Trust Me, PR is Dead

2015 | Business & Finance

In Trust Me, PR is Dead, Robert Phillips - the former EMEA CEO of Edelman, the world's largest public relations firm - calls the end of the PR industry and advocates new models of public leadership and public value. He tells tales from the front line and twenty-five years at the summit of PR, from the 'Hello Boys' Wonderbra campaign to sharing the stage with CEOs and prime ministers, as well as trying to bring an end to the British monarchy. Trust Me, PR is Dead includes over a hundred stories and interviews with key business leaders and politicians, as well as detailed case studies from a wide range of organisations and movements including Unilever, Tata, Patagonia, John Lewis, Arup, Mondragon, Porto Alegre and 38 Degrees. It includes communications strategies for dealing with the progressive future. Trust Me, PR is Dead captures the story of an industry seemingly unaware of its own death throes, but Robert also highlights the inevitable demise of many other traditional, disrupted industries and disciplines - from media to publishing and political parties, diplomacy to internal communications and, most crucial, leadership itself.

In an age of individual empowerment, power is shifting from state to cities; employer to employee; corporation to citizen-consumer. Power and influence have become asymmetrical. Trust is forever fragile and attempts at control futile. As the time of PR and so many old industries comes to an end, Robert optimistically attempts to answer the question: "if everything is dead, what comes next?", and argues that activism, radical honesty and transparency should be at the heart of business and politics today.

Robert Phillips (Author)