The Holmes Report’s Global Public Relations Summit – PRovoke is the most important event in the global communications world’s calendar, attracting more than 400 delegates and 100 speakers each year. Its fifth edition was held in Miami, from the 24^th to the 26^th of October, 2016. Here, Jenifer Risi (Global CCO and head of Ogilvy Media Influence Network), Michele Anderson (MD of Oglivy Chicago), Donna Sanker (Chief Marketing Officer at BP Fuels North America) and Art Zambianchi (Executive Director at Mindshare) came together to discuss Earned Influence and the Power of Integration.

With media proliferation and the boom of social and digital marketing, the lines between disciplines are blurring faster than ever before. Campaigns today aren’t just restricted to advertising or public relations. They are integrated across the marketing disciplines, which only adds to their effectiveness. An idea for a campaign today must have several properties, in order to succeed.  It must be authentic and creative. It should also have the ability to translate into a consumer conversation and earn trust and influence.

Public Relations professionals have always had the right to join this conversation, win trust and change minds, which allows them to lead integrated campaigns, a privilege that advertising professionals traditionally enjoyed. Clients don’t care where the idea comes from anymore. They simply need solutions that work. Collaborating across disciplines may be hard and uncomfortable initially, but is worth it. It is essential to put the client’s needs first and have mutual respect for each other. All the teams involved must be willing to accept ideas from other disciplines, and let the process take them where they need to go.

To really engage with and be interesting to customers, and to capture their hearts and minds, one cannot afford to be restricted to a single marketing discipline. Integration is all about having the right people at the table with the client, to have a business conversation to solve their problem. Collaboration is key, when there is so much to learn from each other. Every discipline a unique perspective and hence comparing them is redundant. If professionals from different disciplines can just put the client at the centre, they can work together to create something more powerful than any one discipline could have done alone.

The world is moving into a bold creative space, with collaboration is almost essential. In these times, briefs are extremely important in steering the different teams in the right direction. The brief mustn’t be delivered to the agency by the client. Instead, it should be written by the client and the agency together. The client is part of the collaboration, and must play an active role in ensuring that the agency is on the same page as them at all times.

To collaborate effectively, the teams must be open minded and straightforward about where they stand. They must also have the right attitude and not be afraid to ask for help across disciplines, when needed. There cannot be place for competitiveness. The consumer has evolved and so must we, to keep up with the times and cater to the need of the moment. One cannot expect different results by doing the same thing we’ve always done. All the different teams have to be in it together, to really make an impact. It is a partnership in which trust and honesty are essential.

As a client, it is essential to give your agencies the freedom to explore and be creative. Support a new way of thinking. The next generation of consumers understands and appreciates transparency, which makes it challenging to continue using old methods. Dynamics are changing, and a lot of companies are transforming into integrated marketing agencies. Integration isn’t the future. It is the new reality.

Watch the whole talk here- https://www.facebook.com/holmesreport/videos/10157693709230271/

–Amisha Tirthani

Amisha is a Post Graduate in Public Relations from SCoRe, Class of 2017 and a Graduate in Psychology from R.D. National College with a perfect 7.0 GPA. Her background in psychology helped her get keen insights into human behaviour which she has applied in the field of Public Relations – she completed an internship in Public Relations with Edelman India. She is also a pro photographer, and a passionate traveller.

She can be reached @amishatirthani  on Twitter and as Amisha Tirthani on LinkedIn.