When Communications Can't Close the Values Gap - with Emil Hill

00:00
Dan Nestle
Welcome or welcome back to the trending Communicator. I'm your host, Dan Nestle. Sometimes I think the rise of public affairs tells you everything about where communications is headed. Companies are collapsing their silos, corporate comms, investor relations, government relations, sometimes research and insights, all rolling up into a public affairs umbrella. Now, it makes sense when you realize that every stakeholder is now connected to every other stakeholder. Your employees or your investors and your regulators or your community members. The lines are blurred or don't exist anymore. But with this expanded remit comes exponentially more complexity. Public affairs practitioners are now responsible for navigating fractured audiences, unpredictable political swings, cultural sensitivities that shift by the hour. You need to be creative, engaged, authentic, all while knowing that one misread of the room could trigger a cascade that threatens your entire license to operate.

01:08
Dan Nestle
Modern public affairs isn't about managing separate stakeholder groups. It's about recognizing they're all connected. Well, fortunately, there's someone who's been operating at this intersection for 25 years or more. Before we even called it a big P. Big A Public affairs. He guided the W.K. Kellogg foundation through their Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation initiative. When Papa John's faced their reckoning, when the National Education association needed to demonstrate value in a hostile environment, when UnitedHealth Group needed someone who understood government programs and public trust during peak scrutiny, they all turned to the same strategist. His approach what he calls calm, clarity and precision. His firm, the Cresham Group, is named after a Philadelphia trail that connects separated neighborhoods. And that metaphor matters. His career reads like he saw this convergence coming. Manning, Selvage, and Lee, handling integrated programs for Verizon and the US Army.

02:05
Dan Nestle
Sixteen years at Weber Shandwick, rising to EVP, then a pivot to UnitedHealth Group as SVP of Government Programs. Getting that inside view of how public affairs works within the most scrutinized sectors. Now he's running his own advisory, the Gresham Group. We're going to dig into how you navigate this expanded public affairs mandate when every decision ripples across every constituency. Making his debut on the trending communicator, principal of the Gresham Group, Emil Hill.

02:34
Emil Hill
Emil, thank you.

02:35
Dan Nestle
It is good to see you.

02:37
Emil Hill
Good to see you, Daniel. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to have this opportunity to talk to you and your audience.

02:42
Dan Nestle
Yeah, it's great to see you. And. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. Many things are interesting, but I can't believe you've been, like, outside of my radar for so long. I mean, we've been kind of running in somewhat similar circles for decades. I guess PR is pretty big after all. I always think it's a small kind of insular world and sometimes it is ideologically and we might get to that. But we're really a big community and I'm glad that we finally did connect. So the impressive work that you've done that people who don't know you have experienced or know about all comes from that, you know, that public affairs, horse sense. Know how.

03:31
Dan Nestle
I don't know what you want to call it, but just that idea that, look, all these things connect to one another and that kind of, I think, is the thread that goes through so many of the activities that we recommend and the kind of solutions that we provide. So, enough for preamble. I just wanted to kind of recognize you for coming and thank you very much again for being here.

03:56
Emil Hill
Thank you. I'm excited about it. I would love to tell you that I had foresight and this has been my lifetime dream since I was a kid.

04:08
Emil Hill
It was not.

04:10
Emil Hill
It really truly happens. Dance If.

04:13
Dan Nestle
Yeah.

04:14
Emil Hill
I started, I studied finance in undergrad. I was a business administration major. And you probably couldn't have told me that I wasn't going to be an investment banker or some sort of banker at some point in my life, I decided to become a consultant. And. And I think at very early part in my life, I learned that I like to solve problems, difficult problems, in order to graduate from college. A phenomenal chair of the finance department at Morehouse, Dr. John Williams, insisted that we not only be able to solve these mathematical equations about the time value of money or how to calculate beta risk in a company's portfolio, you had to be able to explain the formula and all the things associated with it. And in any contemporary environment, based on what was going on in the news. And I absolutely loved it.

05:23
Emil Hill
And fortunately for me and a group of my friends who study together, we did really well in our final exam and got our degrees. I think that when I got into management consulting and I did the same thing, took complex problems and simplified them in a way that everyday people could understand. And so my journey to Washington, all these years doing public affairs, I think I've been able to communicate with corporate leaders inside and outside of companies because I had a way to learn complex things and then try to simplify them. And at my core, I told you, I study finance, I'm a problem solver. And so whatever communications tools are at my disposal and understanding issues is. That's truly what public affairs is and has always been.

06:15
Dan Nestle
I've heard a similar tale more often than not recently from leaders in our profession, from people who kind of fell into PR and into public affairs and into communications. They didn't set out to be communicators. They didn't set out to be like, oh, I want to be at the head of Weber Shandwick or whatever it is. They set out to either solve problems or to tell truth about something or to occasionally be, in some cases to just tell great stories. But they set out to ultimately, I think, just like you said, to solve problems that are really hard to solve and that are hard to quantify.

07:00
Dan Nestle
And another kind of thread that kept running through things is some of the really successful folks, at least in the corporate world, they talk about the importance of business acumen and of just really understanding the businesses that you're working with. Because if you don't have that strategic context, how can you offer a solution? And how can you be respected? Or how can you have the authority and the license to operate right? And what you said really kind of I didn't realize that you came into this whole thing with a finance degree. And it makes sense, though. It makes sense because you've really been advising folks at the top for a considerable amount of time. And I mean, a large portion of that must because you innately, or you buy hard work, understand their business and understand what they're going for.

07:53
Emil Hill
I don't know if you can really be a good partner to any client if you don't immerse yourself in their business, understand who their competitors are, try to get a sense for their DNA and try to advise based on those understandings. If you don't have that, yeah, you're going to fall short every time. And I think some of the smartest people I've ever met in communications, and I still know a lot of finance people who I think are smart. But I even, I think across businesses that the best communicators, and that means the people that it could explain what it is they're trying, attempting to do to their shareholders, to their customers, to their employees, run the most effective businesses.

