In this episode we continue to unpack the findings of the PRGN Influence Insights research study, which surveyed 550 business, marketing, and communications leaders in over 40 countries to uncover their priorities in public relations and communications.

Bill Southard and Joaquín Fernández discuss on the survey results and their implications in the European context. They explore the differences between European and U.S. approaches to brand strategy, purpose-driven branding, and the importance of authenticity in communications. They also touch on the issue of employee advocacy, revealing that employees are seen as key brand ambassadors, sometimes even more impactful than mainstream media.

Key Takeaways

• The PRGN Influence Insights survey shows that brand influence is a critical priority for C-suite executives globally, with 89% recognizing its importance.
• A significant finding from the survey is that 94% of leaders believe trust and reputation are the most vital drivers of brand influence.
• European leaders place a higher emphasis on purpose-driven branding compared to their U.S. counterparts, with 69% wanting guidance in this area.
• Cultural and societal issues are more significant in Europe, with 73% saying they weigh heavily on brand influence.
• Employee advocacy is recognized as a significant driver of brand influence, equating its impact to that of mainstream media, which is crucial for brand messaging.

About the Guest

Joaquín Fernández is co-founder of Marlow, a Madrid-based consultancy that specializes in Corporate Influence and Go-to-Market strategies aimed at strengthening business positioning and reputation. With over 30 years of experience in corporate, political, and financial communication, he has led high-impact projects across Spain, Latin America, and the United States. He is a specialist in communication strategies and large-scale crisis management, experience he gained as Chief of Cabinet to the Spanish Minister of Defense and through his work with the Communications Department at Ferrovial, the leading global infrastructure company. In journalism, Joaquín has worked for several major media outlets, including five years as Managing Editor at The Wall Street Journal in New York City. He holds a degree in Business Administration (E-4) from ICADE University and a Master’s in Journalism from El País newspaper.

Bill Southard is founder and CEO of Southard Communications in New York. He also serves as Marketing Committee Chair for PRGN. Bill launched Southard Communications in 1994 and has since experienced consistent and considerable growth and today represents a broad range of clients across a myriad of industries. In his day-to-day role at the agency, Bill drives the creative process, provides ongoing strat egic counsel and manages all crisis communications on behalf of agency clients. With more than 35 years of communications experience, Bill has counseled some of the country's leading Fortune 500 firms. Prior to founding Southard Communications, he was president of Earle Palmer Brown Public Relations and previous to that General Manager with Dorf & Stanton Communications.

About the Hosts

Dr. Adrian McIntyre is a cultural anthropologist, media personality, speaker, and strategic communications consultant for PR agencies and marketing firms. He's lived in over 30 countries and spent more than a decade in the Middle East and Africa as a researcher, journalist, communications adviser, media spokesperson, and storytelling consultant. He earned a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a Fulbright scholar and National Science Foundation fellow. Adrian helps agency leaders strengthen their positioning, sharpen their messaging, boost their visibility, and win new clients by replacing impersonal, intrusive and ineffective marketing tactics with authentic human conversations.

PRGN Presents is brought to you by Public Relations Global Network, the world’s local public relations agency. Our executive producer is Adrian McIntyre. The show is produced by the team at Speed of Story, a B2B communications firm in Phoenix, AZ.

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

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.

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, please visit prgn.com. And now let's meet our guest for this episode.

Hi, I'm Bill Southard, the founder and CEO of Southard Communications. It's a firm that I founded 31 years ago. We're based in New York City, offer a full suite of services and capabilities, and I'm proud to say that I'm the chair of the Marketing Communications Committee with the Public Relations Global Network.

Hi, I'm Joaquín Fernández. I'm the co founder of Marlow. Marlow is an agency based in Madrid, Spain. We founded the firm 10 years ago and we specialize in strategic communications and public affairs.

I am delighted that you're both here with us today. PRGN has been talking about this survey, the Influence Insights survey. Bill, for those who haven't heard about this before, haven't seen any of the previous episodes or read any blog posts, why don't you just briefly give a recap of the overall goal of this survey, why the network felt it was important to do this research, and then we'll get into some of the details in a European context.

