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four hour trip in Las Vegas. We got to speak at the d m A and then conference thanks to our friends at Action i Q thank you TASN team to talk about data as a catalyst for creativity and it was a great discussion with one of our favorites, Nick Drake, who is going to join us on the show. Instead of speaking like you know, the kind of pr talking points that we hear so much, he's one of those leaders who is amazingly natural, really quick witted, but

like so direct. He has the uncarrier of marketers, the uncarrier of marketers. So that was fun. That was a lot of fun and now and now it feels like it's three weeks later, but it's the same week and we're back in the studio and we have actually one of your one of your clients who you've been raving

about forever, Kimrie Blackwelder from Cohan. Yeah. I think where PR and comms are going the industry is not having PR be the sort of afterthought output to go and break news about this first market or most innovative thing you're doing, but to really think about the lens in which calms brings to development of assets, to thinking about what partners you're working with, how they might engage them to sort of amplify that idea. So I think it'd

be really interesting to get her perspective. Yeah. I think what's really interesting is we we talked to him Marie. That that I'm particularly like focused on right now is advertising has been desperately trying to move into a more natural place where it feels like earned communications communication right.

And so at the end of the day, you know, I always question myself, like, are we organized in our kind of under our cmos, typically at large organizations that have PR and you know, PR, comms and marketing in the right way, because it's still like this kind of interesting process in terms of PR does this piece and marketing does this piece, and it's still like we're kind

of still stuck backwards. We'll be right back. So we have one of our favorite most energetic hustlers in the industry, Kimrie Blackwelder, joining us all away from California on her vacation. Welcome to the show, kim Ray Rick, Hi, thank you. I am so excited to be on Adlandia. Well, we're so happy favorite podcast. YA, so happy to have you. So, Kimrie, tell our listeners where you work and what you do.

I am the senior director of Global PR and Social at a wonderful brand called Cohan, which we love and we are very frequently frequently Ya, Kimri, thank you so much for calling in. Would love to talk about at large the worlds of communications and PR. Obviously there have been so many factors and influences that have shaped and evolved your industry. But would love before we get into that, for you to talk about your background. The industry, as

you know is, especially with PR, has changed drastically. I moved to New York right after college and joined a very traditional agency um in their executive training program. I was invited to be a part of that and that agency, Rooter Fun, which is still in existence based out in New York. We went into a class, we had an executive training class and when I say literally, we were in the building on Second Avenue and fifty seven down

in the basement. This was like PR one oh one dropped and dropped down in the basement and you know, we were just typing, making content calendars, media lists, I mean every traditional PR document and that's all we did for multiple accounts. They just kept us down the basement and it was it was really crazy to look back

on it. And then you know, fast forward to that was very traditional obviously commercial PR and then UM I evolved into actually fashion PR and UM at a time when it was so traditional you know you were going it was it was run way shows and press previews. That was just for media and buyers. You do not have the street style bloggers and those digital influencers. You know,

that was nowhere on the scene. UM and then I evolved to a very interesting role with a very dynamic woman Uma by the name of Amy Sako, who was looking for a right hand that had experience and PR marketing events she was known as the Queen of the night and she had very exclusive spaces such as Bungalow eight. And we worked really closely with the fashion industry, publishing all the all the magazines, the art world. Um, it was. It was really the entertainment world. Obviously, celebrity was a

huge part of that. I evolved. I worked at a magazine. I eventually landed at Cohen and they were looking for someone that had media experience celebrity events. And so I have watched the PR industry just evolved and been part of it. And I will honestly say I love where where we are today is just really interesting because there's, like I say, never a dull moment, and you have to be on your game. It used to be a puzzle that was just like put the pieces together and

this is how you do it. It is not like that. There's almost no rules, you know. The only rule you have to follow in this world of PR and comps is give the media the facts, right, That's our responsibility. We have to give them the correct information. How we get that information to them, the sky's the limit. It's I mean, what does that look like? What the craziest thing is that you've done to pitch, well, I want to get crazier. I don't think I've done my craziest thing.

This is this is like the thing this like gives me, just like this is what gets me out of bed in the morning. I want to crack this, this thing of the of the modern day a PR pitch because I am the first one that wants to kill the traditional press release and the all the typical jargon in it.

Everyone is thrilled to launch something, Everyone is excited, and it just it's you could read one from you know, a brand, and then read one from a tech company, and then read one from a pharma They're all saying that it's no. That's so that's the biggest thing is figuring out how to pitch this media, and now that the media landscape is so drastically changed, is how do

you stand out? Right? How do you stand out? These editors a lot of are getting, especially the digital editors, are getting a hundred and fifty minimum pitches in their inbox a day, and um, and if you're a brand, UM that maybe does not have a huge advertising budget, it's hard. The struggle is real, and UM, you've got to figure it out. I want to figure out like a short video spot that's just the pitch, you know, to do a really cool fifteen second do it so thick.

