REWIRE. The Magazine from Hanover. Edition 1.

I S S U E N O. 1 AUTUMN 2023

T H E M AG A Z I N E F RO M

RESILIENCE IN A MODERN WORLD EX-GOOGLE BOSS MO GAWDAT ON WHAT THE DEATH OF HIS SON TAUGHT HIM ABOUT TRAUMA

INSIDE:

HASHI MOHAMED / ELECTION COUNTDOWN / THE DESERT EXPO / DIGITAL SHAPESHIFTING

HANOVER IS AN AWARD-WINNING COMMUNICATIONS CONSULTANCY THAT ADVISES ENTERPRISES, INSTITUTIONS, AND INDIVIDUALS ON BUILDING RECOGNITION AND ENHANCING REPUTATION.

WE DO THIS BY:

OUR MISSION IS TO REWIRE COMMUNICATIONS FOR IMPACT AND HARNESS ITS TRANSFORMATIVE POWER TO ADVOCATE, TRAILBLAZE AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

Embracing the complete range of skills and services across the communications spectrum without constraint, to create the best outcomes for our clients and deliver world-class work.

Igniting and empowering the potential of every individual within our company, recognising that each person is a unique spark, capable of creating extraordinary impact. We believe that by nurturing and harnessing the collective brilliance of our people, we can drive innovation, foster an uncommon work culture, and make a positive difference to society.

hanovercomms.com Articles from this magazine, alongside more of our thinking, are available on LinkedIn.

I N T R O D U CT I O N S

HELLO

Welcome to the first edition of REWIRE – a magazine about reputation, recognition and the constants in chaos from Hanover Communications.

The aim of Rewire is simple – to create something interesting. To showcase the people who work here, the people we work with and the people we know. And to use their stories to demonstrate the impact that communications – and communicators – have on the world.

We’re lucky at Hanover to know some extraordinary people and do some of the best – and most challenging – work in the industry.

In this first edition we speak to Mo Gawdat, the former chief business officer at Google X and author of (amongst others) Solve for Happy. We also hear from British journalist Jessica Winch, formerly of the Telegraph and now news editor of slow-news outfit, Tortoise, on why the pace of journalism matters. And we delve into 16 sweet years of the NFL in the UK, during which time

it has taken the country by storm, becoming a permanent fixture on the British sporting calendar and helping school-age participation in American football soar.

We will discuss the year ahead in politics with Hanover experts from both sides of the political spectrum and we’ll take a fresh look at some of the campaigns and events we’ve loved working on recently.

Of course, we would love to hear feedback, or to have a coffee, if you’ve read anything here that’s interested you, or you have any suggestions for future editions.

You can reach me at gcleland@hanovercomms.com Enjoy, and speak soon.

Gary Cleland Group Managing Director, Corporate, Digital & Strategy

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INSIDE REWIRE #1 4

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Resilience made real

Mo Gawdat

Hashi Mohamed

How to find strength through trauma.

From refugee to barrister.

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Strategy in a crisis

Social net-working

The case for calm amid the chaos.

What do we do when nothing is new anymore?

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REWIRE

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A slice of life

The world in a desert

Pizza Hut’s European CEO Nicolas Burquier on business at the sharp end.

What happened when the pandemic postponed Expo 2020.

Editor: Hugh Morris

Editor at Large: Gary Cleland Sub editor: Michael Schutzer-Weissmann

Art director: Sam Stocking Director of Marketing: Laura Roberts

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Vanessa Berlowitz

Home safe

How diversity makes us stronger.

Tackling fear in the nighttime economy.

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Home away from home

War footing

The Battle of Britain: 16 years of the NFL in the UK.

Two tribes prepare for battle in the 2024 election.

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The view from Dublin

Behind the byline

Ireland’s media landscape is changing beyond recognition.

Jess Winch from Tortoise on Trump, reputation-washing and PRs…

Contributors: Coralie Nicholas, Amy Williams, Rebecca Hargreaves, Teodora Coste, Stephanie Lis, Polly Billington, Shauna Burdis, Lucy Jupp

The finish line News from the digital trenches.

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R ESIL IENCE MADE R EAL

The age of resilience THE STEWARDS OF REPUTATION ARE FACING ENORMOUS DISRUPTION. Just three per cent of institutional reputation leaders surveyed as part of Hanover’s most recent Rewire Panel believe they have been able to execute their plans over the last year without disruption.

There are various factors behind this. We live in tumultuous times – energy, climate and the wider economic picture each has the ability to pull the tablecloth from under the best laid plans. Most organisations are dealing with all three.

More is expected of business, too. The public, losing confidence in traditional institutions and doubting political leadership, wants business to lead on societal issues.

Many businesses embrace this responsibility, but then must navigate the complication that the public is polarised on almost all of the issues, yet expects a clear position from business.

There are a number of considerations for reputation experts to reflect on.

First, attuned as they are to the pitfalls – and opportunities – outlined above, it becomes a crucial part of their role to serve as the canary in the mine for the rest of the organisation. It is telling, when reviewing our latest panel results, that communicators were generally more pessimistic than chief executives in the organisation’s preparedness to withstand disruption.

Chief executives rated their confidence at 6.8/10, communicators at 4.5. Doubtless this in part reflects the contrasting natural dispositions of CEOs and reputation counsellors – at the same time it also points to reputation specialists’ awareness of the potential for disruption.

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To paraphrase Mike Tyson, the CEOs are confident in their plan, the communicators are wondering what happens when the organisation is punched in the face. The Mike Tyson question is the essence of the resilience issue.

Second, if we accept that creating a reputation or communications plan for your organisation is actually the easy bit, and the bigger challenge is understanding how to foresee and navigate disruption, then communicators need to reflect this in how they set up their own teams and priorities.

Put simply this means more emphasis on horizon scanning, data and analytics, scenario planning and issues planning and preparedness. It means ensuring you have the capability to deliver digital content at the same pace at which you can deliver a statement to media. It means fully understanding the networks across media, politics and consumer that have the genuine potential to impact your reputation or ability to operate, and tailoring your communications accordingly – and constantly.

Fundamentally, it is ensuring that the organisation understands that it is not the only player on the pitch in the game that defines its reputation – and so real-time insight and engagement is necessary.

Third, organisations need to consider how often reputational issues – positive and negative – are born from within. The communicator’s job is made far easier if they can test their insights and data with a diverse group of thinkers; diversity embeds resilience within an organisation. On top of all the other benefits it brings, diversity is a tool of crisis preparedness.

We used to consider how organisations could avoid disruption. Today we take disruption as a given.

Resilience therefore becomes a driver of reputational, and business, success. The role of the communicator in this is crucial.

TURNING CHALLENGES INTO POSITIVES. THAT’S RESILIENCE Mo Gawdat was responsible for half of Google’s operations when his son, Ali, died suddenly. He has since made it his mission to educate people about how resilience enables happiness.

I was born in the East, but did most of my studies and work in the West. The world is becoming smaller but there remains a significant difference in approach to human health and wellbeing between the two.

In the West, we priortise two values – the individual and freedom – while the East focuses on two very different areas – respect and community. These latter choices are key to building resilience.

While you may not be able to last in a difficult environment on your own, a community will always take care of you.

Humans are top of the food chain because we work in teams, because we surrounded ourselves with tribes that support our efforts to grow, to progress. It is in our instinct to feel safe in tribes; when alone, we are so much more fragile, much less resilient.

