and in the near future – with AI Generated Video • How AI will transform the day-to-day work of Media and Communications Professionals • What are the ethical implications of using AI Generated Video in media and communications
13:50 - 14:10 Reputation Management in a data-driven world Petra Masinova, Global Director of Reputation Intelligence, Kantar In 2020 earned media took to the main stage and helped organisations maintain and build trust amongst their audiences during uncertain times. As paid media suffered from decreased exposure opportunities and budget cuts, PR has become a more critical function to organisations. At the same time, data has become a more critical tool for communications leaders, helping them to demonstrate accountability and prove the impact of their teams’ work. As we return to ‘normality’ to what extent will these changes stick against a backdrop of wider macro shifts across the whole media ecosystem? Using insights from Kantar’s new 2021 pan-European Media Navigator study, our presentation will explore the role of data in the communications leaders’ toolbox both now and in the future. We’ll look at wider industry changes including the proliferation of news aggregators and shifts in audience trust towards different content sources. To what extent will these influence communicators’ work? Combining the views of audiences and the communications industry across Western Europe, we will offer a unique perspective into the tools the communications leaders of today and tomorrow require to enable them to design and realise smarter communications strategies. Takeaways will include: The changing role of evidence-based communication strategies How big is the threat from news aggregators to building and maintaining your audience Where the optimum balance lies between tools and insights in order for leaders to demonstrate accountability and prove the impact of their work
14:10 - 14:40 Changing behaviour, protecting the NHS, saving lives: demonstrating the benefits of the Government’s Covid-19 communication activity Alex Aiken, Executive Director of Government Communication; Catherine Hunt, Head of Insight and Evaluation and Matthew Walmsley, Deputy Director Insight, Evaluation and Behavioural Science, UK Government Communication Service The scale of the Coronavirus crisis has been unprecedented, and like other countries around the globe, the UK Government had to act swiftly to stop the spread of the virus, save lives and protect its health service whilst at the same time supporting businesses and the economy. Communication has been an integral part of this response, with the biggest ever paid-for campaign in history working with announcements, digital and social media and partnerships with the public and private sector to change public behaviour, provide support to businesses and sustain trust and longer-term compliance. Setting up an evaluation programme at speed to measure the impact of activity at this scale and then providing results quickly enough to inform emerging priorities whilst still delivering value for the taxpayer required new approaches to setting KPIs, gathering data and demonstrating impact and ROI. In this session, we cover our evaluation strategy, including our consistent approach to setting KPIs, the innovative approaches that we took to gathering and analysing data and how we were able to link the paid-for campaign and communication to lives saved.
14:40 - 15:10 How to plan with the AMEC Integrated Evaluation Framework Richard Bagnall, Chairman AMEC & Co-Managing Partner, CARMA Deb Camden, Principal, PRISM Communication Architects Alex Judd, Head of Impact and Planning, Clarity PR Allison Spray, Managing Director Data Analytics, Hill+Knowlton Strategies A presentation and live Q&A, launching a new series of member resources all about planning. Find out how the AMEC Integrated Evaluation Framework – our flagship measurement strategy tool – can help you to plan your campaigns, plans and programmes too
15:10 - 15:30 78-Weeks Later – This is how data and measurement informs all parts of business a year and a half after Covid struck Paul Parton, Group Chief Strategy Officer, Golin The consensus is that life will begin to return to some kind of normal in September this year. 78 Weeks after we were first locked down. We need to start helping company’s prepare for what’s to come. What will life look like for their customers then? What will they carry forward and what will they leave behind? And how should they connect to an adapted culture?
15:40 - 16:00 Assessing the Risks to Online Polls from Bogus Respondents’ Courtney Kennedy, Director of Survey Research, Pew Research Center As online polling has become more ubiquitous, Pew Research Center’s methodologists have examined whether variability in methods of recruiting online respondents has consequences for data quality. In this session, Director of Survey Research Courtney Kennedy will discuss the risk to online polls from untrustworthy, or “bogus,” respondents that impact the quality of survey data. Key takeaways will include: Not all online polls suffer from this problem. Sourcing affects data quality – online samples fielded with widely used opt-in sources contain small but measurable shares of bogus respondents (about 4% to 7% depending on the source). Critically, these bogus respondents are not just answering at random or “adding noise,” but rather they tend to select positive answer choices introducing a small, systematic bias into estimates like presidential approval. No method of online polling is perfect, but there are notable differences across approaches with respect to the risks posed by bogus interviews. Crowdsourced and opt-in survey panel respondents were more likely to give bogus data than those recruited offline via random sampling of addresses. To help the public better differentiate trustworthy and untrustworthy polls, it would be helpful if poll methodology statements mentioned what checking, if any, was performed. Some poll questions are more affected by bogus respondents than others. Questions that allow the respondent to give a positively valanced answer show larger effects than those that do not. Two of the most common checks to detect low quality online interviews – looking for respondents who answer items too fast or fail an attention check (or ‘trap’) question – are not very effective when it comes to identifying bogus respondents. Some 84% of bogus respondents pass a trap question and 87% pass a check for responding too quickly.
