Public Relations Stories and Strategies

Hosted by Stories and Strategies https://storiesandstrategies.ca/

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Episodes

275

Latest episode

Sep 2026

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EN-US

About the show

Every organization has a story people believe about it. Most leaders didn't choose that story. They inherited it, stumbled into it, or lost control of it somewhere along the way. Stories and Strategies is the podcast that changes that. Host Doug Downs talks with the communicators, executives, and strategists who understand that narrative isn't a marketing function. It's a leadership one. Each episode unpacks what actually shapes reputation, trust, and public perception at the highest levels, drawing on behavioral science, media intelligence, and the ethics that keep persuasion honest. This is public relations at the level serious leaders need it. Not tactics and press releases. The thinking behind why some stories win and others disappear. Ranked among the most listened-to public relations podcasts in the world, Stories and Strategies reaches leaders and communicators across six continents every week. If you are responsible for the story people believe about your organization, you cannot afford to guess. Follow Stories and Strategies wherever you listen to your public relations content.

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60 recent

September 1, 2026Episode 24521 min

Public Relations in Egypt

Most people don’t experience a country… they experience its reputation. Long before a flight is booked or a business deal is considered, a story has already landed in your mind. A headline. A search result. A clip that went viral. A warning someone repeated with total confidence. And once that story sticks, it starts to feel like the place itself. So, let’s test it. When you picture Egypt, what shows up first? Pyramids. Pharaohs. Ancient tombs. Maybe a biblical story, or maybe a recent news headline? Egypt is one of the most famous places on earth, but that fame can flatten it into a single image, a single idea, a single shadow. In this episode, nation branding and strategic communications leader Lamia Kamel unpacks how reputations are formed and how they can be changed, especially now that discovery runs through search, social, and AI. If you’ve ever realized you “knew” a place before you actually understood it, this conversation might rewire the way you think about perception. Listen For: 04:28 What Misconceptions Do Travelers Have About Egypt? 05:37 What Is the Real Egypt Beyond Pyramids and Stereotypes? 08:10 How Should Egypt Use Digital Marketing to Attract Travelers? 11:43 Which Social Media Platforms Are Most Popular in Egypt? 17:49 How Is PR in Egypt Different From Western PR? Guest: Lamia Kamel, Managing Director of CC Plus Website | Email | LinkedIn Doug Substack | Website | LinkedIn Are you a brand with a podcast that needs support? Book a meeting with Doug Downs to talk about it. Apply to be a guest on the podcast Connect with us LinkedIn | X | Instagram | You Tube | Facebook | Threads | Bluesky | Pinterest Request a transcript of this episode Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode Support the show

August 25, 2026Episode 24421 min

The Mentorship Myths Holding PR Professionals Back

Most of us are waiting for mentorship to look a certain way. A senior person who takes us under their wing. A scheduled coffee every two weeks. A defined relationship with a clear beginning and a clear end. And while we are waiting for that version of mentorship to show up, the real thing is happening all around us and we’re missing it entirely. But the way mentorship actually works in the public relations profession is different to almost everything you would naturally believe. Listen For 3:35 What Are the Five Biggest Myths About Mentorship? 5:35 Why Should Mentorship Work Both Ways? 7:36 Can ChatGPT or AI Replace a Human Mentor? 13:42 What Mentorship Advice Can Stay With You for Life? 16:36 How Do You Find the Right Mentor in Public Relations? Guests: Amy Thurlow Website | LinkedIn Colleen Killingsworth LinkedIn Book Rethinking the Table on Amazon Doug Substack | Website | LinkedIn Are you a brand with a podcast that needs support? Book a meeting with Doug Downs to talk about it. Apply to be a guest on the podcast Connect with us LinkedIn | X | Instagram | You Tube | Facebook | Threads | Bluesky | Pinterest Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode Support the show

August 18, 2026Episode 24323 min

Can this AI Tool Spot Your Next PR Crisis Before You Do?

