Red Sky Fuel For Thought

The influencer market is evolving, but there’s no need to worry about falling behind. We’ve got your back.

HAVAS Red released its inaugural “The State of the Influencer in 2024: A Client’s Perspective” white paper, diving into the findings of a client survey that covered 10 markets — Australia, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Japan, The Philippines, Singapore, UAE, the U.S. and the U.K.

In this episode, Lara Graulich, HAVAS Red account executive based in London, dives into the findings covered in the white paper with the Redsters who created it. Stuart Hood, executive director of social and content, and Tina Provis, PR account manager, both representing HAVAS Red Australia, joined Lara on the podcast to share where the influencer market is heading.

"Red Sky Fuel for Thought" is a monthly podcast produced by HAVAS Red, examining emerging themes relevant to brand communicators and marketers.

What did you love? What would you like to hear about next?

Remember to rate and review today’s show; we’d love to hear from you!

For further learning:

https://bit.ly/44oVEYX

Is the Metaverse still relevant to brand marketers? This month we answer that very question. When Meta launched its Metaverse, the virtual universe felt unbaked to many comms professionals. Promises of unimaginable audience connection were put back into the oven indefinitely. However, these promises shouldn’t be left in too long to burn…

Lara Graulich, a HAVAS Red account executive based in London, interviewed Umbar Shakir, Partner - Experience, Digital and AI at Gate One, and Sabrina George, CMO and executive producer at Xcyte Digital Corporation.

In a two-part series on the Metaverse, Lara speaks first with Umbar, who gives us an introduction to the Metaverse in part 1. In part 2, Sabrina drives it home, covering how brand marketers can use the Metaverse to their advantage and what caution brands should take before jumping in.

"Red Sky Fuel for Thought" is a monthly podcast produced by HAVAS Red, examining emerging themes relevant to brand communicators and marketers.    

What did you love? What would you like to hear about next?    

Remember to rate and review today’s show; we’d love to hear from you!   

For further learning:   

https://www.thevrara.com/

https://metaversebusinessconference.com/

https://www.virtualworlds.museum/

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/microsoft-mesh

https://www.xrwomen.com/

https://metaversefashioncouncil.org/

https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-web3-cmo-brief-7063083421643730944/

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/2093378/

Is the Metaverse still relevant to brand marketers? This month we answer that very question. When Meta launched its Metaverse, the virtual universe felt unbaked to many comms professionals. Promises of unimaginable audience connection were put back into the oven indefinitely. However, these promises shouldn’t be left in too long to burn…

Lara Graulich, a HAVAS Red account executive based in London, interviewed Umbar Shakir, partner and client director at Gate One, and Sabrina George, CMO and executive producer at Xcyte Digital Corporation.

In a two-part series on the Metaverse, Lara speaks first with Umbar, who gives us an introduction to the Metaverse in part 1. In part 2, Sabrina drives it home, covering how brand marketers can use the Metaverse to their advantage and what caution brands should take before jumping in.

"Red Sky Fuel for Thought" is a monthly podcast produced by HAVAS Red, examining emerging themes relevant to brand communicators and marketers.    

What did you love? What would you like to hear about next?    

Remember to rate and review today’s show; we’d love to hear from you!   

For further learning:   

https://www.thevrara.com/

https://metaversebusinessconference.com/

https://www.virtualworlds.museum/

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/microsoft-mesh

https://www.xrwomen.com/

https://metaversefashioncouncil.org/

https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-web3-cmo-brief-7063083421643730944/

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/2093378/

This month, we got to pick the brain of a communications insider at IBM — so you get to, too! The February episode of the “Red Sky Fuel for Thought” podcast is part of our #BehindTheBrand series, which pulls back the curtain on an iconic brand to focus on the people shaping that brand’s communications and marketing strategy.

Linda Descano, CFA®, EVP at HAVAS Red interviewed Brandi Boatner, manager of digital and advocacy communications at IBM. Together, they discuss the 3Ds: digital, data and diversity and how they’re shaping Brandi’s career path and IBM’s mission.