16:00 - 16:20 From Coverage to Capital – Proving a Link Between Press and Pounds Raised by Fast-Growing Businesses Darryl Sparey, Managing Director and Co-Founder, Hard Numbers Hard Numbers and research partner CARMA sought to find a direct link between media coverage and cold, hard cash! They researched the impact of PR and media coverage on the fundraising efforts of around 120 businesses in the UK that were raising VC funding. In this presentation Hard Numbers MD and media measurement industry veteran Darryl Sparey will take you through an overview of the results, showing how media coverage correlated between successful fundraising, and what PR and communications professionals can learn from this analysis. Takeaways will include: How media coverage correlates to successful fundrasiing for early stage businesses How you can make the business case for greater investment in PR and communications in your organisation How to maximise the impact of PR and media coverage, based on case studies from fast-growing businesses like Curve, Crowdcube, HelloDone, Phos and Cytora
16:20 - 16:40 SAS’s COVID Communications Strategy: A Measureable Success Kristy Zach, Marketing Sciences and Technology Analyst, SAS Alison Williams, Director of Client Services, UK & USA, CARMA When an organization has to pivot in the face of a crisis like Covid-19, that’s where quality measurement really shines – providing vital insights to adjust strategy and reset goals to meet the moment. Kristy and Alison will discuss how the communications team at SAS: Pivoted a major annual event with a date-driven strategy Measured and reported meaningful results back to the business Leveraged their measurement programme around SAS’s Covid response to strengthen relationships with key stakeholders across the business
16:40 - 17:00 Politics, Polarization And Purpose Fred Cook,Chairman, Golin and Director, USC Center for Public Relations and Jonny Bentwood, Global Head of Analytics and Data, Golin This presentation will highlight the implications of Polarization on the public relations profession during an unprecedented time in communications history. Representatives from Golin and The Annenberg School at the University of Southern California will preview The Polarization Index, a proprietary tool they have developed in conjunction with Zignal Labs. Based on an algorithm that analyses how millions of media stories are transmitted through political echo chambers, The Polarization Index will help communications professionals understand and navigate the increasingly complex issues facing their companies and clients. Focusing on the most controversial topics of the day, the Polarization Index will help brands anticipate emerging issues and develop positioning and messaging in real time.
17:00 - 17:20 Data Governance: Best Practices and Key to Data Driven Culture Devshree Golecha, Head of Business Intelligence & Analytics and Data Council lead, TDECU Data has been increasing exponentially and organizations today are facing a rising tide of data. As per predictions, by 2023, 103 trillion gigabytes of new data will be created. And given that, of the 33 trillion gigabytes created in 2018, 86% was replicated data, we will continue to struggle with a lot of duplication. Managing data ineffectively hampers the digital transformation efforts and the overall success of the organization. There is a strong need for solid data governance framework and structure as part of the data strategy. In this presentation, I will cover the framework of data governance and how to establish a data driven culture through robust data governance structure in the organization.
17:20 - 17:40 Creating long-term value from planning research and analytics Nicole Moreo, Senior Vice President, Analytics, Ketchum Have you ever spent a lot of time and money on analytics/ research, been impressed by the output, even used immediately used it for a campaign/idea… but, then never reference it again? In this session we discuss how to get more out of your data. What questions do you ask at the beginning to better understand not only what you are hoping the research will answer- but how you can then use the research as a “living” document. This session will focus on showcasing how research should never be a “one -off” expensive project and will bring to life how organizations are turning their research into toolkits for planning, employee engagement, customer retention, content creation and strategy optimization. Key takeaways include: How to create research that solves multiple business problems. How “planning” research can and should be used throughout a program’s life cycle. What are some real-world examples to bring this to life. Questions to ask your team to make sure you are getting the most out of your research.
