S6 E9: What Drives Brand Influence? Key Findings from the PRGN Influence Insights Global Survey

Adrian McIntyre: 00:00:01

From the Public Relations Global Network, this is PRGN Presents. I'm Adrian McIntyre.

Abbie Fink: 00:00:07

And I'm Abbie Fink, president of HMA Public Relations in Phoenix, Arizona, and a founding member of PRGN. With public relations leaders embedded into the fabric of the communities we serve, clients hire our agencies for the local knowledge, expertise and connections in markets spanning six continents across the world.

Adrian McIntyre: 00:00:34

Our guests on this biweekly podcast series are all members of the Public Relations Global Network. They will discuss such topics as workplace culture, creative compensation and succession planning, the importance of sustainability and environmental, social and governance programs, crisis communications, and outside of the box thinking for growing your business. For more information about PRGN and our members, visit prgn.com. And now let's meet our guests for this episode.

Bill Southard: 00:00:59

Hi, I'm Bill Southard. I'm president and founder of Southard Communications, an agency that I founded 31 years ago. We are the e PRGN partner in New York City and have been since 20 19. Regarding PRGN specifically, I've had the privilege to being the chair of the marketing committee for about the last 18 months. So I had the privilege and the honor to work with membership and to work with our clients and people across many countries to help spearhead this initiative on influence that we're going to share with you today.

Natalie Ghidotti: 00:01:30

I am Natalie Ghidotti. I am CEO and founder of Ghidotti Communications. I'm here in Little Rock, Arkansas, representing the south for PRGN. And I'm excited to say I am the new regional vice president for the Americas for PRGN. So happy to be here and talk about some of our work today.

Abbie Fink: 00:01:49

And this is an exciting podcast for us because typically when we have these conversations with our members, it's thought leadership and, and things that you bring to the table. This is one of the first times we've actually talked about something that the network itself has commissioned and has some conversation around.

So Bill, I know, as a member of our marketing committee, we've been talking for quite some time about having a mechanism to discuss our global presence and what kind of information could the network own and share out there. And this influencer survey has been a topic of conversation for many, many months and we have finally completed the first and maybe only international survey around the topic of influence.

So can you share a little bit about the process and what brought us to this opportunity and then we can talk about the results and some of our thoughts around what we do with these numbers now that we know them?

Bill Southard: 00:02:53

Yeah, as you said, we've been talking about this, I mean, you know, most of us individually have thought leadership initiatives support clients across a lot of different industries and markets. And as an organization, we've been talking about how can we create thought leadership, particularly in these really rapidly evolving and changing times.

And we spent a lot of time, membership and the executive committee and the marketing committee thinking through, well, what topic should we really focus on? We settled on the topic of influence. Understanding that influence is critically important, whether you're a B2B, a B2C company or whatever. And given some of the changes that we've seen in terms of marketing tactics, marketing campaigns, particularly the role of social and digital, together with earned and paid, we felt that it might be an interesting topic to see how organizations are perceiving the role of influence. What vehicles and what campaigns and tactics are they implementing to drive influence? Has it changed over the last two or three years, given what we've seen that's been happening?

So we agreed upon this as a topic. We worked with a professional survey company, a company called Researchscape, which has been around for many, many years. They helped us develop the questions. It was a pretty healthy number of questions that we had asked because we really wanted to create some content that we thought would be really valuable to not only the PRGN agencies, but to our partner clients and colleagues around the world. So we spent quite a bit of time developing the questions.

We executed the program thanks to the membership, and the survey lasted roughly around two to three months. We ended up surveying individuals from 40 countries around the world. We had it translated into different languages so that in the LATAM region, for example, it was in Spanish. In China, it was in Mandarin, in Korean, et cetera. So that helped support the number of responses that we got to the survey.

And then at the end of that period, in earlier this year, at the end of this period, together with Researchscape, we compiled the results. We drew some conclusions based upon the results that we saw. We put it into a report. We announced the results of the survey on a webinar on April 29. We then shared the news release with media outlets and with clients and other influentials. And since then, we have made some materials available on the PRGN website, which includes a news release, includes a white paper, includes a byline article. So there are additional communications materials that have been developed that go in depth into the results of the survey.

And what's really interesting is we were able to take a look at the differences between regions, and Natalie's going to talk specifically about North America. And then following this, we were planning to have the regional VP from APAC as well as from Europe on to discuss the results specifically as it relates to their individual regions.

