How To Win PR & Comms For The Next Year - The Andy Barr Interview
In today’s interview, I sit down with PR veteran Andy Barr to discuss the rapidly evolving landscape of media and reputation management in 2026.
With three decades of experience, Andy argues that despite the proliferation of new technologies, effective storytelling remains the foundational element of successful PR.
He highlights reactive newsjacking as the single fastest method for brand building, emphasising that speed and a unique voice allow brands to cut through the noise better than any theoretical AI-driven PR strategy.
Press Shift Or Culture Shift?
A significant portion of our chat focuses on the shift from traditional press to online communities and direct-to-consumer channels.
Andy notes that Reddit has largely replaced the Press Association in terms of immediate impact, where a single successful thread can drive more traffic than traditional tier-one media. Furthermore, the interview explores the "modern PR stack," which prioritises employee-generated content (EGC) and founder-led channels on platforms like TikTok and LinkedIn.
Add To Your Flywheel
We use Marks & Spencer as the case study; Andy explains how relatable, expert-led content creates a "flywheel" effect that traditional pitching struggles to replicate.
We also dive into modern crisis communications. Andy's playbook is direct: apologise without necessarily admitting liability, take a strategic period of silence to de-escalate the "fuel," and proactively meet with critics face-to-face to build personal relationships that humanise the brand.
Tackling Blackhat AI
We also tackle the emerging threat of AI misinformation and the impact the black hat AI info wars will have. Andy rightly warns that AI models often confuse repetition with fact, leading to reputational "hallucinations" that can leak into investor packs and search results.
We also play a fun game at the end of the pod:
How would we fix the OpenAI brand problems?
Andy suggests their current communication style, suggesting they need "grownups in the room" to move away from what I dub "alpha geek" posturing and toward consistent, value-driven content pillars.
One prediction that will need your attention is AI reputation management: how it will soon shift from responding to mainstream news to proactively defending a brand’s footprint within LLMs and AI Search.
Here are my hand-picked hidden gems from our chat:
The "Silence" Protocol as a Strategic Tool: Most crisis management advice encourages immediate, constant engagement to "control the narrative" Whereas silence isn't just a defensive move, it's a calculated tactic. By stepping away from the noise (press and internal worry) after an initial statement, you starve the fire of fuel. It’s an incredibly counterintuitive move for most brand leaders; however, it is often the most effective way to let the news cycle move on without inviting further scrutiny.
"Hater" Outreach as Relationship Capital: The practice of proactively inviting your harshest critics and the journalists who have given you as Andy puts it "a kicking" for an off-the-record coffee is a masterclass in connection and trying to humanise a brand. It shifts the dynamic from transactional/adversarial to personal. Once a journalist has shared a coffee with you, it becomes significantly harder for them to treat your brand with pure hostility, effectively creating a "buffer" for future interactions.
The "AI Knowledge Gap" Reputation Trap: We usually think of reputation management in terms of social media sentiment or news headlines. The real, hidden threat is that AI models are currently "hallucinating" facts to fill gaps in their knowledge, and this misinformation is leaking into investor packs and high-level summaries. Monitoring your brand's footprint inside LLMs is no longer a future-looking task; it is an urgent requirement to prevent "fake news" from being treated as fact by autonomous agents.
If you are a Senior Marketing Leader, here are your talking points and action items:
Speed over Strategy: In a reactive world, a "story a day" or a perfectly timed newsjack is more valuable than a six-month theoretical plan.
The Ambassador Army: Our customers and employees are our most credible PR assets; we should be leveraging EGC to build organic trust.
AI Reputation Risk: We must view AI search results as a primary reputational battleground, not just an SEO tool.
Your Action Items
Audit Internal Content Creators: Identify "relatable experts" within the back office or engineering teams to front a pilot TikTok or LinkedIn series.
Develop a Crisis "Silence" Protocol: Define the specific window of time the brand will remain quiet after an initial statement to allow news cycles to move on.
Schedule "Hater" Outreach: Identify the three most critical journalists or influencers in your sector and invite them for an off-the-record coffee to build a personal connection.
Monitor LLM Footprint: Establish a monthly check of how major AI agents (ChatGPT, Claude, etc.) summarise your brand to identify and counter emerging misinformation.
Connect with Andy on LinkedIn and watch his great TikToks (my favourite is embedded below) - he really has been there, seen it and done it.
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If you prefer to read the full transcript, enjoy it below:
Reactive PR in a Changing Media World with Andy Barr
[00:00:00] Meet Andy Barr
[00:00:00] Danny Denhard: Welcome back everyone. Today I've got Andy Barr with me. So PR's Andy Barr. Do you wanna give yourself a, a 60-second intro, who you are, what you do, and where you, where you excel?
[00:00:12] Andy Barr: Well, I think the TLDR is I'm just a very old PR man. So I've been doing this for 30 years. Um, I guess the headline, accidentally invented the digital PR industry, although we called it online for PR and PR for SEO back then, which you and I absolutely loved and, um, we had a blast with. So I started bizarrely as a political lobbyist, who'd have bel- believed that, for a, um, for a government utility.
[00:00:38] Andy Barr: I then worked for loads of global brands, AXA, Unilever, doing in, uh, doing comms, traditional comms as was back then. I thought, "This is really easy, uh, and it's a bit boring, so I'm gonna set up my own agency." So I did that, and then I, I did that for 18 years, and then I rather spectacularly unsuccessfully exited from that agency/went bust.[00:01:00]
[00:01:00] Andy Barr: Uh, and I'm now at Season One, uh, head of brand comms and, um, yeah, doing stupid videos on TikTok that do worryingly well
[00:01:09] Danny Denhard: That is one thing that, uh, I love about what you do on TikTok is you give really actionable advice pure takeaways for people as opposed to, uh, the sensationalism that a lot of people do on TikTok to get some sort of, or any sort of attention. So, thanks for the intro. Should we dive straight in?
[00:01:29] Andy Barr: Go for it
[00:01:30] What Works In PR Right Now?
[00:01:30] Danny Denhard: What, what tactics are you seeing working today? So we're middle of 2026, loads of things are happening, things are changing constantly. What's, what's working?