We launched the Behind the Brand series in April 2023, with Gráinne O’Brien, senior director of corporate affairs for Kellogg Europe and look forward to continuing it with other brand insiders.

"Red Sky Fuel for Thought" is a monthly podcast produced by HAVAS Red, examining emerging themes relevant to brand communicators and marketers.   

What did you love? What would you like to hear about next?   

Remember to rate and review today’s show; we’d love to hear from you!   

For further reading: 

• New York Women in Communications
• Public Relations Society of America
• PRSA Tri-State District
• “Behind the Kellogg’s Brand” with Gráinne O’Brien episode
• “Behind the Meltwater Brand” with Dino Delic episode

In this month’s episode of the “Red Sky Fuel for Thought” podcast, host Lara Graulich, merged media account executive at HAVAS Red, is joined by Redsters Nancy Anderson, SVP, social and content, and Audrey Arbogast, associate vice president, to discuss our Red Sky Predictions 2024 surrounding social media and influencers.

Together, they time travel, jumping back to analyze HAVAS Red’s 2023 predictions and then looking forward to those in 2024. The goal: to help prepare brand communicators to tackle the virtual landscape ahead.

Nancy explores how our 2023 predictions came to life, covering topics such as TikTok as a recruitment method and how reactive content can be used to insert brands into cultural conversation. When looking to 2024 trends, Nancy breaks down how social media managers will use AI to fuel social strategy and content creation and reduce workload.

Audrey, our resident influencer guru, gives us the lowdown on our 2024 influencer predictions, focused on the “minfluencer,” aka the next generation of young influencers: Generation Alpha. Audrey covers how the minfluencers have already begun to take over the social landscape and the potential impact these mini tastemakers can have on brands. Importantly, Audrey also highlights the legal considerations brands must take when it comes to working with children online.

As you create your social plans for 2024, consider us your trends barometer. Read up on our Red Sky Predictions 2024 to help you navigate 2024’s volatile communications landscape.

"Red Sky Fuel for Thought" is a monthly podcast produced by HAVAS Red, examining emerging themes relevant to brand communicators and marketers.  

What did you love? What would you like to hear about next?  

Remember to rate and review today’s show; we’d love to hear from you!  

For further reading:

• Red Sky Predictions 2024

In this month’s episode of the “Red Sky Fuel for Thought” podcast, host Ellen Mallernee, Editorial Director at Havas Red is joined by Redsters Linda Descano, CFA®, EVP and client partner Bianca-Maria Cavuoto to discuss our 2023 Word of the Year: “CHAOS”.

Together, they walk through our process of selecting “chaos,” other Words of the Year that have been announced so far (from “AI” to “rizz”) and each of their own personal picks for Word of the Year.

As our survey respondents who selected this word wrote, “Chaos encapsulates 2023’s tumultuous global events — embodying uncertainty, disruption and the need for collective solutions. It reflects our shared experience and challenges ahead.”

One wrote that we have “too many changes without clear objectives,” while another pointed to “global waring factions (Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Gaza), U.S. congress disruption, Trump indictments, the impact of global warming on the global temperatures and weather phenomena.”

The opposite of chaos? It’s peace. That’s our hope for 2024. We hope it’s peace that has the last word.

"Red Sky Fuel for Thought" is a monthly podcast produced by Havas Red, examining emerging themes relevant to brand communicators and marketers.  

What did you love? What would you like to hear about next?  

Remember to rate and review today’s show; we’d love to hear from you!  

For further reading:

• Merriam-Webster: Authentic
• Oxford University Press: Rizz
• Collins Dictionary: AI
• Cambridge Dict HAionary: Hallucinate
• Oxford English: Pay harder
• Australia National Dictionary Centre: Mathilda
• Germany youth word of the year: Goofy

In this month’s episode of the “Red Sky Fuel for Thought” podcast, Ryan Kisiel, partner and head of Sustain at H/Advisors Maitland, joins host Linda Descano, CFA®, EVP, Havas Red, to discuss trends in climate and sustainability disclosures and reporting, and implications for how brands and businesses communicate internally and externally about these topics in 2024. 