17:40 - 18:10 Reimagining Your Strategy, Success Metrics and Outcomes for Virtual Events Ben Chodor, President, Intrado Digital Media Sylvie Harton, SVP, Global Head of Strategy, Intrado Digital Media Deborah Greif, Director, Corporate Relations and Business Development, American Society of Anesthesiologists Press events, conferences, product launches and other event experiences continue to transform. Online and virtual events have set a new standard for event-driven data by providing comprehensive insights on audience behavior that are difficult – or even impossible – to track in an in-person event. As the traditional event format evolves, so too must the ways in which we establish objectives and measure outcomes. In this session you’ll learn to think differently about how to align success metrics to your events, from monetization to media coverage, whether you’re hosting or presenting at a virtual event. Key takeaways include: • How to define a ‘pre-during-post’ event strategy against clearly defined set of objectives • How to measure impact metrics message pull-through, audience penetration, and brand lift • Why it’s important to think like a marketer and dive deep into event data
18:10 - 18:30 Mission-driven measurement: Lessons from UNICEF’s Global Communication and Advocacy Strategy Natalia Vaccarezza, Monitoring & Evaluation Specialist, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Key takeaways include: How to align your communication and advocacy work to your mission and organizational goals How to build a global communication strategy that inspires, motivates, and rallies communication teams around a shared vision of success and common KPIs – in 190+ countries How to measure results from integrated communication, advocacy, and fundraising initiatives How to use social listening and audience insights develop more effective content and grow your supporter base
09:00 - 09:10 Summit Welcome & Housekeeping Johna Burke, Global Managing Director, AMEC Richard Bagnall, CEO Europe and The Americas, CARMA
10:00 - 10:45 Opening Keynote – Marketing: Challenges of Brand Management and Impact Margaret Molloy, Global CMO, Seigel+Gale and Ben Osborne, Head of Insights + Analytics, Siegel+Gale EMEA
10:45 - 11:05 Beyond reach – estimating article-level readership Maya Koleva, Head of Research and Insights, Commetric and Rune Kleveland, CTO, Opoint Technology The panel will explore how combining statistical data and standard web metrics helped come up with a reliable, scalable estimation of article-level readership – a data point driving significant interest in the media communications measurement and evaluation space, particularly as measurement professionals and communicators seek to replace inflated, “vanity” metrics such as domain0level reach or “opportunities to see”. Opoint Technology will outline how and why they added this additional piece of metadata by making use of crawler observations and Commetric will share how this data point was used to answer client questions, meet their measurement needs and amend existing earned media evaluation programs.
11:05 - 11:25 Trust & Expectations at a Time of COVID Sandra Macleod, Group CEO, Echo Research Assesses the pandemic’s impact on trust among business leaders and the general public, and the financial implications of a greater strategic commitment to ESG through reputation valuation. Key takeaways include: Assesses the pandemic’s impact on trust among business leaders and the general public, and the financial implications of a greater strategic commitment to ESG through reputation valuation. COVID-19 has dented the general public’s perception of trust in the US and UK. Some 65% of people still trust small businesses, way ahead of Government which remains at a consistently low 32%. Most people disagree that employers are thinking of people more – just under half (48%) in the US agree that that employers are thinking of people more, while only 36% in the UK feel that way. Majority of adults agree that they are changing their behaviour to lessen their impact on the environment – 62% of adults in the US and 52% of adults in the UK. Nearly two thirds of adults polled do not believe that society will change for the better as a result of COVID-19.
