The PR Week, 11.12.2026: Julie Batliner, Padilla

0:00Julie Batliner: This week on the podcast, Julie Batliner, president at Padilla since September, joins the PR week to discuss the agency's people first AI approach, how PR has changed over the years, especially from her perspective as a Minneapolis based PR professional, and how things are shaping up in Q4 and into the new year. Things looking pretty good on balance. And in the news, we'll talk about the Jensen Huang affair and crisis comms. We'll talk about Next15. It's sold its tech firms to Avenir Global, the same holding company that owns Padilla. And we'll talk about the Publicis letter. If you know, you know.

0:44Julie Batliner: Bit of banter between WPP and Publicis. And we'll finish up with some political game plans post-midterms. Are the Democrats going to go investigative or are they going to try and get things done? And how is President Trump and his administration going to play out the remaining months of their in-majority period and the last two years of the presidency? All this and more coming up.

1:17Julie Batliner: Hello and welcome to the PR Week, PR Week's regular weekly roundup of everything that matters in the worlds of PR and communications. My name's Steve Barrett. I'm the Editorial Director of PR Week and I'm going to guide you gently through another show with me colleague. it's frank washcutt executive editor of pr week how you doing frank doing well steve thanks for having me on you recovered from the marathon no no i have not i've got i've got muscle achilles you did a pb i did but it doesn't get easier as you get older like a lot like a lot of things and i can tell you my friend it won't um as you get even older um i get muscle pains just doing my exercises on a daily basis.

2:04Julie Batliner: So 26 miles. Yeah, that's a great achievement. Well done. Thank you. Thank you. And we got a brilliant guest this week. It's Julie Batliner, who's president of Padilla. Julie, welcome to the show. How are you doing? Doing great. Thanks for having me. It's great to have you on. We've known each other a long time, actually. I think from when I very first came over to edit PR Week and you're based in Minneapolis and worked in that sector and that region for a long time. Initially at Carmichael Lynch Spong as it was and Carmichael Lynch Relay and now you've moved over to Padilla. So tell us about the new role.

2:46Julie Batliner: It's exciting. Very exciting. I'm about two and a half months in, joining the 65-year-old agency that has a long legacy of communications and has grown into an integrated marketing agency, which is great for my background to come in and be able to celebrate that long-standing communications approach and add some new thinking. yeah definitely and to all those who say we never cover anyone outside new york i will just put this as a case study okay folks um but it's it is interesting when you talk about integrated because and carmichael was the same wasn't it in markets like minneapolis or columbus or um you know around the country you do tend to get more integrated shops don't you where they do pr and comms but maybe you're also doing advertising, creative and digital, sometimes in the same agency, but sometimes as part of a bigger organization.

3:50Julie Batliner: Why is that? Is that just a scale thing that, you know, it makes sense to have integrated shops in local markets? And I know you've got national clients as well, but talk us through that. Yeah, well, you're definitely getting credit for Minneapolis today, but also Richmond, because I'm in our Richmond, Virginia office today. But in terms of integrated shops, I think there's a few structures. You see some ad agencies having a PR department. And you see some agencies that both have advertising and PR agencies under one roof. For Padilla, starting out as a communications agency and then adding paid and owned media on top of that, What I love about it is just being grounded in communications for our DNA.

4:39We can really start with the earned story and then amplify it through paid. So lots of different models that are exciting to see as we look at the blurred lines of communication. And the regional thing, is that a scale thing or does it just make more sense? I don't know. I mean, I think it's more just, yeah, what makes sense for what the client needs are and starting with a set of objectives and then over time growing to be able to assert those objectives through the different disciplines and tools.

5:13Julie Batliner: Yeah, and you mentioned the sort of age of the agency and you're succeeding Matt Kuharski, who's spent 38 years at Padilla. And I think he's going to be there till the end of the year and have a role moving forward as just an advisor. And you're the fifth leader, I believe, at the agency. So that says something about a company, doesn't it, when people stay around for such a long time? Yeah, there's definitely a longer than average tenure at Padilla, which is great because you have people that have grown with the company through all the chapters and really nice continuity for our clients that have been around for a long time.

