stedavies.com - communications consultant

On Monday I had the good fortune to attend the first day of the two day World Public Relations Festival (SMNR here) held by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) in Park Lane, London. A ‘world’ PR event it was too, with public relations representatives in attendance from around the globe. I don’t know exactly how many different nationalities were present but I do know from my observations that PR pros from Lithuania, Pakistan, Nigeria, Dubai, New Zealand, Australia and America were either speakers or delegates. I’m sure participants from other countries were in attendance also.

Obviously being a world PR event the topics of discussion covered some big issues. I won’t run through all of Monday’s speakers but these were the highlights for me:

Positioning Winning City Destinations
Michael Hayman, The Communications Group

This presentation discussed how the more established cities such as London, New York, Sydney etc are now having to compete with emerging cities as ‘destinations’. To attract tourists these destination cities have to focus on their point of difference from other competing cities. Hayman cited how destination cities are creating themselves as brands and mentioned there is no city brand logo more known than the one used by New York.

Corporate Communications in Emerging Markets
Chris Dobson, Mmd Group

A great presentation from a great speaker. Dobson focused on the opportunities and issues of PR in the emerging markets, mainly in eastern Europe and Russia given that’s where his company, Mmd Group, is predominantly based. A memorable quote from his presentation went something like, “Romania is a very important fast growing market. We call it our Tiger Economy”, which I’m sure Mihnea will be happy about.

How Gazprom is Meeting the Challenges of the West
Philip Dewhurst, Gazprom

Again another interesting presentation on how Gazprom, Russia’s largest company and third largest in the world, is using PR for reputation management purposes. A comment from one of the Nigerian delegates said that Gazprom reminds him of a dog on a leash which is controlled by the Kremlin. Dewhurst admitted that 51 percent of Gazprom is owned by the Russian government.

All in all an excellent day. I just wish I could have attended the second day too. Credit to the CIPR for hosting a great event and full marks to the people who travelled from all over the globe to participate.

Sidenote: Delegates were shown a brief video of the redesign of the new Global Alliance website (current site here). The new site looks full of Web 2.0 goodness so it will be interesting to have a play around with it when it’s up and running.