I’ve been having moments of optimism recently. I know! Strange times, unprecedented, yadda yadda, but also, we are now in a period of intense and rapid change. Once we are out of the other side of this, what will we keep hold of and what will we ditch? Who knows. But...
My thoughts on The Great Hack
Hands up if you’ve watched The Great Hack on Netflix? I wasn’t going to watch it as I felt I knew the bones of the story from following the revelations, in real-time, as they came to light on Twitter, and reading the many Guardian and Observer articles but I succumbed...
Communicating about mental health – inspired by #commschat
Mental wellbeing, positive mental health and mental wellness are issues for all of us, not just the oft-quoted statistically one in four that will suffer mental ill health at some point in their life.
Informed consent
Some months ago I heard about a company that places reps in maternity wards of some hospitals and said reps approach new mums offering up a bag full of freebies and a free bedside photo shoot. Say what? I was genuinely taken aback and assumed this was a new thing, but...
80% of people prefer words
I saw a post on LinkedIn the other week saying something like “only 20% of visitors to a website read the content but 80% watch the videos". The person who posted it was from a video production company. There was no source for the stat. Ahem. IF, (deliberately big if)...
World Book Day, public perception and deception
By Deborah Wroe It was World Book Day last week. If you are a parent this event could not have passed you by. And if you are on social media – ditto. Feeds were full of cute images of children in fabulous costumes. World Book Day is a wonderful celebration of the...
Responsible marketing in the post truth era
Breaking news – In Australia ‘Fake news’ has been selected as Macquarie Dictionary’s Word Of The Year. The Oxford English Dictionary announced ‘post truth’ as its choice in November, and the Merriam-Webster dictionary selected ‘surreal’ – both chosen due to a...
Secrets and lies – in defence of PR
By Deborah Wroe I was brought up not to tell lies, so much so that I even struggle with white lies, (A friend: “Does my bum look big in this?” Me: “Er, the blue is more flattering”) so how did I end up in the seedy world of secrets, lies and spin that is marketing and...
Show me the money
By Deborah Wroe This year there have been a disproportionate number of major scandals and horrific stories, some very current and some that happened a long time ago but have only just come to light. For me they have significantly raised the issue of ethics and...