12:05 - 12:25 Measuring News Consumption in a Digital Era Amy Mitchell, Director of Journalism Research, Pew Research Center The news media’s transition to digital platforms has brought major upheaval to the industry, including a multitude of new providers and ways to get news. And just as news organizations have had to reevaluate their business models, researchers trying to measure public news consumption need to reexamine the traditional ways they’ve done so. In this session, Director of Journalism Research Amy Mitchell will discuss the Center’s methodological study examining how best to measure news consumption in the digital era. Key takeaways include: Americans are familiar with newer digital platforms, but few use them for news, limiting the topics researchers can reasonably ask about in surveys. The June survey finds that while U.S. adults are broadly familiar with five newer digital technologies asked about in the survey (streaming devices, internet streaming services, push notifications and alerts, smart speakers, smartwatches), few say they use them regularly for news consumption, and results from the cognitive interviews suggest that many don’t even think of these platforms as ways to get news. Only 9% of U.S. adults are “very confident” they can tell if a news organization does its own reporting, though just over half (55%) say they are at least “pretty confident.” When asked whether six sources do their own news reporting (ABC News, Wall Street Journal, HuffPost, Google News, Apple News and Facebook), nearly a quarter of U.S. adults (23%) could not identify correctly whether any of the six sources do so. When asking respondents whether they pay for news, survey researchers need to carefully specify what they mean in an era of changing media business models. For example, when asked a general question, “In the past year, have you paid for news?” most Americans (83%) say they have not paid for news. More specific questions, however, reveal that this seemingly straightforward question does not capture the full range of how Americans pay for news. When asked a specific follow up question about whether they had paid for a “subscription to a newspaper, magazine, or news website” or “donation to a public broadcaster or other news organization,” some Americans who said no to the initial question about paying for news reported that they or their household actually had paid for news in one of these ways. While there is no “silver bullet” for perfect survey measures of news consumption, the split-form survey experiments reveal that a series of refinements could drive marginal improvements, such as around the goal of reducing overreporting of news consumption. Some changes do not affect overall measures of news consumption, but may make important differences for measuring consumption of specific platforms. The study tested a number of concepts including adding a reference period when asking about news consumption frequency. For instance, adding a specific reference period appears to get more accurate measures of radio consumption (e.g., asking how many days respondents got news from public radio “in the past week” vs. “in a typical week”)
12:25 - 12:45 Measurable Crisis Preparedness: A Systematic New Approach Rod Cartwright, Founder, Rod Cartwright Consulting If there is one word that has been used almost as much as ‘lockdown’ during 2020 it is ‘crisis’. That is unlikely to change for the foreseeable future, as we all adapt to the new abnormal of the COVID-19 era. As we gear up – corporately and individually – for the undoubted risks of 2021, it has never been more crucial to be systematically and measurably prepared for the issues and crises likely to lie ahead. This session will explore how you can adopt a more systematic and measurable approach to preparing for reputational crises, enabling you to enhance your personal confidence, team unity, organisational resilience and business performance. Leading crisis communication expert and EACD Crisis & Risk Communication Working Group Chair, Rod Cartwright will discuss the crisis communication challenges facing us all in 2021 and outline how best to respond. Rod will explore MATCH FIT – a new five-part crisis preparedness and diagnostic model, designed to stress-test and improve an organisation’s crisis communication processes, reputational resilience and team preparedness. Key takeaways will include: An understanding of the true definition of the often-misused term ‘crisis’. An understanding of the nature and characteristics of reputational crises. Access to examples of good, bad and ugly crisis communication. An introduction to the ‘human imperative’ as a powerful crisis communication tool.
12:45 - 13:05 The opportunity in the new reality – How the pandemic gave importance to internal communication measurement and why PR should care Paula Diaz, Operations and Innovation Manager, BUHO One of the biggest challenges for companies during the pandemic was understanding how the working from home new reality was affecting their overall performance and culture. Most of the cultural statements were happening on digital channels and companies started to play a significant role in keeping the employees safe and informed. Based on the development and implementation of new measurement and evaluation of internal communication product and using real data from buho tm, this presentation walks the audience through understanding how the pandemic gave us the chance to prototype and prove the importance of understanding how the internal comms efforts are supporting the strategy in uncertain times. The storyline will focus on our key findings on: The internal and external comms function merge trend. How the “Job to be done” is similar across internal and external communication. Which are the relevant variables to understand the context and impact of the internal comm efforts? The importance of corporate culture and employee engagement on building an internal reputation. How internal communication actions can support the PR strategy and reputation. What types of insights and recommendations help those responsible for internal comms to make decisions aligned with the company’s performance. The increasing relevance of internal communications measurement on a remote work reality. The final part of the presentation will propose a discussion on why these findings are relevant to PR, how employees are potential spokespersons with the power to affect or endorse the company’s reputation, and why that is a powerful reason to understand and align internal communication efforts with the overall comms and reputation strategy.
13:05 - 13:25 Lost in Evaluation: How to understand societal impact using media data Guro Dahl Lindebjerg, Country manager, Retriever Norway and Head of analysis, Retriever Group Some organizations work towards structural change on a societal level, and these effects can be hard to measure. But traces of events, understandings and change can all be found in media data. A manifestation of our common contemporary society lies right in front of us, and can be used not only for social research, but also for communicators working towards their impact goals. In this presentation we will talk about how we have used media data to measure effect on a societal level – in a quite an unconventional manner. Think outside the box to deliver impact measurement using media data! When no official statics is available, you can use media data to measure effects like: • Employments and positions • Decrease/increase in incidents and deaths • GDP!