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R ESIL IENCE MADE R EAL

THERE ARE TWO ELEMENTS TO RESILIENCE. THE FIRST IS TO BE ABLE TO FACE CHALLENGES IN A ROBUST MANNER, AND THE SECOND, WHICH IS NOT OFTEN SAID, IS TO AVOID THOSE CHALLENGES IN THE FIRST PLACE. A LARGE PART OF RESILIENCE IS TO FIND WAYS TO FREE YOUR LIFE FROM UNNECESSARY STRESS.

This is what the community I have started, unstressable.com, is about. We’re attempting to take a million people out of stress every year. This is the most effective way of building resilience. Stress will dominate your mind, draining you mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Stress is not just about meeting the challenges you are already aware of, but finding the skills, knowledge and learning to remove them from your focus.

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If I can teach you to manage through the stress and build up your strength so that these issues do not present as stress in the future, then you will become stronger and begin to enjoy these challenges. You will then have a mindset that welcomes the challenges life throws at you – another economic crisis? Interesting. We survived the last one and the one before that, so we’re going to survive this one. There is something in resilience in accepting your limits. My son died eight years ago and even today I am not prepared for it. It shakes me to my core. When I think deeply about the approach I should take, there is nothing I could do. It is an incredible shock, as a highly paid executive who’s paid to solve problems, that I had to realise that I couldn’t do anything. That life had forced me to find a new baseline for stress, for trauma.

This is not a sign of weakness, but instead one of strength, right? So I’m going to accept it, and then commit to do my absolute best to make my life and those around me better. In terms of my son, I start to look at how I can keep his essence alive.

When you do this, two interesting things happen.

One, you’re no longer in negativity, you’re engaged on something more important. And two, the world becomes better as a result. I have an experiment in my book called the Eraser Test, which looks at the positive impact that comes from the trauma in our life, and how, therefore, most of us would not go back and change the trauma, knowing the benefits that

will come later. For example, if you erase the bully you faced in school, you might not be as strong as you are today.

“I had to realise that I couldn’t do anything. That life had forced me to find a new baseline for stress, for trauma.”

In 2019, I was speaking at a conference in the Netherlands. And the host, who was my friend, said, “Mo, so you have an experiment in your book, that’s called the Eraser Test…” And he said, “would you erase the death of Ali?” And I wouldn’t. As much as my heart doesn’t agree.

My heart wants him back. But since Ali left, we’ve reached more than 50 million people, literally, with people taking action, changing their lives, finding a better path to happiness. And I know my son. I know that if I had told my son before he went into that operating room, that he would leave the world and 50 million people would improve their life as a result, he would have said ‘kill me now’.

Turning life, turning challenges into positives. That’s the ultimate form of resilience.

Watch Mo’s film at hanovercomms.com

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R ESIL IENCE MADE R EAL

SURVIVE...

THEN THRIVE Hashi Mohamed arrived in Britain from Somalia aged nine, in poverty and recently orphaned. Pushed to breaking point, he thrived and is today a successful barrister.

He speaks to us about what it means to truly be resilient.

Resilience is based on the people around you. They are the only people who will understand what you’re experiencing; they are the only people able to really appreciate what you’re feeling.

This yields a collective resilience based on shared experience that no one else can understand. And with this comes a sense of hope that you will come through this, that this is transitory, and that you have faith that the future must be better than the present, because nothing could be worse than what you’re experiencing right there.

In 1993 the huge displacement of people caused by the war in Somalia, my home, coincided with the death of my father. And like that, I went through the difficult and traumatic experience of becoming both a refugee and

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an orphan. I was a nine year old boy, just arrived in a strange, new country, alone, having just helped to bury his father. I didn’t understand the language or the culture. Every day was a challenge to just make sense of the senseless.

I survived. But the way that that we understand survival in society is invariably that it is about the strongest surviving, but I think that that’s wrong. You need people to be able to share your pain. People who can understand your traumas, can empathise with your difficulties, who can help you overcome your shortcomings.

I may have come through an incredibly difficult and traumatic period, but there are so many others who start out in similar circumstances, who may never get the chance to genuinely test their abilities, to genuinely push themselves, to genuinely make a success of themselves… to survive.

“The problem that we face today is not a problem that came about overnight. So why do you feel that the answers and the solutions have to be overnight?”

So much more than your hard work is required to succeed in modern societies, I have worked extremely hard – I continue to work extremely hard – but it would be remiss of me to simply suggest that because of my hard work, everything else follows. Luck is a huge part of the journey; telling young people, in particular, that the only thing that matters in society is your hard work is a very dangerous approach. There are other factors at play, including societal, or cultural contexts.

The consequences of understating this is that a young person who works extremely hard to no avail, will inevitably then conclude that no matter how hard they work, nothing will happen for them. But that’s because they’ve not understood that working hard simply gets you to the starting line. What matters are the lucky breaks, the people who mentor you. It’s that chance encounter with somebody who knows somebody who picks up the phone in your support.

Organisations need to work harder, too. Equity and inclusion is absolutely critical to the resilience of any organisation and, in order for you to survive, you need to be relevant, and to be relevant you need to be inclusive.

Many organisations still approach D&I as a tick-box exercise and a lot of organisations struggle because they’re not willing to be patient. The problem that we face today is not a problem that came about overnight.

So why do you feel that the answers and the solutions have to be overnight? Developing a truly representative team takes time.

The culture of an organisation can make all the difference when it comes to whether people feel like they belong, and that has to come from the leadership.

Leadership has to be able to say this is a place where anyone from any background, from any place, if they’re good enough, are prepared to work hard, are willing to learn and open minded – this is a place for you to flourish.

If that culture is wrong, everything else falls apart.

Society benefits from change, from disruptors who try and tell us look, this isn’t working, here’s how we might do something differently. Now, those disruptors may not succeed, they may not succeed at the first attempt, or the second or third, but we need disruptors to encourage us to think about problems in a different way. Because without the disruptors, we fall into that trap of groupthink, and we become resistant to change.

Watch Hashi’s film at hanovercomms.com

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R ESIL IENCE MADE R EAL

DIVERSITY IS THE SOLUTION TO RESILIENCE Multi-award-winning wildlife director Vanessa Berlowitz tells us what she has learned covering the natural world, from the north to the south poles – and how storytellers can learn from it.

What would you do if you were stuck in a tent in the North Pole with Sir David Attenborough – and then the food ran out?

It goes without saying, given the location, that the weather is atrocious and there is nothing of any use for miles. Suddenly the comforts of your home, and any chance of a quick trip to the local shops for supplies, seem a world away. The clock is ticking, Sir David is growing increasingly anxious, and the survival of yourself and national treasure depends on you.

The key to escaping with your life and your sanity is, according to Vanessa Berlowitz, famed producer of more than 20 wildlife and human documentaries, ensuring you have established core shared values up

front; so everyone has clarity on what should happen next and why. It is the same for businesses looking to arm themselves against crises. Establish the reasons why you are there in the first place, and every step will be geared towards ensuring you achieve your goals.

“Situations like this are when people’s stress behaviours come out. People become withdrawn, lose focus, question why they’re there,” she says. “I have to, as the leader, put aside my goals and ambitions for that moment and say, what does it feel like to be in that space? You have to draw in every ounce of empathy, really see that experience from other people’s perspectives. The only thing you have in common is clear communication.”

The parallels with businesses and how they communicate are straightforward.