2023 has marked another year of climate and sustainability in the spotlight. There’s been continued — if not increasing — scrutiny on whether brands and businesses are actually following through with their pledges, particularly around climate and net-zero, and whether there are real data and actionable plans behind those pledges.

In many countries, the push for mandatory disclosures has gained momentum during this period. Back in July, the European Commission adopted the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), standardizing how companies within the European Union report climate change and other ESG-related actions. Meanwhile, in the U.S., where policy on climate disclosures remains in limbo, the state of California has taken matters into its own hands, signing into law the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act, known as SB-253, which has implications well beyond companies operating in California.

"Red Sky Fuel for Thought" is a monthly podcast produced by Havas Red, examining emerging themes relevant to brand communicators and marketers.  

Note: This H/Advisors’ article was referenced in the podcast: “California sets the standard for mandatory carbon disclosures”

What did you love? What would you like to hear about next?  

Remember to rate and review today’s show; we’d love to hear from you!  

In this month’s episode of the “Red Sky Fuel for Thought” podcast, Linda Goldstein, EVP of customer experience and marketing at CSAA Insurance Group, joins host Linda Descano, CFA®, to discuss the current challenges of marketing and communications, the keys to creating campaigns that break through and marketing trends to watch out for in 2024.

Goldstein, who was recently recognized as one of PR Daily’s Top Women in Marketing, provides insight into CSAA’s viral campaigns featuring musical artists like Rick Astley and iconic ’90s boy band members. She also touches on CSAA’s proactive approach to supporting initiatives including a California Wildfire Innovation Fund and the climate resiliency challenge the company spearheaded this past summer. Finally, she addresses the role of comms in the insurance industry in regards to ESG-related issues.

This episode is part of our #BehindTheBrand series, which pulls back the curtain on an iconic brand to focus on the people shaping that brand’s communications and marketing strategy. We launched this series in April 2023, with Gráinne O’Brien, senior director of corporate affairs for Kellogg Europe.

"Red Sky Fuel for Thought"is a monthly podcast produced by Havas Red, examining emergingthemes relevant to brand communicators andmarketers.

Background reading:

·The Power Nostalgia & Music Bring to Insurance Marketing

·“Boys No More,” Featuring Joey Fatone, Nick Lachey, Joey McIntyre and Wanya Morris

·How CSAA Pulled Off the Ultimate ‘Rickroll’

·Climate Resiliency Challenge Unveils New Solutions to Address Climate-related Disasters

What did you love? What would you like to hear about next?

Remember to rate and review today’s show; we’d love to hear from you!

Getting Ahead on Generative AI: Ep. 40 of Red Sky Fuel for Thought Podcast

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

·How marketers and PR professionals can use generative AI to make our lives easier

·Where we should not use generative AI from a legal or ethical perspective

·How to strike the balance between being better with AI and being better than AI

Now that the dust is settling on the AI maelstrom that’s raged for the past few months, our September episode looks at what we've learned about generative AI in particular: the good, the bad and the uncertain. Host Lara Graulich examines how artificial intelligence, or AI, has become a buzzword that elicits many emotions: wonder, excitement, confusion and anxiety, among others. As she says, “One thing is certain: This technology is here to stay, and it's important for us to understand it as marketing and public relations professionals.”

To help you make out the full picture of generative AI today, we’ve divided this episode into two parts. First, Umbar Shakir, a partner and client director at Gate One, gives us a whip-smart introduction to generative AI, what it's capable of and what its limitations are. In part two, we dig into the specific implications that generative AI has in the PR and marketing space. For this roundtable, we’re chatting with Rachael Sansom, CEO of Havas Red U.K., and Myrna Van Pelt, head of technology and business for Havas Red Australia.

The episode begins with Umbar (pronounced “Amber”), who differentiates traditional AI from generative AI. Traditional AI, she says, is the ability of machines to mimic human intelligence to perform tasks and automate workflows. This is AI as we’ve known it; it’s what’s been around for decades, and it’s something technology consultants have been implementing for clients for a long time. However, when large language models began arriving over the past five years or so, generative AI stole the spotlight. With generative AI, trillions of bits of crowdsourced data can be used to synthesize new data.