08:43
Emil Hill
Yeah, I think you see the cracks and I'm sure we'll talk about this, is when a crisis arrives, when there's a misstep, and you know, a lot of organizations want to as quickly as possible extinguish that problem to make sure their stock price continues to go up and don't always want to diagnose where the challenges might be. And it is usually because at some place in your organization, your values aren't being met. And it either upsets an investor, particularly an activist, or a significant portion of your customer base. And those aren't problems that you're able to solve quickly now. Those are problems that require organizational awareness and a decision at the highest levels that we're going to address those issues. And sometimes, you know, it could take longer than you think you have as an executive that is concerned about a dipping share price.

09:55
Dan Nestle
Yeah, sometimes. And it often does take longer, especially for those executives who know that they're on a clock and the next board meeting's around the corner and there's hell to pay and there's only some. There's got to be some heads rolling. And sometimes that happens. And that makes it very hard to effectively run a crisis program and really kind of diagnose what the problems are, as you said. But as you were talking about that, you know, one of the things that we talked about or that I talked about in the intro is this whole consolidation or kind of amalgamation of different parts of what were traditionally communications and even a few little extras. Little extras. I don't mean to be diminutive about insights and research, but you know, just the, the remit is changing and expanding.

10:48
Dan Nestle
Do you think that partly this, the way that companies have dealt with crises, do you think that's partly one of the contributors to that consolidation? Or what do you, what else do you think is driving that consolidation?

11:03
Emil Hill
Look, I think the. There are a number of factors that are driving it. One, we live in an era where news travels so incredibly fast. And when you think about when you and I were growing up, you got a sense for what was going on in the morning. Maybe if your parents had the radio on and you were listening, and that was pretty local. And then in the evening when Walter Cronkite or one of those guys came on, you got a national and a global perspective about things. Then you heard about the larger corporations. And if you were really sharp as a kid or your parents insisted you were reading your local newspaper.

11:47
Emil Hill
We've moved from an era where you.

11:50
Emil Hill
Read your local newspaper and listen to local news to an era where you read a national or regional paper that summarizes whatever you pick, your cable outlet of choice. And younger people use any of those things, they're getting their news across TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and X and any number of their favorite influencers who speak in a way that they can understand. So as an Organization trying to navigate through this malaise with, you know, policy implications to your business, the viability of your business and sustainability to, you know, something happening in your store or within your hospital system. That seems like a small thing, but.

12:44
Emil Hill
When somebody is carrying around a supercomputer all day and there are thousands of them and they turn into man or women on the street reporting on a story, you've got to be prepared to respond in appropriate manner to those small things that are big, that say a lot about your business.

13:09
Dan Nestle
And.

13:11
Emil Hill
Because now you're a local congressman.

13:14
Emil Hill
Or senator or you're the mayor and.

13:18
Emil Hill
Nowadays the president of the United States, everybody listening to, looking at the same meme or the same news clip that went news clip on the phone that has gone viral and they're talking about your business and these people are regulating your business and looking at your business, you've got to respond to them and you've got to respond to your customers who might decide, I don't want to buy your product anymore, it doesn't represent me anymore. So if you go out, have copped with a story or a response that doesn't in some way take in consideration the full complement of your audiences or more importantly your customers, including Wall street, you've got a huge problem.

14:05
Emil Hill
And so, you know, we've been in this business long enough to know when the investor relations guys and girls, they had nothing to do with what was going on with public affairs. And the marketing people were, you know, trying to sell said product or said perspective on the company. And the communications people were all the way over there trying to put out a fire. Now with this new consolidation, fortunately for us, we've got a seat at the table and now the top seat in many cases, and an opportunity to address the board, the C suite and take a look at the external communications, whether it's advertising and the impact some of those things might have. So they don't appear toned up.

14:54
Dan Nestle
Yeah.

14:56
Emil Hill
And to me, when I saw where this was at its height was during the pandemic and all the things that were happening in the world where, you know, companies had to respond and then the so called racial reckoning that occurred as well, you had a convergence of constituencies that had a perspective of everything a brand organization or an association was saying or doing. And many corporations were not structured to be able to respond in a way that made sense for all of those constituencies. Now, I'm not gonna say that you're.

15:39
Emil Hill
Ever going to be able to respond perfectly, but I think where we've landed.

15:47
Emil Hill
Now is you're able to do so in a way that takes into account.

15:56
Emil Hill
The implications for a broader group of audiences.

15:59
Emil Hill
And you could tweak your regulatory language.

16:04
Emil Hill
A little bit and be consistent.

16:06
Emil Hill
You can decide to table some commercials on a broad reach that you might not have before. You can suspend your social posts at a time if you can make a case to the leadership team, and now you can with this new structure, why this is important and if you don't.

16:26
Emil Hill
What the implications are.

16:27
Emil Hill
So I think organizations are in a.

16:31
Emil Hill
Much better position nowadays given this new construct to be able to respond quickly enough to at least get back to even amongst their key audiences.

16:44
Dan Nestle
Yeah, much more quickly and smoothly. I mean, you know, as you're speaking, I envisioned Christmas tree lights. You know, maybe this isn't the way it works anymore. And you know, every God knows, everybody knows. It says there, right there. I mean, you know, I'm Jewish, I don't have a tree. Oh, I do have a tree. That's not true. I have, I have a Costco plug in tree. And for anybody out there who's like a Christmas tree purist, it's a miracle I have a tree at all. Being Jewish, my wife's Japanese, we do Japanese style Christmas. I'll talk about it some other time if anybody wants to know. But what I do know is all the times helping my friends or helping, I mean going over my friends for Christmas tree decoration to their families and stuff. You remember the plug in lights?