5:55Julie Batliner: And then you are, I guess you've got some of the facets of an independent agency, but you're part of a holding company. You're part of Avenir, which is a Canadian holding company, and we'll talk about them a bit later. Right. But you've come from Omnicom via Interpublic, which Carmichael Lynch was part of. So what's the big difference, do you think, at this group? But Avenir is a very different holding company to Omnicom, I would imagine. Right, right. Privately owned. So you still have the really nice kind of the Goldilocks effect, kind of being in the middle of being not part of a larger holding company, but being part of a company that provides great resources and a wonderful network, but still the agility of being smaller and a different format.

6:52Julie Batliner: And do you think PR has a slightly higher profile in a holding company like Avenir than it does in, you know, some of the maybe the Omnicombs or WPPs of this world, where it's maybe 10 or 11 percent of the business overall? Yeah, I mean, specifically with Avenir Global, their strategy has been to hire or to acquire specialist communications firms. So for sure, in this instance, based in public relations and communication. So definitely a high profile. Yeah, and you've got some firms within the group like Hanover National PR. And then I think part of your padilla is shift and food mines. So you've got some great brands within the brands, if you like.

7:38Julie Batliner: And will you work in partnership with some of the other holding company firms? And we'll talk later about Avenir buying the next 15 market collective firms. Right. Yes. We work across a global basis with all of the Avenir global agencies when it makes sense. And then, yes, Padilla, we have a family of brands. So we have SHIFT, our tech and performance communications agency, and then Food Minds made up of food policy specialists going really deep in food and nutrition and also registered dietitians that are communicators. So a nice specialty offering there. We also have Joe Smith, which is our strategy and employer brand group that sits here in Richmond where I am today.

8:26Julie Batliner: Yeah, that's interesting. So, you know, we saw a survey a couple of weeks ago from Gartner, which said that PR budgets are going to double in 2027. I was a little surprised to see that, I must admit, because what I'm hearing in the market is not exactly that. But I think what the survey is saying is that some of the things you were talking about, actually, in terms of GEO and how earned media is playing into AI is what's going to drive that. and is what is driving that. Tell us a bit about that in terms of Padilla and how you're going to market. Yeah, well, I think we're all waiting for our budgets to double.

9:07We can't wait.

9:09Julie Batliner: Yeah, we would love our revenues to double at PR Week on the back of that. Absolutely, let's all shoot for that. I think, well, when it comes to AI, we're really focusing in three areas. And the first is internal and people first. I know a lot of agencies are saying we're AI first, but we think it's very important to have a people-first AI approach because here are all the tools. Everyone start using them, but if you don't have, here's how we do AI at Padilla, which we have launched a set of behaviors in terms of how we use AI, making sure that it is a substitute for what we do. So you still need that critical thinking.

9:55So number one is internal and how we're using it. Number two is efficiencies and creative services. We know that clients are asking how it's affecting what we do, and it is allowing us to get ideas clarified faster. For example, storyboarding of an idea or an event or experience or an activation, we can get to a lot faster to get that clarity of what we want to do and then versioning and things like that, of course. But also helping clients and brands with their AI visibility and making sure that they know how their consumers and customers are gathering information through GEO, AEO. And so we have a product called Padilla 3D GEO that is able to take a look and audit how they're showing up.

10:45And they might be showing up, but they might not be showing up in the way they want to. And then out of that, we get a strategy map of how to fix that and make sure they're where they want to be to be sited.

10:56Julie Batliner: If you look at your sort of client roster, what percentage of those would be local clients to the regions where your offices are versus big national clients or even international clients? Yeah, I would say there's probably between 30-35 % that are local to our office locations, but otherwise it's national. Right, got it. And when you're going to market, obviously, you were Omnicom. They have a big tech stack behind them. Publicist does as well. So does WPP. How do you go to market and convince clients that you can offer just as good services without that sort of two or three billion tech stack behind you?

11:44Right. Well, of course, we have the synergies with Avenir Global and pooling those resources for our tech stack. and then customizing those for clients across our brands. So, I mean, we have the tools to do it just like anyone else, I would say.

