Welcome to Delphi’s third quarterly update!
It’s our first Delphi update of 2024 – here’s what we’ve been up to recently…
Our work
We’ve had a barnstorming start to our first full year, and we’re delighted to say we’re now working with ten clients across sectors including fintech, automotive, security, telco and enterprise SaaS. We’re already having conversations about first hires and office spaces – we’re excited about the year ahead!
Among our work this quarter, we’ve helped a client with its ESG report so it can tell a stronger and more authentic sustainability story to the market. This had become a particular priority for the business as customers and prospects now consistently ask for ESG data in competitive tenders. We’ve run discovery calls with stakeholders across the business, and developed a new structure and narrative for the firm’s ESG efforts. It’s been a fascinating project and given us a chance to deploy our strategic thinking and storytelling skills in a new context.
We’ve also been working on two big campaigns – the first being a creative-led thought leadership campaign to support a product launch, and the second being a brand-level campaign to re-position a client in their category. Both are exactly the kind of big, creative thinking we love doing, so have been a joy to work on. They’ll launch in the next quarter, so watch this space!
Nine months in to our Delphi era, we’re excited that we’re working at CEO or CMO level with all of our clients, which gives us access to the right decision-makers to get stuff done and deliver real impact. We’re doing the sort of work we always wanted to do, and having plenty of fun along the way too.
What we’re seeing in the market
Lots has been written about how 2024 is going to be a big year of elections – including in the UK and US. From a tech perspective, you could go further and say that 2024 is the year of “elections + AI”. That equation is likely to create a big media and political focus on AI-generated misinformation. Look out for more stories of tech’s impact on our democracy, our information ecosystem, and our sense of social cohesion.
We’ve recently returned from our first Delphi trip to the US, meeting with clients and partners in New York. We met with three agency founders and got a good sense of the market there. The mood was cautiously optimistic for a better 2024, after a challenging year in 2023. The economy is picking up and interest rates might be cut. The shadow of the presidential election – and the return of one candidate in particular – may prompt some bigger tech firms to keep a lower profile comms-wise, to avoid getting caught up in political arguments. But there’s more momentum among smaller and mid-sized US tech firms than there has been for a while, which is promising.
Thinking and speaking
We don’t usually refer to what other agencies are up to, but Edelman’s Trust Barometer this January was particularly interesting for its focus on tech and innovation. It highlighted something we’ve written about before – that tech is getting caught up in the culture wars and becoming increasingly politicised. Whether it’s 5G or vaccines, contactless payments or WFH policies – innovation is no longer automatically accepted as an unalloyed good, and in fact is becoming a battleground for different political viewpoints. You can read our quick summary and some key charts from the Trust Barometer here.
At the end of last year we looked back on what we’d covered in our weekly Delphi Digest during 2023. Thirty-two newsletters and 21,000 words – all summarised here. And if you’re interested in that, you can sign up to our Delphi Digest here.
How do you find your organisation’s reputational North Star? That was the question Ellie discussed on the latest PR Moment podcast. Along with Zoe’s comms director Danielle Restivo, they talked about why having a reputational North Star is so important, and how you find and measure it. Check it out here.
We’re also proud to say we’re supporting two great industry awards this year. Louie is a judge on the PR Week Best Places to Work awards. And Delphi is one of the sponsors at the Pros Awards 2024, celebrating the UK’s best BME comms professionals. We hope to see some of you at the ceremony this summer!