As a communications professional you’ve used ChatGPT, Claude, or Copilot in the last 30 days. Probably in the last week. Probably earlier today. And at some point you’ve had the same experience: you put in a prompt, you get back something that’s technically competent and completely generic. You spend the next 20 minutes re-prompting, editing, wrestling it into something that actually sounds like your organization, your voice, your situation. A Workday study found that 40% of the time saved by using generative AI tools is immediately lost reworking the outputs. You traded one kind of work for another. The reason is simple and almost nobody is saying it out loud. Those tools were built for everyone. Which in communications terms means they were built for no one in particular. They don't think like a communicator. They don't have access to what a communicator needs. They don't know what’s being said about your organization right now across 4,000 TikTok videos, each with modest view counts, each repeating the same damaging narrative, each flying completely below the radar of your existing monitoring tools. Stratum is the tool that needed to be built three years ago. Watch the YouTube Video of this episode to see Stratum demonstration Listen For 3:29 Why do communications teams need AI built around use cases instead of tools? 6:30 What is Stratum and how is it different from ChatGPT or Copilot? 12:18 What is the difference between an AI agent and an agentic workflow? 17:29 Can AI detect a reputation crisis before it goes viral? 19:45 How can AI identify the right influencers for a campaign? Guest: Matt Collette, Sequencr.AI Website | LinkedIn | Stratum Platform Doug Substack | Website | LinkedIn Subscribe to the Stories and Strategies PR podcast newsletter Are you a brand with a podcast that needs support? Book a meeting with Doug Downs to talk about it. Apply to be a guest on the podcast Connect with us LinkedIn | X | Instagram | You Tube | Facebook | Threads | Bluesky | Pinterest Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode Support the show

August 11, 2026Episode 24220 min

Two Thirds of the Room but Almost NONE of the Corner Offices

In Canada, women make up roughly two thirds of the public relations profession. They are the majority in the classrooms, the majority in the entry level roles, and the majority climbing through the middle ranks. And then somewhere around the senior level, the numbers flip. The leadership tables in PR firms and communications departments across the country look nothing like the profession they are supposed to represent. This is not a new observation. The data has been there for years. Here’s what’s new. Two researchers decided to stop describing the problem and start asking a harder question. Not how do we get more women to the table? But why does the table keep failing the women who get there. Because what the data also shows, and what too many PR women know personally, is that the exit is often quiet and deliberate. Not a firing. Not a failure. A decision. A moment where a woman who is absolutely capable of leading looks at what it costs and says this is not worth it. This episode is about what is driving that decision, and what it is going to take to change it. Listen For 4:15 Why Do Women Hold Fewer Than 30% of Senior PR Leadership Roles? 7:11 What Does It Mean to Rethink the Leadership Table? 9:15 How Can PR Organizations Create Sustainable Leadership Careers? 15:06 What Can Women and Men Do to Change PR Leadership? 17:03 Why Won’t Teaching Women to Play Golf Solve Workplace Exclusion? Guests: Amy Thurlow Website | LinkedIn Colleen Killingsworth LinkedIn Book Rethinking the Table on Amazon Doug Substack | Website | LinkedIn Watch this episode on YouTube Are you a brand with a podcast that needs support? Book a meeting with Doug Downs to talk about it. Apply to be a guest on the podcast Connect with us LinkedIn | X | Instagram | You Tube | Facebook | Threads | Bluesky | Pinterest Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode Support the show

August 4, 2026Episode 24119 min

Good Girls Are Quiet

Most women don't lose their voice all at once. It happens slowly, quietly, and with the best of intentions. They soften their tone here. They hold back an opinion there. They make themselves a little smaller, a little easier, a little less. Until one day they can't quite remember what they actually sound like. This episode is about that. Where the muting comes from, what it costs, and what it takes to find your voice at midlife. Listen For 3:30 What Does It Really Mean to Find Your Voice at Midlife? 5:03 Why Do So Many Women Feel Ready to Explode in Midlife? 7:13 Why Are Assertive Women Judged Differently From Assertive Men? 12:19 How Can Women Process the Unspoken Grief of Not Having Children? 16:19 When Should You Speak Up, and When Should You Protect Your Peace? Guest: Priya Sudarsanam, Speech Pathologist LinkedIn | Website | Instagram | Podcast | Facebook | YouTube Doug Downs Substack | Website | LinkedIn Watch this episode on YouTube Subscribe to the Stories and Strategies PR podcast newsletter Are you a brand with a podcast that needs support? Book a meeting with Doug Downs to talk about it. Apply to be a guest on the podcast Connect with us LinkedIn | X | Instagram | You Tube | Facebook | Threads | Bluesky | Pinterest Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode Support the show