Sure. You know, PRGN as an organization, thought it was time for us to take a look at a subject that would have a universal impact on agencies not only in North America, but also in the other regions that we service, which is APAC, Latin America, as well as Europe that Joaquín's going to talk to.

We discussed what we thought the topic would be and we settled on brand influence because that's something that has been important, continues to be important, and will continue to be increasingly important as we move forward.

We also felt that because of evolving customer expectations, that it was a subject where there probably would be quite a few surprises if you looked at the impact of brand influence today versus five or ten years ago, obviously, given the fact that digital and social are increasingly important channels in communicating. So we enacted a survey in the fall of last year. We surveyed roughly 550 C-suite executives. Some of them were specific to communications, some of them were marketing, some of them were CEOs. We had representation across 40 different countries. So this truly is a global survey that we conducted.

And we spent the last couple months just sharing the results with our communities, our clients, members of PRGN as well as outside PRGN. And we've been fortunate in that with the PRGN podcast, what we've done is we've taken a look at the results and the impact for each region. So we already did North America. Joaquín has joined us today to talk about Europe specifically. And then we'll have a third session with the APAC region.

Now, there are some top line findings that I think really help set the stage for this conversation. As you said, Bill, brand influence, the results show, is a top C-suite priority. 89% of leaders globally said that brand influence was critical to their success. 67% said its importance was going to increase over the next three to five years.

And when you look at what drives that influence, it's very clear at the top are trust and reputation. 94% of leaders said reputation and trust together were the two most important factors.

Joaquín, your firm specializes in building trust and reputation for your clients in Spain and in the EU more generally. Before we get into these details, can you just give us your gut level reaction to the survey results? When you first saw this stuff through the lens of a PR professional, communications professional based in the EU, what were your first thoughts?

My first thoughts were that, well, it hit right on the spot. I mean, it highlights exactly what we work on every day here in Spain and in Europe. I mean, as you say, it gives a lot of value to reputation, to trust. And that's exactly what we think customers are valuing now.

I mean valuing strategically, but maybe not financially because they cut and cut more and more. For instance, in Spain right now, we can say that there's much more interest or there's much more value. C-level executives value much more the strategic value of communication for building credibility, trust and reputation as a whole.

Now, it's interesting you pointed to budgets. Of course, global economic uncertainty, political, let's just call it instability -- I don't know what else is the word for things when agendas change left and right, not just in the United States, where of course this is pronounced, but also in many different political environments around the world. Companies have to navigate this uncertainty and survive. So yes, budgets are constrained, to say the least. But let's talk about what they actually value. Let's talk about what matters to them.

One of the things that I noticed here in these findings is that European CEOs view thought leadership as a much more influential channel than their counterparts in the United States. 74% in Europe, 64% in the United States. Also social media considered to be much more influential in Europe. Does this align with your assessment of what matters to leaders in the EU?

Yes, I mean, and also because of my experience, I used to work in New York City for many years, some time ago. So it's crazy to see that there's the differences between how, for instance, US Audiences value these channels.

I mean, I think that all European audiences may respond more to authenticity and values driven content, especially from employees, leadership and even media. Although the trust in media right now is a little bit lower. I mean, like good media or serious media, they tend to trust a little bit more than maybe in the US I would say so.

Yes, there's more, I mean, they are much less into commercially focused communications, into branded content, and more into thought leadership and media and serious media. They value that more than maybe in the U.S. yes, I would say a little bit more. I mean, the differences are not huge. It's just that it's a little bit more. Yeah, and I would say that we use that a lot in our strategies. We focus a lot in earned media, in thought leadership messaging through those channels because they build up credibility.

You know, it's interesting you say that the gap is not huge, but in the section of the survey, when asked about the future, when asked about what are your priorities and what is it that you want more guidance on from agencies, PR firms, communications professionals. One significant difference between the European leaders and the US Leaders has to do with this issue of purpose-driven branding.

Agree.