[00:01:40] Andy Barr: Well, I think it's cliched, isn't it? But it's still, it's still about effective storytelling. If you can tell a story, it'll translate well to every platform. And not just, you know, the, the Daily Mails, the, um, you know, the, the big tier one media as, as media wankers call it. But, [00:02:00] um, you know, the, the, the, the wider stuff, you know, Refinery29 or all of those kind of people, um, and online communities like Reddit.
[00:02:09] Andy Barr: You know, Reddit is so powerful for us now. It's almost replaced Press Association, I guess, in that when we got a story on Press Association, we'd pack up and tell the client we'd worked really hard 'cause we got 100 bits of coverage, but we'd done naff all, to be honest. And Reddit's like that now. You know, a good hit on Reddit can cause a client's site to fall over, and that's what we all want
[00:02:29] Danny Denhard: That's the, uh, that's the dream, I suppose, for, for a lot of people. So with a lot of that that's going on, and with Reddit and the over-emphasization of AEO, GEO, et cetera, what, what's gonna work in the next 12 months if I'm a new client and I come to you for help? Or I say, "Andy, make, make my new company famous."
[00:02:50] Danny Denhard: What, what do you think's gonna work for the next 12 months?
[00:02:53] Andy Barr: Well, I think the last TikTok video I did, I think you gave me far more credit than is deserved. I have [00:03:00] jumped out of a bin on TikTok to do PR things, but I think the difference is on TikTok, I try and get over that I have been there and done that over 30 years. I've launched Huel, I've launched my voucher codes, I've launched Wild deodorant.
[00:03:12] Andy Barr: Um, so I'm not a theory merchant, which I really detest on the internet, all these people saying, "Oh, do this, do that," and it, and it, and it doesn't actually work.
[00:03:21] How To Run Reactive Newsjacking
[00:03:27] Andy Barr: So let's get down to it. What is the fastest way to brand build? You and I know this already. Reactive newsjacking. Uh, you don't even need to have a brand or a website set up at that point.
[00:03:33] Andy Barr: You can still newsjack from the off, and, and I think, um, there are a million, uh, snake oil salespeople talking about AI PR, GEO PR. It's absolute nonsense.
[00:03:45] Andy Barr: Reactive media is, is the fastest way to get your brand out there and, and not just again in tier one, but get talked about on social media, get talked about on Reddit and, and that over the next 12 months.
[00:03:56] Andy Barr: I mean, there's loads of stuff that we can go into, but that is the... [00:04:00] Coming back to the question, that is the number one thing that I would do tomorrow to, to get your brand going
[00:04:05] Danny Denhard: Especially with the reactive are there any, you know, rather than saying the silver bullet, are there any that you've done recently which have just flown because you knew that it was touching the right news, news story, or the journalists really needed to, double down on a certain area? Are there core areas that you know are gonna work almost every time?
[00:04:29] Andy Barr: Well, I think if you lean into the news agenda and, and look what's going on, you can make your reactives work for you. So back in the day, 'cause I'm old, you know, there was a point where you mentioned Facebook in anything, in any reactive, and you were pretty much guaranteed to get coverage. And I'd say it's probably the same for TikTok, probably the same for OpenAI and, and ChatGPT and all that.
[00:04:53] Andy Barr: if you can work them into your reactive, it, it's gonna work.
[00:04:57] Andy Barr: But, you know, reactive's just one part of it. I think the, the [00:05:00] difficulty for PR people, and especially, um, people who are coming through out of graduate roles or early stage of agency or in-house life, is the modern day PR is everything now.
[00:05:11] Andy Barr: You know, when, when, when I started, I did, um, external comms, pretty much crisis management all the way for a government utility. It's horrible, but, you know, we accidentally kill people, and there's no better grounding at 22 than be learning from the real masters of that on, on how to do it.
[00:05:31] Andy Barr: And then fast-forward to people like First Group, or Worst Bus as people call it, um, you know, working for people like Alastair Campbell.
[00:05:38] Andy Barr: There is no better way of learning. So now, it, it-- I feel really bad for them.
[00:05:42] Andy Barr: They've gotta be strategic, they've gotta have tactical knowledge, they've gotta be good at ideation, they've gotta have tech knowledge around getting through this treacle of AI... Sorry, AIGO PR, that isn't a thing. And then they've gotta be good at content as well.
[00:05:55] Andy Barr: So it is really tough at the minute.
[00:05:57] How To Cut Through The PR Noise
[00:05:57] Danny Denhard: With all, [00:06:00] with all that said, I read a stat yesterday that is for every journalist there's now three PR and comms people that wanna reach out to them, et cetera. Do you have a, you have an idea of or, you know, a guideline how to cut through? ' Cause there's obviously so much noise, and you're gonna have direct relationships with a lot of the journos. Do you have, like, guidance or do you have, a framework people could, could, like, borrow or steal to get that cut through for, to land with the journalists?
[00:06:29] Andy Barr: Well, I think for me, in reactive terms, it's about speed and, um, quirkiness. If you've got a memorable quote, then you're going to, uh, you're gonna stick in their mind. And I always think the thing, you know, the thing that s- that sort of kicked off my awareness of that was, um, I think it must've been like 2007, 2008, the, um, housing price crash.
[00:06:51] Andy Barr: I was asked to go on to do a BBC regional radio thing, and he said-- and, and they said to me, "Look, is there gonna be a housing price crash?" And instead of just going, "No," 'cause [00:07:00] I'm a dullard who works in finance. I said, "Oh, there's a greater chance of the Loch Ness Monster swimming up the Thames than there is of it."
[00:07:06] Andy Barr: And unfortunately, there was a house market crash the day after. I looked a right idiot. But that piqued an interest in BBC people that I still speak to today, who have me on their roster. So, um, whenever there's a crisis comms story or whatever, there's a story that they think I fit. Like today, I'm doing a child safety thing with Safety Mode.
[00:07:26] Andy Barr: And it's because I've said memorable things. And obviously, look at me, I look like an idiot and, um, you know, that kind of stuff, that kind of stuff sticks.
