The sun shone and 40,000 of us packed Munich’s trade halls, but the mood at Expo Real was decidedly gloomy. As if the prolonged war in Ukraine was not enough, the Brits were reeling from the chaos caused by Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-Budget. 

Spin class

All the talk was of deals collapsing and values slumping. Most of us were wondering how on Earth we’d got into this mess so suddenly.

On the plus side, Soph and I managed to avoid eating the local calorific meat, potato and dumplings. And, remarkably, business is looking up. While we were out there, Soph received a call from an old mate, asking if we’d like to pitch for an interesting project. This is in addition to the massive European company that has asked us to pitch for their comms – fortunately, it’s not Drax.

Soph was amused to see that Good Relations, one of the UK’s oldest PR firms, which started life in 1961, has ‘reset and rebranded’ – she started her PR career there. The firm’s boss said of the rebrand: “Our starting point was to examine the role earned plays in the brand-building ecosystem…”

Haha. As far as we’re concerned, “earned” (ie media coverage you don’t pay for) is 90% of our job – quite why Good Relations needs to examine this is baffling.

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