Delivering effective global PR

Resonates joins IPREX, the independent global communications network, to access worldwide PR talent

IPREX is an independent international network of best-in-market PR and communications agencies, working across more than 100 locations globally. IPREX leverages the entrepreneurial energy, expertise, diversity and connectivity of more than 1,800 communications professionals who work together by choice.

Banishing the bolt-on mentality

When I started my career back in the late 1980s, within the almost imperialist context of Shell in Thailand, global communications was all too often relegated to a couple of extra budget lines; one for media database bolt-ons and another for translation.

My experiences were similar during the late nineties and early noughties, working within multi-national communications groups such as Omnicom and WPP, when “my” clients or projects were often treated as an after-thought. I felt that full cooperation was being hampered by internal protectionism – from both the lead and local offices – around staffing quotas, cost centres and performance targets imposed by a distant HQ in London or New York.

Proven, fully integrated offer

Like global PR agencies, IPREX partners have international reach, connectivity and insight. But unlike them, IPREX partners:

  • Own their agencies and destinies
  • Set their own strategy and targets
  • Move quickly, unhindered by internal politics or systems
  • Have no head office or shareholders setting targets and rules
  • Do not compete, but collaborate because they want to
  • Share knowledge, ideas, information and people freely

IPREX is proven in practice. I first joined the IPREX family nearly twenty years ago, while building a global cleantech practice, from scratch, for a boutique financial PR agency based in London. With its multi-national, multi-cultural team behind me, I grew and served our client base in a sector based on borderless issues such as pollution, population pressures and climate change.

Equally, I relied on IPREX to boost resources while leading in-house teams in the utilities and energy industries. This was not so much due to inherent territorialism, but more because my 14th or 15th communications manager in the most distal regions (in all senses) tended to be either a part time or blended role; with multiple local distractions and reporting lines.

Going beyond raw translation

“Translation” today is about so much more than just the raw words. On the one hand you could argue, in this age of globalised new media and social platforms, that English (albeit Americanized) has become even more prolific as a universal language. On the other hand, a centralised approach can only take you so far, and that’s where a network like IPREX can prove invaluable.

The rapid decentralisation, digitisation and distribution of media, from a few thousand genuinely influential daily editors to many billions of instant influencers, means that on-the-ground context and culture are now just as important as content – whatever language you are using in the strict lingual sense.

Geographical and functional reach

IPREX also bolsters Resonates’ skillset by providing access to deeper experience when a client needs it. Financial PR, investor relations and public affairs are disciplines that we can turn seamlessly to IPREX for deeper experience when a client needs it.

Given that IPREX partners have been working together for forty years, the wider skills set is huge: from generalist PR and communications agencies; to specialists in fields such as healthcare, ESG, digital marketing, graphic design, advertising, crisis management, events and, even, drone photography.

Like Resonates, many of our IPREX colleagues were previously clients of and senior executives within international PR firms. We understand how, unconstrained by internal politics, we can take a more dynamic role within our current and future clients’ businesses, while both fuelling and sharing in their success.

If you have a cross-border communications project or challenge that you think we can help with, please drop an email to [email protected]