PR news this week, with thanks to Early Morning Media 

Political

Boris to spend £100m advertising no-deal Brexit
Boris Johnson pledged to spend £100m on advertising a no-deal Brexit. Such an advertising campaign would be the biggest since the Second World War, the Telegraph claimed.
Metro

US political ad spending entering 'new phase'
The US presidential election next year could see political advertising enter a new phase, according to data from Advertising Analytics, which anticipated over $10bn could be spent. Most of those ad dollars are set to be used for traditional broadcast media, $3.26bn, though around $1.6bn is expected to be spent for digital videos – dwarfing the $8.6m spent in 2018.
Yahoo

Industry

Advertising growth testament to industry's resilience, AA says
UK advertising spend has risen 4.2% year-on-year in the first quarter, according to the AA and Warc Expenditure Report, to £6bn, marking 23 consecutive quarters of growth for the UK industry. Online spend drove growth, with online radio spend up 26.5% compared to the first quarter of 2018, TV video on-demand up 17.5% and total online display increasing by 16.6%. TV advertising was down 2.5% on the first quarter of 2018 and spend on newsbrands was down 9.1%, alongside declines in direct mail, regional newsbrands and magazine brands. Stephen Woodford, chief executive at the Advertising Association, commented: "These figures are testament to the resilience of UK advertising during an uncertain period for business, leading up to the original Brexit date. We hope that the new administration can deliver a business-friendly outcome to our relationship with the EU, ensuring the UK’s domestic advertising market remains robust and our advertising exports, which are world-class, keep growing." The report forecasts ad spend will hit £24.6bn for the full year, equivalent to a 4.6% year-on-year increase, and the AA expects growth of 5.3% in 2020.
More About Advertising  Research Live http://expenditurereport.warc.com/

Hollywood PR giants to merge
Hollywood’s two biggest public relations agencies are to merge – creating a combined firm with hundreds of major clients. PMK-BNC and Rogers & Cowan, both owned by Interpublic Group, have competed as stand-alone agencies but by partnering, amid increasing competition from boutique outfits, they expect to reduce costs with greater resources. The new agency, whose name has not yet been determined, will be run by Cindi Berger, who previously led PMK-BNC, as chairman and Mark Owens, who led Rogers & Cowan, as chief executive.
New York Times

Edelman drops client following employee objections
Edelman dropped an account with a private prisons company after employees at the public relations giant objected to the contract. Boca Raton headquartered GEO Group was the subject of negative news reports amid claims that migrant children were being separated from their parents at immigrant detention centres it ran at the Mexican border. The New York Times notes that other companies working for government agencies involved in detention centres have faced criticism from their employees.
New York Times

More women in senior Irish PR roles
Public relations contributes almost €1.2bn to the Irish economy, according to the PR Census Report by Amárach Research for the Public Relations Institute of Ireland (PRII), which also revealed that the industry has more women (68%) than men in senior roles. It is estimated that there are at least 2,800 people working in PR and communications in the country – just over half work in-house, one in four are in the public sector and the rest are in the private sector. Some 38% work in agencies and 9% are self-employed. The report also indicated that 45% of respondents earn between €45,000 and €80,000.
Marketing.ie

Podcast advertising booming
Advertisers need to get involved now if they are to cash in on the rapidly expanding podcast market – which is seeing platforms like AudioBoom post some very impressive financial results. Almost a quarter of UK adults listened to a podcast in the previous month, according to research by podcast company Acast in March this year, which also indicated that a whopping 76% had followed up on an ad or sponsored message from the show. A separate recent study by the IAB and PwC revealed that the revenues from programmatic audio ads in podcasts were over £176m in 2017 – up 85% on the same figures from 2016.
Business Cloud

Influencer fraud costs brands big time
Influencer fraud through the use of fake followers on platforms like Instagram is costing brands over £1bn a year, according to research by Roberto Cavazos at the University of Baltimore, on behalf of the cybersecurity firm Cheq, which asserts that at least 15% of all influencers’ followers are fake. Separate analysis by marketing agency Takumi indicates that Greg O’Shea and Amber Gill, winners of ITV series Love Island, had fake follower rates of 63% and 41% respectively, and Takumi chief executive Adam Williams warned: “Brands must carefully consider who they work with and how they assess their worth."
The Times

Campaigns

'Irresponsible' pregnancy Instagram post banned
An Instagram post by reality star Jemma Lucy was banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which ruled that the image and text broke several rules – including encouraging unsafe practices during pregnancy and making claims about weight loss. The post was also not properly identified as an advert, the ASA added, after recently partnering with ITV to create a checklist to encourage Love Island contestants to be "upfront" about their own social media ads. Skinny Caffe, the weight-loss brand promoted by Lucy, said she had posted the message as a favour to a friend and had not been paid for it.
BBC News

Technology

JPMorgan uses AI to optimise word choice
JPMorgan Chase is using an artificial intelligence tool developed by software firm Persado to improve what it says in its marketing communications, including email pitches to prospective borrowers. The Wall Street Journal noted the increased pressure faced by marketing executives to improve results. Kristin Lemkau, chief marketing officer at JPMorgan Chase, said using the technology "kind of starts to take away the era of the CMO making the almighty, subjective call. . . You still have to have a point of view, but on writing copy it would be nice to just nail it.”
The Times   Wall Street Journal

And finally...

Scottish football's social media reach mapped
Steven Gerrard's 8.1m Instagram followers have earned the crown of Scottish football’s social media king, according to PR firm PMPR Excellence, which mapped social media influence within the game. Jermain Defoe was the biggest player, following with 1.5m on Twitter and Instagram, though Celtic lead the way in terms of club social reach – with more than 3m followers across Twitter (635,484), Instagram (406,848) and Facebook (2,031,839) – twice as many as Gers.
The Scottish Sun

This briefing has been prepared by Early Morning Media.  If you are interested in a customised bespoke news briefing for you or your client across any vertical, please contact Charles.Webster@earlymorningmedia.co.uk