You just said value-driven, purpose-driven communication plays better in the European market. This was a very distinct difference. 69% of European leaders want more guidance on purpose driven branding. They want to know how to do this better and more effectively compared to just 49% in the U.S. A massive delta between the two.

Joaquín, let me ask you, what does that mean in practice? What does a purpose driven strategy or values driven communication look like for your firm and your clients?

Well, yes, it applies perfectly to what we do at Marlow, because I mean, every time a client asks us to build up some kind of project, something can be commercial just to get out some messaging. We always, we always try at least to find a unifying cause.

I mean, not only talk about what he wants to talk and make it a little bit bigger, a little bit more umbrella, like to make it sound like a cause. You're defending something a little bit more valuable than just what you want to commercialize or what you want to say in your company.

Because we think the Europeans and our stakeholders or key stakeholders value more when there are deeper meaning and purpose in the messaging, when we have some more values in what we say. Because Europeans, I think they prioritize a little bit more ethical practices, sustainability, authenticity.

And we need to give the messaging and everything we do more cause like strategy than just then just go for the commercial.

Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And we'll come back to sustainability. I have a specific question for you.

But first, Bill, there's another metric here that correlates exactly with what Joaquín is saying, which is that inverse to Europe, the United States values sales and revenue as a metric of measuring impact. So that correlates directly with this. Your firm focuses a lot on direct sales. You work with product based businesses.

And sales as a metric is of course central in e-commerce and retail and many other sectors. I'm sure it's not not important in Europe because top line revenue is what makes a healthy business or nonprofit or government function. But what do you make of this, Bill, specifically in terms of this regional difference, sales being less of a way to measure impact in Europe than it.

Is in the U.S. yeah, I really think, and I'll take this in two parts, one is the reason why is that you've seen there's been a big shift in retail visibility in the U.S. many retailers have closed stores, gone out of business altogether. Most of the brands that we are launching here from a consumer standpoint, are direct to consumer.

So they're either, you know, they're selling their products not at retail, but they're selling them online through their Shopify or another platform or through Amazon. And what we're seeing is that how they're viewing influence is okay.

What campaigns and tactics have you put in place that have directly correlated to sales? Right. What impact? The dangerous thing for me, Adrian, truthfully, is that it lessens the importance of building overall brand awareness of, of.

Of creating that trust and building your reputation, which I think is going to have an impact in your long term sustainability as a brand. That's one of the fears that I have.

But I think the way that agencies are approaching this, I think this is true in Europe and Joaquín can speak to this, is that, you know, we've shifted earned. We're still doing earned media, but we're doing influencer marketing, we're doing paid influencer, we're doing paid digital, we're managing social media.

And I think a lot of that is driven by the fact that if we don't use sales and revenue as a metric, we'll get our budgets cut even further because clients will be disappointed that at least some of the money that we're spending and some of the effort that we're putting forth isn't directly attributable to getting people to go to a point of purchase and to converting.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I think there's an evolving conversation. It's probably still early, even though it's been going on for several years in the realm of B2B and B2C marketing, specifically with regard to technology and attribution and what gets counted. I said to Abbie once on another podcast we do together that sometimes it feels a little bit like the old joke where there's a guy, a drunk, on his hands and knees outside a bar, and the passerby stops and says, hey, man, do you need help? And he says, oh, I'm just looking for my car keys. He's underneath this street light, looking around in the grass there. And the passerby says, "oh, did you drop them here?" He said, "no, I dropped him over there. But the light's better here." I feel like with our digital...

Yeah, it's a little bit like that. Yeah.

It feels sometimes like our digital measurements are like that. Like we keep looking at our analytics and our data studio.

Yeah.

And we ... the light's better there.

Yeah.

But is that where the keys are? I'm not so sure. And I think that's why this study in particular is so interesting. It's showing that brand influence defined much more broadly is important.

Yeah.

To companies and to leaders everywhere. Joaquín, I want to come back to you. You pointed out that...

Before you say that, let me stop here because I want to go back to what Bill said. I mean, Bill is completely right. I mean, of course, but Bill is more into B2C. That's marketing. And we are much more. I mean, from what we do, it's more about B2B and building reputation.

