{"id":29670,"date":"2018-09-01T07:43:28","date_gmt":"2018-09-01T11:43:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/?post_type=bu-article&p=29670"},"modified":"2021-05-03T04:11:48","modified_gmt":"2021-05-03T08:11:48","slug":"a-world-of-influence","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/articles\/a-world-of-influence\/","title":{"rendered":"A World of Influence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ask Barri Rafferty almost any question and she\u2019ll give you a polished answer. Three decades in public relations has that effect on a person. But ask the CEO and president of Ketchum<\/a>, one of the world\u2019s leading agencies, why she got into PR in the first place? \u201cI\u2019ll be honest, I do not remember,\u201d she says. \u201cMy memory does not go back that far!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the record, Rafferty\u2019s first PR experience came as an intern at the New Orleans\u2019 Superdome in the mid-1980s, where she promoted tourism. Whatever her reason for accepting that position, she was hooked. She began looking at communication schools, eventually choosing BU where she earned a master\u2019s in corporate communications. She\u2019s been rising through the industry\u2019s ranks ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In January 2018, Rafferty (\u201988) became the first woman in charge of one of the top five PR firms in the world<\/a>. She assumes the position as the lines between PR and marketing blur<\/a>, digital and social media gain further influence and gender and unconscious bias in the workplace come under close scrutiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rafferty joined Ketchum in 1993. Before then, she\u2019d worked at Lippe Taylor and Burson-Marsteller, among other firms. During her time at Ketchum, she\u2019s done everything from running regional offices to overseeing the transition from analog to digital media. When Ketchum tapped her in 1998 to lead its global brand marketing practice from New York City, she considered it a dream job. But with young kids at home, she struggled with the role\u2019s demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYour personal life, your family, your work life: when they\u2019re all in sync and working is when you move forward,\u201d Rafferty says. She gave up the dream job and took over Ketchum\u2019s office in her hometown, Atlanta. \u201cI\u2019m not sure the path I took was the planned path, but it took me on a bit of a circuitous route and I learned new skills along the way,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Risky Business<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Rafferty isn\u2019t Ketchum\u2019s first COM-trained CEO. Ray Kotcher (\u201983) spent 32 years with the agency, 12 of those as CEO. Now back at COM as professor of the practice<\/a>, he\u2019s thrilled to see his longtime colleague at the top of his old company. \u201cShe was one of my go-to people,\u201d Kotcher says. \u201cAs PR evolved, Barri was one of the people who really helped to drive our change.\u201d In one instance, Rafferty led Ketchum\u2019s efforts to develop its digital marketing abilities. As another example of her skill, Kotcher cites the same role that Rafferty had stepped away from: her leadership of the global brand marketing practice. Ketchum had won Kodak\u2019s global PR business and needed to coordinate efforts in offices around the world. \u201cShe did an extraordinary job building that platform for us,\u201d he says. \u201cShe was always innovating, always thinking of new ways to help our clients.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An old, creased Monopoly card that Rafferty keeps on her desk as a reminder to take risks.\u00a0Photo by Chris Sorensen<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

For several years, Rafferty has kept an old, creased Monopoly card on her desk. The card, a gift from a client, offers a mantra that Rafferty firmly believes in: Get out of jail free. \u201cPeople and talent work much better when you not only have compassion for them, but also when they know you have their back,\u201d she says. Rafferty\u2019s Ketchum bosses and clients allowed her to experiment and learn. Now she\u2019s trying to do the same for her staff. \u201cI want them to take risks and try new things in a business that\u2019s always evolving,\u201d she says. \u201cSometimes the things that don\u2019t work, we learn the most from.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Rafferty is big on learning. \u201c[PR] is in constant change. If you\u2019re not comfortable with that, don\u2019t pick this as a discipline,\u201d she says. To stay current, Rafferty frequently consults a \u201creverse mentor,\u201d a younger Ketchum employee who briefs her on the latest technology and social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sweeping Change<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Rafferty takes over Ketchum during a run of critical success. They won more Cannes Lions<\/a> than any other PR agency in 2017, receiving 26 of the communications industry\u2019s annual awards. In 2018 they added 30 more, nearly doubling the next highest total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 2017 campaign, #nuggs4carter, exploded out of a Twitter exchange between Wendy\u2019s and a teenage customer, Carter Wilkerson. \u201cYo @Wendys how many retweets for a year of free chicken nuggets?