13:25 - 13:45 PR Trends 2021. The New Normal: is there PR after a pandemic? Lilia Glazova, CEO, PR News Key takeaways include: • picture of where the future of the PR industry lies • what are the most significant trends • what company and consumers should know about the current situation and future trends • how companies should react in this odd, chaotic and difficult times
13:45 - 14:05 ICCO World Report – A Fireside chat with Francis Ingham Francis Ingham, PRCA Director General; ICCO Chief Executive; LGComms Executive Director with Carlos Diaz, General Manager, Globalnews Group
14:05 - 14:25 New Frontier of Earned Attribution Mary Elizabeth Germaine, Partner/Managing Director, Global Analytics, Ketchum and Erin Lanuti, Chief Innovation Officer, Omnicom PR Group Attribution has been a pain point in our industry for a long time. As new technology evolves, we are seeing doors open to new opportunities in the attribution space. This panel will focus on new technology, data innovation, privacy, learning from precision marketing, and breaking down the earned media attribution barrier. Key takeaways include: New data innovations New technology Tech stack implications
14:25 - 14:45 The data driven communicator getting insights from text Alexander Hinckley Rose,Associate Manager, Data Analytics — Digital Transformation in Global Supply Chain and Logistics, Edwards Lifesciences Data are crucial for effective strategies that meet business goals, but the vast majority of data is unstructured, scattered across digital platforms and channels in free text, images, and videos. With the right framework, you can harness this power to stand out from your competitors and recognize both risks and opportunities on the horizon. Using the backdrop of GameStop’s soaring stock prices spurred by Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets community, Alexander Rose, Associate Manager of Data Analytics at Edward’s Lifesciences, shares examples of implementing strategies that can help you understand and use the wealth of information online that exists outside of social media dashboards and media coverage hits. Key Takeaways: • How to analyze the conversations and text that don’t fit neatly into spreadsheets or dashboards • How to derive deeper insight from your social listening efforts and leverage unstructured data in ways that uncover brand opportunities and risks using bigram conversation maps and sentiment analysis • How to quickly analyze the high-velocity conversations that are happening about your brand online and make inferences about their “skeletal structure” using topic modeling, all without pouring over thousands and thousands of brand mentions • How to analyze your brand voice relative to your competitors and quantify how differentiated your brand voice may be using term frequencies and correlation tests
14:45 - 15:05 Using new technologies to measure behaviour change Jon Buckley, Director of Experience and Ellie Madgwick, Strategist, Mind+Matter Jon & Ellie talk about the challenges and considerations when measuring the impact of a digital behaviour change campaign. After an overview of the behaviour change theory underpinning their campaigns and why it’s so hard to measure, they’ll talk you through two case studies where new technologies helped measure the effectiveness of their interventions. Key takeaways include: How behaviour change theory can inform digital campaign design How new digital technology can then be used to measure the effectiveness of behaviour change interventionsH How both can work together to solve client challenges
15:05 - 15:25 Using Analytics to Solve Real Life Problems Dr Pallav Sharda, Strategy Leader, Early-stage technology projects, X – The Moonshot Factory (Part of Google)
15:25 - 15:45 Tracking Diversity across Public Relations and Communications: Challenges and Opportunities Tina McCorkindale, President and CEO, Institute for Public Relations (IPR) and Carmella Glover, President, Diversity Action Alliance (DAA) & Director of DE&I, Page This session will explore the results and implications of the first data collection from the Diversity Action Alliance (DAA) – the industry coalition focused on improving diversity, equity, and inclusion across the profession. With nearly 250 signatories from a wide range of organizations, the DAA is committed to high-impact change. In this session, you will learn: • How the DAA is focused on improving diversity and meaningful change in public relations • The challenges and opportunities of tracking diversity within organizations • An exploration of recent research findings and resources to help organizations better develop their initiatives • How the numbers drive action for accelerated progress
15:55 - 16:20 Understanding impact! Research to maximise impact in communications Ben Page, Chief Executive, IPSOS Mori
16:20 - 16:50 Understanding blockchain, crypto tokens and NFTs Ryan Berckmans, Strategy & Engineering Consultant, Ethereum Blockchain, crypto tokens, and Non-Fungible-Tokens (NFTs) are going mainstream. But why? What about the technology is novel? And, what can blockchain really do? As well, what may the tools to think about the potential impact of blockchain on my industry? In this session, we’ll answer these questions and more. Key takeaways will include: Some blockchains, such as Ethereum, are also app platforms. Bitcoin is not an app platform. From a product or business development perspective, creating a new crypto token may be useful to align incentives for 3rd parties, bootstrap new communities and networks, or fundraise. Non-Fungible-Tokens (NFTs) are the first truly mass-market application of blockchains. There are many types of NFTs, the most popular being “crypto art”. NFTs are an embeddable technology and may be added to any existing product.