12:04Julie Batliner: Yeah. Being based in the Minneapolis market, how have you seen PR change over the years in terms of what you do on a daily basis, right? I think we've all had stories of people starting out, you know, pasting clips and all that sort of stuff and very media relations focused and media relations is still important and AI is driving a different approach to it. But how have you seen the whole profession change, especially working in Minneapolis? Yeah, well, yeah, gone are the days of the Bacon's books that we used to pass around, right? Everyone's nostalgic about it, but I don't think they really want to go back to it, do they?

12:45Yeah, no, no. I remember being on the overhead, the phone and saying, who has the books? But I think really it's just looking at as things have changed in terms of the way that our audiences are receiving information. The biggest change is just figuring out the objective and the best tools to put toward that. And I think as PR people, we've gotten a lot better at classic strategy, research strategy, and then finding the insight. because as PR people, we can be journalists, we can be rational and fact-based, but you also have to add on top of that the cultural implications and the emotional effects of the brands and services we represent.

13:29So I think that's a big way that it's changed. And then being creative on top of that.

13:35Julie Batliner: Yeah, and I mean, Minneapolis is a fantastic market, isn't it? There are some really big brands based there, There's Target, Cargill, UnitedHealth, Best Buy, all these brands. So it's a very specific market in its own right with an interesting agency scene and quite a creative scene. Right, for sure. We are very lucky to have a wide array of talent to choose from and lots of Fortune 500 companies in the Minneapolis market. Yeah, I think we'd all love to move there. We're just not sure we could handle the winters. that's my only thing with it. Although my sister does live in St. Paul, so she's cool with it.

14:18Julie Batliner: Okay, so how do you see things shaping up for the rest of this year and looking into 2027? Gartner, that was a great survey, but what's the reality on the ground? Yeah, well, we're seeing great momentum here in Q4 with clients needing help with GEO, AEO, but well beyond that, just strategic communications. We just launched today our social impact scorecard. There's a lot of issues that clients are dealing with and they need to know when and how to get involved authentically and appropriately. So that's a big thing that we've been serving clients for. And of course, being new to Padilla, my approach has been really listening to employees and clients and then figuring out what we need to cherish and change and then amplifying that next year and then continuing to transform with purpose, which is our, of course, our mantra that we need to also do for ourselves, just like every agency does.

15:24Julie Batliner: Yeah, so you're still in that listening process and probably have some things to put in place early in the new year? Yeah, excited for next year. And like we would counsel a client, it's always good as the new leader to come in and really listen for a while. Okay, sounds good. So we will look forward to hearing more about that and looking forward to getting your input on some of our news stories. Healthcare marketing is changing fast. So why are we still doing conferences the same old way? Enter MMNM Transform, a declaration against the status quo. On March 30th, MMNM Transform takes over Philadelphia's National Constitution Center for a bigger, bolder healthcare marketing festival packed with bold ideas, interactive experiences, live demos, and candid conversations.

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16:20Julie Batliner: Frank, as we record, it's Veterans Day, and we did a piece on, there's a surprisingly large number of PR pros who work, who are veterans, and there's also an interesting forward activation with NASCAR. Yeah, let me just talk for a second about the individuals that we profiled today. We talked about four new veterans who are a big part of the PR industry this year. We try to profile new people every year. And there are some really interesting stories here. You know, Jason Beck is VP of Branded Communications at Sales Loft, and he isn't somebody who would have initially have seen himself in sort of a role like communications and ended up being very successful in this industry.

17:01And I think that's really important, actually, to be able to do that outreach to people who aren't lifers, so to speak, you know, who don't see themselves, you know, being in PR, being in comms from day one of college. So a really interesting story about how he transitioned back to civilian life and then into tech communications in 2006 at Digital Reasoning. So check that one out. We also took a look at Corey Martin, who works at Allison Worldwide, had a had a chance to catch up with him a little bit about what he does. But when I saw him at Cannes this year, he's at Allison Worldwide. He studied at Pepperdine University.

