One Green Bean founder on smashing culture, clients setting tight briefs and content versus stunts
The founder of One Green Bean has revealed the cultural barriers she faced when she expanded her UK agency through the take-over of Havas PR in London.
Speaking at Mumbrella’s CommsCon conference in Sydney on Thursday, Kat Thomas reflected on the 10 years of her Sydney operation and the launch two years ago of One Green Bean London.
In a wide-ranging presentation, which saw Thomas reflect on the value of culture and how to get the culture right, the value of entertaining content, how content trumps stunts, the shift towards PR centric advertising, Thomas encouraged agency bosses to look for ideas across the business while also emphasising the importance of being your most important client and taking the time to celebrate the business.
Discussing the growth of her London offering, which is now aligned with Havas, she said: “About 18 months ago in London we had the opportunity to take over a very small corner of Havas PR, which was a languishing PR agency with about 10 or 12 people in it.”
I love these insights. Especially the bit about “culture sets like concrete”.
And ‘over servicing’. A good, clear brief please where all the companies stakeholders are on the same page!
Why are there so many Mean Girls in PR? How can we try and change this culture as an industry? It’s the reason so few men work in PR. There is no gender diversity and no desire to change it.
Many great points in this piece. I am still surprised how many PR practitioners champion a culture similar to Mean Girls or the Devil Wears Prada. Being a male working in PR, I have experienced this culture first hand and have been told on a number of occasions men do not belong in the industry. Shouldn’t the focus be on a persons technical skill, contribution to their workplace and the industry, not what gender they are?