“crowd surfing”: ten questions for edelman’s david brain

When I lived in Lon­don last year, one of my best pals was David Brain, CEO of Edel­man Europe [The lar­gest pri­vate, glo­bal PR firm in the world]. Our sch­tick was to meet for break­fast about twice a month, and just talk about the crazy world hap­pe­ning around us. Some­ti­mes we’d invite other friends along, like Steve Clay­ton or Lee Tho­mas. Other times we’d meet at The Groucho Club after work, drink some beers, and hatch new sec­ret evil plans. It was fun times all round.
“Crowd Sur­fing”: 10 Ques­tions for Edelman’s David Brain
1. Let’s cut to the chase. You just co-authored a book with Mar­tin Tho­mas, “Crowd Sur­fing”. Please give us the sch­piel.
Mar­tin and I were inte­res­ted in how com­pa­nies and orga­ni­sa­tions were mana­ging to deal with the new empo­we­red con­su­mer. There’s been a lot writ­ten about the crowd, but less about how the peo­ple inside big com­pa­nies deal with it. As you know we have some expe­rience of this with Edel­man clients, so at the heart of the book is a series of inter­views with some inte­res­ting peo­ple who have to jug­gle the often con­flic­ting demands of the crowd and the com­pany.
2. What made you want to write this par­ti­cu­lar book? You’re already busy enough, you’re already doing well enough pro­fes­sio­nally, so what was the motive? What was the con­ver­sa­tion you wan­ted to start with peo­ple, that wasn’t hap­pe­ning already?
Well, someone once told me that a great way to start a con­ver­sa­tion was to create a ‘social object’.…and to some degree this is my social object. There is something about publishing a book that allows you to have a dif­fe­rent type of con­ver­sa­tion with clients, collea­gues and pros­pects, and that has pro­ven to be the case. We are now tal­king to many clients for whom this stuff was in the ‘too dif­fi­cult’ bas­ket, and somehow tal­king about case stu­dies from the book has made that easier. I also felt that the cor­po­rate side of the story has been under­pla­yed. The heroes of this book are not blog­gers or con­su­mer acti­vists but the peo­ple inside firms who have chan­ged their com­pa­nies (some­ti­mes at sig­ni­fi­cant career risk) to bet­ter serve the new con­su­mer. Peo­ple like Microsoft’s Steve Clay­ton and Dell’s Richard Binham­mer.
3. It seems both the Mic­ro­soft Blue Mons­ter and the folks I’m currently wor­king with at Dell [Lio­nel, Richard, Bruce etc] fea­ture hea­vily in the book. What was it about these sto­ries that spar­ked your inte­rest?
Some­ti­mes it is easy for an entre­pre­neur or small busi­ness to be in tune with their cus­to­mers or sta­kehol­ders, because their scale (or lack of it) means ever­yone is close to the cus­to­mer (an obvious point I know, but size does some­ti­mes mat­ter). The big­ger a firm gets the more dif­fi­cult that beco­mes . Big com­pa­nies need robust pro­ces­ses and struc­tu­res to orga­nise, to do what it is they do, and that can mean that the peo­ple inside can some­ti­mes begin to focus on those pro­ces­ses and struc­tu­res to the exc­lu­sion of the cus­to­mer or the crowd. Dell and Mic­ro­soft have both wor­ked really hard to find ways to bring the crowd inside the firm (at the cost of sig­ni­fi­cant dis­rup­tion) so that they don’t make that mis­take. For me, where the crowd meets the orga­ni­sa­tion is where the real action is.
4. We’ve had this con­ver­sa­tion many times before in pri­vate, allow me to take it public: You and I both believe that in this hyper-digital, post-Cluetrain world of ours, the PR industry has a huge oppor­tu­nity, simply by taking huge chunks of busi­ness away from what was tra­di­tio­nally the domain of the large adver­ti­sing agen­cies. I’m thin­king the work Edel­man did for Dove’s Cam­paign For Real Beauty would be a good exam­ple of this. Care to ela­bo­rate on the busi­ness model?