17:29
Dan Nestle
There's a string, one light bulb is out, the whole thing doesn't work or else you'd have to have multiple, you know, strings of lights and somewhere like behind a tree there'd be this crazy looking octopus of plugs. No wonder there were lots of tree fires back in the day. But we'd have this kind of like mess of plugs and stuff and each one would go to a different string of lights. So that's I think what the communications slash public affair like that outward stakeholder relationship map might have looked like not too long ago where, you know, okay, even if you unplug one or even if there's one light bulb out, there's still seven or eight lights going on. So maybe we can keep, you know, maybe things still stay bright.

18:19
Dan Nestle
But now it's all connected in the one kind of continuous or more continuous light. So when one bulb goes out, everybody knows. Everybody knows. And you can make that change very quickly. Was that like, how's that for a metaphor on the fly? I, you know, I'M trying to do my thing here.

18:38
Emil Hill
I absolutely love that metaphor. It is great.

18:42
Dan Nestle
Let's mark the day that I spoke about Christmas trees. Yeah.

18:45
Emil Hill
Well, I'm gonna take your metaphor and move it a step further along to say that not only do you know that it's that light and you can respond to it, you actually can measure.

18:57
Emil Hill
The strength or the weakness of the other bulbs now given the measurement tools and they're available for us today.

19:05
Dan Nestle
Yeah, that is a whole like measuring the output of light bulbs is. Feels like I need some. Need electrician to come in. But I see the metaphor. I, I am always excited about these different developments in measurement and how we're using technology to make that whole system flow even better and kind of get the warning signs when something is either shorting out or opening up. Right. And when there's a surge of some kind, we can continue this metaphor forever. But yeah, the advent like technology has definitely had a lot to do with this consolidation because it's possible now. And do you see that in your day to day work? Are you really kind of working with technology a lot to make some of this stuff happen? Yeah.

20:00
Emil Hill
Look.

20:02
Emil Hill
The beauty of AI from a communicator standpoint is I can keep up with multiple things in a way that I don't need an entire staff of people or a big agency to keep up with a range of issues and what news is. I can program AI to deliver me a report in the morning and another one in the afternoon about a range of issues and reports. And at my leisure cone took them. I have friends that work for data companies that help me.

20:46
Dan Nestle
Oh, good for you.

20:48
Emil Hill
And, and have a good sense for, you know, maps where things are flashing. And so often I refer my clients to them as a great source to make sure you have a true. A couple of fingers on the pulse of your audiences and you measure it over time. Look, everybody wants to tell a good story and figure out the most effective way to do that as quickly as possible. And at some point those stories stop resonating with your audiences and you gotta find a more creative approach to do that. I like to tell the story. My favorite learning was working for the army on the army of One and then the Army Strong campaign.

21:41
Emil Hill
It was very clear.

21:43
Emil Hill
And the Army's own brand group had determined that young people did not care about doing more before 9am than everybody else did all day. And they were more interested in believing that they could bring their individual skills and talents, whatever they were, be trained and be a contributor in America's Army. We, the organization I was with, and I have to include myself, did not do a good enough job getting, by getting buy in across the army for that construct and the impact it was having. Now we made mission every year. But if senior leaders across the organization did not like the individuality that sort of suggested to a new recruit.

22:41
Emil Hill
And every chance they got, whenever I.

22:44
Emil Hill
Sat down in any installation, I had to defend the campaign. And I largely think that's why we ended up. Now lots of other things happened moving away from that campaign and on to Army Strong, which, you know, because of some incredibly smart and talented creatives at McCann and an amazing leadership team across McCann and Weber Shanwood, we're able to figure out how to preview this new campaign with senior leaders across the army.

23:19
Emil Hill
And make announcement at the.

23:23
Dan Nestle
At.

23:23
Emil Hill
The Army's annual convention, the convention center, and unveil it in a way that evokes so much pride that the army adopted it as if they'd come up with that. And I think that's why were. That was the key to our success. It was no longer the agency's campaign, it was the Army's actual campaign. And oh, by the way, it also worked. Yeah. So the point of making this I'm trying to make here is, look.

23:56
Emil Hill
Trying.

23:57
Emil Hill
To figure out what your audiences want is really important and your internal audiences are as important as those external audiences. And so when you have communicators that understand your business, are interested in learning more about your audiences and a leader that understands that where he or she has a wide range of constituencies that they need to deliver messages to, I think that is the recipe for success also understanding what that organization's core values are. So when we talk, when I talk about the army of One and Army Strong, we thought were hitting their core values. And were. And we thought we had a message that certainly resonated with 18 and 34 year olds. We did. But where we lost was that key. And in this case, the most important audience was that internal audience.

24:58
Emil Hill
Because at the end of the day, your best spokespeople are the people that are part of an organization. If they don't buy into it, you're going to ultimately have difficulty.

25:07
Dan Nestle
So yeah, and it's an interesting story not only because of the success that it had ultimately with the army, but it's a lesson that too many communicators maybe and marketers still have, I think, have difficulty taking to heart. And that lesson is everything really needs to look at the audiences like you really have to start from audience research, understanding who your stakeholders are. You know, we can say audiences are stakeholders. Let's just say they're the same thing for the sake of argument. And I get it. You go into a job, you want to impress people. You're supposed to have the knowledge. You go in there and you say, this is what our message is. But who are you speaking for? Are you speaking for yourself? Are you speaking because you've read a book?

26:04
Dan Nestle
Or are you speaking because you've, you're intimately familiar with the audiences that this is going to reach, and that is supposed to reach and that are core and central to your business and to your organization. And there's always room to be creative and audacious and interesting and fun or provocative. But you don't even know if you're going to be provocative unless you know what's going to provoke. You have to understand the audience first.

26:36
Emil Hill
I, I think that I agree 100 with that.

26:39
Emil Hill
I, I don't want to take anything.

26:41
Emil Hill
From the army of one campaign because it was, you know, today is the anniversary in 9 11.

26:48
Dan Nestle
Oh, wow. On this recording. Yes. Right.