“Your messages need to be clear, respectful, and very objective-focused at every stage of a difficult shoot,” says Vanessa. “I keep thinking about why we’re here, and communicating that in different and subtly varied ways. As long as those core shared values are known and established upfront, I believe a team can do anything. You simply can’t be an expert in every environment that you find yourself in, so the thing I rely on is choosing people around me that I like and trust, who think quickly and react smartly.”

“The thing I rely on is choosing people around me that I like and trust, who think quickly and react smartly.”

Survival in extreme environments is not just about surrounding yourself with a great team that can help drive you towards you goals, she says. The resilience required to overcome these challenges is also about having faith that the stories you are trying to tell reflect the changing world in which we live.

“I’m very fortunate to have been trained by the greatest communicator in wildlife filmmaking, in Sir David Attenborough, and have learned a lot about how to engage large audiences,” says Vanessa.

“But of course, you need to keep evolving and finding new audiences in new places.”

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THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION IS BASED ON INDIVIDUALS THAT ARE PUSHED, OFTEN IN EXTREME SITUATIONS. This means making sure your stories evolve, that the people you engage to film or voice those stories change to reflect the environment. “Why wouldn’t we have women? Why wouldn’t we have indigenous filmmakers?

Why aren’t we doing more to bring those people into our space and hear their stories and their perspectives?”

“Why aren’t we doing more to bring those people into our space and hear their stories and their perspectives?”

“By watching what happens in the natural world, and the way social animals organise themselves and get through environmental change, you see that it’s only through diversity within individuals, some stronger in one situation, others stronger in a different situation, that those animal cultures often emerge.”

The “survival of the fittest” principle that Herbert Spencer coined upon analysing Darwin’s work on evolution is about how nature evolves by promoting and ensuring that key qualities for future generational survival are maintained. But real evolution, says Vanessa, is about adaptability.

“The idea of evolution is based on individuals that are pushed, often in extreme situations, coming up with new ideas. At a deep level, I feel reassured that nature will always find a way,” she says.

The join is clear. Establishing a resilient business and finding a way to ensure your business evolves to meet the needs of today’s – and tomorrow’s – customer, depends on clarity of thought and communication. In the natural world, diversity offers the solution to resilience. In business, the same is true.

“The key message of the natural world is that diversity is the solution to resilience,” says Vanessa. “If you don’t really hear that message properly – live it, breathe it and make it happen in your company and organisation – you’re ignoring the way that life on Earth has come to be.”

Watch Vanessa’s film at hanovercomms.com

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INSIDE THE CAMPAI GN

TWO THIRDS OF WOMEN FEEL UNSAFE WALKING HOME AT NIGHT. BUDWEISER KNEW IT HAD TO ACT.

BY C O R A L I E N I C H O L AS

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The night-time economy employs around nine million people. It is worth around £100bn to the UK economy. It is so important that, in London, it has its own “czar”. So why, given its importance, do we live in a society where two thirds of women feel unsafe when walking home at night?

Through its portfolio of household drinks brands – Budweiser, Stella Artois, Camden Hells, Becks and Corona, among many others – Budweiser Brewing Group UK&I (BBG) is as an active player in the bars, clubs and restaurants that bring towns and cities across the UK to life every evening.

And so when YouGov research revealed that two thirds of women felt unsafe walking home at night, BBG knew it had to work across the night-time economy, from consumers, through restaurateurs, publicans and bar managers, to the wider public, to make this everyone’s responsibility.

The path to helping create a more inclusive and enjoyable social environment for everyone firstly requires a good understanding of the problem. Off the back of YouGov’s findings, BBG and Hanover commissioned research to properly understand the scale of the problem. The topline data said that more than 66 per cent of women felt unsafe – but what was the actual impact of that, in practical terms?

It was clear that getting people safe on those walks home had to be the priority. With Hanover’s support, BBG collaborated with WalkSafe+, an app that provides tools to users to enable a safer route home based on police data on local crime.

BBG invested in helping to optimise the performance of the app and introducing new features, before utilising its strong platform and access to bars, pubs, and clubs across the UK to spread the word about how Walksafe+ can help make women safer.

Working on the app and spreading the word through night-time venues was just the start of helping to make women feel safer on the way home. The crucial measure of success would be in wider awareness, cross-channel support and, ultimately, downloads of the app and women feeling safer.

A campaign that featured multiple touchpoints across media, social channels and out-of-home advertising was launched with a flagship “moment”. A panel discussion moderated by Marie Claire Editor-in-Chief Andrea Thompson and featuring Emma Kay (Founder and CMO of WalkSafe), Karen Whybro (Women’s Safety Campaigner and Activist), Chris Kitching (OnTrade IFT Director, BBG UK&I) and Sarah Walker (Safer Business Network), helped bring to life the very real concerns of women just wanting to enjoy their nights out free from worry.

THE STATISTICS WERE STARTLING – AND PROVIDED VALUABLE INSIGHT FOR THE CAMPAIGN. More than 80 per cent of women who visit hospitality venues feel compelled to weigh up their safety when getting home; the cost-of-living crisis has forced one in five to alter their behaviour and walk more rather than take taxis, putting them at even greater risk.

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INSIDE THE CAMPAI GN

The panel discussion reached key national and trade media, broadcast radio, and the campaign was pushed to as many people as possible through paid and organic social activity, an out-of-home advertising splash across TFL, National Rail and one of the most renowned venues in the country, the O2.

At the peak of the campaign, millions of people saw posters and branded coasters to encourage them to download the app. These ad slots were amplified on BBG’s social channels, with content seen across Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and neighbourhood app NextDoor.

With around 27 per cent of the workforce employed within the night-time economy, the task of creating a more inclusive and enjoyable social environment for everyone is, of course, one that is ongoing. But by landing a campaign that reached as many people as possible, in the right places, Hanover and BBG have made strong progress in helping achieve that goal.

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The campaign achieved almost

242 MILLION MEDIA IMPRESSIONS

across consumer and industry stakeholders, thousands of social media impressions and almost 40 pieces of media coverage, all raising awareness across the piece.

But most importantly, the campaign also resulted in over

33,000 DOWNLOADS OF THE WALKSAFE+ APP, hopefully helping more women feel safe on a night out.

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COUNTDOW N TO TH E EL ECTI O N

AFTER 13 YEARS IN GOVERNMENT, THE TORIES FACE ANNIHILATION IN 2024 AT THE HANDS OF LABOUR. OR DO THEY?

WAR FOOTING Stephanie Lis, former No 10 deputy press secretary, and Polly Billington, Labour candidate, assess the two parties after power.

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COUNTDOW N TO TH E EL ECTI O N

Labour’s Ming Vase strategy

BY P O L LY B I L L I N GTO N

A 20-point lead in the polls can encourage the casual observer to think that Labour has the next general election in the bag. But that would be to overlook the historic size of the swing required by Sir Keir Starmer simply to secure a majority of one, let alone a working margin, as Tony Blair achieved in 1997.

Labour’s 2019 defeat was of historic proportions, with the party’s worst result since 1934. Many lifelong Labour voters switched allegiances to Boris Johnson and the party’s credibility was shot on a number of key fronts, most concerningly the stain of antisemitism tainting a party that prides itself on tackling discrimination in all its forms. Starmer, then, understands the size of the task ahead. He has a three-stage plan: first to rid Labour of antisemitism, secondly, to demonstrate that the Tories aren’t fit to govern and third, offer a vision of the country that persuades people to support them in enough numbers for a working majority.