Everything these days is work in pro­gress. Cus­to­mers and sta­kehol­ders know that about the com­pa­nies and brands that are part of their life, and yet many of those com­pa­nies still seem to over-use the mass com­mu­ni­ca­tion vehic­les of the indus­trial age, pre­sen­ting a per­fect ‘image’ or a ‘lifestyle’ and loo­king for aspi­ra­tion or appro­val. So much adver­ti­sing, direct mar­ke­ting and pro­mo­tion (and some PR to be fair) is a one-way street and that just does not fit the world I see around me. PR, or good PR at least, was always about things like rela­tionship, influence and dia­lo­gue (in the old days focu­sed more on the elite few maybe, but now with the many as well) and so PR now has an even more cen­tral role in hel­ping com­pa­nies align with sta­kehol­ders and cus­to­mers by pro­perly enga­ging with them. Thank­fully many firms and brands are seeing this and many PR peo­ple (in agen­cies and in-house) are embra­cing this new man­date and the res­pon­si­bi­lity that comes with it. Every day the false cer­tain­ties pedd­led by the old-school adver­ti­sing agen­cies look more and more out of place and time.
5. You weren’t always in PR. You also have back­grounds in adver­ti­sing and jour­na­lism. Like you once told me, “Any­body who’s any good at this busi­ness, usually ended up wor­king in it by acci­dent.” What’s your story? How did you end up in it?
You have a good memory. It was indeed a dis­tress purchase. I was briefly in jour­na­lism but got tur­fed out by the reces­sion of the mid 80s, and had to par­lay my trai­ning into something to pay the bills. I have also been in adver­ti­sing (in Asia in the 90’s) and client side, but have always come back to PR, which I guess shows a lack of ima­gi­na­tion to some extent.
6. You’re not just a PR flack, you actually run a pretty siza­ble busi­ness. What’s the toughest part of your job as CEO?
Fin­ding good peo­ple. At Edel­man in Europe, Middle East and Africa we now have just under a 1,000 peo­ple across wholly owned offi­ces in 14 coun­tries, and we always have vacan­cies for talent. You have hel­ped us find peo­ple in the past as you remem­ber, and one of the best things for us about social media has been the abi­lity to spot talent and peo­ple who ‘get it’ by what they say and do online.
7. When we think of PR, we think of the ste­reoty­pi­cal smoothie in an Ita­lian suit, sch­moo­zing away at some fancy spon­so­red event [See “Pic­kaxe” car­toon above]. But as we both know, Glo­bal PR is actually a pretty sophis­ti­ca­ted busi­ness. Again, back to a con­ver­sa­tion we’ve had more than once, the big cha­llenge for PR firms in the next decade is all about beco­ming more cul­tu­rally and tech­ni­cally diverse, AWAY from the typi­cal smoothie archetype, towards something more hard­core, valua­ble and inte­res­ting. How does Edel­man Europe see the cha­llenge? Do you see a “new breed” of PR prac­ti­tio­ner emer­ging?
I do see a new breed. PR used to be based on the top-down prin­ci­ple of mana­ging a few rela­tionships with senior jour­na­lists or sta­kehol­ders. These res­pec­ted autho­ri­ties would say good things about your busi­ness or firm and the world would gra­te­fully receive their view and act accor­dingly. Well as you know, that world got blown up and the new democ­ra­ti­sed world of the enfranchi­sed con­su­mer and the occa­sio­nal angry crowd has for­ced busi­nes­ses (and the PR peo­ple and firms that advise them) to open up. It used to be in this busi­ness that you could trade on who you know, and now it has swung much more to what you know as well. I can’t ima­gine hiring peo­ple these days who are not acti­vely enga­ged in the con­ver­sa­tion or com­mu­nity in some form . You can’t fake this stuff. And so that means we always look for tech­ni­cal skills, peo­ple with a wide set of inte­rests and a pas­sion for something (other than work). Richard Edel­man calls this ‘Living in Colour.…the idea that if you only live for the office and home you become a little grey. And if you cut off from the world in that way, you are much less use to our clients, who are loo­king for insight and advice and con­nec­tion.