And we have the real problem as professionals of communication, corporate communications, building up reputation, is that, how do you measure that? Because there's no way to measure it.

Even when we get successful and we do things right, marketing people will come and will say, that's ours. We built that. There's never a way to imply what's the value on a good reputation? Unless you have a crisis and then, yes, you see how much value you got for making for having a good relation with media or having a good relation with the authorities and having a good and credible brand. But to go back to what Bill said, of course, I mean, that's exactly that. Now we have much more meaningful ways to measure, but not for reputation the way we need to do it. There's still not a good measurement for what we do exactly. And financially, I mean.

Yeah, for sure. You pointed out, Joaquín, in the analysis you prepared before this conversation that even though customer loyalty, the survey results show this is the top metric both globally, in other words, overall all the regions, and also specifically in individual regions, customer loyalty is number one. However, in Europe, you prioritize brand equity more than in the US, 24% versus 19%. Not a huge difference, but statistically significant.

So let's put these things together for a minute, because sometimes throwing around these words, we can lose sight of the practices involved here. So looking at brand equity through the lens of reputation and trust, core areas of expertise for Marlow ... This is a two part question. How do you advise your clients in the EU context to build and maintain brand equity? And how would you advise a brand from outside wanting to enter the European market should operate through that same lens?

That's a very good question. I mean, it's a very broad question. Let me just try to make it a little bit more simpler. I would always advise -- I will go again to what I said before -- to build your brand about values, about authenticity, about having a better, bigger cause. I mean, your brand must stand for bigger values and for meanings that would feel connection to the audience, to their audience.

I mean, in Europe, we value a lot. I mean, I think that people value a lot when they feel authenticity, when they feel there's a value. There's something else to say than just, I have a good product, buy it. When people can say, this product represents some kind of ... It doesn't have to be always a very good value or a very high, high end value, but it has to be something that people can project some humanity, some authenticity and some directness.

And you spoke about building causes, not just building sales channels. That's really great, really insightful. One of the things that Europe values clearly much higher than the United States. That's the direct comparison we'll make. We could compare to other regions as well is sustainability. "ESG" has become a dirty word in The United States, along with "woke," and other things.

Inclusion. Diversity. Immigrant.

Right. Exactly. A country of immigrants, built literally with the hands and backs of enslaved people, has decided that none of those things can be talked about. That's a whole other conversation I'd like to have.

But specifically with regard to corporate sustainability reporting as a channel. So obviously this is dramatically higher impact on influence in Europe, in part because there's many more companies doing it, because it is required by regulatory structures. But speak to me about this. Is this gap, the gap between corporate ESG influence -- 59% in Europe, just 37% in the U.S. -- is that gap purely about regulation, or do you think maybe there's something else at play?

Oh, I mean, in Europe, ESG is going down, too. I mean, it's a trend. It's a trend that we cannot avoid because, I mean, but it's not going down as violently as in the U.S. but yes, I mean, ESG, although it's still a value and people value it, corporations now feel, I mean, they have been obliged by the regulations. We have a very tough regulation in Europe, the toughest in the world, but the compliance is getting a little bit lower, a little bit softer.

The European Union announced that the set of regulations they will have companies apply will become less demanding or less compulsory as it was going to be. They're relaxing a little bit. When I say relaxing, it's not that they're going backwards, but they're not as compliant or as, how you say, exigent, as they were. So, yes, I would say that ESG is on. It's going down a little bit in Europe, but it's still a great value.

And brands and companies have to pay attention to still build some kind of ESG messaging, but it's not as strong as it used to be. Still, ESG is here to stay. And people here in Europe, they are convinced about climate change, they are convinced about the role of corporations in building a better world. And that's not going to change as much as in the us, but it's still going down.