These these editors that are inundated, they can be they can they can listen to it. They don't have to watch it. So I think it's figuring out video audio of a short pitch. I was just talking to the PR Newswire for one of oh and and like I this is this is what kind of killed me. I was like, yes, we have to just do it because we have to, like, you know, keep the subscription because table stakes. But at the end of the day, I'm why am I getting text based long form press releases anymore?

And by the way, this is for a technology company. I'm like, why are we doing this? Why is this? What's our what's our new benchmark for for for the press release? Like, what's our new thing? That's what That's what I'm trying to solve for. Because the PR Newswire, I mean I use them, everybody does, everybody doesn't, but it's it doesn't if you look at the analytics and the reports, it's not driving it's not building a brand,

and you're not getting quality coverage. From them, and it's it's so, it's so yesterday, and but everybody still does it because I think they've made it so easy. You just kind of here you go, here your assets, here's the copy, you know, um, but it's not what is moving the needle, and it's yeah, it's they We've got to we've got to figure that out in the industry what it does. And I'm it's like literally number one on my list of testing and learning and trying new things.

How have you thought about how you might bring in press not when the project is necessarily finished, um, but from the beginning, so that people may have that sort of exclusive look as opposed to an exclusive break. Does that make sense? It makes perfect sense. And it's it's

another other than killing that press release. It's this get it's the second most important thing to be at the beginning, you know, be there through the process, even the ideation, like when you think about who are going to be your partners, you know, your media partners be part of that that first kickoff conversation, be at the table because you are able to capture not only are you able to capture the journey, whether it's video film, because people want a story right, and they want to see how

something's created. They just don't want to see it here, here's your product or your service on launch day, right. They it's much more interesting. They feel like they're part of that journey. And everyone talk about like the behind the scenes UM content media love that. They were like, do you have any behind the scenes video? Do you have any behind the scenes stills? They get or you

bring them behind the scenes. And I have done that, and I'm going to tell you when I launched a campaign a couple of years ago, I brought in three different media outlets and the coverage for that campaign what And it's still talked about today. It's because we brought them in to set and had conversations that day. You know, they got to be part of it, um. And you know, some some people get very skittish about that, Oh I don't showing too much. But we're in the age of digital.

Everyone shows everything. So when you sit down with these partners from the from the get go and create these these very brilliant campaigns and is documented so you had it when you go to launch, it's just a better story. They're inundated with stories and only yours will stand out.

If you have really layers to it. Well, it's interesting too because it feels like earned value is a metric these days that is just as important as what you expect based on the guarantees of what you're buying, right, And so to me, by not having PR COMMS at the table from the beginning, you're sort of diluting the impact of whatever it is that you're creating. Knowing that

everybody's like, what's our viral moment? And people are still asking that question, how do you create something that's going to how But but people are asking this, but what they're asking is how do I generate earned value? So in the market, I think you know, for every dollar that I'm putting in, right, what is going to be

the incremental return? So oftentimes that really requires PR and COMMS to be at the table from the begin Absolutely, right, you take a media investment, so you have that investment, but you wanted to always have legs and that is the biggest, biggest thing when we go into our paid media partnerships. I'm sitting there at the table at the very beginning, like my mind is already racing, how does this have legs? How can you know for your term

take it viral? Where where's their storytelling? Earned storytelling here? And if you're not at that table at the beginning those conversation sations, you're you're missing opportunity. You know, um and it's it's it's something that you would think that PR and comm should always have a seat at the table. I have always believed this because when things when the larger marketing teams hand things off for their brand teams hand things off, you're like, wait, well, how how am

I going to maximize this? Pr and comms need to always have a seat at that table from the get go, from the initial kickoff all the way through execution, because there are moments um that along the way that you could just keep on as things developed and as content develops with your partners that you're constantly evolving. Well, I think here's the thing for me, Kim Marie is like, the story doesn't stop because the plane stopped. I mean, that's a that's a whole that's the whole other thing.

And the funny thing is Laura and I were in Vegas, Baby Vegas earlier this week. It feels like it feels like three weeks ago, but we were there earlier this week with Nick Drake, and he was saying, you know, we used to we used to work in this waterfall process.

And he's like, the waterfall process is bullshit and everything you just described, like in this simple like we should have a seat at the table and someone's handing something off like to me, that whole like organizational flow is why people are asking, well, is this one thing gonna is this thing going to go viral? Instead of saying is this a story? Right? Is this an investment in the brand, in my consumer and in what they care

about me? Doing that is going to give us legs? People, you know, thinking about the headline from the beginning, from the beginning. Work that we've done starts with the headline.