8. Of all the glo­bal pla­yers, it seems to me that Edel­man got seriously inte­res­ted in the impli­ca­tions of Web 2.0 soo­ner than the other big guys. Hence Richard Edel­man hiring Steve Rubel etc. What was it about 2.0 that ini­tially got Edel­man all exci­ted, where did you see the oppor­tu­nity for your busi­ness, and what was par­ti­cu­larly uni­que about the com­pany that allo­wed you to arrive there first?
It really was Richard Edel­man. He was ban­ging on about this stuff five years ago when I joi­ned the firm, and I was pro­bably the lea­ding nay­sa­yer at the time (I may even have expres­sed the view that blog­ging was like CB radio). The Trust Study, the big sur­vey we do each year, had given us some clues when it sho­wed that a ‘per­son like me’ was beco­ming a cre­di­ble source of infor­ma­tion on com­pa­nies and orga­ni­sa­tions. ‘A per­son like me’ is now glo­bally the num­ber one cre­di­ble source of infor­ma­tion on companies…the CEO is the seventh most cre­di­ble! And once we got our heads around that and the seis­mic chan­ges of which that was just one part, the rest was about put­ting our money where our mouth was. And Richard hired peo­ple who got it, like Steve Rubel, and we inves­ted in research and we bought digi­tal agen­cies for their tech­ni­cal and crea­tive skills, and we adap­ted their ways into the mains­tream of the firm and invi­ted in peo­ple like you who addres­sed our teams and our clients. And of course trai­ning, trai­ning, trai­ning. But we did make some bloody big mis­ta­kes along the way as every­body knows, and boy, did we ever learn from them!
9. Edel­man is privately-owned. All your big, main com­pe­ti­tors [Weber Shand­wick etc] are sub­si­dia­ries of the large, publicly-owned adver­ti­sing con­glo­me­ra­tes [Inter­pu­blic, WPP etc]. Pros? Cons?
Every sha­rehol­der is in the firm, and that means that what’s right for the clients, the peo­ple and the busi­ness is never dilu­ted by Wall Street or some bully-boy adver­ti­sing suit. When I wor­ked at some of the advertising-company-dominated, publicly-owned firms you could never point out advertising’s limitations…you were muzz­led. We can say pre­ci­sely what we think is right for the client without worry– and no other PR firm of scale is in that posi­tion. On the money front, because we don’t have outside sha­rehol­ders blee­ding cash out of the firm, we can re-invest in inte­llec­tual pro­perty like research, and in new pro­ducts and trai­ning. I really can’t think of any cons.
10. What advice would you give to a bright young thing wan­ting to break into the PR busi­ness? More spe­ci­fi­cally, what advice would you give today, that you wouldn’t have given say, a decade ago? In other words, for a young per­son just ente­ring the trade, how has the world chan­ged in the last ten years?
Be invol­ved and have a voice. When I got into this busi­ness in the early Juras­sic period those two things were much more dif­fi­cult to do. But society has chan­ged and it is easy to express opi­nions and debate and join with like-minded peo­ple to pur­sue your inte­rests. It does not all have to be online, but obviously much of it is now. And we look for that. Someone who is inte­res­ted and pas­sio­nate about something and who con­tri­bu­tes. I still expect new joi­ners to be pas­sio­nate about news, cul­ture and poli­tics in the tra­di­tio­nal sen­ses too, but what you read through your aggre­ga­tor and via your com­mu­nity is as impor­tant as what you can buy at the news stand (OK not the most ori­gi­nal point, but you would be ama­zed how many peo­ple still come to inter­views with no views on news and no unders­tan­ding or par­ti­ci­pa­tion in social media). One other thing that has struck me about peo­ple joi­ning the busi­ness now, espe­cially in the US and the UK, is that they are ama­zingly con­ser­va­tive about their careers. Many look to pro­gress through the ranks in small linear steps, I guess because the busi­ness has become so big and so struc­tu­red. One of the most dif­fi­cult things is to find peo­ple who will take a risk and go live in the Middle East or Mos­cow or China and I find that so hard to unders­tand having lived and wor­ked outside my country for seven years … something which broa­de­ned my hori­zons significantly.