17:39and he actually also had a unconventional route into PR working on an Alaskan fishing boat in the Bering Sea. He joined the Navy because of the GI Bill. So you see this kind of unconventional routes into the industry that a lot of veterans took. I think that's really important because not everybody has the same direction in. One of the bigger campaigns that's happening this week is Ford Motor Company is helping to put on a NASCAR race today. It's the first proud to honor Veterans Day Classic. And essentially some of the vehicles that are taking part in this race are inspired by different military equipment, like a Navy destroyer, an F-22 Raptor.

18:18And that race is taking place on Veterans Day midweek with a number of drivers.

18:24Julie Batliner: Yeah. Thank you to all veterans for their service, especially those who work in PR. We're doing AI Deciphered on Thursday this week and we have a couple of veterans speaking there Paul Gennaro who's at New York Life and if you go to Paul's LinkedIn page you can see him in his uniform he hasn't changed a bit has he he hasn't really it's amazing it's good for him quite depressing and then I'm interviewing Rob Gates from Reddit and he's also a veteran so yeah it's good to see so many of them bringing their skills, which are many, into the PR space. And yeah, a day that we should never forget to recognize across the world.

19:07Julie Batliner: Let's talk about this Next15 story. We mentioned it a little bit. Tech firms have been sold to Avenir Global. Interesting story. Totally. I think a story that caught a lot of people's eyes, not just in the tech PR agency sector, around the industry. So the comm shops that were a part of Next15 in the tech sector, Archetype, OutKast, Nectar Communications, they've been sold by Next15 to Avenir Global for about $95 million. Now, those three agencies make up what they call Marker Collective. And also a part of this deal was Delve, which is a proprietary AI platform that is also going over to Avenir as part of this.

19:51That means 650 employees and 20 offices are going to switch holding companies as a result of the deal. Helena Maus, the CEO, is still going to be the CEO of those firms once they transition to Avenue.

20:05Julie Batliner: Yeah, interesting. Julie, 650 staff, 20 offices for 70 million. That sounds like a good deal to me. I don't know if you're going to comment on that, but But those are really storied firms, aren't they? Archetype and Outkast and going back in the day, they were known as Tex 100. So I imagine you're pleased to have them as siblings. Yeah, we're very excited to welcome them to the network and to broaden our offering in tech, of course. And the longstanding strategy that Avenir Global has with bringing in specialist firms. Nice to have a bigger impact. and Helena and I are actually chatting this week.

20:48Julie Batliner: Great. Yeah. Helena's great. So, yeah, well, really interesting. And Frank, another sort of example of the fact that the market for firms and M &A is just crazy, isn't it? Well, and it's also just for a lot of legacy agencies, they just look so much different than they did a few years ago and this is the latest sign of that, whether it's different ownership or a different makeup. up there's another deal in the works isn't there with um plus communications which owns citizen relations and mechanism the advertising agency and some other firms is it service plan or service now i always get these service plan right okay that's a german company and apparently is buying plus communications that hasn't been confirmed yet it's a bit of a michael carrick situation if you know you know sorry um but yeah lots of action in the m &a space why do you think that is Julie.

21:41Julie Batliner: I mean, obviously PR is attractive, right? To private equity and to other areas. Absolutely. I mean, I think obviously people are looking at different ways to grow, different ways to combine resources, offer clients a broader footprint, deeper talent. And just like we're seeing across business and in general, it's happening in our industry too. Yeah. I mean, I can remember a time when private equity wouldn't have touched PR with, well, the proverbial, but now it's all over. A certain type of PR firm, usually offering corporate comms, strategic counsel, specialist consulting, and yeah, interesting stuff.

22:23Julie Batliner: What about this Jensen Huang affair? Where to start? He's more than one. Yeah. The NVIDIA CEO. Yes, Jensen Huang, the NVIDIA CEO, one of the largest and most powerful companies in the world. Some would say the most. I think they might be right. So he acknowledged having an affair with a woman who is believed to be a spy for the Chinese government, which is not what you want if you're an Nvidia shareholder or a member of the board. Sounds like a James Bond film plot, doesn't it? It does a little bit. Yeah, it does. So he is, there's a great story on CNBC about it today, about how he is trying to project business as usual.