The first stage is arguably complete (though don’t rule out ongoing shock waves). On the second, one could argue the Tories have done much of the work themselves, which leaves the final stage. Starmer’s stated goals suggest a scale of ambition that the Party openly admits will require two terms to successfully deliver, but what is still missing is the retail offer required to turn grand ambition into a concrete appeal with the electorate.

Businesses may be beginning to turn to Labour, but they need to know what they’re getting into. Fiscal rectitude and an absence of chaos are a start: “securenomics” (Rachel Reeves’ idea about how to rewire the economy to increase productivity and provide greater financial security for the many) and the Green Prosperity Plan begin to outline what a future British economy would look like: more detail will need to follow so that businesses of

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all shapes and sizes can see what role they have to play and what it will mean for them.

The Tories aren’t described as the most effective political party of all time for nothing. Even with their current dire situation they have the wherewithal to pull new stunts and strategies out of the hat, blindsiding Labour if they take too much for granted. We saw this with the Tory campaign in Uxbridge: locally focused antiLabour campaigns - especially where Labour actually runs the place, which now includes many constituencies well beyond the cities - could eat into that national lead in enough areas that Sir Keir finds himself without the majority he craves. That final stage is now being delivered in the style of the “Ming Vase” strategy: uber caution.

This might be enough to win in a large number of seats, but as many doorknockers will tell you, voters are still undecided because they are yet to understand what, if they vote Labour, they are voting for. Many around the leadership insist they understand that re-running the 1997 playbook won’t work this time, but a fundamental of that campaign was a guiding set

Starmer’s final stage is now being delivered in the style of the “Ming Vase” strategy: uber caution.

of principles and values that linked strategy with decisions. Without this, caution can look like followership, not leadership. And that could result in a similar situation the party found itself in 2010 - or for those with longer memories and a more pessimistic view - 1992.

Sunak’s last roll of the dice

BY ST E P H A N I E L I S

Rishi Sunak was always facing an uphill battle. Convincing voters to stick with an incumbent party after 13 years in government would never be an easy feat yet his task is perhaps harder than anticipated. He inherited an electorate exhausted by the psychodrama and mistrust that often characterised Boris Johnson’s premiership and suffering the economic turmoil that resulted from Liz Truss’s short tenure in Downing Street. Few doubt Sunak’s competence, intelligence, or fierce work ethic, but these attributes alone will not be enough to rebuild trust in the Conservative Party. Languishing in the polls, and with an economy that continues to underperform, it is no surprise that businesses are turning to an ascendant Labour.

The next election will also be fought along more complex lines than in 2019. The totemic issue of ‘getting Brexit done’ that dominated then has now faded from voters’ minds. And while it is arguably easier at this point in an electoral cycle to be in Opposition - there is more time to formulate policy positions, and less scrutiny from the electorate – it is undisputable that Keir Starmer has led Labour into a position of strength.

The Prime Minister may have gone into the summer recess with some small glimmers of hope – inflation figures were less severe than feared; Jaguar Land Rover gave a vote of confidence in the UK by announcing a new £4bn battery cell investment; and a feared wipe-out in a set of by-elections was narrowly avoided. But this is scant comfort - the outlook is undoubtedly extremely challenging for the Conservative Party.

Where does the Prime Minister go from here? The answer is a focus on the wedge issues which not only distinguish his Party from Keir Starmer’s Labour, but also play to the Conservative faithful. Of course, a focus on

crime and immigration is an established part of the Tory playbook in the run up to any recent election, but Sunak will continue to accuse the Opposition of flip-flopping on illegal immigration over the coming months.

The outlook is undoubtedly extremely challenging for the Conservative Party.

The Conservatives are also watering down their green credentials. While this will be pitched as an overture to easing the pressure on households struggling with the cost of living, it also demonstrates a clear division between themselves and their opponents over the speed of the green transition. Indeed, Labour have been beset by internal wrangling over their positions on North Sea Oil, which the Tories have moved quickly to magnify.

Many may not thank the Government for moving the goalposts, but the calculation will be one based on electoral advantage. Businesses must remember that everything will be assessed for its vote-winning potential, above all else, as the election draws closer.

The Prime Minister will need to be deft in taking on a more divisive strategy; not only does it contradict his persona of a responsible, pragmatic politician, it also risks alienating centrist voters already beginning to align themselves with Starmer’s Labour.

With just a year to go, this may well be his last roll of the dice.

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16 YEARS OF NF L IN TH E U K

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HOME AWAY FROM HOME

HOW THE NFL BECAME PART OF THE BRITISH SPORTING CALENDAR

When the NFL arrived at Wembley for its first game in the UK in 2007, it could never have been imagined that American football would become a prominent fixture in the British sporting calendar.

Today, the NFL’s London Games sell out in hours, teams from across the Pond have legions of loyal supporters and the sport is revered by local fans as if it had been played here for centuries.

BY B EC K Y H A R G R E AV ES

This is how American football conquered the UK…

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16 YEARS OF NF L IN TH E U K

GRASSROOTS BUZZ

EMBED IN COMMUNITIES

To kick things off, NFL wanted to put participation at the heart of its growth. By focusing on discovery alongside economic viability, we knew that we could cultivate a grassroots appreciation of the sport while projecting a successful future.

At the other end of the spectrum, we wanted to give NFL’s arrival substance, so we helped launch a special Deloitte Economic Report on the impact of the NFL hosting a game in the UK that also highlighted the backing of the UK Government.

This was coordinated with an event at Downing Street, replete with then-Chancellor George Osborne playing American football with worldrenowned quarterback Dan Marino.

Participation remains key for NFL UK and it worked hard to establish grassroots touchpoints across the country to connect new audiences with the sport. With American football a success with viewing audiences, the exciting part of our job has become celebrating NFL’s work in communities, introducing the sport to new audiences, supporting the growing number of girls and boys falling in love with the game, and highlighting the success of UK stars now excelling in the States.

CULTIVATE COVERAGE NFL created a scalable broadcast model that catered for both existing and new fans, launching new social channels in the UK that elevated the action in the US while allowing fans on new shores to find the right level of coverage for their fandom.

We then harnessed the power of earned media to drive the fan growth, with tactics including the creation of NFL Writers Club, which enabled media to work collaboratively with us to grow storytelling opportunities.

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A growing number of girls and boys falling in love with the game.

So much has been achieved since the first game in London 16 years ago, and as the spectacle of NFL UK’s London Games continues, the opportunity remains to introduce the sport to potential fans across the country, day-in-day-out.

THE NFL IN NUMBERS

4.5 million

UK households tune into the Super Bowl every year

9%

The number of viewers has risen by

More than

175%

2.5

since the NFL came to London

fans have attended an NFL game in London

of Britons – that’s 6 million people – are interested in the NFL

million

Every NFL Franchise has played at least

1 game in the UK

American football is played by 28,000 children in 470 schools in 26 regions of the UK, as part of the NFL Flag programme 00 23

R EW I R E P ERSP ECTI VES

SOCIAL NET-WORKING

ON TI ITA IM Y SA DO EY TH E? OR YM AN W NE EN EV W IS NE IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF FLATTERY… Everyone knows the story. In 2004, Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg sat down at his computer and built a social network alongside a couple of other smart teenagers enrolled at the prestigious university who were studying things like engineering and computing. In 2002, however, there was Friendster. And LinkedIn launched in 2003, and MySpace took the world by storm a year later. Technically, the social media network was born in 1997 when Sixdegrees launched.

