What The Flack: Why Finding the Story to Tell Excites Laura Batt

Laura Batt is the marketing & new business director at The Beyond Collective where she oversees the external reputation of the agencies Above+Beyond (creative), Yonder (media), Frontier (brand strategy) and Collective Studios (production). She honed her skills at the Global Production Agency, Tag, where she managed the marketing strategy, building long-term partnerships with clients and agencies alike.

LBB> Tell us about your current role and what you do?

Laura> I am the marketing & new business director at The Beyond Collective overseeing the external reputation of our agencies: Above+Beyond (creative), Yonder (media), Frontier (brand strategy) and Collective Studios (production).

LBB> And how did you get to where you are today?

Laura> Sometimes I do wonder, but then I’ve never been very good at giving myself credit. I’m pretty all-in when it comes to work; I’ve never shied away from asking the difficult questions and I think my superpower is finding common ground with just about anyone which is certainly useful in Comms. I’ve shimmied my way up from an account exec working on a direct mail account to a director in four years, and I put it down to building genuine connections and being someone people can rely on to get the job done.

LBB> What does your average day look like?

Laura> Busy but I genuinely have a lot of fun at work, and I would go mad pretty quickly if I didn’t. I focus a lot on finding opportunities to show the ambition of our agencies, whether that be building rapport with a disruptive marketer, showcasing our epic work online or working with some of our brilliant talent to crack a category challenge via thought leadership.

LBB> For your organisation, what is the key function of PR and comms? Is it about company culture? Attracting clients? Empowering talent? Something else?

Laura> It’s something I really want to focus on this year. We have incredible talent, a great client base and a compelling proposition. In an ideal world, PR and comms does it all. Without clients, you have no work, and without creating a culture where talent wants to stay you don’t find the aha! moments as easily – or frequently. I guess its key function is letting clients know we’re locked and loaded when they need an agency they can trust to deliver.

LBB> PR has always been about finding the story / finding the angle. What is your process for staying ahead of the content curve and serving up something fresh and engaging? 

Laura> There’s nothing as effective as a POW-WOW (as an old boss used to call it). Keep your finger on the pulse with industry updates, get your thought leaders in a room regularly and capture their unfiltered reaction to the news. It always amazes me how a thought trail can snowball into a fully-fledged opinion piece (with a little polishing) just by having a good ol’ debate. I think it’s also about not being afraid to have an opinion. There’s definitely a risk of perfectionism stopping you doing - or saying - anything, and PR can’t exist in silence.

LBB> To what extent do you feel 'the work speaks for itself'? To what stage of growth can a business rely on this mantra to gain more clients? 

Laura> Simply, it helps - but I think the days of “GREAT WORK is the answer, what’s the question” are behind us, and it’s no bad thing. As the world becomes more unpredictable, less stable, and frankly a lot more complicated with the advancements of tech like AI, clients are looking for ambitious partners to go beyond this.

LBB> When it comes to getting coverage for a creative campaign in the consumer press, how should creative teams go about working with their agency’s comms and PR experts? 

Laura> First step: Tell us. It’s easy when workloads build up and client demands come first to miss this step, but we can’t PR something we don’t know anything about. Engage us in the work early, give us timelines and let us pester when we need to. A good agency comms team will have enough writing flair and creative knowledge to do most of the heavy lifting, even if they need you to explain what constitutes VFX a couple of times.

LBB> When a business is faced with very bad news, what’s the key to getting through it?

Laura> Crisis comms are sadly part and parcel of the job in the ebbs and flows of agency life. The key to getting through a difficult patch is getting ahead of it with a plan, controlling the narrative where you can and making sure your team are all in it together.

It might feel like HUGE news to you in that moment, but advertising moves fast and the old cliché is all too true: today’s news is tomorrow’s chip paper. 

LBB> Generally speaking, how do you approach the hack/flack relationship? 

Laura> Everyone has a job to do, and I appreciate journos have a particularly busy one. The best of these relationships are the product of years of trust-building. Don’t lie, don’t waste anyone’s time, and don’t push your own agenda because the years you’ve spent cultivating positive partnerships only take one bad experience to undo. 

LBB> What are the most useful tools in the arsenal of a comms professional working in advertising industries right now?

Laura> A confidante to help separate the chaff from the wheat. It’s easy to think your idea is the best idea, it’s harder but more important to realise when that idea is crap. Bring your ideas to the table but be prepared to learn from others. I really think going it alone in comms is a quick way to make it look harder than it is.

LBB> In your opinion, how has the role of a Comms professional evolved during your career span? Have things changed greatly or do core tasks / principles remain the same? 

Laura> I’m gladly seeing agencies get out of the echo chamber of harping on about themselves and talking more directly to clients about how to do things more effectively. With this has come a change to the role in that there’s an even greater focus on finding that hook in the story that makes clients think “YES this is exactly the problem we’re having and that’s such a great solution.” That and the pace of social media: if you don’t communicate fast enough there will always be someone who gets there before you.

LBB> What frustrates you about the way the media and PR have changed over the years?

Laura> The sheer saturation of stories. It’s increasingly difficult to find the news that’s relevant to you. Oh, and long boring headlines, what’s with that?

LBB> And what excites you?

Laura> I’m a results-driven person so I won’t deny getting a kick out of seeing our agency or client’s name in lights. Finding the story to tell, or even better, knowing the story writes itself will always excite me.