July 28, 2026Episode 24015 min

The Paradox of Polarization… Division Makes PR More Valuable

There’s a booming business in divisiveness. And PR is caught right in the thick of it. Recorded at the June 2026 IABC conference in Toronto, Doug Downs speaks with Fred Cook about A Quiet Shift , a report exploring how polarization is reshaping public relations. Cook explains why division is damaging society, mental health, and business while making thoughtful communications counsel more valuable. They examine echo chambers, outrage as a political and media strategy, the possibility that AI reinforces existing beliefs, and the disappearance of productive dialogue. Cook also outlines how PR education must evolve, emphasizing crisis management, finance, government relations, public affairs, ethics, and responsible technology use. Ultimately, the conversation challenges communicators to adapt without contributing to the very divisions that create demand for their expertise. Listen For 2:33 How Is Polarization Changing Public Relations? 5:38 Why Can Polarization Make PR More Valuable—and More Vulnerable? 6:25 Is AI Reinforcing Bias and Deepening Polarization? 9:01 Which Skills Will Future PR Professionals Need Most? 12:00 Why Does Calling the Other Side “Stupid” Destroy Dialogue? Guest: Fred Cook, Director USC USC Annenberg Center for Public Relations Fred bio Doug Downs Substack | Website | LinkedIn Subscribe to the Stories and Strategies PR podcast newsletter Are you a brand with a podcast that needs support? Book a meeting with Doug Downs to talk about it. Apply to be a guest on the podcast Connect with us LinkedIn | X | Instagram | You Tube | Facebook | Threads | Bluesky | Pinterest Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode Support the show

July 21, 2026Episode 23920 min

Sticky Stories Start with the Itch Your Audience is Already Scratching

Generic messaging fails for a simple reason. It speaks to everyone, which means it actually speaks to no one. The messages that stick, the ones people repeat, forward, and act on, are never written for "employees" or "stakeholders" or "our valued customers." They are written for one person, with one specific frustration, in one specific moment. That’s not a nice idea about storytelling. It’s a framework, and once you see it, you can’t unsee it in every all-staff email that gets ignored and every campaign that gets remembered. In this episode we get the five tip framework behind stories that actually stick, from a communicator who has spent her career studying why some messages disappear the moment they’re sent while others get repeated for years. Listen for: 3:17 The Five-Step Framework for Sticky Stories 7:12 Finding the Frustration: Real Communication Examples 10:34 Break the Fourth Wall to Make Messages Memorable 13:54 The Recipe for Stories People Remember Guest: Eduvie Martin, FCIPR, Past President of IABC UK and Ireland LinkedIn | Comic Republic Doug Downs Substack | Website | LinkedIn Subscribe to the Stories and Strategies PR podcast newsletter Are you a brand with a podcast that needs support? Book a meeting with Doug Downs to talk about it. Apply to be a guest on the podcast Connect with us LinkedIn | X | Instagram | You Tube | Facebook | Threads | Bluesky | Pinterest Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode Support the show

