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Communicate magazine •

The dangers of disinformation for companies

This year, digital bank runs and reputational crises have served as a warning to business leaders to take the influence of social media on stakeholders much more seriously.

The dramatic collapse of Silicon Valley Bank this year has been described by politicians as the “first Twitter-fuelled bank run.” Having invested a lot in its relationship with depositor customers through fancy events and expensive wines, the bank likely felt confident in the loyalty of its customer base.

However, rising in
Communicate magazine •

Is ESG a pipe dream for fossil fuels?

The proliferation of sustainability accounting standards is leading to 'reporting fatigue', but how is this impacting the validity of data? Rebecca Pardon reports.

Nowhere are corporate social responsibility efforts more proudly displayed than in a company’s sustainability report. Between photos of blooming flowers and laughing children, companies find the space to add their environmental, social and governance data, including their carbon footprint or the numbers of women on boards. Many global businesses already voluntarily report climate information: today, 96% of the world's leading 250 companies report on sustainability, according to a KPMG study. But the information that is carefully selected to be disclosed differs wildly for each company.

The business of carbon accounting is booming as regulators, investors and consumers demand more information about corporate greenhouse gas emissions, but a confusing alphabet soup of ESG regulations has led to some concerns around the validity of the data being released.

My Articles

Inside the private email threads shaping London’s e-scooter trial

Along the roadsides of most large European cities lie the mangled limbs of electric scooters, loved for their convenience but discarded with ease, and seemingly some violence. In January 2024, a City of London resident tripped over an e-scooter left neglected on a pavement, causing bruising and swelling to both her knees, and difficulty walking for days following the incident. She emailed the council, imploring that it would investigate and address the broader issue of threat to public safety caused by the “proliferation” of micromobility vehicles.
Communicate magazine •

2025: an office odyssey

It is chirpy and charming, but is AI really transforming the way you work? Rebecca Pardon reports. This article is from Communicate magazine's print edition.
For even the most snobbish among us, it is difficult to not be impressed by artificial intelligence. When large language models have shaken off their hallucinations, they can very much feel comparable, if not preferable, to human conversation. Who would rather make staccato small talk with colleagues about the weather than be ceaselessly f...
Communicate magazine •

FTSE-100 firm trials agentic AI as vendors hype a workplace revolution

Despite regulatory uncertainty, big corporates are already quietly incorporating the technology into their teams.

An anonymous FTSE-100 company is already implementing agentic AI technology, according to a senior data leader, who emphasised the technology is complementing, rather than replacing, humans.  
At this year’s Big Data LDN, the exhibition spaces thronged with vendors promising to ‘liberate’ and ‘democratise’ corporate data. The technology at the centre of this hype is agentic AI, an...
Communicate magazine •

"Corporate culture isn’t set at the top anymore. It’s shaped in real time": NAACP communications chief Aba Blankson

Ahead of her talk at Cannes Lions, Aba Blankson, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chief marketing and communications officer, on the absence of DEI at the festival, and what this means for the industry.

At Cannes Lions this week, Richard Edelman shared latest findings from Edelman Trust Barometer, showing people trust brands more than any other institution: 80% of people trust the brands they use, compared to just 54% for government and 55% for media. At same...
Communicate magazine •

Cannes Lions 2025: ‘Being human is hard, but this is helpful’

Against a background of sun-soaked superyachts, the blending blues of pale waters and paler skies, and the battle between technology and human expertise, Apple sought to dispel the marketing industry's AI anxieties at Cannes Lions.

"There is no technology capable of making us feel emotion better than the human mind can," Apple's vice president of marketing communications, Tor Myhren, told Cannes Lions attendees this week. Myhren’s session, opening the festival, sought to reassure an audience...
Communicate magazine •

Is DEI really dying?

While US companies quietly tuck away their DEI policies, UK businesses appear to be staying the course. For now, at least.

As political sentiment in the United States shifts dramatically, many private companies are retreating from the very diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) commitments they spent the last decade building up. This sudden change has meant a policy that was once central to corporate strategy is being hastily scaled back, albeit quietly, with references to diversity now erased...
Communicate magazine •

AMEC: The need for an IT-comms coalition

When crisis planning requires scope enough to incorporate pandemics, global conflicts and cyber-attacks, organisations must re-think how important information is shared across departments.