Abbie Fink: 00:06:20

Which I think is fascinating, right? Again, I'm not sure that there are other surveys of any type really, but certainly not in the communications realm that had the opportunity to speak to regional leadership around the world and really get a deep dive into the specifics that matter country to country, which I find fascinating.

But one of the things that this survey found, and I don't think it's surprising to any of us, but the important role that social media continues to play. And if you ask, here's the laundry list of things and channels, 76% checked the box that social media was the highest impact on brand influence.

And yet, Natalie, we know that social media has inherent challenges and requires a lot of strategy and such and a real understanding from not only the implementation of a strategic social media campaign, but as consumers of that content, we have to be smart about how we utilize this information and think about what influence it is trying to have on us.

So thinking about that number and how high it ranks, I mean, this really is going to open up some interesting conversations for those of us that manage this type of work with our clients about how much do we continue to invest in other elements of brand influence when something like social is so top of mind. And 76, 78% of the answers were social media is the highest of impact on influence.

Natalie Ghidotti: 00:08:01

Yeah, I mean, no surprise. But I think the key there is don't have your intern do your social media.

Abbie Fink: 00:08:09

Right, true.

Natalie Ghidotti: 00:08:11

I mean, we laugh, but you know, years ago when social media was coming on and you kind of threw it to the junior folks and said, oh, you can play around with this. But that is not, oh my gosh, it's the number one channel. So you have to be very strategic, like you said, and really think through your messaging and make sure that you are utilizing each of those channels, whether it's Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, the list goes on, TikTok, that you're using them the way that they truly reach people too. So I think there's a lot of strategy behind it.

I mean, interesting on that list, paid media was the least. It was 41% in North America, right there with the global number, too. Global is 42%, but 41%, well, I mean that's completely different than, you know, 10 years ago or. And earned media is actually right under social media. Earned media was the second channel. 70, 74%. So people and brands still see the value in public relations and media relations.

And clearly the media landscape has changed. And there's so much every day that we hear about is this information, true, fake news, all the things. But media still drive a lot of the conversation. So what we're doing as far as working with reporters and producers and editors and helping them tell the stories of brands is still very important.

Abbie Fink: 00:09:52

Yeah. One of the things that we continue to drive home when we're chatting with our clients about their overall communication strategy and thinking about the channels that were listed, earned media, owned media, paid media. They all, in my view, and this maybe is where we've all evolved, but in my view, these are all elements of your communication strategy and impact each other.

So good content that's created on your website or on your blog or the channels that you own probably becomes a thought leadership piece that you can share with an editorial board or wherever commentary exists. And then when you place that story, it becomes something that you put on your social media.

The interesting finding for me in this is that because social media has risen to the top of the channels of the highest impact is where is a lot of that content being created? And it's being created through these other elements, right? That we are still, you know, we...

A good placement in the Wall Street Journal, print or online, becomes content for your social media channels, which becomes content for your owned, et cetera, et cetera. So, absolutely, the consumer--and in this case, anyone that answered the question is, in a sense, considered a consumer...

Natalie Ghidotti: 00:11:19

Yes.

Abbie Fink: 00:11:20

I think it also answers where are they getting their information from? And maybe not making a complete distinction between the type of content that they're reading and the channel in which they're reading it. So if you ask them, they saw it on your Facebook page, but what they saw was an article written by a newspaper reporter or a television segment. But they saw it on your social channel, so therefore social is the identifier.

Natalie Ghidotti: 00:11:47

That's a good point. It's a good point. Absolutely.

Abbie Fink: 00:11:49

And we're seeing that a lot. You ask a group of college students, do you watch the news? No, I get my news from TikTok. Okay, but who's producing the content on TikTok? Well, Anderson Cooper. Okay. Do you realize that he's a newscaster, right? Not necessarily. He's not a content creator for TikTok, he's a newscaster. The channel is part one. It's where what is being produced on that channel. So I think it lends itself interesting. But I was most pleased to see that earned--the things that we think of predominantly of the work public relations practitioners have hung their hats on for a really long time still show up in that top half of the list.

Natalie Ghidotti: 00:12:37

Yeah, right. In the numbers with the audiences with the highest impact on brand influence, you've got customers 89% and then mainstream media 61%. Well, those are right up the alley of PR. And then the third one, which is really no surprise, are influencers at 65%. And that is where our industry has grown clearly in the influencer space. And sometimes influencer work falls to marketers, sometimes it falls to a PR department or a mix of both. But that influencer piece is huge and has just continued to grow.