[00:07:33] Andy Barr: And if you're memorable, even for being an idiot, uh, people come back to you
[00:07:39] Danny Denhard: My favorite memories, from when we were sort of sparring in the same sort of space was, one of the founders at the company I worked for, the BBC asked him to get, get down to the studios for within a certain period of time, and there was this, like a really bad snowstorm, they managed to get all the way [00:08:00] down, and he was not the person to get in front of camera.
[00:08:02] Danny Denhard: He just didn't like doing it, didn't really wanna do it. But that was that, like, moment that unlocked it for the rest of the business. It was like, had to get on, had to get on there, had to be seen as credible had to validate the data, had to say something that people would be interested in. And I think that one of those, one of those areas that we, we did really well in, and I think that's in the space we worked in as well. It really did, um, push the market forward, so being reactive, getting f- getting the right people in front of, in front of the right camera, telling the story, having that direct relationship, as opposed to what h- used to happen before was it took a little while to s- you know, seed in a story or say something smart.
[00:08:44] Danny Denhard: The News Jacking side really did take off around that sort of time, didn't it? And then I always remember, uh, the fun and games that you used to have at MyVoucherCodes and some of the stories and the situations you used to get the founder in. So it, it hasn't necessarily changed so [00:09:00] much, but I do think reactive is, is obviously one of the first go-to things if you're a brand or a startup or a scale-up that really does need to get in front of the right audience or make some noise to get in front of an audience.
[00:09:11] Andy Barr: That's absolutely spot on. And, and we had, you and I both had a blast. Essentially, we were competing against each other, but, um, you know, I always felt like you guys did it properly, whereas we were chancing our arm at every situation. I think thinking back to the MyVoucherCodes days, and I, you know, I had lots of run-ins with people just because the nature of the PR that we were doing.
[00:09:32] Andy Barr: And Some of them have gone on to become really good mates, journalists that I fell out with. But at the peak of it, if you think about it, and you couldn't do this now because the media's so, uh, has shrunk down so much. We were sending out a story a day for MyVoucherCodes, relying on the different sectors of the newspapers not talking to each other.
[00:09:51] Andy Barr: Um, and they never did, and that was crazy that we got away with that for so long. 'Cause if someone had pieced it all together, they'd just be like, "What the fuck are you doing?" Um, [00:10:00] but it was, it was a great battle, wasn't it? And to be honest, you and I, we took that industry mainstream. You know, the stuff the, the really bougie, credible stuff that you did and all the nasty stuff that we did, it didn't matter.
[00:10:11] Andy Barr: We still got on BBC the same, and you know, that industry, look where that is now. It, it's massive
[00:10:17] Danny Denhard: And I think that's, it's almost unlocked quite a lot of the more reactive or smarter PR that's happening now. So we're both friends with Chris, who used to be a CMO at Quidco, and they'd had a slightly different approach to it as well. But we're all in that, that sort of sparring space, and we all, we all fought together.
[00:10:38] When To Work With Press Versus Going Direct
[00:10:43] Danny Denhard: With, like you brought something out which is quite interesting, is the shrinking of media. Although if you're to think of it zooming out, it's actually much bigger now, right? Because you've got, typical press, you've got the traditional press, you've now got like new media. You've obviously now got more the influencer and the video first, you know, TikTok news influencers as people [00:11:00] call it.
[00:11:00] Danny Denhard: Do you have a sense of when you should use press now? Say, not all the time should you go out and try and sell in and give them a story. Do you have a sense of when people should use press?
[00:11:11] Andy Barr: Well, I'm gonna say it. I mean, there's two elements to that. I'm gonna say it, you should use press all the time because then you'll need a fantastic PR like us. Um, but yeah, the media has grown or s- you know, swollen. Is that the right word? Swelled? I don't know. I only went to a comp. But, um, the, the media's grown in terms of the number of titles, but it's actually powered by this framework of like a sort of freelance army.
[00:11:35] Andy Barr: So the number of employed journalists is obviously, you know, nowhere near it where it was. But the freelance community is massive now, and they're so important and they're being treated terribly. You know, the, the pay for freelance journalists is going down and down, whi- whi- which is terrible. But I think that's where, again, well, there's two things.
[00:11:54] Andy Barr: One, relationships, you know. It's good to get in with a good network of freelance journalists who you can [00:12:00] help give stories to because then they can try and earn off the back of it. Um, but yeah, I think coming back to your main question, you know, when should you go to press and when shouldn't you?
[00:12:10] Andy Barr: I think you should go to press all the time.
[00:12:12] Andy Barr: I'm a big fan of, uh, just having a proactive schedule of going to media every two or three weeks with a, with a nice story. Now, it's not always gonna land. I mean, you should obviously put out a-- you should only put out stories that you think will land. But let's be honest, a new appointment of a CMO or something that we're forced to do because they've all got massive egos, um, is never gonna land as well as a really nice, vibrant data story, for example.
[00:12:39] Andy Barr: So yeah, go, go to the press as often as you can. And I think the only time I would advise against that is when you're dealing with a crisis communication situation
[00:12:47] Danny Denhard: I often find that most people want to go straight to press, especially when it's crisis comms, because they think that's the easiest way to get the message out as opposed to invite more people coming at you and having an opinion and voicing their, [00:13:00] their strong opinion that, that they, you may or may not have, or you may or may, may or may not have put out there.
[00:13:06] Danny Denhard: So I find it re- really interesting how a lot of people have stepped away from using the press or using it as much because their goals are very disjointed. So, you know, they need traffic, affiliate links and clicks. They need... Uh, it... Their goals are very different now to what they were. Have you got a framework or or ways that people should follow going direct?
[00:13:29] Danny Denhard: So rather than using press, it's where you use your own channels. So like have founder-led or CEO-led comms, like employee-generated content, so where you would use TikTok, Substack, et cetera, like the modern PR stack as opposed to the old way. Do you have a, a rule of thumb or a way people could follow going direct?