23:07He wrote a memo to staff this weekend acknowledging what happened. But this gets very tricky when you look at the close relationship that he has with President Trump, you know, accompanying Trump on a trip to China. You do have to wonder if any other CEO would have been able to endure this situation and keep his job or her job.

23:31Julie Batliner: Yeah, I mean, we've seen it, haven't we, at McDonald's. We've seen it at Nestle. these people were suspended and then they lost their jobs. So it's kind of surprising from a regulatory point of view. It is. He hasn't even been suspended pending an investigation. They've hired a very high-profile white-shoe law firm to investigate this as well. Look, this is a really interesting case study for crisis communications. I'm not sure how many other companies are going to go through something exactly like this because there's just a lot of variables that aren't normal like this, including his relationship with the president.

24:10But it does sound like from some of the reporting out there that other people within the administration, like the Secretary of State, were aware of the situation and warned Trump about the situation months and months ago.

24:21Julie Batliner: Yeah, yeah. And Risa Heller is advising Wang and has been for a year, by the sounds of it. Yes, and you could have caught her at our crisis conference a few years ago too. Yeah, and now you can tell us what white shoe means, Frank. I love that expression, a white shoe law firm. It's one of those, it is a word picture, right? Yeah, thank you. It's like, it's a very... I have copyrighted that phrase, by the way. A very high profile, dare I say, patrician law firm or firm, really any kind of firm could be described as a white shoe firm. And what's the difference between white shoe and white glove?

24:55I think of white glove as describing more of a service than an organization. Okay, got it.

25:00Julie Batliner: Yeah. Yeah, interesting. I guess it proves that Crisis Coms Council, Julie, is always going to be in demand. In big demand. I think beyond feeling a bit like a movie, beyond the whole ethics and trust topic that it brings up, of course, I think it also brings to light succession planning because they're dealing with that he is a key person, right, that no one else does and has the information that he has. So it's a good reminder to all of our clients and brands that you need to have a deeper bench because you never know what's going to happen. Yeah. And I think that's part of the investigation, actually, because I don't think he's exactly encouraged a succession in his organization.

25:47Julie Batliner: But yeah, interesting stuff. Frank, another in-house CCO who we profiled as our newsmaker or as Kate Brinks. She's part of the Health Influencer 30, but an excellent piece by Jess Ruderman. Yeah. Let me just say, I love the list first. It's a really good list. And one thing that's great about a health influencer 30 list is you can be a repeat performer. It's not like 40 under 40 or some other list where you can only be on once and then you're done. So you can, you can maintain your position on this list for a number of years. And I think you really see who are some of the most influential people on there by the folks who are, have been on there for a while.

26:25they're not only some of the most influential people at agencies but also in the pharma sector in the health and wellness sector I was happy to see the head of communications at Strava as they continue to expand they were very busy marathon week and Kate Brinks is the head of communications at Aura and it is it's a really interesting company when you look at the way that they've expanded and we get into this in the story about how this started out as a sleep monitoring device and has expanded into so much more and monitors so much more than it used to. But it's also a fashion brand in a lot of ways.

27:01It's a sports brand. As we talk about sports marketing and how companies can get more and more involved in sports marketing and take case studies and take cues from other companies. You see what Aura has been able to do, the partnerships that they have, including at the U.S. Open this past year, where you could just see their branding all over all over the place and other you know top athletes they partner with the la dodgers and u.s soccer and it is a really interesting story about how a company both a tech and a sports company and a wellness company can start out doing one thing and really expand and the storytelling

