1. WHAT CAN THE PR INDUSTRY
LEARN FROM KUNG FU PANDA?
Ben Shipley
Managing Director, Spectrum Group
Comms Con 2017
@benshipley

2. Why does the PR industry need to
learn from anything, let alone an
animated panda with sick martial
arts skills?

3. Our clients are under more
pressure than ever to show the
impact of their function at a
business level

4. Competition for marketing budget
is increasing at a faster rate than
the budgets themselves

5. PR agencies are lucky if they
capture five percent of those
marketing dollars.

6. So, what can
the PR industry
learn from
Kung Fu Panda?

7. If all that you
do is what you
can, you will
never be more
than what you
are right now

8. We all need to worry less
about what “PR” is.

9. We all need to question whether
the structures in our agencies hold
us back from change

10. Learning
never stops.

11. Be curious about your clients, your learned
colleagues and the shiny new stuff

12. Embrace your
forebears

13. “I’ve never found a satisfactory
phrase that describes what I do.”
Ivy Lee

14. “It is fashionable to talk about changing man. A
communicator must be concerned with
unchanging man, with her obsessive drive to
survive, to be admired, to succeed, to love, to
take care of her own.”
Bill Bernbach

15. “Leaders grasp nettles.”
David Ogilvy

16. “The three main elements of public relations are practically
as old as society: informing people, persuading people, or
integrating people with people. Of course, the means and
methods of accomplishing these ends have changed as
society has changed.”
Edward Bernays

17. Be the
Dragon Warrior

18. “PR builds brands,
advertising maintains them”
Geoff Ross

19. Media, advertising and digital
agencies are co-opting PR language
to explain the future of marketing

20. Consider how you work with the
agencies that have traditionally
made up the mix, as well as the
newer players in the ecosystem

21. Create your
own style

22. Creativity is more in demand now
than it has ever been

23. Selling creativity is more difficult
than dreaming it up

24. Find inner peace

25. Complexity does not equal value

26. Use impact as your guide

27. Master new
techniques

28. Nobody likes a press release

29. As an industry we stuffed up
social, let’s not do the same with
content.

30. Become a master of Chi

31. 2017 will see spend on data-driven
marketing across both B2B and
B2C companies double.
Winterberry Research

32. A single unified measure of PR
exists, and it has existed all along

33. Take on the big guys and win

34. There has never been an easier
time to compete on a global stage

35. You need to invest in video.

36. Be nice,
even when
things get
awkward

37. Search is the new long term memory.

38. We work in a small and well
connected industry

39. Questions?

40. Thanks.
ben@spectrumgroup.is @benshipley