Stephen Waddington
Special guest
Stephen was previously managing director at Metia Group (2019 and 2020), an international digital marketing agency. It creates high performance campaigns using research, content, demand and earned media. His clients included Amazon, BMW, Capita, Salesforce and Microsoft.
He was Chief Engagement Officer at Ketchum (2012 to 2018), an Omnicom-owned agency, responsible for driving the integration of digital and social capabilities in client engagements across the agency’s international network. He provided lead senior counsel on integrated global accounts including IBM, IKEA and Phillips.
His role at Ketchum included change agent, ambassador and thought leader for the agency on modern forms of engagement and public relations practice. This included leveraging tools, resources and best practice from across the global network for all client engagements.
Stephen has held the role of Visiting Professor in Practice at Newcastle University since 2015, supporting the university and students through teaching and mentoring. He is also an external examiner for the CIPR, the UK professional body for PR practitioners.
Stephen is the co-editor with Ralph Tench of the fifth edition of Exploring PR, the definitive book on PR theory and practice, due to be published by Pearson in 2021. He is co-author of #BrandVandals (Bloomsbury, November 2013) and Brand Anarchy (Bloomsbury, February 2012), plus editor and contributor to Platinum (CIPR, September 2018), Share This (Wiley, July 2012) and Share This Too (Wiley, September 2013); in addition to editor of Chartered Public Relations: Lessons from Expert Practitioners (Kogan Page, February 2015).
He was President of the CIPR in 2014, during which time he helped return the organisation to its roots of professionalism as set out in its Royal Charter. He is the former chairman of its Artificial Intelligence panel and Social Media panel. The two groups have led the characterisation of the impact of machines and social media on marketing and PR practice, the media and conversation in the public sphere.
Stephen originally trained as a journalist before following a career in public relations. He co-founded, managed and sold two award-winning public relations agencies, Rainier PR in 1998 and Speed in 2009.
At Speed, Stephen led the merger of three public relations agencies to develop a modern proposition, service model and workflow. Clients included The Associated Press, Optical Express, The Economist, Symantec, uSwitch for Business and Virgin Media Business. Rainier PR was a technology PR agency founded in 1998 focussed on technology expertise and a senior client service model. Clients included ARM, ntl (now Virgin Media Business), Intel and Toshiba.
Stephen is a Chartered PR Practitioner, a CIPR Fellow (Hon), and a Fellow of the PRCA.
Stephen Waddington has been a guest on 2 episodes.
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2024 PR Forecast with Stephen Waddington
January 4th, 2024 | 31 mins 28 secs
2024 pr predictions, marketing measurement, pr measurement, pr metrics, pr outcomes, reporting, senior business leaders, stella bayles
It's January 2024, offcially back to work. But before you dive into your next campaign its important to consider focus and development for the year. What do you as an individual, your team and as a collective industry need to work on to move forward and succeed this year?
I have enlisted the help of PR powerhouse Stephen Waddington to help us do exactly this. So grab a coffee and listen to this 30 minute episode of the PR Resolution to set your 2024 off to the best start possible.
Stephen Waddington (AKA Wadds) is the Founder and Managing Partner of Wadds Inc. which is a professional advisory firm that helps agencies and communications teams with planning, strategic decision making and execution.
He is fully immersed in the UK and Europe PR industry; he's been the President of the CIPR, has held senior positions at global PR and marketing agencies Ketchum and Metia Group. He is the co-founder of Socially Mobile, a not-for-profit PR school and is also a current PhD research student at Leeds Business School investigating the contribution of public relations to management.
It's safe to say Wadds has a clear view on the state of play in Public Relations and what could happen in this year, 2024.
In this interview, we look back at 2023 and how the economy and government decisions affected the industry.
We talk about marketing and PR budgets, how we responded and how agencies were affected.
Wadds talks about the alignment we have as an industry with senior business leaders and the areas that hold us back; including truly understanding business and how PR communicates success. As well as highlight the issues, he also explains what we can do to improve these areas.
Wadds highlights PR talent, diversity and inclusion as an area that did move on slightly in 2023 but also needs a lot of work within teams and as a collective.
As well as some 2024 predictions, our conversation outlines areas of focus that will help you individually and as a team to aim high, better sell success and as an industry raise credibility a more senior level in 2024.
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Understanding public feeling (part 1)
October 13th, 2020 | 43 mins 33 secs
audience insight, communications, pr, public relations, search listening, social listening, stella bayles, stephen waddinton
With huge adjustments in how we live and global events reaching us in real-time, there is constant change in public feeling.
Whether it’s uncertainty, mistrust, frustration or comradery, understanding the way we, the public are feeling has never been so important in Public Relations.
In this episode I speak to Stephen Waddington. Wadds is an advisor and consultant on communications, he has led the CIPR and authored multiple PR books including #BrandVandals, ShareThis and Brand Anarchy.
Wadds and I discuss:
- How PR has understood target audience up until now
- How to understand the public, and not just the media that influences them
- How it is possible to track public feeling
- Where surveys, social and search listening fits into this
This is the first podcast in a series I’ll be running on public feeling insight. Get in touch with thoughts and ideas @StellaBayles @Wadds