27:39Julie Batliner: that has to go on as you do that yeah it's it's a great piece and um yeah they're working with people like Coco Goff and Taylor Fritz. And that will be reflected on our cover of our print issue, because that is the cover feature. But it's, yeah, health PR, Julie, is a thriving part of the whole sector, PR sector, isn't it? And, you know, we calculate it's around 35, even 40 % of some agencies' revenues. How about you guys? Yeah, health is a big sector for Padilla. Having worked with sanofi for years and growing with them this year and mayo clinic out of minneapolis tying back to minneapolis but uh it's been really fun to watch uh how consumer tech is becoming health care uh like you were just talking about and tracking that will be very fun going into the future yeah we brought in like stravas like frank said and whoop and noom and all these brands are you a strava person yeah i'm a strava person um i'm a strava i'm i'm double dipping a bit because i'm i'm both a strava person and a run-on person and now they're owned by the same people there you go they're owned by strava so it's like paypal and venice but let's say i'm interested in seeing how they sort out this subscription process in the future yeah and they become like communities don't they because you've you've made connections on strava and then you compare notes and compare times and all this sort of stuff yes i made the mistake of registering just to follow you and my friends in the marathon on strava yeah and i suddenly was inundated with people saying oh you've joined strava like as if i was a mammal well you can do a lot of different types of uh exercising on strava it's not just for running i think people people say that they they are making i want to say i must have said they're making strides they are making an effort into getting much more into weightlifting and that type of things, you can put all kinds of workouts on.

29:41Julie Batliner: You lost me at exercising. Yeah. But anyway. You know, it's fun. By the way, I'm happy you brought up the white glove thing before because there are other certain media outlets that I've heard describe their own services as being white glove before, and I giggle every time I hear it. We do. It gets us through the day on a busy news desk, doesn't it? Those little things. White glove. Yes, indeed. Yeah, former guest on the pod, Chris Haywood at BrandUSA, sadly has exited. Yeah, and he is, it's also interesting because he is stepping down at BrandUSA, which I have to imagine, and this is just my point of view, it's not Chris's, I have to imagine, tough time to be doing BrandUSA for the past two years, talking about all of the tariffs.

30:28You look at all of the loss of visitors that we've had as a country from places like Canada. Presumably a lot of other places as well. Had his work cut out for him. Anyway, he is also stepping down as Fred Dixon, the CEO of Brand USA, is leaving the organization. And Dixon is going to New York City tourism and conventions. So we will also see where Hayward ends up. I think one of the better known people in travel and tourism communications out there.

30:57Julie Batliner: Yeah. We often see heads of comms follow a CEO, don't we? Yeah. Franz Pasch. last week followed uh his former ceo so yeah well good luck to chris good guy and you're right it was a difficult brief um totally promoting the u.s in in these slightly febrile febrile times yeah let's talk about this publicist letter which um got a lot of headlines i mean it was it's all kind of inside baseball is it banter is it banter banter to the french do banter I mean, you know, they've probably got their own word for it. That could be a whole podcast. Yeah, you know. Do the French do banter. Well, I mean, Avenir Global.

31:42Julie Batliner: Live banter. Julie might be getting used to what the French banter encompasses. But Jean-Pierre Vasseur is the CEO of Avenir. But, yeah, talk us through this one, Frank. Oh, more shrugging than banter, I think. Yeah. Anyway, like I said, different podcast. The Gaelic shrug. It's one of my favorite expressions that I try to bring into our place of work as often as I'm there. Yeah, so this is all in response to Cindy Rose, the CEO of WPP, being critical of other holding companies, what she called CEO handshake deals. And that is in response to Publicis winning some media accounts that had previously belonged to WPP.

32:29Again, media buying accounts, not necessarily communications accounts in this case, but they're very high profile ones that we're talking about, like PepsiCo and some others. So she was critical of these in an interview. And publicists put out a letter in an Instagram post that, you know, it kind of, it was a little edgy. I think a lot more aggressive than I think we're used to seeing from a major holding company. You know, it had a graphic of, you know, an emoji of two handshaking. And it all said things like, so let's be really clear here. Skipping an old school pitch circus isn't skipping due diligence.

33:12It's clients knowing what they need and testing us to the limit, you know. So kind of fighting words to some degree. I don't know. What do you think? Do you think it came off well? I thought both of them were ill-advised.