July 14, 2026Episode 23823 min

Reputation Management vs Reputation Architecture

Reputation isn’t your shadow anymore. It’s your operating system. It’s no longer something you manage. It has already been decided, by AI, based on patterns inside your organization you may not even know exist. Most leaders still think about reputation the old way: crisis plans, issue management, damage control after the fact. But AI now reads every signal a company puts out and connects them across every location and every stakeholder, drawing its own conclusion about who you really are. A bad manager in one city used to stay local. Now it can become your global reputation by tomorrow morning. There is a scale that runs from head in the sand to full reputation architect, and most organizations are stuck somewhere in the middle, reacting instead of designing. This episode gets into why reputation now functions like a credit score, why one recent report put a seven trillion dollar number on it globally, and why the real work ahead is not protecting your brand but architecting the patterns underneath it, before AI does that job for you. Listen For 3:35 Why should organizations stop managing reputation and start architecting it? 5:13 How does reputation become operational currency across an organization? 7:48 Why is brand more than a logo or a “cowboy hat”? 10:45 How is AI becoming a stakeholder in your reputation? 16:35 How can leaders tell if they are reacting, managing, or architecting reputation? Guest: Bonnie Caver, Reputation Lighthouse LinkedIn | Website | Company LinkedIn Doug Downs Substack | Website | LinkedIn Subscribe to the Stories and Strategies PR podcast newsletter Are you a brand with a podcast that needs support? Book a meeting with Doug Downs to talk about it. Apply to be a guest on the podcast Connect with us LinkedIn | X | Instagram | You Tube | Facebook | Threads | Bluesky | Pinterest Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode Support the show

July 7, 2026Episode 23722 min

Why the Future of IABC May Be Less Stage and More Circle

What happens when a conference has no keynote, no formal agenda, and no single expert at the front of the room? The new IABC International Chair calls this an “unconference” model. And it’s one glimpse of how professional associations can evolve: by creating space for communicators to learn directly from one another. Also in this episode – why community, credibility, and connection matter more than ever in a profession being reshaped by AI, shrinking budgets, and rising expectation, the changing role of communicators in the age of AI, and why earned media, credible third-party sources, FAQs, and even the press release may be gaining new relevance in AI search. Listen For 4:13 Why was the ABC Designation Considered Tougher than the SCMP? 5:34 How is AI Making Earned Media and Press Releases Valuable Again? 8:09 Why Should Communicators Bring FAQ Pages Back for AI Search? 9:56 Why are Chief Communications Officers Gaining a Stronger Seat at the C-Suite Table? 17:11 How Is IABC Rethinking Chapters With Community Models and Unconferences? Guest: Richard Kies, Incoming IABC International Chair LinkedIn | Bio Page Doug Downs Substack | Website | LinkedIn Are you a brand with a podcast that needs support? Book a meeting with Doug Downs to talk about it. Apply to be a guest on the podcast Connect with us LinkedIn | X | Instagram | You Tube | Facebook | Threads | Bluesky | Pinterest Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode Support the show

June 30, 2026Episode 23622 min

Communications Needs a New Compass

As a communications professional you’re operating in the most complex information environment in history. Misinformation. Disinformation. AI generated deepfakes of executives saying things they never said. Audiences who have stopped trusting what organizations tell them. Employees who can't tell what's real. And somewhere in the middle of all of that noise you’re still expected to move people. To make them understand something, feel something, and do something. With the same frameworks you have always used. Dianne Chase has written a book that argues the profession needs a North Star more than it needs another tactical playbook. She’s the past International Chair of IABC, past Chair of the IABC Southern Region, and current president of IABC Charlotte. Her book is called The Seven C's of the New Communications Compass. And the argument she makes is both simple and urgent: in an era of collapsing trust, the communicators who will matter most are not the ones with the best tools. They’re the ones who remembered to be human. This episode was recorded on location in Toronto in June 2026 at IABC World Conference Listen For 3:16 What Are the Seven Cs of the New Communications Compass? 6:16 Why Should Organizations Build Relationships Instead of Transactions? 8:19 How Does Compassion Become Empathy in Action? 13:09 Why Does Community Matter to Purpose-Driven Brands? 17:10 How Should Communicators Measure What Really Matters? Guest: Dianne Chase, President IABC Charlotte, past International Chair IABC, past Chair IABC Southern Region Website | LinkedIn Doug Downs Substack | Website | LinkedIn Are you a brand with a podcast that needs support? Book a meeting with Doug Downs to talk about it. Apply to be a guest on the podcast Connect with us LinkedIn | X | Instagram | You Tube | Facebook | Threads | Bluesky | Pinterest Send us a note about this episode. We'll reply and thank you on a future episode Support the show