Featured insights

4 December 2022

Sticks and Stones in the Information Age 

Since November 2017, Molly Russell’s death has pressured social media companies to think of the children. As the inquest into her death concluded this September, depressive content viewed by 14-year-old Molly contributed to suicidal thoughts. Her experience resonates with many. A national survey conducted by The Cybersmile Foundation indicates that 89% of 16-24-year-olds feel social […]
Fintech - Dry Powder
22 July 2022

Reasons to be cheerful

Are funding and valuations really in the doldrums, and how can fintech firms fight back? “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.” Charles Darwin Fintech firms looking to raise money are not quite in panic mode, but rear ends are becoming […]
27 May 2022

Don’t just say gay: showing meaningful solidarity on awareness days

Pride Month is less than a week away. Social media managers everywhere have got their rainbow logos at the ready, despite concerns from the LGBT+ community about companies co-opting important political observances for marketing purposes. So how can businesses engage in meaningful activism on awareness days? All companies of a significant size are expected to […]
5 November 2021

Polishing the proverbial

You can’t make good communications out of bad policy is a truism many readers of this blog will relate to. Lee Cain, former chief spin doctor to Boris Johnson, used it to describe the challenges of communicating through the pandemic while politicians made policy on the hoof. It neatly explains how communication of a policy […]
4 June 2021

A Fair Game

What the recent problems in elite sport can teach us about the future of capitalism? In the Tyranny of Merit, philosopher Michael Sandel outlines the problem with our modern conception of meritocracy. We tend to champion meritocracy as an ideal to be upheld at any cost because it embodies the idea of fair competition, but […]
4 June 2021

Trust in the Trust – a restoration project

The ousting of Tim Parker last week, chairman of the National Trust, has been hailed as another skirmish in the wider culture wars.  Variously accused of politicising the National Trust by pandering to such modish causes as Black Lives Matter and gay rights, Parker was undone by Restore Trust, a fifth column of Trust members […]
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Alfie Fernie Insights

Sticks and Stones in the Information Age 

Since November 2017, Molly Russell’s death has pressured social media companies to think of the children. As the inquest into her death concluded this September, depressive content viewed by 14-year-old Molly contributed to suicidal thoughts. Her experience resonates with many. A national survey conducted by The Cybersmile Foundation indicates that 89% of 16-24-year-olds feel social […]
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Ben Cope Insights

Climate adaptation: the COP27 takeaway for strategic communications

Communicators have a responsibility to emphasise the importance of climate adaptation – both as an operational necessity and as a new reputational bar by which businesses will be judged In the critically acclaimed episode ‘Free Churro’ in the Netflix black-comedy animation, Bojack Horseman, Bojack, a washed-up actor, delivers this line about the long-since discontinued sitcom […]
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Alfie Fernie Insights

Good Mourning Britain

It has been a challenging week for corporate communications. As Britain mourned her Queen, corporations were faced with a difficult balancing act. How best to contribute towards a nation’s collective memory, whilst minimising business disruption and costs to individuals? The balance had to be struck twice, in communications tone and operational response. Of those corporations that […]
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Insights Once more with feeling

Don’t just say gay: showing meaningful solidarity on awareness days

Pride Month is less than a week away. Social media managers everywhere have got their rainbow logos at the ready, despite concerns from the LGBT+ community about companies co-opting important political observances for marketing purposes. So how can businesses engage in meaningful activism on awareness days? All companies of a significant size are expected to […]
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Insights Serra Balls

Wunderbar humblebrag: Deutsche Börse breaks LinkedIn

It’s rare that LinkedIn is either funny or truly engaging. But the comms team at Deutsche Börse proved themselves to Be More Ryanair last week. In a post that was simply called, ‘whatever.’ the team pasted an image of in-house comms Oliver Frischemeier’s message to his intern Veera Dagbagli to sort out a recruitment post […]
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