[00:13:49] When To Leverage Founder Led Channels
[00:13:49] Andy Barr: Yeah. So I think if we take crisis out of that scenario, just straightforward consumer media, yeah, 100%. I think you look at, uh, is it Kathryn Turner at Marks & Spencer who's just, [00:14:00] you know, going to the next level at the minute. Um, but the story behind that's really interesting. I saw, um, I saw some guy on social media who, uh, I can't remember his name now, but he, he's a credible guy, you know.
[00:14:12] Andy Barr: I think he did, like, Bartlett's social for a bit. I should be careful just 'cause I don't wanna get anyone in trouble. But I saw him asking the question on his social, maybe it was engagement bait of, you know, um, w- was this lucky by Marks & Spencer? No, it wasn't lucky. You know, it, it was a really well-thought-out, well-executed campaign because think back two years ago, they saw the, um, success of the Stuart Mason, um, annual results interviews, which every big brand is trying to copy now.
[00:14:41] Andy Barr: Sainsbury's did it, uh, and then Lloyds Bank did it 'cause everyone wakes up and wonders what Lloyds Bank CEO's doing on LinkedIn. But, um, you, you kinda saw the success of that, and it was a game changer, him wandering around a Marks & Spencer store talking about the results and then handing over to, you know, here's Joe with the weather or, you [00:15:00] know, to talk about what had gone on in fruit and veg.
[00:15:01] Andy Barr: And they've realized the success of that, and they've now started amplifying their other members o- of their sort of C-suite or senior leadership team. That in no way... Nothing Marks & Spencer does is an accident.
[00:15:14] Andy Barr: They are a comms, successful comms machine, and they really well planned that. I'm going off on a tangent here, but yeah.
[00:15:20] Andy Barr: So, um, your own channels, I think l- obviously TikTok is what everyone's loving at the minute, and I love it. It's good fun. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't matter. Um, but LinkedIn, the power of LinkedIn at the minute. I mean, I always think of LinkedIn as being like that weird uncle at a party that holds on for too long on a hug.
[00:15:36] Andy Barr: Um, it is, you know, no one is excited to announce and what, you know. It's all bollocks, isn't it? But, um, but I think, I, I think LinkedIn is really powerful for brand building at the minute at a C-suite level. so yeah, I always encourage people to go down that route with a consumer message. So if you're putting your results out, we both know Awin, right?
[00:15:57] Andy Barr: I worked with Awin for, um, for years, and [00:16:00] the one thing I kept saying was when they were doing that annual report which, which they love and, and it's a great report, I was like, "You need more video content to go alongside this to give the trade media other than Matt Wood, um, the chance to, to write about it.
[00:16:15] Andy Barr: So, you know, get people doing videos in, in the office." They never really did that, but now I think they, they probably will. But that's the kinda thing that, that the media want now. They want rich content
[00:16:26] Danny Denhard: Yeah. When you were talking, there's a couple of things that came up. The M&S, uh, EGC, you know, like employee-generated content, it really piggybacked off the success of the TV show. They did two, two TV shows, I think, um, years ago and, and last year. the standout stars have s- sort of translated and, and come o- come off on social. And I think that's something that they might have done by accident, or it could've been something that the comms could have, like, picked up on and, and got feedback on. And I think they're like a standout [00:17:00] brand where you probably wouldn't have thought three years ago that thousands of people would be tuning in to some random person who works in product development, and follow her around the store and be really, really spellbound, bound by her content, and then press are picking it up and then writing about it, and it is this...
[00:17:17] Danny Denhard: You know, adds to the flywheel. then something else you said, Tiktok content travels really well, especially for journalists. So if there's a popular video, a lot of the time now journos will go on there, find the trending videos or really popular videos within certain niches, 'cause the algo serves it to them, and they'll just cover it.
[00:17:34] Danny Denhard: So they write it as if it's a normal story and won't even embed the TikToks. Won't even embed it or weren't allowed to embed it. But what that does allow is, is this, like, additional section of the flywheel to keep moving and, and generating. And something that I think a lot of modern-day PRs are still overlooking. And when they're coming to pitch, it's m- far easier for these companies to pitch the same way they've always pitched, as opposed to, like, a more modern way, which will probably get a much [00:18:00] better cut through with the demographics where they are, and where they spend most of their time, et cetera.
[00:18:04] When Saying Nothing Is The Best Tactic
[00:18:12] Danny Denhard: So I do think that's, that's kind of missing The one section we haven't really covered is when you shouldn't say anything, and, like,
[00:18:12] Andy Barr: Yeah
[00:18:13] Danny Denhard: Have you got a guideline or rules for people when they should literally say nothing?
[00:18:19]
[00:18:19] Crisis Comms Playbook
[00:18:19] Andy Barr: I guess the thing that I'm probably most well known for is crisis comms. I've, you know, I've, I've worked with every brand. I've worked with football clubs, rugby clubs, um, politicians, other governments from other countries, which has got me in trouble, but I don't care.
[00:18:33] Andy Barr: Baddies need PR too, is what I say. Um, but I think, um, I, I think, yeah, the, the crisis comms playbook's really straightforward. If you have got a situation where you can apologize without, um, admitting liability, do it, and then take a period of time out of the press. Uh, not only will it give you a bit of time to, um, fully understand if you've got any more skeletons that are about to come out and bite you, but also just take [00:19:00] the, the fuel out of the fire.
[00:19:01] Andy Barr: You don't have to reply to everything once you've put your initial statement out. So yeah, go, go quiet. I'd always advise people to do that, unless it's a, a moving, um, issue. Uh, so if we think of examples like the Alton Towers stuff a few years ago, you know, that was, that was a horrible situation. They actually dealt with it really well.
[00:19:20] Andy Barr: You know, they came back with that, um, hard-hitting interview with Kay Burley, the, the CEO, which I, I use in my training decks now. It's the best example of how to deal with a really aggressive media interview. But there was a bit of time out before that. So yeah, I think once you put your initial statement out, if the, if the story's not moving forward, keep quiet for a bit.
[00:19:38] Andy Barr: And we've seen countless people do that on much bigger scale. So Prince Harry, you know, he, he did that, kept quiet, and then obviously came back with the Oprah Winfrey, um, interview.
