From Public Relations to Public Engagement: Interview mit Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar

Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar ist Nordic Director Digital & Creative bei Edelman und wird beim PR 2.0 FORUM am 10.02.2011 die Opening Keynote halten. Dabei geht er auf das Spannungsfeld der digitalen PR im Social Web ein und plädiert für eine intensivere Auseinandersetzung mit Kunden und Konsumenten.

1) Roland, you are going to give the introductory talk at our PR 2.0 FORUM. How would you summarize your keynote?

How do we go from Public Relations to Public Engagement (or from Talk-the-talk to Walk-the-walk).

2) What is your opinion about the key challenges of PR and corporate communications in the social media age?

As always our key challenges are the same as our clients – engaging target groups, earning trust, driving opinion and increasing sales. Corporate Communications is the key to establishing long term strategies and social media provide us with platforms for successful and measurable initiatives that are much closer to the heart of people: We can now establish a dialogue whenever, wherever. A match of these two areas can be explosive and really interesting.

3) What is the main task of PR within digital communications? Is it still image and reputation management?

Yes, of course. But we also need to be better at understanding how people behave. I see the end of traditional demographics, we need to understand how to communicate with flesh and blood, not excel-diagrams. Digital platforms help us getting closer to people and truly understanding their needs and behaviors. But we also need to redefine how we look at packaging information due to the development of new devices. PR-work cannot be driven in the same way as before and this is a big challenge for generations of consultants and clients.

4) As the communications via social media cannot be limited, what are the relations and interferences with brand communication?

Facebook has +600M users, meaning that there are +600M ways a brand connects with people. Brand communication need to re-invent itself and open up for co-creation and collective innovation processes.

5) How about Sweden or the Nordic region in general? Are there any specific characteristics for the digital communication within this area?

Since the Nordic region has deep expertise in telecom infrastructure and mobile communication this is where we see the most interesting developments. Also, in Sweden there are numerous agencies winning lots and lots of awards globally for their innovative digital work and our creatives are usually top ranked. And since our harsh climate has made us really social online (and less so in the real world), social media platforms have exploded and the market is really mature. With all of this in consideration, the Nordic region is many times a test market for a lot of new products and concepts.

6) What do you expect from the upcoming PR 2.0 FORUM?

To meet and interact with some of my trade’s most interesting talents – in real life.