26:51
Emil Hill
And I, you know, it was profound impact on me because I was working for them at the time. And I think that the takeaway is it worked. Yeah, the campaign was wildly successful. But if you can't convince your client, who's got to go to the mat for you dayto day and this, and in this case to get federal funds to be able to spend on a, you know, broad, one of the largest broadreach campaigns that runs every single year, period, you're not going to last for very long.

27:32
Emil Hill
And so the lesson I took from.

27:34
Emil Hill
That is being creative and smart and right is one thing, but those things aren't the most important thing. If you can't explain to your client or your primary audience who's ultimately responsible for what this means, what it's going to do and lay out the risks, then your intellect won't go far. And I think the biggest challenges I've had professionally, and I dare say probably most communicators, is having a great idea and an approach that I can't sell.

28:17
Emil Hill
Or explain in a way that makes.

28:19
Emil Hill
Sense to the person that is ultimately responsible for the organization. So I spend a lot of time, and I'm sure most communicators do sort of thinking through what are the questions my client is going to ask, what examples can I give him or her to explain why this would work and what data do I have to back that up if it goes deeper So I think the communicators now, because of the convergence, understand that better than ever. And I think organization heads that are doing this consolidation realize that I need.

29:00
Emil Hill
One stop to get us the pulse of what my stakeholders are thinking, doing.

29:06
Emil Hill
And how they feel about communications. And I can't go to the marketing person, I can't go to the investor relations person and go to the.

29:13
Emil Hill
I'm going to get three different five or six stories and that's not helpful.

29:19
Emil Hill
To my business or my interest in the long term.

29:22
Dan Nestle
Yeah. So you need to consolidate. And just the idea though, that you can go into a meeting now, like today, in 2025, and not be able to explain what the data is or what the rationale is or what the. I guess being able to persuade your stakeholder, your client or your audience, your executives, why they should go with what you're advocating or why they should go with one of the things you're advocating, whatever it is. Now, I don't think there's an excuse now to not be prepared for that. Not that there ever has been. But now with you mentioned AI earlier, I mean, I always joke that, okay, you're the one who started the AI conversation and that's what, you know, we always talk about here on the trending communicator. It's your fault. But I have found, at least in that respect.

30:29
Dan Nestle
Well, in many respects, but certainly in the respect of, all right, what evidence do I need, what data can I find, etc. I found that AI and combined with a couple other research tools. Right. How have been incredible for me and not only in helping me to show my clients and my prospective partners what the upside is for anything I'm doing or why I think it's the right thing to do, but also to show me when I'm essentially full of shit and I'm not going down the right direction, no matter how cool the idea is. I'm sorry, there's no market for that or you're going to have a rough time with that or your pricing point is far too high.

31:12
Dan Nestle
Whatever the answer is, I find that interaction with having my own personal board of directors, so to speak, in AI, and it's not always right, you have to always check. But it does help you think things through a lot more than ever before.

31:28
Emil Hill
Well, I think it forces rigor and if you use it right, I think it's like anything else we talked about, you know, calculating risk and time value and money earlier. Bad data in.

31:44
Dan Nestle
Yeah.

31:45
Emil Hill
Bad data out.

31:47
Emil Hill
Poor analysis is poor analysis. So, you know, I think the most effective and seasoned communicators learn how to leverage AI for what it is, a tool and not this catch all for anything and everything like anybody else. I think I'm pretty smart. I think being a consultant and not having a large agency, you have fewer people to be able to bounce things off of.

32:20
Emil Hill
But I think what AI has done.

32:22
Emil Hill
Is put you in a position to get that counsel, or at least another perspective backed up by data to support or refute whatever you're recommending. And it's only going to get better. Like literally I've watched over the last couple of years how much more data is available and how things have changed. And so I think it's an incredible tool.

32:48
Dan Nestle
Oh, it's amazing.

32:49
Emil Hill
That's only going to get better. And I, you know, for people that are fearful that it's going to take jobs, it could. But a smart person, a seasoned person.

33:02
Emil Hill
Will always have a seat at the.

33:03
Emil Hill
Table because if you still got to interpret the information that it's providing you and if you don't have experience with issues that are arising, I mean, you know, we talked about a few crises that I've worked on. I mean you can't plug that stuff in a computer. I mean you're going to get some.

33:22
Emil Hill
Scenarios, but there's some nuances like you.

33:25
Emil Hill
Know, maybe I don't have as progressive of a shareholder that is interested in changing a brand around.

33:33
Emil Hill
And so I've got to deal with, I have in front of me maybe.

33:38
Emil Hill
I, you know, general counsel has had.

33:45
Emil Hill
Experience like five or six other big lawsuits like this. And I don't know it because they've been able to keep this out of the paper. So when I'm recommending not settling because I've put together some great analysis, it's still the people. And so, you know, the tension often.

34:04
Emil Hill
Between the general counsel at a big company, communications person say it ain't so.

34:10
Emil Hill
You know, their perspective is awesome. You know, and it's, and it should, they want to mitigate as much risk as possible. And I remind them that, you know, you've got the courts to consider and I've got public opinion and now that might have an outside view. And so I can, if you want, I can put a dollar figure on what happens if your case becomes, doesn't go away and you can't settle it because it's in the news and it won't go away or it becomes, you know, viral. So that's not something that AI can tell you, that's something you have to know from, you know, having your data and being able to present your case to your peers and seeing what prevails based on recent experiences.

34:57
Dan Nestle
Friend of mine recently wrote, excuse me, Friend. I recently wrote on a substack about he's a neuroscientist. And he said something like, and I'm going to paraphrase and forgive me, Michael Netzle for butchering this, but he said something about your brain is your last secret weapon, right? It's your last and best weapon against losing your job or losing your livelihood or whatever. He didn't exactly put it that way. I kind of made the glass half empty there for a second. But he said that when he said that, when he wrote that. I've also been working a lot with the idea that domain expertise is your advantage. Like being an expert in a field, it's not enough.