Does this new capability represent a threat to human creativity or to job security?

No, says Umbar: “As marketers, your whole value add to customers is differentiation and personalization. Even though generative AI can generate content for us, you need the human brain to give the differentiation. And then you need the human heart and emotion. In all the marketing campaigns I've been involved in, an emotive response is really important to memorability. That comes from heart, and a lot of our emotional intelligence comes from our values, beliefs and moral judgments. At the moment, you can't mathematically program that in. What we need to remember is that we've built this tool, and we can interact with it; it might be faster than us, and it might be able to process more data than we can at any point in time, but it doesn’t replace our humanity.”

Instead, AI can create space for those of us in this industry to get back to our craft and to doing some of the things that drew us here in the first place — to creating human connection, for example — rather than the monotony of data analysis or transcription. Plus, with generative AI, we’re going to get richer insights much more quickly than we would on our own.

When it comes to humans’ job security, Umbar says, “I've got a slightly provocative view on things. When people worry that generative AI will cause people to lose jobs, I say there are some jobs out there that humans should never have been doing. We have taken really tedious work and turned it into careers for people. We’ve normalized tedium. How do we unshackle ourselves from some of that tedium? How do we then free up capacity to solve for bigger and better problems for society? How do you use this technology to replace what humans have been doing that fundamentally doesn’t tap into our humanity or our values or our creativity?”

Umbar’s segment ends with her answering these questions, before Lara then welcomes Rachael and Myrna to the podcast. She first asks them what excites them most about generative AI and the capabilities it brings to our clients and which tools they’ve most enjoyed using.

“Gen AI cannot create ideas, but what it can do is take great ideas, by humans, and push them faster and further and help iterate them more brilliantly,” says Rachael. In marketing and communications, Myrna says AI also has a distinct role to play in helping us in the area of rapid decision making.

“As humans, we have finite ability to scan volumes of information,” she says. “However, AI does this at a fraction of the time. So, for example, when it comes to understanding audience preferences, or demographic nuances, AI can help sort through this massive volume of content, identifying patterns and trends, anticipating future scenarios, and then categorizing the data. We then have an absolute smorgasbord of useful pre-categorized content we can use to inform campaigns, particularly so in industries where a rapid pivot of a campaign might make the difference between success and failure — particularly so in political campaigns.”

Among Myrna’s go-to AI tools, she highlights Brandwatch, which provides media monitoring and competitor tracking; TLDR, which summarizes high-tech articles; and DeepL Translate, which can accurately translate content in dozens of different languages.

Next, they talk about the inherent risks of using AI, including where we should and shouldn’t use it from an ethical and legal perspective — e.g., is a press release fair game?

Thank you to each of our guests for weighing in on the transformative power of AI. We hope you’ll give “Red Sky Fuel for Thought” a listen, and subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or your favorite podcasting app. Don’t forget to rate and review to help more people find us!

Also mentioned on this episode:

·ChatGPT

·Brandwatch

·TLDR

·DeepL Translate

Follow Red Havas for a daily dose of comms news:

·Twitter

·Facebook

·Instagram

·LinkedIn

Subscribe:

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show using your favorite podcasting app.

·iTunes

·Spotify

What did you love? What would you like to hear about next?

Rememberto rate and review today’s show; we’d love to hear from you!

Meaningful Workplace Transformations 101: Ep. 39 of Red Sky Fuel for Thought Podcast

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

·Trends that have influenced the need for increased focus on the employee experience and meaningful work

·What steps an organization can take to maintain the alignment between what they say and what they do

·A framework for building trust with employees

August’s episode digs into the subject of meaningful transformation and why it’s increasingly important for organizations today to think about how to connect the values they espouse with what their employees experience day to day.

Host Linda Descano, CFA®, EVP, Red Havas, starts by asking Hannah Caldwell, principal of Gate One, a London-based business and digital transformation consultancy within the Havas network, to define what “meaningful transformation” means.

A “meaningful transformation” is a business transformation that delivers a step change in the impact and results delivered for the business but that’s also meaningful for the individuals involved in that change — it’s about making it really matter to employees to ensure that it lasts, says Hannah.