Whichever timeline you follow, there’s no denying that in the space of just over 20 years, the world of social media has exploded at a phenomenal speed and even the Facebook of 2008 would be unrecognisable to social media natives of today.

Considering how many platforms have launched in the last 20 years, how many new platforms we have seen explode and some fail (who remembers House Party during the pandemic…?), it wouldn’t be surprising that there are similarities in what makes up some of the most popular social media of today. The features an app rolls out could be the difference between becoming one of the social media greats or a death sentence. At the end of the day, it’s the person behind the scroll that will eventually dictate what the apps do… and who gets there first doesn’t necessarily make a difference. And is it really just how a platform innovates that decides its fate?

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BY A M Y W I L L I A M S

WHAT DO YOU CALL A CAT THAT WORKS AT A PRINT SHOP? A COPY CAT… Taking ‘inspiration’ is not new in the world of social media. We’ve seen platforms copying each other’s features for a long time. In the early days of TikTok’s launch there were hushed murmurs of its similarities to Vine. When Instagram launched Reels in response to the new kid on the block (TikTok) this spurred backlash in the form of petitions from users to ‘make Instagram Instagram again’, while LinkedIn Live is one of many platforms to roll out the live video feature after Periscope came onto the scene.

ZUCKERBERG VERSUS MUSK Considering some of the latest developments of the Zuckerberg versus Musk rivalry, such as the widely reported cage fight proposition, there is little that isn’t covered when it comes to the owners of the two biggest social media companies in the world. When Musk bought Twitter (now X) and started changing things around to a place that seems unrecognisable from the days we first saw the little blue bird light up our phones, there was a collective breath in to see what Meta would do. In the most open act of opportunism, Meta launched Threads. This was no longer a subtle adoption of features that felt similar, but a challenge to X and all that users of their beloved Twitter were looking to get back.

While the launch of Threads is more recent, between Meta and X the majority of the biggest social media platforms are housed under the same two rooves. These platforms have been generally innovating against and amongst themselves for a while.

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R EW I R E P ERSP ECTI VES

A L O N G C A M E T I K TO K …

SO… IS IT JUST A PHASE?

Branded by more than a few as the ‘TikTokification of social media’, one of the most fascinating platforms to fall victim to being copied is TikTok. Arguably the most disruptive app to launch, social media giants scrambled to copy TikTok faster than any other new platform. It might have been the speed at which the platform built a user base – taking considerably less years than Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram to reach 1 billion users from launch - but one thing is for sure, everyone wanted to be like TikTok. Vertical video took social media by storm, and seeing something ‘viral’ on Instagram Reels is still seen as being unfashionably late to the party.

WIRED recently wrote that social media is having a ‘quarter life crisis’ and, more boldly, a piece in The Verge had no problem writing the headline ‘social media is doomed to die’.

What made TikTok different from the start was the ‘For You’ effect. As confusing as it feels, TikTok’s algorithm and AI-powered recommendations means that seeing content from people you don’t know, with no idea why you’re seeing it (or why you can’t stop watching), actually feels… right. Users go on the platform with the intention of stumbling across something ‘random’ and it is the content that attracts, rarely which business or person posted it.

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If the platforms we’ve come to know and (mostly) love are now the establishment, what does this mean for the future of social media innovation?

One of the most recent platforms to launch is French social media app BeReal. Launched in 2020, the app focuses on authenticity for users.

No filters, no hashtags, and until recently just one chance a day to post something in real-time. By 2022, Instagram and Snapchat had both taken inspiration from BeReal’s dual camera feature. Like TikTok before them, BeReal is now faced with the challenge of maintaining their simplicity while the more established platforms clip at their heels…

IS IT TIME TO REWIRE OUR THINKING ON SOCIAL MEDIA? So if it’s being said that the platforms themselves are running out of ideas, how are brands and businesses meant to find ways to stand out and do something different? Maybe after all it’s not about being ahead of the curve, but actually about standing still and finding your comfort zone. While the big social media players are rolling out new features and new names, how can businesses continue to harness the power of social media and not get swept up in the latest launch?

Considering the increasing amount of people more likely to turn to social media than search engines to get information, it is necessary to ensure you are in the right place in front of the right people.

Rewiring isn’t about having the answers. As goes the world of social media, trying to predict the future would be a pointless exercise. Focusing on putting a few things at the core of your social media strategy is a good place to start.

1. Authenticity.

At the heart of the big disruptors TikTok and BeReal is authenticity, and it’s got a lot to do with what users want and the type of content that is being consumed every day.

People are looking for ideas and inspiration, and ways to connect with networks in a way that feels real and personal.

Though there is potential for businesses to expect too much from the social media services they have created.

2. Let data drive.

Staying up to date on wider trends and innovations is helpful and necessary, but more pertinent is looking inwards at your own performance and audience data. Be led by what your target audience like and need, and build from there.

3. Invest in creative.

Whilst authenticity is key, this is sadly unlikely to take us back to the days of taking social media images on a grainy mobile phone camera and uploading it alongside a tweet.

Investment from businesses and brands needs to be in creators and good quality content – when the average 16 year old can create a sophisticated TikTok video in less time that it takes to make a decent cup of coffee, investing in good quality creative resources, or creators themselves, will be a good idea whether your audience is B2B or B2C.

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R EW I R E P ERSP ECTI VES

The case for strategy in a crisis

BY T EO D O R A C O ST E

If Channel 4 made a gritty docudrama about the last five years, they would call it “Unprecedented”.

Indeed, this is what Boris Johnson’s former communications director named his “blockbuster” podcast memoir about the PM’s last months in No.10. And it is the name Amazon Prime gave to the docuseries relating the last six weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency, with “unprecedented” access to the former president and his adult children.

But do we really still live in “unprecedented times” when the unprecedented has become the norm? Or are we just normalising a perpetual crisis?

It seems the data is firmly on the side of crisis.

Take the economy, our healthcare, our security, our environment – every day it all seems to be hanging by a thread. More than 9 in 10 UK households (92 per cent) have reported an increase in their cost of living. Inflation has remained stubbornly high after peaking at 11.1 per cent in October 2022. A record 7.4 million people in England are currently waiting for elective treatment from our much-mythologised NHS. In Europe, June was the hottest month in the 174year history of temperature monitoring. And in the US, the only issue trumping inflation and cost of living concerns is poor government leadership.

No doubt we’re living in extraordinary times characterised by new hardships – as well as age-old ones brought to bear in modern contexts. The prohibitively high cost of living is perhaps the most all-encompassing example of this. We hear time and time again in focus groups and surveys from people who are living pay-cheque to paycheque. They say they don’t trust the Government, they say it won’t make a difference who comes in next, and they say they know the country is bankrupt.

Naturally, the media has gone somewhat into overdrive and there is a dark cloud of pessimism hanging over much national and international reporting. But what can realistically be done? And what (if any) opportunities are left in this rather dire context?

1. Take the long view Our instinctive reaction when in crisis is to deal with that which is in front of us, with the urgent. We give in to our WYSIATI (What You See Is All There Is) and it shapes our focus, as renowned psychologist and global thinker Daniel Kahneman first explained in Thinking, Fast and Slow. We build a story from a limited number of facts, and that runs our response to crisis (i.e. System 1 or ‘fast’ thinking).