35:45
Dan Nestle
But being able to, I guess, amplify that expertise and bring it to bear when the moments are right is something that AI can help you with, but it can't do. And you could choose any number of scenarios for two and a half years or almost three years. Now it's almost three years, only three since ChatGPT launched and kicked us off on this crazy adventure, even though AI has been around longer than that in this short three years we've heard from. Like I said, if AI was launched the end of November of 2022, December 1, 2022, we already saw all the blog posts, all the influencers, everybody out there saying, your job is over, you're going to lose your job, AI is coming to get you. And that's been the case now for three years. I agree with you.

36:46
Dan Nestle
I don't think AI is going to take people's jobs necessarily. I don't think that's what it is. I, I, I think it's a lot more nuanced and very difficult to predict simply because predictions are usually based on linear understanding of events and you base on what's happened before. That's the way you kind of make predictions for the future. But most of those kind of people who make hay out of scaring the hell out of everyone, they don't know, they simply don't know. And, and they're not accounting for innovation, for developments. Great example, for example, PRofessionals had been listed in a number of studies as like the number two or three profession at risk of being replaced by AI. And these are nonsense, bullshit studies, I think. But like number one is always translation, by the way, which I kind of agree with.

37:52
Dan Nestle
But okay, fine. So pr, how are they defining pr? What does that mean? I don't know. But the point is, right, that was the way it was. Well then all of a sudden, just short while ago, we learn that AI search, which is now a thing, has become a bigger thing and is going to continue to be a big thing to the extent that Google is even arguing that is the end of the open web. Right? But AI search, geo, whatever you want to call it, well, guess what? It relies a lot on every. On earned media and on owned media, more on owned media than earned. But that's something I'm going to have to duke out with Muckrack anyway. Earned media, who does earned media, who does reputation? Who does credibility? We do.

38:43
Dan Nestle
Okay, now all of a sudden, wait a second, there's a growing need for senior PR people. What the hell? So don't listen to any of that nonsense. Things are going to change. There's always going to be evolutions, developments, right, that are going to affect the market and affect the way that we, that our careers or our jobs move. What we can control is how we interact with our own time and certainly, I guess at work with the most advanced tools that are at our disposal. And whether or not we learn about them or how far we go with them is going to vary. But you got to do it. And that is how you insulate yourself against the vagaries of change or the chaos of change, I suppose. Anyway, I didn't mean to go off that far.

39:40
Dan Nestle
What I really was thinking though is, right, so now you have a public affairs function or corporate affairs, it's being consolidated. I keep saying public affairs is one part of it. But now instead of CCOs, you're having chief corporate affairs officers, CCAOs. And corporate affairs includes all these different things, you know, and I absolutely should be a massive enabler for this. Especially when you're talking about smoothing out processes and workflows and communications between and amongst functions within a company. But that's operational, mechanical. What I was, what I kept going back to is this something you said about poor analysis? Is poor analysis like garbage in, garbage out, all this stuff? Right, and follow me here for a second because I'm going to make the segue that, you know, we talked about earlier, this poor analysis, garbage in, garbage out.

40:43
Dan Nestle
You have to wonder when you see what's going on out there in the media, in with brands, and as of the time of this recording, you know, we've just been through the Cracker Barrel Thing and the target stuff and you know, American Eagle is still sort of out there in the ether somewhere, you know, and in the past several years it's just been one thing after another with brands making what end up looking like massive missteps and you know, suffering the cost at, in the market from investors, from their consumers, depending. And you'd think that they would have the data, that they would have the confident information that would allow them to make the right kind of decisions or decide things. I mean, we've been talking about a few things.

41:43
Dan Nestle
Before we started recording, Emil and I were talking about this, but we didn't mention Jaguar, for example. Right. The Jaguar example of this, this what, what might be called audacious brand renewal and brand campaign. But I mean, I still can't believe my lion eyes on this one. Like who's going to buy very gigantic purple cars that cost $150,000 that have no connection to Jaguar heritage and are not aimed at car buyers at all. Right. I mean, I just maybe I'm sure I'm missing a few things and there's a lot more to that case, but I would have thought that tons and tons of research has gone into this. I just don't know the answers and I guess we'll find out about.

42:32
Emil Hill
So there are a couple of things.

42:33
Emil Hill
That I, I would, I'd say about that. I want touch on that. You know, I, I don't work at Jaguar. Not sure what they're thinking. Here's what I would venture to guess. Sometimes organizations do things to get on the radar. It's audacious and it's bold and you know, I don't know how much money it would take to push Jaguar, a British car maker, back into the conversation with some of the larger car makers and more established reputations. Mercedes, Porsche, Ford, gm and now I guess Rivian is coming up there with Tesla, I think.

43:23
Emil Hill
You know, I don't know what kind of research was done, but I'm guessing.

43:27
Emil Hill
That it wasn't just about selling more of those cars.

43:30
Emil Hill
Yeah, I'm guessing that it probably was about having people talk about Jaguar gift, which they're not doing now.

43:41
Dan Nestle
Right.

43:41
Emil Hill
But they are now because people are looking at this.

43:44
Emil Hill
Yep. So, you know, I want to give.

43:48
Emil Hill
Them the benefit of the doubt because I think they, you know, like any organization, they've been around for a while.

43:53
Emil Hill
They'Re smart and they're probably, you know, a little more desperate than, and I.

43:58
Emil Hill
Won'T say desperate, they're more Open to creativity, accurate and doing unique things than they've been in the past. I would say, you know, when you.

44:08
Emil Hill
Talk about what organizations do and why we won't be replaced in the, in.

44:14
Emil Hill
The near future anyway, I think organizations.

44:16
Emil Hill
Are made up of people who have.