33:24Julie Batliner: And I think I'm not sure whether Cindy made these comments in the earnings call or whether it was a separate interview, but it felt like she got to the end of a point and she could have stopped there. But then she kind of went in again with this stuff. And it was it just feels like sour grapes, doesn't it? That we've lost some business. And then for publicists to come back, you say edgy. I mean, Maurice Levy was another highlight of the year on the news desk is the video. Yes. The holiday video, which Artur Sudun has followed the tradition of. And it's felt in the same spirit of that. And I think they made a little dig about WPP not having the resources to pitch for Coca-Cola's North American business.

34:11Julie Batliner: You know, it always seemed a bit unnecessary. Do you think it won them anything? No. Yeah. It's kind of where I land. It's just a bit of fun, isn't it? Yeah. I don't know. I doubt that Jean-Pierre would indulge in that sort of thing, Julie. I agree. I think it brings to light, though, the pitch process and how it works. Obviously, we've all been trying to reform that and the amount of investment, how decisions are made and link arms around a better approach, knowing how expensive it is and how long it can last. But I think when agency leaders are preoccupied with each other, we need to transfer that energy over to how do we change together and how do we serve clients better.

35:00Julie Batliner: Ferk, I focus on the clients. I absolutely agree with you. So publicists could have just shrugged it off. In a Gaelic fashion. Yeah, I didn't think, sometimes things don't need to be said, you know, people aren't idiots, right? So, but hey, it was, you know, all good fun and gives us something to write about, doesn't it? We love it when they fight. I mean, we have to be honest about this. We love it when they fight and it makes for good copy. Let's be honest. It makes for great copy. Does the messaging from the top of Omnicom scream client first? Or does it scream efficiencies, cost-cutting, and pleasing the city?

35:44Julie Batliner: Discuss. I'm sure Julie's got a view on that. She's probably not going to tell us about it. All right, let's finish on the post-midsum strategies because it's been a crazy week, hasn't it, since the election night. And there's still two senators. Yeah, they still called Mississippi and Alaska, as we record this. Yeah, it's kind of wild to me that somebody who follows politics fairly closely. I mean, I'm not sure I thought there was going to be a day anytime in the near future where the Democrats would have more than 52 seats in the Senate. But here they are sitting on 54 and might get 56. Yeah, but not 60, which is the number you need to just pass things, right?

36:23Right, right, right. So, yeah, I'm not sure either party's going to get 60. learning about u.s politics frank you impressed i'm i'm very impressed i didn't recognize a picture

36:33Julie Batliner: of president lincoln when i first got here right do you remember that anyway i wasn't here for that so i i can't confirm that happened but who's that old man with the beard anyway anyway carry on so a lot of speculation about the next couple of years here not only the 2028 presidential landscape, which is fascinating, going to be interesting. I caution the politicians, people need a little break, you know, but everybody's getting very busy right now in terms of positioning for the next few years. What this means, I think a lot of people are looking to see what kind of gridlock we have over the next couple of years, because there is going to continue to be gridlock, right?

37:14The executive branch is going to belong. So the Republicans, the legislative branch belongs to the Democrats. So what kind of gridlock does that mean? And does that mean that they actually do work together in some areas to get some things done, you know, and different presidents have handled this different ways? You know, I think both at the end of the Obama presidency and the Clinton presidency, you saw a lot of like working together to get very small, broadly popular things done in a lot of cases. You didn't really see that at the end of George W. Bush's presidency because it was consumed by the financial crisis.

37:51But it will be interesting to see how this works out between the two parties. It can also be very investigation heavy and we will see how much that is the case. I think a lot of people are, if you're a business person, you're probably hoping that doesn't happen. But I would say as a counterpoint to that, investigating things like whether people who are part of the government or family members who have a family member in an important role in the government are enriching themselves because of a government office do tend to be investigations that are very popular with parties' bases and with the public as well.

38:37So I would imagine you're going to see a lot of those in the next couple of years.

38:40Julie Batliner: Yeah, you've got that internal debate in the Democrat party, haven't you? between doubling down on impeachments and investigations versus let's get some stuff done. The people spoke. They want a change. They want things to change and they want to get stuff done. Then you've got President Trump doubling down by changing his chief of staff and bringing in Stephen Miller in place of Susie Wiles. Not exactly the action of someone who's going to go quietly, right? We're given Miller's history and his... I strongly doubt any organization run by Stephen Miller is going to do anything quietly. Yeah, exactly.