Abbie Fink: 00:13:20

How are you... I know, Bill, you do a lot of work in the consumer goods side of things and where I think, you know, influencer marketing is probably most relevant. But are you seeing ... and Natalie, I know you do a lot of B2B work as well, but are you seeing that number bear out an actual implementation where the brand ambassadors and influencers are a real important driver in your communication strategy? Both of you looking for an answer there on whether that really plays out in actuality?

Bill Southard: 00:13:53

I think it does, but there is kind of a disconnect with influencers and even with social media. And I think the disconnect, the survey shows how important it is in building trust, building your reputation. Right. Building awareness with, on the consumer side, with this direct to consumer move. You have many, many more brands that are now selling through the e-commerce sites or through Amazon. The metrics are kind of screwy.

And what I mean by that is the way that clients are looking at metrics, they may not be given as much credit to the role of building awareness, credibility and trust. They're looking at the numbers like, what are we, how much traffic are we driving online, how much, how much conversion? Because they'll look at it and say, hey, if I'm spending whatever the amount of money is, am I getting a return on that investment?

Which is why I think most agencies, I think in the PRGN network, I think there's a, there's a paid digital aspect, particularly from a consumer standpoint, because if a client comes to us and says, and if we ask, hey, what are your objectives? And they'll say, well, we want to we want to sell product.

You know, what we'll say is, okay, there's a role for what we do with earned influencers, right. In terms of building awareness, building trust, building the reputation, which this survey pointed out was critically important. Right? That reputation, that trust building your brand.

But the paid digital that we put in place is really focused on generating a following and converting consumers so that at least it hits that metric that clients want to see some direct impact in terms of those activities.

Natalie Ghidotti: 00:15:37

We definitely see the influence or partnerships on B2C, just like you said, Bill and Abbie. But B2B is a little bit different. When we've worked with influencers in the B2B space, it does tend to be more like how we work with a media person and where we're helping them tell a story. There's a lot of times there's not money exchanged, that type thing. But when we're in the B2C space, I mean, it's, it's paid. Absolutely. I mean, these partnerships are paid. And you know, we still have clients who are saying, well, can I do, can I give them my service or whatever. I'm like, no, they don't care about that anymore. Those days are gone.

Bill Southard: 00:16:20

They want money.

Natalie Ghidotti: 00:16:22

Absolutely.

Bill Southard: 00:16:23

I mean, you know, the interesting thing that I thought in terms of one of the takeaways as it, you know, we, we asked that question, well, moving forward, where can you use the most guidance in terms of shaping your approach? And it was measurement and analytics for social media, and it was digital and social media strategies. Like, that's where brands basically said, we think that as an organization, we could use some help in terms of how we, how we can improve the overall digital and social media strategies. And then also how can we measure those strategies so that we have realistic expectations?

Abbie Fink: 00:17:02

Some of us that have been doing this work for a really long time, we had to get comfortable with the things that cost money and that it was okay for us to recommend them and be part of the discussion and to implement things. Because we've spent our whole careers on the other side of the news desk, right? We have been... It's all earned. We didn't have these words yet. We didn't call it earned media versus owned. We didn't have the concept yet.

But, you know, we lived and died by that idea that if it was a good story, you shouldn't have to pay for it. I still believe wholeheartedly in that concept. But there are other ways to communicate now that are at our disposal. And it's important for us that we recognize these are other strategies that we can be recommending and we shouldn't feel any sorrow whatsoever in saying there's an investment here that needs to happen.

If you're going to direct and look at an ROI and a call to action and a return, you know, how does this move consumer, whatever the consumer is, even B2B has consumers. Right. So whatever the consumer is, has to make action happen.

These things all play into that conversation and it really becomes, how do all of these things work? Well, to bring forward the messaging that you're trying to get to your target demographic, your target audience.

And for us as an agency, we spend a lot of time talking about the fact that we need to listen first to what the client is asking to accomplish and then come back with that strategy. And not be so focused on, we do earned media, so this is the answer. Earned media is part of the solution. But all these other things work well and a brand ambassador or an influencer who has a following and we are engaging with them in a contractual relationship to help us promote whatever it might be. That's what endorsements are and paid spokespeople.

We've all, you know, it's just evolved over time is really another version of thought leadership. And thought leadership tends to fall more into the earned space. When we put forth experts with content to share information and you know, our employee ambassadors. Right. We all know that our internal audiences are equally as important to sharing information. They are getting paid as in they are an employee, but they're not paid to do this work.

So these things kind of all blend in my mind about, you know, in, as we think about that these were the things that are clients and the businesses that answer the survey find to be very important. Therefore they need to be looking and we as advisors and counselors to those businesses need to look at this as an aggregate and say all of these things are now at our disposal.