And I think with the headline and yes, yes, yes, And I think what's interesting about that, right is I think and you were starting to just allude to it, is like the content or the filter or the narrative that you know is going to sell in p are and to amplify that brand story isn't necessarily what a creative director is looking for, isn't necessarily what a media planner is looking for. So how do you deal with

that tension? The only way we're gonna we're going to make it and keep and literally keep evolving, is to keep learning and keep testing and trying always. Obviously it goes back to having a PR comms person at the table from the kickoff. But um, you know we're gonna try. You know, we're going to test and learn lots of things. Um. I think that we have I think everyone in this PR industry we have that permission as long it goes back, as long as we're giving the facts, the correct information

to the media. How we get it out there? The world is our oyster. And what are some things that you go like ways you go about actually testing and learning from a from a PR com standpoint, I think you really have to do it on on I don't want to say like smaller and anouncements. You know, you can start testing and learning when you've invested you know, hundreds of thousand dollars or media and in a campaign and talent and paid media. Now that's not the time

to be tested something. But I think when when companies and brands have a service or a product, you know they're constantly putting things out right. I mean I work in the I guess the fashion lifestyle space, and we're all we're always releasing something, you know, every month or every couple of months. Try it on, you know, a new product that maybe you're not it doesn't have a campaign around it, but it's a it's a next generation

or an evolution. I think when you think about it from like a work product, it's like you only see the giant campaign work and if it's really kick ass and like you all this amazing coverage and you've done some really interesting things from a PR and Colm standpoint, but that usually starts because you did it. You started doing components even you lead the ground and I don't think that way enough out loud. Yeah, yeah, I agree.

It's and you also it's a little bit of trusting your gut, like, hey, you know this, this has legs. I know this has legs. You know I preached this all the time. I have friends that mocked me when I say this, And it's such a simple statement. Know your media and know their audience, right, And if you know you're the media, you know your media and your audience, and you trust your gut. You know, that's where you go out and test and learn. Be like, that's where

you should have that confidence. Have you seen data? Right? So a lot of the marketing decisions or sort of media planning and buying decisions UM these days have a higher dependency obviously on data driven insights. Are you seeing that impact PR and calms UM or do you still feel or is it still something that really relies on how well you know the industry and that gut fact or you were just talking about. I look at well, depending on what if it's a law campaign, launch, product launch, etcetera.

But really looking at the media their reach, I look at all the media and their analytics, and then I look through past um and say, oh, I know this media outlet drives a lot of traffic and sales. You know, so I'm really from a strategic point. That's how I kind of pick um pick the media to go out to when we like launch um. It's but again there's a lot of gray areas still left to kind of uncover. How does the role of influence impact that list and

who you you go to pitch right? Can you talk about that tension that exists within influence and what that looks like when you're having to consider established media brand to sort of scaled individuals. Influence is part of my strategy for any of the launch of a campaign, a product, anything that is right there, we build that out. You know, it used to be all about that top influencer, you know, the man repeller. You know, we love to talk about the Man Repeller, but and those and those types of

digital influencers. But what I've been really fascinated by and have really stuck into is looking at the micro influencers. I mean, it's it's just been eye opening of what the power of a micro influencer. And obviously you know their rates are lower, but there it's so interesting to watch how their engagement is high. And if you're if you're a brand or a company that you know may not have big budgets, this this is this isn't something

you need to have into your launch strategy. So you've really gone I'm going to call it d T I influencer because yes it is. It's all changed. You know, there's no rules like we're getting to use different you know, and there's a lot more paid pieces to getting this earned media. There such an important part. We do not do a launch without an influencer component to it. So what skill set does a modern day pr comms person need to have to be effective, be aware, be be

out there in the world, living and listening and experiencing. Well, we have to let you get back to your vacation. But first, but first we're going to do our game killed by d I Y Camry. What in the world would you kill? What would you buy? And what would you do yourself? Okay, you know what I'm going to kill is the traditional press release. I'm so sorry. Yeah that that was a given. What am I going to buy? Oh? I might want to buy away, um, but what would

I do myself? You know, I'm gonna go back to I want to figure out. I'm gonna figure out video visual audio pitches short, sweet, you know where you can engage. That's what I'm going to figure out. I've got to find some partners to do that. Well, Kimry, if people want to get in touch with you to talk about that fifteen second elevator video pitch, how do they get in touch with you? They try to get me at KASA com k A z Z A k I M at hazard count on all social Kimrie, enjoy your trip

in California. Thank you so much for calling in a lot of thank you to Kimry Blackwelder for joining us calling it in her vacation. The only thing we were missing from this episode were spicy Margarinas said, it um so big. Thanks to Kimry. Thank you to friends and family at Panoply, our producer Dana Matt turk Andy Bowers. We'll be back in two weeks. Full disclosure. Our opinions are our own