One of the often-overlooked aspects of PR is the importance of letting clients know the whole truth—good, bad, and unvarnished. Yes, we need to be encouraging and positive, but it’s also essential to be rigorously honest. And that isn’t always easy. 

Clients come to you for your vision and expertise and sometimes they expect you to just accentuate the positive and forget about the negative. But here’s the thing: the press won’t. And in today’s fast-moving media landscape, clients need to be prepped for reporters who ask the tough questions and expect real answers ...

On Thursday, November 29^th 2012, the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly voted to accept Palestine as a “non-member observer” state. The vote was 138 to 9 in favor of the measure with 41 abstentions and three that didn’t take part in this vote. Despite the opposition and threats by the United States and Israel to punish the Palestinians by withholding funds for the West Bank government, the assembly insisted on approving the upgrade.

This status has important legal implications where it will permit the Palestinians to participate in U.N. debates, and boost their chances of joining U ...

Excitement spread as celebrations for the UAE’s 41st National Day commenced, an abundance of UAE flags draped the homes and vehicle’s of thousands of residents across the Emirates. The jubilation also saw the likes of Hotels, construction sites and even the Dubai Mall Aquarium sporting the UAE National flag.  

On Sunday, the hype of the 41st National day transcended to a series of parades, fireworks and folk shows which demonstrated the culture and heritage, as well as highlighted the wide -spread delegation of Emiratis and UAE residents across all seven Emirates. Not even the heavy rainfall experienced over ...

The mandate of public relations is to build and sustain strong relationships between an organisation and
its publics, and, in doing so, contribute to society.
The Global Alliance’s 2010 Stockholm Accords affirmed the characteristics of the communicative
organisation and the value of public relations and communications professionals in management,
governance, sustainability, and internal and external communication.
Today, unprecedented public access to communication presents new challenges and opportunities for
organisations – and for global society. This presents a new mandate for public relations and
communication management: a set of roles, responsibilities and principles hereby endorsed by
delegates to the 2012 World ...

‘Is it possible to have too much experience in PR?’ I found myself asking this week as I thought about the skills our industry needs.
Last month’s Public Relations World Congress in Dubai drew big name speakers from across the globe – including our own founder and Chime Communications chairman Lord Bell. Another was Prema Sagar, founding president of the Public Relations Consultants Association of India, who reportedly noted that more clients are seeking professionals with specialized knowledge of clients’ particular fields – telecoms, for example.

This surprised me slightly. Not that clients want that their professional advisers to have detailed ...

The importance and need for public relations has never been more; and hence we need to evolve with changing times. Competition has intensified and clients are progressively becoming more demanding for better quality, better efficiency, and more creativity but most importantly, pro-activity.

With the increasing impact of globalization, the emergence of social media, the rapidly evolving economy, and general competence of the public relations offering, the need for PR professionals to be proactive in terms of services provided, conceptualization of creative solutions and ideas, and anticipation of crisis situations, has gained tremendous traction.

Public Relations, considered by most as the ...

It’s widely recognised that the PR industry has long suffered a reputation challenge of its own. After all, it’s not rocket science, right?

Anyone can do it! And we see this reflected at times when we meet a prospective client only to find that the receptionist or office administrator has been tasked to manage the agency with a brief to get the company into the press and create ‘big PR’.

Aside from the appreciation for what a solid communications strategy can do for a company, this sets alarm bells ringing over the perception of how important the company ...

There has been a great deal of debate about internships within the PR industry on an international scale with industry bodies such as the CIPR in the UK calling for PR internships to be paid for, with clear objectives and deliverables in place to ensure the mutual benefit for both intern and agency. The fact that this is still being debated within the industry is a sorry indictment on the value we as PR professionals place on internships.
Internships help graduates make the transition from academia and are an important gateway to the industry. We live in a multi-cultural society ...

We’ve all seen and likely created a sepia-tinted, vintage-style digital photo on our smartphones using the photo sharing service Instagram. 

It makes our images look much cooler than they are, which is probably why the number of Instagram users is exploding—from 15 million in early 2012 to 80 million users in July. That’s an increase of 400 percent in seven months. 

And as they did with the surging popularity of Twitter and Facebook, big brands have taken notice. Arecent study by Simply Measured found that 40 percent of Interbrand’s top 100 have an Instagram presence. Brands ...

I am sure I was not alone in my excitement to see the headlines when the UAE Chapter
of the International Advertising Association (IAA) unveiled its code entitled ‘Best Practice
in the Pitch Process’.

The reputed international body has taken a bold step by sharing its
recommended guidelines on the new business process, including the advocacy of
compensation to agencies for work undertaken on pitches.

Launched in June, the IAA guide recommends a series of time-saving initiatives such as
‘chemistry’ meetings ahead of any formal presentations and inviting only a shortlist of 2-
3 agencies to present. Moreover it states ...