Hannah cites the statistic that 70% of large transformation projects fail; she then explains why that’s the case: “One of the key reasons why those big transformation projects fail is the human element. Fundamentally, it’s not organizations that change; it’s people that change — or in some cases, they don’t. If people don’t believe in the vision that leadership is sharing, if they don’t trust leadership, they’re not going to adjust to new ways of doing things or make the effort required to create a step change in the way you operate, regardless of how brilliant the strategy and rationale is.”

Linda and Hanna’s exploration of meaningful transformations dovetails with Havas’new 2023 Global Meaningful Brands™ report, “Welcome to the Me-conomy.” The report, which serves as a playbook for how brands can be meaningful in people’s lives, was the subject of our May podcast episode.

Says Hannah, “A lot of companies are increasingly aware of the need to connect meaningfully with their customers on issues they care about, such as sustainability and supporting Pride, but this has focused more on attracting customers. We’re now also seeing a complementary desire to focus on the internal side: what employees experience and the internal culture as a measure of whether organizations are authentically living the values they say they stand for.”

So what trends are influencing the increased focus on the employee experience and meaningful work?

Three things stand out, says Hannah. First, post-pandemic employees are rethinking the meaning of work and priorities and seeking purpose from work (contributing to the great resignation). And generationally speaking, Gen Z is a purpose-driven generation. Their desire to know how their individual contributions help support the organization’s mission differentiates them. Finally, information travels so quickly in the digital age, and social media means many more voices are heard.

Linda then asks what steps organizations can take to maintain the alignment between what they say and what they do. What’s most critical, says Hannah, is for organizations to listen and understand — without an ego — what people are experiencing within your organization. She also advises bringing together those teams that traditionally only managed elements of external or internal communications so that both have a full view. And if you’re building an external campaign on a topical issue such as ESG or DE&I, Hannah says there are a lot of ways to involve employees in those campaigns.

When organizations neglect their corporate culture, the repercussions can be enormous. Hannah cites research from MIT that found that toxic corporate culture is 10 times as likely to lead to attrition as poor compensation, whereas positive company cultures are more likely to attract top talent and see 33% higher revenues.

The conversation closes with a discussion of practical steps that marketers and communicators can take to drive a positive culture within their teams and the businesses they support.

Look and listen for tangible examples of how employees describe your culture and values, says Hannah. “Believe it or not, there’s a mathematical equation for building trust!”

She tells us of Charles H. Green’s Trust Equation, which details four components that affect trust. Three of them increase a person’s trustworthiness: credibility, reliability and intimacy. The fourth one, self-interest, reduces a person’s trustworthiness.

“If people believe that you’re doing these things because you have an ulterior motive, or it’s part of a corporate initiative and you’re just trying to tick a box, they’re all undermined by that,” says Hannah. “So it’s really important that you balance that carefully. In an organizational context, there will always be some elements of self-interest because of strategic decisions that need to be made, or economic imperatives, but it’s very important that people see that you’re very thoughtfully balancing your values with those challenges, and they don’t just get pushed to one side when times are tough.”

Give “Red Sky Fuel for Thought” a listen, and subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or your favorite podcasting app. Don’t forget to rate and review to help more people find us!

Also mentioned on this episode:

·What It Takes to Be a Meaningful Brand in the Me-Conomy: Ep. 37 of “Red Sky Fuel for Thought” podcast

·Meaningful Brands 2023 report

·Analyzing the Changing Workforce of Young, Highly Engaged Employees: JUV Consulting

·Putting Purpose to Work: PwC

·Why transformations fail: A conversation with Seth Goldstrom

·Help your employees find purpose—or watch them leave: McKinsey & Company

·Employees Seek Personal Value and Purpose at Work: Gartner

·Gen Z study: EY

· The Trust Equation

Follow Red Havas for a daily dose of comms news:

·Twitter

·Facebook

·Instagram

·LinkedIn

Subscribe:

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show using your favorite podcasting app.

·iTunes

·Spotify

What did you love? What would you like to hear about next?

Rememberto rate and review today’s show; we’d love to hear from you!