PRWeek TV: Absence of Olympic and Paralympic Games set to 'liberate' brands

Alongside a feature looking at trends for 2013, PRWeek talked to Hill+Knowlton Strategies MD of retail and leisure and lead on sustainability Flic Howard-Allen and Hope & Glory PR founder James Gordon-MacIntosh for their views.

Though he warned some companies would lose 'a natural narrative', Gordon-MacIntosh said that a comparatively quiet year would prove to be ‘hugely liberating’ for many brands that had previously had to sit out of the London 2012 spectacle.

‘There were a lot of brands that, to some degree, shut up shop over the summer. You couldn’t be part of [the Olympic and Paralympic Games]. There was a sense that there wasn’t going to be a great deal of media and consumer head space.’

Though she pointed out that the birth of a the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s first child would be one big news hook for 2013, Howard-Allen agreed.

‘A year like this is a great year for storytelling… a lot of it is based around having great ideas that are the engine for content,' she said.

Among other topics discussed on this week’s PRWeek TV are the ways that PR has become a public practice, and the challenge for City PR professionals in particular.

View PRWeek's more in-depth look at the year ahead.