\u201d Wilkerson tweeted. \u201c18 million,\u201d Wendy\u2019s replied. Though Wilkerson fell short, his 3.6 million retweets<\/a> set an all-time record\u2014and Ketchum helped Wendy\u2019s ride a wave of free media coverage. Cannes Lion, Clio and Shorty awards followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not all Ketchum clients have as whimsical a message. Libresse sought to destigmatize menstruation with its \u201cBlood Normal\u201d campaign, which received a Cannes award for promoting positive societal change. Another campaign, \u201cPrescribed to Death,\u201d features a traveling memorial created for the National Safety Council: a wall of more than 22,000 white pills<\/a>, each etched with the face of someone who died from a prescription opioid overdose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Past success hasn\u2019t stopped the new CEO from shaking things up, though. In her first eight months, Rafferty reorganized and rebranded the nearly century-old agency. Ketchum had used a geographic profit-and-loss (P&L) structure, with each office operating as its own business. \u201cWe\u2019ve taken apart the agency and dissected every part of our organizational structure,\u201d Rafferty says. Now Ketchum\u2019s North American business is streamlined into a single P&L. Industry sectors and communication specialties have replaced the old geographic silos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result, Rafferty says, is more of a communications consulting firm than a PR agency, able to draw on expertise from any office at any given time. \u201cWe\u2019ve created a national pool [of creative talent] with different infrastructure for how to get talent in real time,\u201d Rafferty says. \u201cAt a minute\u2019s notice, we can ramp up or down to meet the client needs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the things we saw pretty quickly in our world is they started to tap into their creative resources in a different way,\u201d says Kara Buckley, global grooming communications manager for Procter & Gamble, a longtime Ketchum client. \u201cIt was very different from what we\u2019ve seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Influencing the Influencers<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat is considered public relations is really diversified today,\u201d Rafferty says. The core of that discipline\u2014storytelling and narratives\u2014remains constant, but how and where those stories get told keeps changing. Rafferty sees that as a good thing for PR experts, and for Ketchum in particular. \u201cInfluencers [are] something we\u2019ve always done well,\u201d she says. Rafferty sees Ketchum\u2019s ability to work with traditional influencers, like journalists, carrying over to modern influencers, who use social media to reach their audiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInfluencers are becoming more important every day in our industry,\u201d Buckley says. \u201c[Ketchum was] quick to identify that and to build a network.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During her Ketchum career, Rafferty has seen the company go from cutting and pasting media clips with scissors and glue to using artificial intelligence to sift through massive supplies of data to reveal trends, identify potential audiences and measure results. \u201cOur goal is to really understand that ecosystem of influence,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ketchum isn\u2019t just using technology to tell stories\u2014sometimes technology is the story. Rafferty recalls a client from the early 2000s: Cingular. Long-since absorbed by AT&T, the company was an early leader in cellular telephone service. They came to Ketchum with a problem: they wanted to sell text messaging packages to people who didn\u2019t yet know how to send messages with their phones. \u201cOur team had to learn to text in order to figure out how to communicate and teach people to text,\u201d Rafferty says. Of course, not all products change the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around the same time as the Cingular campaign, Rafferty was helping Kodak with its own potentially revolutionary product. The EasyShare Camera could connect directly to WiFi, allowing photographers to instantly email pictures from their devices. The idea was so far ahead of the photo-sharing craze that it was discontinued before the launch of the iPhone or Instagram.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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