44:18
Emil Hill
Experiences, you know, things they believe. And oftentimes when you're a leader, you're able to impose that worldview on the entire organization. And sometimes it's good. There are different types of leaders for sure. You know, I think when I think about the fashion industry and the designers who lead those brands, they are largely the brand new. You know, whether it's, you know, Tom.

44:50
Emil Hill
Ford or Ralph Lauren or Lonnie's.

44:53
Emil Hill
Passed away or Ralph Lauren. These are people whose personal perspective drives.

45:00
Emil Hill
Those brands and they are consistent.

45:03
Emil Hill
I think some what we sometimes lose sight on.

45:06
Emil Hill
And I would take brands like Nvidia and probably Apple of your. And I still love my Apple products but Steve Jobs and the CEO whose name is escaping me in Nvidia, they are larger than life personality.

45:23
Dan Nestle
Jensen Huang.

45:23
Emil Hill
Yeah, yeah, Jensen Wang.

45:25
Emil Hill
Very smart people. And they've got a product that is right for the times that we're in and they embody that and are able to communicate that. I think, you know, there are lots.

45:37
Emil Hill
Of other organizations that don't have that.

45:39
Emil Hill
And haven't identified that person. And so notwithstanding the teams around them and whatever creatives around them, they are hampered sometimes from that. So I would take your Jaguar example and suspect that somebody has been unleashed and they're going to go down this path and hopefully that new car will drive broader sales for the organization.

46:06
Emil Hill
Not that one.

46:07
Dan Nestle
Oh, that's clearly what they're hoping for. And again, I don't claim to be a good prognosticator about any of these things. I just think that like it just does. It still is hard, it's hard to make sense of some of this stuff and well, I mean that's why I'm doing the trending communicator. Trending communicator and not future of brand. I mean it's different thing. But like I do think that there is, there are audiences that we need to pay attention to and then audiences that we maybe shouldn't have to. Shouldn't pay so much attention to. And when you're listening to the audience that you shouldn't necessarily pay attention to is when the mistakes really start to or the missteps start to happen because you're misreading the grassroots or the real ultimate desires of your consumer base.

47:07
Dan Nestle
And Look, I suppose what I'm saying there is stop listening to the fringe people on social media and really do real research.

47:14
Emil Hill
Do real research and understand who the.

47:18
Emil Hill
Key drivers of the efficacy of your brand, like who's really impacting reputation, stock price and growth, and not the people that have an opinion today. I always think it's fascinating when someone that has no followers, a client says.

47:45
Emil Hill
This person wrote xyz. It's not true. How are we able to do xyz? And it keeps popping up. And I'm like, well, I don't know how that person got in your algorithm, but it looks like they have X number of followers. And while I'm not saying you should totally ignore him or her, let's monitor.

48:07
Emil Hill
That person over time, see if there's.

48:09
Emil Hill
Some traction and determine whether or not it's worth the time that we might.

48:13
Emil Hill
Spend addressing that person.

48:16
Emil Hill
I think, you know, we're in.

48:19
Emil Hill
As communicators, we're in unique times with so much uncertainty. And people are looking, Organizations and leaders are looking for ways to mitigate that uncertainty in any way they can. And because so much of it in this environment is really out of their control. So our job largely is to figure it. Figure out how, based on what we know about their stakeholders, what we can do to help them manage their key stakeholders on an ongoing basis. And I think this consolidation is an important step to be able to do that. And the availability of data and what kind of data is available and how you can slice it up is really paramount.

49:13
Dan Nestle
Yeah, that connection between the different corporate affairs functions. And I have to stop saying public affairs. I have to start saying corporate affairs because public affairs is within that umbrella now. Gosh, Megan. Sorry, Megan. I keep thinking about Megan Noel, who is a previous guest on the show, who really helped me to figure out. Helped. Helped illustrate what the difference is, like, what corporate affairs really is. And here I am saying public affairs again. The thing that keeps kind of sticking out to me here is, you know, the disconnect with an audience in the prior. Before the consolidation. Let's say the disconnect with an audience might fester a lot longer or might be underestimated or overestimated, misjudged, let's say before, those connections between and among the different groups and stakeholders were clearer.

50:18
Dan Nestle
But when you have a kind of broader view and you know, okay, a local Facebook group in the middle of nowhere is pissed off because your factory is. Is stinking up the town. Your CEO is sending you these urgent memos because he's seeing that the local person, the local group is saying terrible, nasty things about your company. And the reaction or the tendency, if you didn't have an understanding of the insights of the various audience behaviors of how the stakeholders that you know, of how the shareholders especially are going to look at that particular group, are they connected in any way to that group? If you know these things, then you can say, look, these people are upset because they're town stings, not saying, we don't do anything.

51:18
Dan Nestle
What I am saying is let's monitor the situation on social because I have a very strong feeling that it is not going to spread beyond this Facebook group. But we will know by monitoring if it does spread, we'll get the idea. In the meantime, here's the mitigation strategy that you affect locally. So you got. You have to understand, right, and this is where it. You need local, probably more of a public affairs outreach to the local elected officials and to the, you know, to the council people who are looking at the stinky air, you know, and thinking about things. And you'd want to have local media on your side, et cetera. But. And we'll put a pin in local media because we're going to talk about that in just a minute.

52:07
Dan Nestle
But it's this whole thing about this immediate need to react to when you don't know all the players involved. And, you know, you just have this, you're. You're almost indoctrinated by this point to think that some terrible comment about you. If it's digital, well, then it's certain to go viral and you're dead. You got to start preparing your apologies and you got to start preparing, you know, it's always goes to that kind of, that extreme. And it's up to us to sort of counsel what is most likely to happen based on the research that we have, the data that we have, our understanding of those audiences and how important it is to the business.

52:52
Emil Hill
I agree. I think when you think about the new corporate affairs position and what it used to be like, you didn't necessarily in whether you were the head of communications, the head of public affairs or investor relations, none of those functions had access to the local person. You probably had a local PR person or communicator in that area. He or she had a very specific function and they laddered back up to that executive in that area and probably never talked to headquarters at all, almost ever. So you as a communicator could not reach into that until it really was a crisis.