[00:19:49] Andy Barr: Alton Towers obviously did that with, with their thing. So it's one of those things where I think too many people are encouraged by these crisis comms theory experts, so they've [00:20:00] never actually done it.
[00:20:01] Andy Barr: Obviously, FirstGroup, when I worked for them, we had a crisis every day probably of, of a certain scale from, um, you know, from the absolutely bizarre, like a, a train driver hit a deer, um, didn't realize, went through the station where there was a kids', um, tour, and obviously it looks like Rudolph's plastered to the front of the train.
[00:20:22] Andy Barr: You know, so dealing with stuff like that right through to working for a utility company where, um, an American company bought them out, took the sheathing off some high voltage wires, didn't understand why the sheathing was on there, and it turns out it's to stop swans flying into it. So there's 30 dead swans in a field and, you know, and you're dealing with that.
[00:20:39] Andy Barr: So that is actual lived experience through to working for some of the biggest e-commerce brands in the world, and I think that's why hopefully I've got a bit more about me. And I'm always honest. If I think someone comes to me with a stupid idea, I'll say, "It's a stupid idea." There's, um, the book burning thing.
[00:20:55] Andy Barr: I did it for The Drum yesterday. You know, OpenAI and all of those buying these rare books and then [00:21:00] burning them after they scan them. That's a really good example of the tech brigade not having a grownup PR in the room who'll go, "What the fuck are you talking about burning rare books?" So, uh, so yeah, it's always good to keep quiet if you can, not least 'cause it will stop more questions
[00:21:16] Danny Denhard: I also find that often if you're a big enough brand or well-loved enough brand, if you say nothing, your customers and your fans will say enough for you. And I've s- I've found this time and time again, especially at my time at Just Giving and, and a number of different companies like that and helping people the last sort of five, six years.
[00:21:34] Danny Denhard: Often if you take a step back, so rather than stepping in, you take a step back and step out and just give it some time to breathe, you'll find who will come and support you, who will come out and proactively say stuff.
[00:21:46] Danny Denhard: And what a lot of companies have failed to remember is some of the journalists and some of the, um, like news influencers now will cover a story because they know it's gonna get them traffic, or know it's gonna get them views and hits. So [00:22:00] actually a lot of the time if you, you rush towards saying something, you're adding f- fuel to their fire as opposed to actually taking it away from them,
[00:22:06] Danny Denhard: and when someone comments then that travels particularly well now. So customers are often your best PR people
[00:22:13] Andy Barr: 100%.
[00:22:13] Danny Denhard: they are organic, right?
[00:22:16] Andy Barr: Yeah,
[00:22:17] Danny Denhard: the, uh-
[00:22:18] Danny Denhard: the Ambassador Army. Dive
[00:22:20] Andy Barr: Yeah, I, I just think that is so important. I, I mean, that's one of the things I picked up when I worked at the utility. Letting your stakeholders and ambassadors fill that gap in the news media is, is so important.
[00:22:32] Go And Meet Your Haters
[00:22:34] Andy Barr: I think just to come back to one of the things, one, one thing that I, um, I, I was talking about recently with a brand that many brands forget is that at the end of a crisis when everything's died down, it's a really good idea to go out and meet your haters.
[00:22:44] Andy Barr: And I don't just mean the muggles that have been thrown fruit and veg at you, but actual journalists that have really give you a kicking. Go on out-- go out and have a coffee with them. Uh, and I've always done that, not least because I, I just wanna understand what I could have done better and why they were such [00:23:00] dickheads.
[00:23:00] Andy Barr: But also I, I-- when you meet someone face to face, it's very hard for them after that, um, not so much with me 'cause I'm a dickhead, but if you meet them, uh, you know, if you meet them face to face after that, it's very hard for them to put the boot in once you've got that personal relationship with them. So I think that's another thing that a lot of these theory crisis comms experts don't have.
[00:23:21] Andy Barr: Go and do that. Go meet your haters and, and try and thrash it out face to face
[00:23:26] Danny Denhard: What I love about that is, and having sort of people towards it or, or seeing founders and CEOs having to embrace that and having to go out and meet them, is that they build that extra connection, the extra relationship. So they'll actually will quite happily respond to a WhatsApp that the journalist then sends them. They'll quite happily be much more quickly and much more reactive with them, and it'll be a part... not a partnership because it's, it's more transactional in nature. But it's far more, uh, quid pro quo, and very often you do them a favor, they'll, they'll often try and help you in [00:24:00] some way or, or try and see it from both angles as opposed to giving you both barrels, which, uh, some are notorious for
[00:24:07] Andy Barr: Yeah, very true. I've just made friends with Mike Butcher. Um, and, and you know, and, and you remember, do you remember the battles that we all used to have in the tech world with Mike? I think Mike's been... I think TechCrunch was stupid to get rid of him. He's a, he's a really good bloke. I've always admired him, but he also terrified me too.
[00:24:26] Andy Barr: He was like the modern-day Charles Arthur. And, um, yeah, you know, he, he's a really lovely guy, and actually getting to know him, he's a good bloke, isn't he? And I think that's the difference when you get to know these people that have maybe given you a kicking before.
[00:24:41] Andy Barr: And, and Mike was right to give me a kicking around the, the MyVoucherCodes and, um, you know, that, that kind of stuff.
[00:24:48] Andy Barr: Uh, then yeah, it, it makes it a bit easier
[00:24:51] Danny Denhard: A lot of time the prominent journalists within certain spaces are prominent because they say what other people are thinking or they're trying to [00:25:00] represent people who haven't necessarily got there yet. And especially in Europe and more so the, and probably more so in the UK, we don't have big breakout stars that are in the press or, or in the algorithms as much anymore. So actually a lot of the time they're, are giving you a lot of um, you know, I suppose juice is probably the word a lot of people say now. Um, and it gives, it gives you a chance to, to stand out and, and probably be held responsible for some, some of the things you may or may not have wanted to come out in press or may, may or not have said before and been quoted for it. We're probably gonna see more and more of those types of people. They'll, they'll probably have higher profiles regardless of if they do it for a big publication or go out solo. I think we are gonna start seeing more and more high-profile journalists within spaces 'cause they're gonna be far more respected. Whereas now it's a quantity game, not a quality game
[00:25:53] Andy Barr: Yeah. I mean, the only one I ever think of is Simon Calder, really, and, um, you know, in the, in the [00:26:00] travel world. He's really-- He really owns that space to the point where I think all of us sort of have a bit of a giggle about it. But yeah, fair play to him. He's, he's absolutely nailed it, and I'd love to see more of that because we do-- we don't have it.