Yeah. And at some point, I think the sheer realities, I mean, I live in Phoenix, Arizona. I'm from California, I've lived all over the world, but for the past 10 years or so, we've been here in Arizona. The last two summers have been hotter than any summer in recorded history. And just a point of this, you can argue with climate change all you want, if you want to bury your head in the sand and deny science, but just anecdotally, let me tell you that last year we broke the record for having 136 consecutive days where the temperature never went below 100 degrees Fahrenheit, including overnight. So even at 2 o'clock in the morning, you go outside, the temperature's still over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Crazy.

I should have the calculation to Celsius on the tip of my brain for the rest of the world, but I don't. Because, American. Sorry.

Let's shift gears slightly here. And I want to end with one other really interesting topic that's come out of this survey.

Bill, you've pointed this out in several of the other conversations and in the blog posts, but I want to have you speak to it and then Joaquín will give you the final word here. This has to do with the role of employees, employee advocacy, employee communication as a significant driver of brand influence. This is one of the things that really just jumps off the page. If you look at the top line results. Globally, 63% say that employees having an impact on brand influence, and that is nearly equal to mainstream media at 66%. So employee communication and internal engagement is as much a brand driver as mainstream media. Now that's interesting. Bill, are companies taking the voice of the employee seriously enough?

No, I don't think so. I'll be honest. I, you know, I think, the role of the employee has been undervalued here in the United States. I think they are one of your most principal assets. They're on social media, they're going to events, they're talking to friends. There's all kinds of sites out there now that will review, like, what it's like to work at a particular place.

They're ambassadors, right? They're ambassadors for me. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, they are. They are your biggest brand ambassador. And I think that where there may be a disconnect is one is I think some companies undervalue them.

And I don't know if they communicate those brand values to the employees as effectively as they should. Right. Because I do think that one of the things that is consistent in this is that having consistent messaging, right.

Whether it's your social media, whether it's your website, whether it's your earned media, your paid digital, what you tell employees, how they're. That, that, that is still critically important to have that consistency of message that you can push out to your external audiences.

And I think companies should really take, should really understand the importance of your employees as probably the single greatest brand ambassador to creating influence for your brand.

Joaquín, for several decades now the European Union has been a kind of experiment, although that's unfair. It's been successful in many ways, struggling in others, but an experiment in a multicultural, multilingual, multifaceted democracy. You've pointed out that the survey results say societal and cultural issues rank much higher in significance in Europe. 73% in Europe versus 59% in North America. Again, from a practical perspective, as you're building causes, not campaigns.

Good.

As you're working on these long-term brand strategies, how would you advise leaders, whether they're your clients or they're your future clients, to think about the employee voice in the mix of influence?

I totally agree with Bill that employees are not valued enough. Even if we say that in Europe, maybe they count a little bit more or whatever because we have stronger unions, maybe, but that doesn't count.

I mean, in a way, the corporations should take into account much more the voice of their employees. They should make them louder and feel that they are one of the principal ambassadors. In Europe we have two kinds of companies.

We have the corporations, which are a little bit more like in the US and they value the talent they have and maybe they don't do exactly as Bill said and the messaging is not as unified. First of all, for a good message you have to lower or to completely annihilate the hypocrisy. You cannot say something that you don't do as a company.

So with your credibility, I mean, you cannot say to your employees that we are the most human company in the world. And then you don't care for them or you don't treat them humanly.

So you cannot do that because otherwise your employees are not going to be your brand ambassadors and you're not going to build credibility. But as I was saying, normally corporations do some internal communication good.

But what we have in Europe, we have a lot of family owned business, family owned for many decades or even for three, four or five generations.

And those companies, and they have over 1 billion in sales or billion euros in sales and even being huge, with a lot of being really huge companies, they still don't get the communication, the reputation communication, internal and external.

But it's really hard for them to understand that it's not only about finance, marketing or selling, it's also about building a good trusted message that your employees and everyone around will carry in their heart. And that's something that we still have to make understand our leaders in Europe and maybe around the world.

I think what Joaquín is saying is right. It's, you know, you have to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

Exactly.

Because the other thing that came across loud and clear is consumers and business leaders, they want authenticity and they know authenticity when they see it.

Exactly. I agree with you.

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

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