53:42
Emil Hill
And by then it was too late. So now what you have the ability.

53:48
Emil Hill
Is to know what the sentiment is in markets where you serve all over the country because of availability of, you know, of research and data.

53:59
Dan Nestle
Yeah.

53:59
Emil Hill
So. And what you're also able to do.

54:02
Emil Hill
Is figure out what existing messaging. I suspect in your analogy that local person had some kind of communications about that odor coming from that organization's factory or whatever. I suspect it no longer resonated.

54:18
Emil Hill
The concern that I would have had is I don't want my local regulator in that region to now have an opinion about that before I know that.

54:30
Emil Hill
This is a problem.

54:31
Emil Hill
And maybe I can send someone down there with more experience with our issue.

54:36
Emil Hill
And, and deliver a message that, you.

54:39
Emil Hill
Know, should it get out and spread it is a. Consistent with our values.

54:43
Dan Nestle
Yeah.

54:43
Emil Hill
What often used to happen is some grow communicator would say something. Next thing I know, I'm reading about it in the paper and I'm trying to figure out where it came from and what I could do.

54:56
Dan Nestle
Imagine you're in that situation. You see something in the news like in the, in your monitoring reports. It says, okay, the local representative of the company said it doesn't stink that bad. Oh, my God, close your windows.

55:11
Emil Hill
I wish I could tell you that didn't actually happen.

55:15
Dan Nestle
I mean, I've seen much, much worse than that. But, you know, it's all. That's part of the fun actually, of our job when we get it right. And, you know, sometimes the answer is to get ahead of it, which is a pretty cool challenge. Like, all right, we have this stink problem. All right, how does that have any connection to our core business and our values? All right, well, if our values are to protect the environment, well, then we need to sort of maybe, you know, kind of use this as a case study. But we, but we have to have a plan. What's the plan? You know, and so on. You need to know the business for this. And it's just, it goes on and on, and it's exciting exercise when it does happen, if you have the Runway to do it.

55:52
Dan Nestle
Sometimes you don't. Sometimes it's like, oh, crap, we gotta issue a holding statement until we figure things out. And it's, you know, it's always something. But one of the, you know, in the, in this sort of as we wind down here, I did want touch with you, touch on something with you that we'd spoken about and that even brought up earlier is this idea of local news and, you know, I have this feeling that, you know, even though the local paper, for example, may take time to revive, if it does, the fracture of media, the fracturing of media and the rise of the. Of substack and kind of these independent journalists and so on is filtering down to regional and local levels. It's not the same thing as having a trained reporter in the local city council meetings. But you know, it's an evolution.

56:58
Dan Nestle
It's something. But it is a shame that the local news has disintegrated. Not only because we need the information and it's really kind of. It's very relevant to us, we're local. The more local something is, the more relevant it is to you and you automatically have a compelled audience. But it's because it used to be or it's supposed to be the fact that when things get local, all the noise of national conversations and of something happening in California, if you're in New Jersey or something happening somewhere else, it doesn't interfere with that local level of news. News being everything ranging from zoning decisions to you know, crime reports on the local. What's happening locally depends on how big your locality is all the way through to the. To, to hey so and so's kid.

58:06
Dan Nestle
Just set the record in track and field for the high school. You know, like local news is that flavor. But nowadays I don't think that's separated as much. I think that the sort of. The national does interfere a lot more with the local than it ever did before. But I don't know, you've mentioned to me that you're giving a lot of thought to this very specific area and I think it is an important part. It will be even more important for geo, for gender vengeance optimization as we go. So why do you think all this is happening? We probably should have put a whole hour behind this one.

58:44
Emil Hill
But we could have, I think, you know, like styles come in and out. I think the media consolidation is real and the cost to report locally and the demand for it has gone down and not in the near term or recently commensurate with the return. Having said that, what I feel like is going to start happening is technology will allow for more digital communications, local communication. So you know, you think about iter. You know, when I go to another city I immediately try to see what Eater says and that the people say about the restaurants in that particular city, that particular region. I think it's very effective and it's going to be interesting to see.

59:51
Emil Hill
What I don't see on there is a lot of advertising from larger brands, you know, quick service restaurants or fast casual, which, you know, I'm sure isn't by accident because it's higher in restaurants. But I can imagine at some point they're going to figure out a way to get there. Now, I bring that up because of the point that you just raised. You know, in the D.C. area where I am, you know, I got nine, four and CBS and local ABC, I don't watch them as much for the reasons we talked about before. But I am craving a deeper dive into local news that the Washington Post cannot provide for me and Mary about what's going on here that's not in the news.

01:00:40
Emil Hill
And it feels like with the evolution of technology, some enterprising business person is going to figure out a way to cobble together more information and news about particular parts of the country, city, state and local in a way that we used to. Because when you think about it, you know, I'm from Mount Airy, so that street that you talked about that I grew up on, that's the name of my company. There used to be a Mount Airy Express newspaper that my parents used to get.

01:01:16
Dan Nestle
Yep.

01:01:17
Emil Hill
And they used to read about our community on top of the Inquirer and the Bulletin and the local news and then there was a city paper and all of those things have quietly gone away. And what you, what I find I almost rely on more is what my friends on Facebook and Instagram are saying about the particular city.

01:01:39
Dan Nestle
Yeah.

01:01:40
Emil Hill
So again, I'm, you know, I think we're moving to a place where some industrious startup person is going to start that because as a business, I want to be able to talk to my constituents all over the country more directly. And I think it's more effective. We've long since said that.