[00:26:10] Andy Barr: Like you say, like in America, there's a lot of, um, you know, media-first journalists out there that are building their own case. But do you know what's a really good example? W- Reach at the minute. So Reach are absolutely... I think they're circling the plug hole.
[00:26:25] Andy Barr: I wouldn't be surprised if they end up getting snapped up by somebody, um, you know, like Future obviously flying with the stuff that they're doing.
[00:26:34] Andy Barr: But I was talking to a Reach journalist last week. I've got an okay social media profile, and I said, "Why don't we do a, um, why don't we do..." What, have you ever watched Amanda Land? A collab together. You're, you know, you as a journo, she- they're quite well known. Me as a PR, I'm okay, and we'll do a three things people don't like about, you know, PRs, two things people don't like about journos.
[00:26:57] Andy Barr: A bit of fun." "Oh, I'll have to go and ask." I'm [00:27:00] like, "What are you on about? It's your personal social media account. This-- Trust me, this will do really well." Um, but I think that's the difficulty at the minute. People are-- Maybe it's because jobs are so far hard to find. I'm doing them a disservice in the journo world.
[00:27:14] Andy Barr: They're so worried about getting the chop in the next round of the Reach, um, you know, wheel of misfortune, they don't wanna do it, and I think maybe that is the, what's putting journalists off from doing it
[00:27:25] Danny Denhard: Also, with the way that it's going and I think, I guess the subscription fatigue that a lot of people are getting, if they do go out on their own, it's, they probably find it a lot harder. Even if you look at the Substack UK top rankings, there's only one or two that are actually journalists. The rest are, um, like really niche publications or, backed by a, backed by companies.
[00:27:47] Danny Denhard: So it'd be, be interesting to see whether that, that shifts or whether journalists can make that, the one bra- one media brand work, I guess. In-- More so in the UK. There's a lot, a lot in the US that have made it, have made it [00:28:00] work and have had to go multimedia, so they're not just writing articles anymore.
[00:28:03] Andy Barr: Mm-hmm.
[00:28:04] Danny Denhard: podcasting, they're YouTubing, they're going live constantly. So they're acting more like a Patreon than a, than a journalist
[00:28:10] Andy Barr: Yeah, that's very true. And I think, you know, at the time when we were battling, you know, we had people like Hannah Gale who were like pioneers in that. Um, she worked for the Metro. She had a really, really bougie, um, sort of social media set of accounts. And now she's-- I think I saw somewhere the other day she's now working for the NHS and, you know.
[00:28:30] Andy Barr: But she was a real early adopter of that kind of, um, standout journalist that was-- really understood the power of multimedia. But yeah, it's, it's a really interesting one at the minute
[00:28:40] The Rise Of AI Misinformation & Manipulated PR
[00:28:40] Danny Denhard: If we were to shift gears over to, towards AI and what kinda creating, do you think it's creating like a reputational nightmare for, for a lot of brands? 'Cause they're obviously racing to answer more questions. They're trying to build solutions for bots and agents. you kinda see [00:29:00] a, a proliferation or a problem between trying to serve humans and agents and bots at the same time?
[00:29:07] Danny Denhard: Do you think there's going to be a reputational risk while companies are trying to do that from a PR perspective?
[00:29:13] Andy Barr: There's, uh, I think this is gonna be the-- dominate the next 12 months of the PR news agenda. We've been through, you know, AI PR, is it a thing? No. Um, I, and now I think more and more of us, I think over the last sort of six months I've noticed more instances of misinformation being deliberately put in AI to, to affect things.
[00:29:37] Andy Barr: And I, I... When I was thinking about talking to you, I was trying to think, well, you know, what's an example of that? And I was really lucky in that there was one last week with Vinyl in Australia and, um, Mumbrella, where Vinyl's share price and investor pack is starting to be inve- It's starting to be, um, affected by essentially fake news [00:30:00] that...
[00:30:00] Andy Barr: Well, I should be careful what I say, actually. Oh, it doesn't matter, it's Australia, so, um, Mumbrella have written, you know, in the region of probably 10 to 20 negative arnals, uh, articles about Vinyl, and it, it started to leak into their effe- um, investor packs. And what is interesting is AI is confusing repetition with fact, so because it's been written about so many times, it's not really-- It's plugging together those gaps, isn't it, and creating misinformation.
[00:30:28] Andy Barr: And I think people like Paul Stollery, you know, I talk to him quite a lot from Hard Numbers about this. I took part in, in an experiment with him where we deliberately tried to put-- Well, we deliberately did put misinformation into AI. And I think that is gonna be our battle over the next 12 months.
[00:30:43] Andy Barr: Very similar to probably, probably six years into the PR for SEO battle. We both, we know that negative SEO is a thing. Um, and al- although people, you know, Google, Matt Cutts back [00:31:00] then, you know, said it wasn't a thing, it 100% was, because I, I s- you know, it happened to me, uh, and the agency that I ran. You know, it cost us probably half a million quid dealing with it a- and in, in terms of lost revenue.
[00:31:11] Andy Barr: And I think this is gonna be the next battle. How do you put that together? I was just kind of thinking it's just basically trying to keep AI on the straight and narrow, and that's gonna be the PR battle for the next 12 months.
[00:31:21] Andy Barr: Not where they need to put fucking FAQs at the bottom of your press release and all this, but actually trying to counter misinformation that people are deliberately putting in about competitors.
[00:31:31] Danny Denhard: Are you seeing, obviously clients probably aren't asking specifically for it, there's a lot of bad actors or a lot of people who will wanna win at any, at any, at all costs. Are you seeing any more bla- black hat tactics, or are you seeing any gray hat that's towards the black hat world now of, of PR?