39:16But to be fair, I think Wiles has said for a few years now she was planning to step down at the midterms. And it's playing and it's playing accurately as a firing. But it does seem like this was the game plan all along.

39:28Julie Batliner: Yeah, Julie, Minneapolis was obviously a very interesting area. You've got now Senator, now Governor-elect Klobuchar. and I heard her speaking on a podcast and she seemed pretty happy with things and she was talking about things like that. The other thing that was a big election issue was data centres actually and much bigger than people thought it would be. But people in Minneapolis were voting and then going to the sites of the deaths of Alex Priddy and putting stickers on. I voted, you know, making a statement. We're kind of done with this, you know, febrile atmosphere and having ice on the streets in the way that they've been deploying.

40:20Julie Batliner: What's it like on the ground there? And what's your attitude to how this might impact the PR industry? Yeah, well, Metro Search had a big impact on Minneapolis and how people came together regardless of party. And I think both parties and our business communities and clients, we know one thing that this election rose to the top is that people care about their budgets and their finances and their daily lives. And so while there's been a blue wave, we've been talking at Pdillo a lot about how it's also important to remember that the races were very close. And so our communities that we are marketing to have a wide range of perspectives and understanding that is central to how we're counseling our clients, despite our own experiences.

41:09So that's been a big topic here. Yeah, I'm happy you brought up the data centers again, because, you know, I have to bring it up every week. Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, the corporate response to this, I mean, OpenAI saying, you know, we're going to continue to invest in data centers. I think that people sent a clear message about how they're voting on this. Companies and politicians are going to have to fall into line on this because people are very angry about this issue. And they're very angry about being treated like, you know, their property doesn't matter and where their neighborhoods and their communities don't matter.

41:48And, you know, if companies don't, if they don't listen to this, they're going to end up with legislators who are going to want to investigate them and are going to be very harsh on this issue if they don't listen.

42:00Julie Batliner: And essentially just banned. Kind of, yeah. Not allow the developments. Yeah, it was interesting the timing of OpenAI coming out and saying, we're going to provide this to communities. We're going to give them money. And that's the. We're going to subsidize their energy bills, et cetera, et cetera. And that's what they have to do. They have to go out and show some benefit to placing these in areas where, by and large, people don't want them. Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's just good. Read Harold Burson's book. You know, it's consensual capitalism, basically. And, you know, Harold was on the Republican side of the fence, I think.

42:42Julie Batliner: But I think that was a good thing about what you said, Julie, people coming together across party lines, right? It's got Sophie Brile and actually just wanting the best for their families and for their communities. And all these votes are really – everywhere is a swing state all of a sudden, isn't it? So the Democrats can't think, oh, we've got these voters for life. They haven't. They've got to prove it. By the way, we saw it was only two years ago that the Republicans won the presidential race in a landslide. So, yeah, it's a fascinating situation. A lot of these things too, like tariffs and data centers are very cross-party issues.

43:22They draw people from both parties in interesting ways.

43:26Julie Batliner: Yeah, no, it's fascinating stuff. And a lot of it does revolve around communications. And a lot of the successful candidates, frankly, were much better communicators than their opponents. So, yeah, we'll see how we will obviously cover this. Julie, it's been great catching up. And congrats on the new role and looking forward to what you do with Padilla. and as part of Avenir Global. Thank you. And thanks to PR Week for everything you're doing and also recognizing Veterans Day. Yeah, that's a pleasure and something that we always profile veterans in PR. It's important. And yeah, it's a good thing to do.

44:07Julie Batliner: All right. Thank you. Thanks, Frank. But that's all we got time for. We'll see you next time on the PR Week.

44:47We'll be right back. experiences, live demos, and candid conversations. And here's the best part. In-house pharma marketers can attend for free. MMM Transform, March 30th in Philly. Register now at mmmtransform.com.