✅ Public relations and management GPT
A week in management, media and public relations
Generative AI gets much attention in marketing and public relations for its role in creating low-value content and producing the first draft of anything. Reductive AI is arguably more powerful and impactful in public relations and management.
This is the argument I’ll be making to 2,500 practitioners at the Executives' Global Network (EGN) conference today called Unlocking AI for Next-Generation Communication, organised by Jesper Anderson. EGN is a coaching and training network for managers in partnership with Harvard Business Publishing.
Two weeks ago, OpenAI enabled a feature of ChatGPT that allows you to train and build your own GPT. The tool enables you to upload up to ten 10MB documents, which is a large amount of information.
A warning: please only cut and paste or upload documents to web-based tools after checking data management policies and asking yourself whether you trust the vendor. Your management team or IT department will have developed guidelines in this area.
I’ve used the reports published by the CIPR AI in the PR panel since 2018 to build a GPT to help practitioners understand the impact of AI at the organisational, managerial and public relations function level. You can check it out for yourself, but you'll need a paid OpenAI account to access the chatbot.
It abstracts from a significant body of work created by some smart people and so naturally produces some interesting answers and provocations on management issues such as ethics, governance and data privacy, and the future of public relations work at both a tactical and managerial level.
If you’re interested in exploring these issues within your organisation through workshops, training or rethinking your workflow please get in touch.
Good and bad practice
💩 TURD TROUBLE: Comedian Joe Lycett staged an elaborate hoax involving a fake poop podcast and spillage into the Liverpool docks to draw attention to the issue of sewage dumping by UK water companies. Lycett is to release a documentary on Channel 4 investigating water company pollution and lack of government action on the issue. Source: Turdcast.
🔲 SKIPPING BLACK FRIDAY: DECIEM brand Ordinary was among small businesses that closed their websites for business on Black Friday to raise awareness of sustainable shopping. It argued that the retail frenzy promotes excessive and impulsive purchasing. Discounts were available to online shoppers at other times, so it’s not entirely altruistic. Source: Cosmopolitan.
🚘 TOYOTA AD BAN: The UK advertising regulator upheld a complaint against Toyota for showing SUVs being driven irresponsibly off-road in a way that disregarded environmental impact, breaching rules on social responsibility even though no direct green claims were made. The decision highlights the need for marketers to consider the broader environment and social context. Source: ASA.
‼️ QR CODE SCAM: A 71-year-old woman lost £13,000 after scanning a fake QR code took her to a fraudulent website, allowing scammers to steal her card information and take out loans in her name. This type of QR code scam is rising, with over 400 cases reported to the UK's national fraud reporting centre in just the first nine months of 2023. Source: BBC.
Industry
🖼 IMAGE LAUNDERING: Edelman has been paid millions of dollars by repressive regimes to help boost their images and conceal rights abuses while also publishing a "trust barometer" purporting to show high public trust. Experts warn that Edelman's trust surveys likely overstate support in autocracies and should not be directly compared to democracies. Source: The Guardian.
🚨 CRISIS OF CONSUMPTION: The ad industry faces criticism for driving consumption that contributes to climate change through campaigns promoting polluting products such as large vehicles and long-haul flights. There are calls for the industry to take more responsibility for the emissions resulting from the products they promote. Source: The Guardian.
Media
🗞 TELEGRAPH TUG-OF-WAR: The culture secretary intends to launch a public-interest investigation into the Abu Dhabi-backed bid for the Telegraph newspapers. The Foreign Office wants to avoid scrutinising the deal too closely to maintain good relations with the UAE. Source: The Guardian.
📻 LEGACY NEWS LEADS: A IPSOS poll of 2,300 UK adults for the Science Media Centre found that traditional news outlets remain the predominant place where UK adults get science information. It also found that much of the science content people see on social media originally comes from these traditional news outlets. Source: Science Media Centre.
🔍 GOOGLE HITS PUBLISHERS: Since September, Google has rolled out several major search algorithm updates, including "helpful content" and "core" updates, leading to significant traffic and revenue drops for many news publishers who have traditionally focused on scale and search engine optimisation. Source: Press Gazette.
Artificial Intelligence
🧑💻️ OPENAI WHIPLASH: After OpenAI's board abruptly fired co-founder and CEO Sam Altman, a massive staff revolt combined with pressure from investors and influential tech figures led to a complete reversal in four days. It demonstrates the challenge for boards exerting governance over founder-CEOs who have strong support internally and externally. Source: Financial Times.
⬆️ CLAUDE AI UPGRADE: AI startup Anthropic has released Claude 2.1, an upgraded version of its conversational assistant, with new capabilities including a 200,000 word context window to parse long documents, 50%+ accuracy improvements, early integration with company data sources, and customizability via system prompts. Source: Anthropic.
🤔 AI: FRIEND OR FOE?: The USC Annenberg Center for Public Relations' Relevance Report 2024 highlights the increasing relevance of AI in communications and public relations. It highlights AI's transformative role, the need for fluid organisational structures and cross-disciplinary teams, generative AI's impact, AI as an audience itself and the ethical dilemmas posed by AI. Source: USC Annenberg Center for Public Relations.
Book review
📖 HOW BRANDS BLOW: Creative duo Ryan Wallman and Giles Edwards have produced a sequel to their bestselling book Delusions of Grandeur called How Brands Blow. It’s an entertaining and thought-provoking book about marketing practices. It deals with important areas of practice and is packed with thoughtful provocations. Source: Wadds Inc.
Wadds Inc. has partnered with NewsWhip to explore how corporate communications and public relations can support management with data and insights, including during issues and crises. We’d welcome your perspective via this short survey. The findings and results will be anonymised.
Thank you to the following members of the House of Marketing & PR community of practice for sharing and debating stories covered in the newsletter over the last week: Richard Bagnall, Slavina Dimitrova, Charlotte Dimond, Craig McGill, Alan Morrison, Mandy Pearse, Andrew Bruce Smith, Sarah Waddington CBE and Rhian Williams.