For all the enthusiasm in abundance at the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication’s (AMEC) annual summit held in Bulgaria this year, those who took to the stage didn’t mince their words when describing the global context in which businesses operate today. Following the Cov...

Bulgaria’s big brother

What is Brussels turning a blind eye to? Rebecca Pardon explores.

In 2019, a tourist park was opened to the public in the small, north-eastern Bulgarian village of Neofit Rilski, situated 40km from the Black Sea city of Varna. The vast site was constructed on 130 acres of land and is designed to give visitors the experience of stepping into an ancient, Neolithic village. Each building is constructed of stone, wood and metal. Contented ducks lap around lakes. Traditional Bulgarian food and drink is served in venues adorned with Thracian helmets and swords, and visitors can fill their time practicing horse-riding and archery or simply revelling in nostalgia for a time no longer in living memory.
Communicate magazine •

PR’s upskilling problem

A lack of investment in training puts the industry at risk of falling behind modern business challenges.

Is the PR industry struggling to keep up? Recent research released by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), a UK-based trade body, suggests this may be the case. The study uses data to provide industry insights on the reality of working in the profession, and the challenges practitioners are facing today. 
The findings from this year’s report portray a worrying picture. On av...
Communicate magazine •

Company culture or cult?

Are you starry-eyed at your boss’ superstar appeal? Rebecca Pardon explores the rise in star CEOs. This article is from Communicate magazine's print issue.
When OpenAI’s disgruntled board attempted to oust its CEO, Sam Altman, last year, a subsequent coup saw the majority of the company’s staff, along with lead investor Microsoft, signalling that they would rather work with Altman than with a version of OpenAI without him. When reinstated as CEO shortly after, Altman must have felt not only sec...
Communicate magazine •

Inside OpenAI

OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman receives a text one Thursday night from one of OpenAI's co-founders asking him to join a Google Meet chat the next day. 
OpenAI reportedly contacts CTO Mira Murati, tapping her to be the next OpenAI CEO.

OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman receives a text one Thursday night from one of OpenAI's co-founders asking him to join a Google Meet chat the next day.

OpenAI reportedly contacts CTO Mira Murati, tapping her to be the next OpenAI CEO.
Communicate magazine •

How to control the message

Speakers at ICCO's Global Summit described a communications landscape that is becoming increasingly complex.

To most, it will come as no surprise that message control is becoming harder for the communications industry. Social media platforms are swamped with inaccurate information, whether from malicious actors or simply the misinformed, making it difficult for corporations to cut through. 
At this year’s ICCO Global Summit in Istanbul, one of the key messages was the need to protect corporat...
Communicate magazine •

Are you ready for AI?

Data quality was the focus of many conversations at Big Data LDN.

While you may feel ready for AI tools – and already use them when your colleagues aren’t looking – your data may not be.
The big concern in the data industry is the need to build greater awareness around ‘clean’ and ‘usable’ data. Before charging ahead with AI strategies, businesses need to ensure the data being used is good enough to do its job and avoid bad results.
“We describe it as ‘garbage in, garbage out’,” Gaurav Patole...
Communicate magazine •

Data visualisation at a time of distrust

Companies are under growing pressure to prioritise sustainability, with corporate operations being shaped by developments in regulatory reporting, supply chain focus and greenwashing claims. As a result, many are growing sceptical of corporate data. How can data visualisation combat this?

As misinformation swirls across social platforms and scepticism plagues the climate commitments of big corporations, data is not only the most important commodity, but one of the least trusted. For issues su...
Communicate magazine •

Elon Musk jets to Cannes to repair his reputation

The US billionaire and X owner flew to Cannes Lions festival this weekend to win back brands, months after insulting advertising industry.

US billionaire and X owner Elon Musk landed in the Côte d'Azur this week, where pale waves lapped white beaches, boats tinkered in somnambulant slumber and thousands of the industry’s chief marketing officers, tech leaders and creative workers from around the world were gathered at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. Musk's interview with WPP CEO Mark R
Communicate magazine •

AMEC: Is there still time for ethical AI?

As tech companies hurtle towards ever-smarter applications of the technology, governments are scrambling to keep up with a growing array of risks.

Last month, a summit on artificial intelligence safety took place in Seoul, where 16 tech companies made fresh safety commitments. As several of the companies and officials who took part in a similar summit in the UK last year were absent however, the scaled-down gathering seemed to mark the public's ebbing concern over AI regulation.

One panel disc
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