“Be on the right side of history” – Francis Ingham urges Ukraine support at Davos Communications Summit

PRCA Director General Francis Ingham has urged the global communications industry to support Ukraine in a keynote speech at the Davos Online Communication Summit.

Ingham used his speech at the World Communications Forum Association to reflect on the PRCA and broader industry response to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.

Learn more about the PRCA/ICCO Ukraine Communication Support Network.

Extract from the speech:

“Immediately upon Russia invading Ukraine, both the PRCA and ICCO decided that we could do no business with Russia. Therefore, we suspended the PRCA memberships of all Russian agencies, and revoked the ICCO membership of the Russian association.

Over the coming weeks, every reputable agency in the world closed down its Russian operations.

Earlier this week, Edelman published a detailed analysis of public attitudes to those businesses that continue to work in Russia, and those that have stopped doing so.

In conjunction with Yale University, they analysed over 1,250 companies. All but 233 had ceased operations in Russia.

There was a 69-point difference in trust for companies that had ceased operations compared with those that had not. Though interestingly, if a company *said* it condemned Russia’s activity, but did nothing about it, their trust factor *fell* by 20 points.

95% of respondents expect companies to respond when one country invades another without reason.

So people care about what’s happening and they will punish you if you do nothing.

Separate to this, and right at the beginning of the invasion, I was approached in a personal capacity to help the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry source free media relations support from around the world. I agreed to do so. The response was astonishing, and having created the network, it’s now being managed by the PRCA from London.

Almost 300 agencies are helping Ukraine -for free. Helping them get their message out. Helping them define that message. Countering misinformation.

We’ve established country leads throughout the world. In the UK obviously, in Europe, Brazil, India, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand and many other countries.

We’ve delivered or are delivering 30 different international projects. We deliver a weekly analysis of comms insight, via a PRCA newsletter. It’s publicly available, because unless some, we operate in the light not in the shadows.

If you’d like to be involved in any of this, just let we know.

Few things in life are black and white. But I believe that this is one, and so does the vast majority of the global PR community. This is a moment to be on the right side of history.”