[00:31:51] Danny Denhard: Are you getting people who are wanting to create negative reviews, or create dummy websites, or things like that that are a little bit old school, that are creating [00:32:00] distractions and trying to manipulate the models? Are you seeing anything like that? Or do you think it's coming and we just haven't been smart enough to see it yet?
[00:32:09] Andy Barr: I think it's coming. I've not had a client or anyone approach me, and I think I would have because I'm known for doing, you know, I, I think about some of the crisis comms stuff that I did back in the day after the crisis around online reputation management, getting stuff moved down Google, and that was gray hat, shall we say.
[00:32:26] Andy Barr: Um, and I think, I, I think it will come, and I think it'll be all the people that did it who were back in our day. They'll, um, they'll evolve into AI skullduggery instead of SEO skullduggery. Um, but no, I, I've certainly not been asked to do anything, and I don't know anyone who has.
[00:32:45] Andy Barr: I think the Mumbrella versus Vinyl thing is a bit more of a personal grievance.
[00:32:49] Andy Barr: Um, what was the Jilly Cooper thing that's on telly at the minute? I can't remember what it's called. It's on Disney. But it feels very much like that, two media moguls having a ding-dong with each other. Um, [00:33:00] but it, it will come. 100% it will come, um, because there are always gonna be people that wanna take shortcuts.
[00:33:07] Andy Barr: I mean, uh, let's be honest, I went to Brighton SEO, um, in April. I, um, you know, got an okay profile. I got dragged over to a stand from a company, I don't know where they were, they're from overseas, that had a whole platform where you could go and buy links from, um, you know, y- y- it was basically like an e-commerce store.
[00:33:30] Andy Barr: It was absolutely crazy. And I-- you remember things like my guest blog and stuff like that, which nuked a lot of affiliates in our sector. Um, and I came back and I spoke about it on an SEO, um, podcast, and John Mu was on the, was in the audience, and he put in the chat, "I know what stand it was because my-- I sent some of our, um, people over there, and they were filming all the stands and couldn't believe it was happening."
[00:33:52] Andy Barr: So, you know, it's gonna happen, isn't it? And it's gonna be commercialized, and people are gonna try and sell it as a business on Fiverr or [00:34:00] whatever other platforms that people use for shenanigans like that
[00:34:03] Danny Denhard: My prediction is we're gonna see like a new age of reputation management. I helped some of some big companies when I was agency side or, or, um, working independent as a consultant, and I think there's gonna be a real, uh, revamp of reputational management that comes in. So rather than it being hitting the main news and mainstream news, it'll actually come via LLMs first.
[00:34:29] Danny Denhard: It'll come through search results, and then it'll bleed into social. So it'd be far more like a political attack than it would, you know, traditional brand attack. And I think there's gonna be a real wave of demand for proper reputational management. So think of it from, um, things that happened, say, five to 10 years ago. I think we're gonna start seeing a big, a big shift in how people understand their reputation, how they're perceived, and how they could be attacked. And I don't know many that are really trying to, [00:35:00] um, protect themselves just yet around that. And we're gonna start seeing it more and more because it's becoming harder and harder to get investment for startups to continue getting
[00:35:09] Andy Barr: Hmm
[00:35:10] Danny Denhard: of investment, et cetera.
[00:35:11] Danny Denhard: So I do... I have a strong hunch that this is gonna start happening pretty soon, and the agents are gonna be the ones that are doing a lot of it, and it'll be spun out, and people just won't see it until it hits them hard.
[00:35:24] Danny Denhard: That might be an interesting dark side of, of the internet that might happen fairly soon.
[00:35:29] Andy Barr: I think, uh, that is, that is so accurate, and I think, I think sometimes people like CEOs and big brands, or... But it's probably mid-tier brands. Obviously, the Coke, Nikes, you know, they're, they're fine. They're not gonna struggle with this bec- because they've got that brand sort of wash over them. But the mid-tier brands are gonna struggle, and they won't realize until potentially it's too late, and I think that is the issue now.
[00:35:53] Andy Barr: So a couple of the crisis comms briefs that I've worked on recently are around, um, CEO positioning, where there's not [00:36:00] AI misinformation, it's traditional media misinformation by accident. But I do worry, and I think this leads into the OpenAI thing. This, this, um, fake news when there's a knowledge gap in AI's knowledge is really worrying.
[00:36:15] Andy Barr: Um, and I think this is one of the things that the AI overlords need to look at with urgency. It, it needs to be better at saying, "I don't know." Um, which I know is a very simplistic way of saying it, but the, the fact it's creating fake news to fill a gap is, is incredibly worrying, but also a great opportunity for people like us
[00:36:38] Danny Denhard: Sure.
[00:36:39] How To Fix The OpenAI Reputation
[00:36:39] Danny Denhard: And so one of the questions we sort of talked around before, and I think it might be a good way to, to sort of wrap everything up, is OpenAI haven't had and don't have the best reputation at the moment.
[00:36:52] Danny Denhard: And one thing that many people haven't necessarily thought of is how to address it or how to help them.
[00:36:59] Danny Denhard: So they've got two [00:37:00] CMOs, so they're already in, in, you know, in something that it probably conflicts, but if I came to you as the ChatGPT CMO or the new one or CGO, would you do to help save ChatGPT?
[00:37:16] Andy Barr: I think coming back to the, the comment I made about the tech bras, you know, three-quarters zip jumpers, um, booking paddle courts, it's very much a case of get some grownups in the room, which is incredibly patronizing thing for an old man to say. But they need some really strong character PRs to form part of the decision-making.
[00:37:37] Andy Barr: People like, you know, the, the Waddingtons have spoken for years about PR needing to have a table at the C-suite, and OpenAI is the best example of that, that I could see. I think they have so many mixed messages. They've got-- I, I don't even think they have a strategy. I think they just fire stuff out of as, and when they'd see it.
[00:37:57] Andy Barr: Whoever thought that, um, [00:38:00] story about, " Oh, we've accidentally hacked something" was a good idea, obviously needs to be sent somewhere for, uh, for realignment because that, that was just the craziest thing. And, and now I s- I saw another one of them copied it, which it just absolutely baffles me. So number one, okay, so go in, go and have a look at the situation.