00:00 - 00:00 Panel: Conversational Intelligence: The key to a 360-degree view of the consumer Jennifer Bruce, Global Leader of Communications Measurement and Insights, Adobe Brian Wright, Social Media Intelligence Leader, formerly with Wells Fargo Moderator: Milena Schmidt, Marketing Manager, Talkwalker The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way brands and consumers interact, altering expectations on both sides. Companies that want to survive this shift will need to rely on intelligence from consumer conversations to adapt to the new normal. Social listening is only the beginning of the equation for brands that are looking to better understand consumers, predict consumer trends and create innovative customer experiences. Data-driven brands are now looking at much more than social media data: they analyze conversations at scale on a single platform, no matter where they happen: product review sites, forums, call centers, traditional market research and more to extract what we call conversational intelligence. Takeaways will include: How to make the shift from social listening to conversational intelligence The top 5 conversation channels for brands How leading brands are leveraging the voice of the consumer to accelerate their growth
00:00 - 00:00 Panel: What in media measurement and evaluation really can be machine learnable? Panellists: Konstantinos Karakostas, Head of Machine Learning, Commetric Christina Tzogka, Data Scientist, DataScouting Michal Hrones, Head Innovation & Customer Care, NEWTON Media Moderator: Sophia Karakeva, Chair of AMEC Tech Hub SIG and CCO, DataScouting A panel of data scientists working in the PR and marketing measurement and evaluation industry discussing what data scientists and machine learning experts face when they enter our field, what are the most common questions they are being asked, what are the problems they aim to solve, which are the low-hanging fruits and which are the most complex challenges for algorithms and predictive models. Key takeaways include: Easy vs. hard tasks for machine learning in media measurement context? What data is good data? Where to put the human in the loop?
00:00 - 00:00 Panel: Measuring Purpose and Growth Panellists: Rob Key, Founder & CEO, Converseon Dan Beltramo, CEO, Onclusive Moderator: Johna Burke, Global Managing Director, AMEC Communications measurement can go far beyond output. The right data enables you to measure the impact of purpose-driven stories, and even the effect of public relations on business growth. In this session you’ll learn: • What Growth PR means and how to connect PR to business growth • Why traditional metrics don’t to tell the story of the quality of your work • Suggestions for how to best advocate for purpose-driven communications
00:00 - 00:00 The need to measure, evaluate and communicate like a fox in a post-Covid world Presenter: Thomas Stoeckle, Course Leader, AMEC International Certificate in Measurement and Evaluation, PR Academy Pulling together and synthesising the main insights from recent popular business and social science books (as well as first-hand experience from teaching and consulting), the presentation describes the main challenges of operating in a global post-COVID environment, and how best to address these with open, agile and uncertainty-embracing mindset. Key takeaways will include: teach and empower practitioners to think and act like open-minded curious foxes to learn and embrace a ‘wicked problems’ mindset: not everything is easily measured and can be managed through ‘standard operating procedures’ our abundance of data, processing tools, frameworks etc. can create a false sense of control: some critical aspects of communication are outside the realm of data scientists, and in the social sciences, control is rarely possible we need to learn to be confident with a (potential) lack of control, and operate less in a talking, organisation-first mindset, and more in a listening, stakeholder-management mindset
00:00 - 00:00 Purposeful planning: reflecting the organisation’s purpose and values in communication Presenters: Dr Kevin Ruck, Founder and Director, PR Academy Ann Pilkington, Founder and Director, PR Academy This session looks at the importance of reflecting organisation purpose and values in communication. It will cover the process of planning and introduce communication planning models including a look at planning in an agile environment. Take-aways will include: An understanding of organisational purpose and values and how to reflect these in communication Tips and advice for successful communication planning