Taking a minute to pause can feel deeply counterproductive. And yet pausing and taking the long view often helps to gain perspective and evaluate the extent to which we really are living through “unprecedented” times. An example I always come back to, and which was a popular meme back in that first lockdown in 2020, is that of a person who was born in the 1900s who if they made it to 60 would have lived through a much deadlier pandemic, two world wars followed by deep depressions, and ended their life with Eastern Europe under the Iron Curtain and the world on the precipice of nuclear oblivion. One could say such a person would have looked upon the last few years of sensationalist headlines with a knowing and slightly amused eye.

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Another way to put this is to say that not all problems are created equal, and we need to get comfortable with exploring the various facets of problems before jumping to solutions and fixes. As Einstein famously said, “if I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” Einstein believed that the quality of the solution you generate is determined by your ability to articulate the problem you hope to solve. Good strategy deals with problems, strong strategists stay with the discomfort and ask why, again, and again, and again, until they are able to reframe the issue and come up with a creative solution.

This approach is true of smaller, isolated issues too and can inform the appropriate level of response or spotlight the gaps in data we need answers for. What is the broader context of your issue? Why has this happened?

What data can you collect to map it, expand it, explain it?

2. Reframe the problem to see the possible At the same time, we must be pragmatic and accept that data in itself will not give us the answer. Since the early ascendancy of Big Data in the early 2010s, we have been chasing the next model, platform, or NLP / AI-enabled solution to trawl through the sheer volume of information available to us and guide us in how it should best be utilised.

But the reality is that data rarely speaks for itself. Data is not Human (as Star Trek fans will attest), and neither is AI. The world would have you believe AI was invented in November last year, when, in fact, ChatGPT, which sparked something of a frenzy, is more humble than a layman might realise, and of course AI has its roots in the 1940s with the birth of cybernetics.

However advanced, a “learning” algorithm is just that – and it cannot replace thinking; in particular strategic and creative thinking – the kind which many crises require, and the kind which has seen us through crises time and time again.

We need to ask smarter, tougher questions. We need to reimagine the possible. We need to rewire. In the words of the pre-eminent American inventor Charles Kettering, “our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future”.

3. Build beyond A strategy is only as good as the plan to deliver it. In ad land, the greatness of strategy often rests on the creative, and the same applies in communication and, in particular, any kind of campaign for change that aims to bring people on board with an idea for that fateful first time. The idea needs to stick in public (and business and political) consciousness – when this is achieved, miracles can happen and a new possible future can be enacted.

To do this well, you need to allow your imagination to come to play. And in the corporate world, in particular in times of crises, this is most often dismissed.

However, all data points towards inviting imagination to the table. In The Case for Creativity, a wonderful book written by renowned planner James Hurman, he analysed almost two decades of creative and effectiveness award-winning campaigns to prove this. The creatively awarded campaigns in the IPA Effectiveness Databank (1996 – 2014) drove 11 times the market share gains at the equivalent level of share of voice. And say what you wish about the Cannes Lions, the Cannes Lions Creative Marketer of the Year companies outperform the stock market by a factor of three.

The same is true of great reputation-building campaigns, they too have an impact on market share.

Research shows that 30% of market capitalisation is underpinned by a company’s reputation, and that by quantifying and measuring reputation, a company can improve their business performance by as much as 63%.

I will leave you to work out what that means for your business with your financial directors.

There are structured formats to do this well, NESTA and IDEO in particular have great frameworks to follow if you are new to creative thinking. Or you can get a good agency on board. Either way inviting imagination to the table is paramount to charging your growth in times of crisis and restoring a sense of balance.

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A SL I CE OF L IF E AT P I Z Z A H U T

EVERY DAY IS SOMETHING NEW

Pizza Hut’s European CEO Nicolas Burquier talks to Gary Cleland about life on the front line of one of the world’s best known businesses.

“If you keep on smiling. If you don’t let the negative things get in your head – I truly believe that is what will drive you forward, and that is what will inspire people.”

Nicolas Burquier runs Pizza Hut’s European business. He believes resilience is key to being able to continue the success of a brand that this year celebrates its 50th year in Europe. And key to resilience is positivity.

“For me it is about how you react to difficult challenges, or to unexpected situations. How do you stay positive, and link that positivity to a growth mindset?” he says.

“I genuinely believe that in today’s world, leaders must have this ability because there is more and more uncertainty.”

“And the challenge is, amongst all of this uncertainty – how are you going to show up? How do you ensure that the manner in which you respond inspires confidence throughout the rest of the organisation? How do you demonstrate that growth mindset? How do you ensure that everybody is going to have the confidence to deliver their best in the middle of uncertainty?”

Resilence is business-critical for Burquier, as a leader and for the wider business. But his own perspective is drawn from far more personal experience – his daughter.

“16 years ago, my daughter was born with severe disabilities,” he says.

“At that point you are thinking, ‘how do I deal with this?’

And you know you are going to need to be strong, to be agile and to be positive.

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“You know if you can do that then this situation, which you were not expecting, is going to be better.”

His daughter underwent emergency surgery at eight months old.

Burquier says: “I remember she came out of the operating room, and when she opened her eyes, she smiled. And no one expected that, and it put everything else into context from then on.”

Today, running a business of thousands of people, working for one of the best known brands on the planet, Burquier has come to believe that a positive mindset can drive material business success.

He says: “Of course I have my own anxieties, but I believe if you can respond to adversity with positivity, then everybody throughout the organisation is going to respond in a different way.

“If you keep on complaining then you are never going to get to the same place.

“If you aren’t resilient as a leader then I don’t know how you can break through. Every day there is something new. Every day there is something unexpected.

“Resilience is the thing that allows you to break through, and to bring people with you.”

“If you keep on smiling. If you don’t let the negative things get in your head – I truly believe that is what will drive you forward, and that is what will inspire people.”

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INSIDE A CAMPAIG N

THE WORLD AMID A GLOBAL PANDEMIC, EXPO 2020 DUBAI BROUGHT THE WORLD FAIR TO THE MIDDLE EAST FOR THE FIRST TIME. HERE ARE FIVE WAYS HANOVER MADE IT POSSIBLE...

BY H U G H M O R R I S

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IN A DESERT After years in the planning, Expo 2020 Dubai was all but ready to start. And then as sure as eggs were eggs back in 2020, the pandemic hit. Just like that, the organisers had to press pause on a global project and shift the once-in-a-lifetime event back by a whole year.

If convening the world in a desert to find solutions to the problems facing humanity wasn’t challenging enough at the best of times, between Covid testing regimes and ever-changing travel restrictions, Expo 2020 had quite the task on its hands.

It is testament then to the extraordinary work of Hanover teams split across both London and Dubai who supported Expo on its journey, from planning through to delivery, that the six-month event was a huge success.

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INSIDE A CAMPAIG N

Welcoming more than 24 million people from 178 countries, Expo 2020 Dubai far exceeded expectations, bringing the world together during one of the most difficult moments in recent history. But how did we do it?

Here we share five elements that made it possible.

1

FAIL TO PREPARE, PREPARE TO FAIL

Hanover began working with Expo 2020 in 2016, resolved in the knowledge that preparation was key to ensuring the event was a success that lived long in the memory of both the UAE and the world. Preparations began immediately, laying the foundations for what would be the region’s first World Fair, a watershed moment for the Middle East.