And how do we take the all important marketing budgets and allocate appropriately and not be afraid to manage and be responsible for all of it across all the channels can fall to, you know, our teams to be able to do this if we honor and recognize the importance of these things on influencing the brand.

Natalie Ghidotti: 00:20:20

And Abbie, I'd add that I think clients and brands need to remember too, when they're thinking about, well, how do I judge all of these programs and figure out which ones are giving me the most ROI and all the things, that they don't need to be looking at just the outputs. I need to be looking at true outcomes. You know, what is the business goal and objective? And has this whole package of paid, earned, owned, shared come together to move the needle, not just look at, you know, numbers on a spreadsheet that says a digital ad did well. And I think that's where all of us really can get hung up on, is looking at that and not looking at the bigger picture.

Abbie Fink: 00:21:06

Were there any surprises in looking at the numbers? Anything that you thought should be different or you were expecting to be different?

Bill Southard: 00:21:15

You know, what I thought was undervalued is the role of employees in terms of the greatest impact on brand influence. I mean, in the survey it was the customers were number one. Employees were ... in the US, actually, employees were number two, like almost 70%. And globally they were three or four, right behind mainstream media and brand influencers.

So I do think looking at your employees as true advocates for the brand and not forgetting to leverage the role that they have because they're out there, they're talking to people, they're word of mouth, they're posting on their social. I just thought it was interesting that a lot of brands don't talk about the role of the employees that much.

But I think in the survey, the survey clearly underscored the fact that they are a critical audience that can support enhancing your influence in the marketplace, not only within the company, but even outside the company.

Natalie Ghidotti: 00:22:21

And Bill, on your numbers here, I mean, on the strategies to drive influence, they're saying leverage digital platforms, that was 75% in North America. And then communicate values to employees was 60%, communicate values to employees. I mean, that says I've got to make sure that my employees understand our values and understand our mission and understand what we're doing here because they're going to help me tell the story.

Bill Southard: 00:22:49

Yeah, and that even followed through in terms of, I think, authenticity was very loudly heard here. Like we talked about messaging on social media. I thought one of the things that came across here was that they want authenticity and that authenticity will resonate. Creating an emotional connection with your end user, whether the B2B or B2C audience, I think is important.

So to your point, Natalie, having a real strategy around messaging and who's doing social media and, and you know, how do you approach it and how often and stuff like that, I think it's really critically important because I think consumers or B2B audiences, I think they're looking at brands and they're saying, hey, are they authentic? And do they. And this is what wasn't surprising, but it ranked highly, was they want them to have values that we believe in. Right. They want them to kind of be value driven, which has probably increased over the last five or six years or so.

Abbie Fink: 00:23:54

Well, there's no question that the concept of influence is and will continue to be critical to the success of our organizations and the clients that we work with. And that investing in understanding it and how it's going to help grow your business and how it will be responded to is part of the customer expectation now. And that we have to be smart about that investment.

And as you said, the understanding of our messaging and where do we position ourselves and how do we live that messaging, not only in the products that we're delivering, but as an organization, as a company, because our consumers, our clients, our businesses that we interact with are going to come to expect it more and more.

And we have to adjust and continue to focus on that, to see its impact and see it bring that success that we're all hoping to have for the businesses that we work with and the messaging that we are creating.

Bill Southard: 00:24:51

Yeah, listen, if you look at the results, it's really customer expectations are driving change. That's what's really driving the change. And I think the interesting thing we ask the question, is brand influence important? Obviously, overwhelmingly it is. But I thought was also interesting is that almost 70% said that they've changed their strategies because of changing consumer expectations over the last two or three years. And an overwhelming amount said that they will continue to change because what we know today may not be true tomorrow.

Abbie Fink: 00:25:27

Very true, right? Very true. Well, we're seeing that significant transformation in how the organizations are perceiving and how they're developing brand influence. And you know, these are this survey as a starting point for all of us in the network and to share the information with our clients and our prospective clients that we understand and recognize this and that our value proposition in understanding what this means and how it can further enhance the businesses that we're working with is an actual demonstration of the thought leadership and the strategy that we're talking about and using these numbers to help guide and grow influences among ourselves and among the clients that we're working with.

Adrian McIntyre: 00:26:21

Thanks for listening to this episode of PRGN Presents, brought to you by the Public Relations Global Network.

Abbie Fink: 00:26:28

We publish new episodes every other week, so subscribe now in your favorite podcast app. Episodes are also available on our website, along with more information about PRGN and our members, at prgn.com.