Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

This week on the PRmoment Podcast I’m pleased to welcome founder and MD of Cow PR Sian Morgan. Cow PR is a circa £3m fee income consumer PR shop in London. What’s interesting about Cow is that despite its relatively small size - it punches well above its weight creatively, and has done for basically the last 18 years so I want to discover from Sian how they have managed to do this.

Here is a flavour of what I discuss with Sian:

• How Sian has managed the ups and downs of running her own business for the last 18 years through a couple of recessions
• Sian talks about how 8 years ago an office move almost spelt the end for Cow
• How Sian dealt with the stress of having breast cancer and running her own business
• Why having a business partner doesn't need to last forever
• How PR creative legends like Dan Glover, Mark Perkins and Matt Wilcock have all started their careers at Cow
• Why Sian would never hire a creative director - for Cow they need to be homegrown
• How Cow has retained its creative excellence over 18 years across a range of clients
• Why humour is a vital part of creative communications
• How Sian went from a “Tom Jones” groupie to setting up Cow
• How Sian learnt different things at Cohn & Wolfe, Red and Weber before setting up Cow
• Sian gives her thoughts on creative process and the genesis of creative ideas
• How the “creatives pairs” process works when dissecting a brief
• Why creativity is really hard work
• How ideas take time to mature
• Why creatives are able to take a different look at a brief
• Sian identifies what she looks for when identifying creative talent
• Why the wrong type of client will stifle creativity
• How over a 27 year career Sian has met less than 5 true creatives
• Why Sian believes creatives don’t come from PR, they come from brand
• What is it about Cow’s culture that has enabled it to punch above its weight creatively in London
• What does Cow do to help its people come up with interesting ideas
• Why Sian doesn't believe PR can get passionate about PR
• Why a lack of confidence can be crippling to coming up with creative ideas
• How the best creative ideas are really simple
• How PRs lack of measurement confidence is impacting how much consumer PR firms are able to charge for their ideas