We embedded a team of multilingual consultants in the Expo 2020 team, working across the most complex event ever hosted in Dubai, and began to draft contingency plans for every possible eventuality as work continued apace to prepare the event for opening.

2

TURNING A CHALLENGE INTO AN OPPORTUNITY

No one could have anticipated the impact of the pandemic when it wiped clean the world’s calendar in early 2020. The Expo team understood immediately they would have to act decisively in pushing back the event, deciding to retain the 2020 branding to maintain a sense of calm and continuity in the face of crisis. All of a sudden, the region’s first World Fair took on a new significance as it became one of the first in-person gatherings of such a size and scale to take place since the beginning of the pandemic – a beacon of hope for the global community.

Harnessing the power of international business eager to get the world back on its feet, we positioned Expo 2020 Dubai as the moment for businesses (of all sizes), international organisations and governments from all corners of the earth to form new partnerships and discover new opportunities in the pursuit of resilient and sustainable economic growth.

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3

THE UK’S HAND IN IT ALL

Expo may have had over 200 national participants, but there was inevitably a focus on what the UK would do.

We amplified the UK’s involvement, spotlighting the £1.2 billion worth of business won by UK companies with Expo organisers and suppliers ahead of the event, as well as the £188 million of ‘export wins’ achieved by UK companies associated with Expo 2020 Dubai. There remains cause for optimism with expectations for wider UK benefits during and after Expo 2020 to be significant – Milan Expo 2015 secured an economic boost worth £1 billion for the UK. When UK’s National Day rolled around in February, Hanover was delighted to welcome to Expo a delegation including Prince William the Duke of Cambridge, Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt, and Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries. More than 40 events were held to celebrate British culture, sport and innovation, with theatre performances, a “selfie from space” and the Queen’s Baton Relay.

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CONVENING THE WORLD’S MEDIA

Everyone knew Expo 2020 Dubai was happening but not everyone could get there. Thanks to a patchwork of different and variable travel restrictions inflicted on the world by the pandemic, Expo 2020 had to be agile in how it engaged with media, managing journalists through a web of traffic light tiers, Covid testing and biometric passports. Thankfully, the event had myriad specialist weeks and moments running throughout to shed light on different challenges and issues faced by the world – from Water Week to Health & Wellness.

Hanover worked hard to promote Expo at every stage and from every angle, landing architecture-focused op-eds in The Planner, global development interviews in Devex and flying out a video journalist from sustainable publication, edie. We also secured a visit from a senior business journalist from the Sunday Times, coverage in luxury magazine, Spears and a future-facing review in CityMonitor. But perhaps of more interest was the multi-platform paid campaign we executed with MailMetroMedia, with advertorials and takeovers running across the Metro newspaper and MailOnline during a homepage takeover, Expo 2020 content received nearly 30 million impressions.

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LEGACY PLANNING

Expo 2020 Dubai knew from the start that as important as the event itself, was what came after. District 2020 is a new city that has risen from the ashes of the World Fair, reimagining urban living across a smart, mixeduse community aligned with Expo’s vision of innovation and opportunity. Retaining as much as 80 per cent of original infrastructure, District 2020 is a sustainabilityfirst project, with water consumption down 50 per cent against a typical city and 22 per cent of energy derived from the sun.

Where Paris 1889 had the Eiffel Tower, Expo 2020 Dubai leaves the world with a blueprint of the cities of the future.

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THE V IEW F ROM DUBL I N

THE DIGITAL WORLD RESHAPING THE MEDIA LANDSCAPE

BY S H AU N A B U R D I S

The world is shrinking, so the saying goes.

But that is not to say that the globalisation and digitalisation of the planet is not experienced in different ways by different countries. This is certainly true of the view from Dublin.

Earlier this year Reuters released the 12th edition of its annual Digital News Report, providing an in-depth analysis of news consumption worldwide.

The findings of the 2023 report make for difficult reading for anyone working in the fast-evolving media ecosphere, from journalists to PRs, but it chimed particularly with how the landscape is changing in Ireland.

Interest in news continues to fall along with trust The report found that in Ireland interest in news continues to fall, with only...

52% of respondents stating that they were ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ interested – down five percentage points from 2022.

Trust in news has also fallen, with those who agree that they can trust news down five percentage points to...

47% more than distrust the news than trust.

It is important to note, however, that Ireland compares favourably to...

US UK

31% 32%

EU

40%

This may be because the framing of the legacy news media as the ‘enemy of the people’ by populists has, in fact, galvanised faith in its reputation in some quarters.

And because Ireland has a proud history of determined investigative and campaigning journalism uncovering institutional abuse, corruption and corporate malfeasance.

So, there is hope yet.

Social media most important source of news for younger audiences However, the step-change in the way people – particularly younger generations – access news raises further questions for the future direction of our media institutions. Although television remains the primary organ of news consumption, the growing role of social media as a source of news (as identified by 39 per cent of 18-24-year-olds) has caused a degree of alarm.

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The question of how legacy media responds to this shift and ensure they stay not just relevant but indispensable to the news-consuming public is a particularly fraught one. And it isn’t like RTÉ (Ireland’s equivalent of the BBC) can invest in innovation and talent to reinvigorate their offering, as their licence fee funding model looks to be increasingly unsustainable. The Irish Government is reviewing this in the autumn, with calls from some quarters for it to be provided through a new tax on Big Tech platforms.

The notion of market-dominant Big Tech firms being gifted a capital stake in public-interest journalism is being seriously considered as a means of keeping the Irish legacy media afloat, and gives a worrying indication of its current health.

Print media continues to decline The digitalisation of journalism has revolutionised the way news is consumed. Print media now faces the beginning of the end, according to Peter Vandermeersh, Chief Executive of Mediahuis Ireland. Vandermeersh has predicted that daily print newspapers will have disappeared within the next decade. In Ireland, print circulation numbers are forecast to decline by 7.41% with a reduction in associated revenue down to €151.45 million by 2026.

By contrast, digital circulation is expected to increase by 7.18% over the same period.

This progression is not unique to Ireland – newspaper markets across Europe have been hit as digitalisation has taken its toll on sales, circulation and general readership, as publications find themselves in competition with online outlets in a fast-paced market populated by a growing audience of digitally literate consumers.

The unstoppable rise of AI In one alarming section of the Reuters study, it is claimed that only a quarter of Irish people agree that they need to have a human editor to curate their news, as opposed to an algorithm. An incident in early 2023 brought this perspective into focus as Irish Times editor Ruadhán Mac Cormaic was forced to apologise after the paper published an opinion piece which had, in fact, been generated by artificial intelligence. The incident shone a spotlight on the particular challenges posed by AI, and its growing use, for all those involved in the creation and dissemination of news.

The rise of AI-generated content, which tripped up Mac Cormaic, has other, darker potentials than making a newspaper editor look careless. The worry that AI bots can be programmed to produce large amounts of content, (dis)information and ‘fake news’ – to coin a

phrase – is becoming an increasingly pressing one as the 2024 US presidential election approaches.

In this context, demands for transparency have become increasingly loud in our field. The European Commission is currently developing the AI Act, which aims to introduce regulations of AI at EU level. It appears that the approach taken will be similar to the Digital Services Act, which acknowledges that with the largest of social media companies comes an inherent societal risk, and this must be countered with transparency and accountability.

