My inaugural column for In.Comms seems the perfect place to explain exactly why we, Haymarket, decided to launch this new title. We had a fun and well-attended launch event last Wednesday, and we’re planning a series of events through the next year, which I hope many of you will attend.
I have spent about 20 years as editor, or editor-in-chief, of PRWeek: about half the lifespan of the title itself, which celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2025.
While PRWeek has always tended to focus more on news, analysis and rankings of PR agencies, we’ve long been conscious that at least half the comms professionals in the UK work in-house instead.
Also, one of the biggest changes observed in the profession over the past two decades is the growing size, seniority and calibre of in-house teams, and how, increasingly, the C-suite of companies or organisations value their in-house comms teams. Indeed, often the comms or corporate affairs director has a seat on the leadership team.
For an experienced business journalist it’s very clear why this is the case.
The first reason, of course, is that comms professionals are the executives tasked with managing the reputation of their organisations; reputations that seem under ever-greater risk, even threat.
Corporate reputational risk today comes from a number of directions. It certainly comes from political polarisation and the culture wars, which have been raging for the past decade.
And closely interconnected with this, a major threat comes from the pressing need to tackle the climate crisis. As I said in my launch speech last Wednesday, it is not me being political by talking of ‘a climate crisis’. There absolutely is one: 99 per cent of scientists agree on this, and we all need to tackle it. Urgently. However, tackling sustainability issues has become even trickier because of the aforementioned political polarisation and culture wars.
Organisations are also under threat from new technology. Yes there’s a big opportunity here too, but corporate crises these days are mostly cyber attacks or data hacks. Last Friday carmaker Renault UK confirmed that it had been the subject of a cyber-attack in which some of its customers’ data had been stolen. Unfortunately for the corporate world, similar stories now seem to be happening most weeks. With high-profile examples earlier in the year such as the Co-op and M&S, and more recently Asahi and Jaguar Land Rover – which required that carmaker to take out a £1.5bn loan – cyber attacks have now become the most prevalent form of corporate crisis.
Additionally on the technology front, there’s the big question about how any organisation is adopting AI and what the impact will be on its business structure and culture. Indeed, AI changes everything in terms of how stakeholders form their perceptions of a business.
It’s a tricky time to run any organisation, and someone needs to help the leaders navigate their way through from a risk, reputational and communications perspective.
The second key reason why in-house leaders have become invaluable is a persistently tricky economy; how difficult it is to achieve organisational growth.
And one of the biggest developments for in-house comms leaders is the extent to which they are now charged with actively helping drive commercial growth. This is one of the reasons why so many are taking on additional marketing and commercial briefs.
And finally, the third reason – also the reason why we decided to call this title In.Comms – is that to meet all of the challenges mentioned so far, organisations’ most important stakeholders today are their own employees.
Internal comms is becoming just as important as external and, ideally, the two disciplines need to integrate effectively. For this reason around one-third of In.Comms’ content will be aimed at internal communications professionals.
Haymarket and I have always been passionate about the comms industry – we strongly believe it is one of the UK’s true centres of global excellence, and we are so proud to launch this title for in-house and internal comms professionals.
Based on the above there should be no shortage of topics to cover and analyse in the coming months. Moreover, In.Comms is here to champion the in-house professional role and the best work being done in the UK, EMEA and well beyond. It is by working together that all this can be achieved.
Danny Rogers, editor-in-chief, In.Comms