01:02:04
Dan Nestle
I'm going to put out an idea right now that just occurred to me and I'm sure other people have thought of this and I doubt that it's legal because we've seen some things in the news about or in the media about regulatory decisions, etc, affecting or corporate decisions affecting note takers like AI note takers. Right. You have your, you have your fireflies, your otter or whatever in your meetings, et cetera. And it turns out that, wait a second, those are discoverable. You know, if you're a compliance oriented company, you're not putting those in the meetings anymore. You're not allowing those in the meetings anymore.

01:02:43
Emil Hill
Right. Yeah.

01:02:44
Dan Nestle
But what if an enterprising company secured the permission of Local governments and local organizations to place strategically either people who are carrying wearable or having wearable digital AI recording devices or are able to, you know, just place. I use something called Plaud and I don't know if you ever heard of Plaud. And they don't pay me for this and maybe they should, but I use this kind of credit card size thing called Plod. And for those of you who are watching, I'm showing it there. It's like it is the size of a credit card. This thing will record 30 hours of information. And if you're in a crowded room and there's multiple people speaking, it does an amazing job of recording the transcript accurately and figuring it all out and then generating a report based on that transcript.

01:03:43
Dan Nestle
So what if you could place these strategically in different locales and you have each city council or town hall meeting basically covered by a couple of hundred of these plod devices around a country. Could be a different device. Just saying plodding. And then you have a steady stream and almost like a database, if you will, of town hall transcripts that are happening at every level. And you could put that in a. You could put it one place and then you could generate local news as accurately as you possibly could. Because without being there because you'd have transcripts and with a lot of caveats and just withholding any emotional editorial information because you're not there. You can't see people's faces, you know, nothing like this. But just reporting what happened.

01:04:41
Emil Hill
I think we're probably, I, I think we're moving towards something like that. That's kind of where I was. I think the only challenge is you would have to figure out a way to disclose that. So the difference between, you know, this happens in courtrooms now, you get to. You can't take filming and I don't even think you can record in a lot of. You can.

01:05:07
Dan Nestle
Not courtrooms. It wouldn't be like. It would. Well, I mean if it's public information, it's different. But city like town hall meetings are broadcast, right?

01:05:15
Emil Hill
Exactly. Well, that's kind of where I'm going.

01:05:18
Emil Hill
I think as long as people know that they're being taped and for broadcast. Yeah, then I think you're going to that. I still think you probably need some sort of human filter to make sure that there is some accuracy in the data.

01:05:35
Emil Hill
But I, I don't doubt that's where we're going because that's already happening.

01:05:40
Emil Hill
With people with cell phones.

01:05:42
Emil Hill
Oh yes. If they're there, they can record it.

01:05:44
Emil Hill
This is happening.

01:05:45
Emil Hill
They're recording it and uploading.

01:05:47
Dan Nestle
That's right. You could do the same thing with your voice memo on a phone. I mean, but it would take a couple extra steps. Look, and when you say you, I mean, you're clearly not talking to me because I don't have any intention of doing this. I'm putting that idea out there for anybody who's enterprising enough. And all I ask is that you remember me when you make a fortune, if you ever do. But you have to deal with all the regulatory and permission structures and everything you need to make that happen. No, thank you from my end. But hey, I'm always open with these crazy ideas and 90% of them will never work. That said, I'm not going to stop. But I know one idea that works really well.

01:06:26
Dan Nestle
One idea that works really well is that if you need to know anything about public affairs and if you need to know anything about what's going on in Washington, especially for brands, how they should behaving or how they could be reacting to what's going on, the best idea you could possibly have is to talk to Emil Hill. That is an idea I know is a winner because I've been talking over an hour. But, Emil, any last words before we wrap up?

01:06:57
Emil Hill
I think this is the one thing.

01:06:59
Emil Hill
I would leave with people. I think that there's a lot of economic uncertainty and people and businesses in particular consumers and businesses don't normally function well in uncertainty. So I think when you think about a stock price, you don't watch it for dips in the short term. If you're a day trader, that's something completely different. But if you invest in anything, you should think about the loan. I'm not sure where the economy is going or business. I think change is inevitable. I live through the real estate first bust in the mid-90s, the.com bust later and later, the financial meltdown in 2000. The financial meltdown, all those things passed. There was significant difficulty, but we got through those things. I think businesses, individuals and communities around the country, I think you want to hold on to your optimism.

01:08:01
Emil Hill
I think you should get active, but ride it. And this too shall pass.

01:08:08
Dan Nestle
I love that ending on a very optimistic, cautiously optimistic note. And Emil Hill, look for Emile on LinkedIn. For sure. You can find him there as a name. And the Cresham Group, I think you. I'm not sure if you finished your website yet. Is that happening? Or you're just.

01:08:25
Emil Hill
I didn't, you know, you can reach.

01:08:28
Emil Hill
Me@Emil thecrushomgroup.com or through my LinkedIn page. Daniel certainly knows how to get in touch with me, go through me. I don't want all clients. I want some clients, of course. And so there's something to be said to be able to have people that are legitimately interested in a longer term opportunity. I'm always happy to talk and I think this is a phenomenal podcast that you have. Ooh, love it.

01:08:56
Emil Hill
And I hope you invite me back.

01:08:57
Emil Hill
Again at some point soon.

01:08:58
Dan Nestle
Are you kidding? We only talked about three of the 10 things that are on my paper. So we've got more, we've got more to talk about. But Emil, it's a pleasure to have gotten to know you in the past couple of months. It is even better, more of a pleasure to have you on the show and I'm so glad that my listeners, our listeners will get to know you a little bit too. So thanks again for coming on and we will speak again very shortly. I am 100% certain of that.

01:09:25
Emil Hill
Great, great pleasure.

01:09:36
Dan Nestle
Thanks for taking the time to listen in on today's conversation. If you enjoyed it, please be sure to subscribe through the podcast player of your choice. Share with your friends and colleagues and leave me a review. You five stars would be preferred, but it's up to you. Do you have ideas for future guests or you want to be on the show? Let me know@dantrendingcommunicator.com thanks again for listening to the trending Communicator.