But there are serious concerns that this is very much too little, and far too late. Mustafa Suleyman, the founder of AI powerhouses DeepMind and Inflection AI, writes in a new book that we need to completely reimagine the way we approach tech regulation to avoid being overrun by the disruption and instability any bad actor could very readily unleash upon the world using artificial intelligence. He says societies will soon have to learn how to “contain” technology and AI in much the same way George Kennan proposed for the Soviet Union during the Cold War. And the information economy in which – as media and PR professionals – we all transact, is one of the main sites at which this existential transformation will play out.

So, what does this mean for the future of news?

In order to stay relevant, journalists and news organisations across Ireland will need to adapt quickly and leverage the opportunities presented by digital platforms. European media group Mediahuis, which owns several prominent newspapers in Ireland, including the Irish Independent, has invested in various AI technologies. But the industry must avoid becoming reliant on AI, and instead look to bridge the knowledge gap between technology experts and journalists to synthesise a balanced harmony of skills to create a better, more informative and interactive news environment.

With the disruption and challenges ahead, the goal must be to understand your audience, as business models will need to shift to meet the dynamic consumer. As PR professionals we also must tackle the issues raised by the Reuters report. Quality content is one thing, but we have a responsibility to also ensure we are behaving in ethical and transparent ways. Truth, accuracy, and quality must underpin all our work – this will not only help build a strong and durable media ecosystem but will also benefit our clients in a world where trust still – just about – matters.

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BEH I ND THE BYL INE

Jess Winch

‘Behind the Byline’ captures the compelling stories and experiences of senior journalists throughout their careers, offering a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the world of journalism. In this series, we explore the challenges, highlights, and insights gained along the way.

This month, we feature a Q&A with Jess Winch, the News Editor at Tortoise and former Foreign Editor at the Telegraph.

What story is gripping you right now?

The state of Afghanistan. This summer marked two years since the Taliban swept into the Afghan capital, Kabul. I was heavily pregnant at the time and managing news coverage for the Daily and Sunday Telegraph as the newspaper’s foreign editor, while also trying to help our correspondents get their fixers out - fixers are the local reporters and translators who are critical to telling the story, sometimes at great risk to themselves. Two years on and women are being totally erased from public life - the term “gender apartheid” seems completely accurate to me. Meanwhile many of those that escaped to the UK are being made homeless. It’s a story we’re covering in our flagship newsletter, the Daily Sensemaker.

What story will dominate 2024?

The US presidential election. At the moment it looks like the 2024 race will be a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump - a pairing that wasn’t particularly inspirational first time round, when both men were four years younger. But Biden is running with no significant Democrat challenger, while Trump is currently the clear Republican frontrunner, despite facing four sets of criminal charges. Tortoise is planning a podcast series in the autumn on the rise and fall of Trump ally Rudy Giuliani, as a first look at some of Trump’s co-conspirators.

The way society consumes news has changed – what shift has had the biggest impact?

I keep thinking back to a short video I watched in journalism school where two reporters in a US newsroom were uploading their first news articles online - with no paywall or anything similar. They said something like: “We’re just going to see what happens.” What happened was people became used to getting news for free, while internet advertising gutted newspapers’ advertising revenue.

How will we consume news in a decade’s time?

Trust in news providers will be critical - but I expect people will consume news from a variety of sources across broadcast, print, audio and social media. Tortoise is investing in news and investigative podcasts, which resonate with younger audiences, so that seems a good bet. But I love turning the pages of a newspaper on a Saturday morning - I can dive into stories I might not otherwise read online. I think print will survive as a part of the overall mix.

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What is the greatest threat to journalism?

I’m worried about the impact of artificial intelligence. Not so much the risk that AI chatbots will replace journalists (at least not yet), as they are not reliable enough to trust with much. Generative AI models do not care about truth or accuracy, they just predict the correct word order. But another risk is that these chatbots could cut off web traffic to news websites. Google, for example, could answer queries directly with a chatbot (possibly without attribution), rather than serving up links. If that happens - still a big if - it would reduce traffic to publishers and in turn harm their remaining advertising and subscription business.

Corporate responsibility and social purpose are becoming more important for business. How does the media decide what is genuine and what is ‘reputation washing’?

A healthy sense of scepticism and not taking press releases at face value.

For example, thinking about whether an announcement fits with the company’s long-term strategy, or if it seems like more of an image boost pegged to an event such as International Women’s Day. If you could be a journalist at any point in the last 200 years, when would it be and why?

I would have liked to work in the pre-internet age, perhaps the 1980s, when local news was thriving and newsrooms had the budget to cover dozens of foreign correspondents and large expense accounts. But working in a newsroom today means you can reach more people through so many mediums - and the industry is slowly becoming more diverse.

What was your first story to cover as a journalist?

My first proper story was a piece from Cambodia in 2010 on the UNbacked tribunal for the Khmer Rouge, which was published in The Sunday Times. Thousands of Cambodians were tortured and killed between 1975 and 1979 in Tuol Sleng prison, known as S-21 - and the prison commander, Kaing Guek Eav, or Comrade Duch, was the first senior Khmer Rouge leader to face trial. I interviewed some of the few survivors of the prison ahead of the verdict - it was very special to see it in print. When I first started as a graduate trainee at the Telegraph, I also managed to get a pass to report on the London 2012 Olympics that was a joyous few weeks.

What is your favourite story to have worked on?

I’m not sure I can call it a favourite, but I certainly learnt a lot managing coverage of the first Trump campaign.

I vividly remember going to an editorial conference just after he came down the golden escalator at Trump Tower to announce his candidacy in 2015 thinking, “This is going to be fun.” I don’t think the news media was at all prepared to cover a candidate - and later a US president - like Donald Trump - a man who slips so easily into lies and exaggeration.

His speeches were often covered live without any corrections or context. That’s changed now.

What would you say to a 12-year-old considering a career in journalism?

It’s not always an easy industry to work in, but it is a privilege to tell people’s stories and frame the conversations that matter to society. Find stories that you feel are important, because that is the first step in making them matter to a reader, or viewer, or listener. And don’t be afraid to ask a stupid question.

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AND F INAL LY...

What’s hot on the frontline of a changing digital world.

ARE WE ECO UNFRIENDLY?

DIAGNOSIS LEARNER

Britons are doing less to care for the environment than they did in 2019. YouGov studied attitudes towards environmentally friendly behaviours in 2019 and again in 2023 and found that in 10 out of the 12 categories, Brits are less likely to behave in ways that reduce harm to the environment.

Researchers from Cardiff University say a new AI system, aimed at supporting radiologists’ decision making, could help improve the accuracy of medical diagnostics and lead to earlier breast cancer detection.

WINGING IT Alphabet-owned Wing and Apian have partnered to launch a service delivering medicines, laboratory samples, and medical supplies in parts of South Dublin and its suburbs, via autonomous drones. The initiative marks an expansion of Wing’s operations in Europe, with UK trials already underway in a number of locations.

DECLINE-TIME TV Broadcast and cable networks made up less than half of all TV use in July — the first time linear TV viewing has fallen below 50 per cent in Nielsen’s tracking viewing time by platform.

50% 40

AP WARNING OVER AI The Associated Press has released new writing guidelines, urging journalists to avoid using AI to create publishable content; writers have also been asked to confirm their sources are “free of AI generated content.”

OK, COMPUTER A survey by YouGov has found that almost half of Brits are not worried about their work becoming automated in their lifetime – this was true across all age groups. However, whilst 50% of 25-49 year olds are optimistic about finding new work in the event of their job being automated, only 36% of 18-24 year olds felt the same level of optimism.

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