[00:38:20] Andy Barr: The two CMO thing is very much like when Liverpool Football Club had two managers, and that was a car crash. So I think you need to address that straight away.
[00:38:28] Andy Barr: Make sure you've got a really strong comms team in place that are not scared to stand up and go, "Look, you're, you're talking rubbish." They're all, they're all Bond villains, these people that, you know, that, that run the, um, the, the AI overlords.
[00:38:42] Andy Barr: And then I think you need a proper comm strategy of, " Actually, this is what we're gonna be doing, this is what we're gonna be saying. These are..." This is terrible wanky terms, "But these are content pillars that we need to stick to. We need to stop talking about how we accidentally hacked something. We need to be concentrating more on what we've done for good."
[00:38:58] Andy Barr: Um, and, and [00:39:00] I think that would be the number one thing. I'd probably also say that, that he (Sam Altman) needs to step away from doing any comms for a bit. And as we were talking about before, very similar to Elon Musk that's going through this sort of brand PR revamp. He (Elon Musk) was kept well away, like far away from the, um, SpaceX AI launch.
[00:39:19] Andy Barr: Sorry, the SpaceX, um, float. He, he was nowhere near the comms. He, he put very few things out, and that actually worked out really well for them. So I think they need to take a leaf out of his book, get the CEO to stop mouthing off about everything, take a bit of time out, see where they're at, and then go from there.
[00:39:38] Andy Barr: Some of the statements that they put out in response to a crisis are, are bordering on farcical. Um, and I think I very much doubt they've even got stuff like a Q&A document, which you and I would've done day one. Go in, right, what are the questions you don't wanna be asked?
[00:39:52] Andy Barr: And make-- ask those questions and get the replies ready because at the minute it just feels like someone's shooting at the hip.
[00:39:58] Andy Barr: They've got a comms team that are [00:40:00] scared that if they say anything, they'll get sacked. So yeah, just shut up for a bit. Bloody hell. It's probably what you're thinking about me right now
[00:40:06] Danny Denhard: No, definitely not. I would say that with, in the AI space, all want to be the smartest geek in the room. They wanna be the, you know, alpha geek. They don't actually want and aren't acting like CEOs. So very often, as you said, a lot of people have said you need PR in, in the boardroom or have its own seat. The CMO should be that, or the CBO, the brand officer should be that. Very often, it's a case of you should probably just put them away and say, "No, you're not doing it anymore." Or you should
[00:40:40] Andy Barr: Mm-hmm.
[00:40:40] Danny Denhard: you said, on the content pillars.
[00:40:42] Danny Denhard: One thing that I have said over and over again, uh, to friends and on an AI podcast that, um, that I do, is when you want to be alpha geek or you wanna be the, you know, the king of the castle, what you should do is stick to what great things are happening [00:41:00] and what the features are and how you're helping people, as opposed to having a geek fight like, you know, Zuckerberg has and other people do.
[00:41:07] Danny Denhard: What you wanna be able to do is take them away and have a series or an army of people who can go on and say great stuff. And one thing that we know now is the best people to do PR isn't actually the PR person, the marketing person. It's the engineers. It's the people in the back office. It's, it's the people who show up as experts or show up as, you know, um, like the M&S example we spoke around on TikTok. It's those types of people who come out, who are super relatable, can give you a nugget of information or give you loads of great insider tips, that secret source that so many people are looking for. You can go... could probably can almost all the bad press really quickly by giving people different use cases, by giving people different ideas of how to use it and all the secret ways that you use it internally. That will, that will dull a lot of the noise that happens from, [00:42:00] from Sam Altman and some of the co-founders.
[00:42:03] Danny Denhard: And when they, when they're all jumping off and going to the competitors or stealing IP and going to start creating it for, you know, from Apple to ChatGPT, for o- to OpenAI or Anthropic, et cetera, the best way to kill that is either to shut up or flood the news with great information. And the way that most smart people are doing it now is through podcasts, through newsle- newsletters, and showing the expertise, not out and just saying more worrying or big headline statements that aren't gonna do any favors when you need to build another data center or borrow another three hundred million or billion, um, from people.
[00:42:39] Danny Denhard: So I think that's brilliant.
[00:42:41] Andy Barr: No, I, I, I was just gonna say that the best CEO that you work with, and we both know this, is the one that comes to you and says, "Actually, I, I'm not comfortable with this kind of media interview. Can we go through it? Can we role play? Can we train?"
[00:42:55] Andy Barr: The worst kind is the one that thinks they're, you know, the rockstar, media star, [00:43:00] and they are because when ti- times are good and they're on doing media stuff and it's positive, they're fantastic.
[00:43:05] Andy Barr: But when times are bad and they go on, they a- you know, they don't know about bridging points. They don't know about, you know, how, how to deal with awkward questions, and I think they're the worst kind. And this is the problem, I think. I think they all think at the minute they are PR superstars, and they're not.
[00:43:21] Andy Barr: They're an absolute car crash in media interviews. Now, I think that's, you know, exactly what you've just said. You, you've absolutely nailed it. So now you can charge double what you normally charge for your crisis comms advice
[00:43:33] Danny Denhard: With all, with all that said, uh, and all the brilliant advice you've given people, what's the best way for someone who's either to get a much better proactive PR strategy or wants to get crisis comms advice or wants to get you on retainer, what's the best way for someone to reach out to you minus TikTok? What's the, what's the best way for someone to contact you and, and hire you?
[00:43:58] Andy Barr: I mean, I'm [00:44:00] really easy to find. Just Google PR Andy Barr, and I'll come up on every platform whether you like it or not, like a bad smell. There is a senator with the same name, but he's not so good at crisis comms. But yeah, really easy to find. Google me, baby
[00:44:13] Danny Denhard: Thank you, Andy. That was, uh, brilliant
[00:44:17] Andy Barr: No, mate, thank you. It's such an honor to, uh, to, to finally sit down and have a chat with you after all those years of sparring in the SERPs.
