Will Ockenden 0:00

So this show is about fuck up some mistakes. Um not that you've made any, but um you know I was about to say where do where do I start?

Sarah Waddington 0:07

I mean, like I've yeah.

Will Ockenden 0:08

So we've had everything on this show, haven't we? We've had people's businesses that have failed, we've had pitch nightmares, we've had um pitch nightmares. Because we weren't even allowed to broadcast because they're potentially liable. We've had somebody mistaken for David Cameron at a press conference, and then he basically delivered the press conference with the entire team thinking about Cameron. That's brilliant. So there's some fantastic ones. We do a super edit at the end of every year with all the all the mistakes added together. So come on, what what confessions or mistakes are you able to share?

Sarah Waddington 0:35

I can give you a couple. But that last one does remind me of when I was uh on the board at the CIPR, and um there was a very lovely man called John Brown who served too. Fantastic, brilliant brain. Looked and spoke just like Gordon Brown. Did not make the connection. I was always banging on about politics, this, that, and the other until someone said, You do know that that's his brother throwing you out. I didn't sleep all night. I was just about like, what the hell have I said? At what point? You only just can't, everything is about the gun in your head, yeah, about everything. I mean, I'm opinionated on everything, right?

Will Ockenden 1:06

What does John Brown do then?

Sarah Waddington 1:07

Is he fantastic? I think he also works in politics. Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. But he's brilliant. He's a you know, uh hugely ethical, but he's brilliant on governance. He's and he's a lovely human being.

Will Ockenden 1:18

It's just and you did you realise like hours later?

Sarah Waddington 1:22

No, it was about months. It was like I literally served on a board with him for months and months and months, banging on about politics and what more this and that. And you must Emily must hear it from everybody, but yeah, anyway. That's an aside. I mean, where do I start? I think a couple of more fundamental ones, which I think other people will um probably have had similar experiences. I think there's been a couple of employees that I went to which didn't share my values, and I stayed there too long, even though I knew there was one I was there nine months where I actually learnt a lot, but there was no leadership above me. And that was a that was a disaster. I went to another one where I was I was uh

Setting The Stage: Famous Slip-Ups

Sarah Waddington 1:57

in a leadership role, and I knew within a year that actually it was not a good place, and I I probably classic me thought I could change it, and it would have been impossible. So like but like boiling the ocean. So that was terrible. I mean, I can I can give you a million. What about when I went globally viral? And then what about the second time I went viral? And then recently, you know, with Martin Storwell I did LinkedIn viral, which I was the first time.

Will Ockenden 2:21

What was the first viral occasion then a couple of years there about it?

Sarah Waddington 2:23

Yeah, I mean, was it a mistake? Some people would say yes because it damaged my reputation for a bit. I say no because I was true to myself, and also um it was about my beliefs. Um and it actually brought me a lot of um new colleagues and new business in the end. But with that one, um, when my kids were younger, I think they were probably oh, I feel like saying a closing age, they were six and seven or seven and eight, and I was reading those Biff and Chip books that you were school. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had Sleeping Beauty, and it was around the time of the Me Too movement, and there was a picture in there, and it was this dodgy-looking prince, and it was very dodgy looking in the picture, leaning over a sleeping girl, and then Biff or Chip, or whichever the little boy is in the background watching as he kisses.

Mistaken Identity And Boardroom Cringe

Chris Norton 3:13

Biff's the girl, isn't it? I think. I think Chip's the boy. So I always thought Biff's a weird name for a girl. Biff was in Back to the Future, and he was a big geezer.

Sarah Waddington 3:22

I don't remember because I was slightly traumatized by all of it. Yeah. But um, so it just is like, you know, just say, and I and I just looked at it and just thought, oh, for God's

Career Misfits And Misaligned Values

Sarah Waddington 3:31

sake, it was awful. Um and I tweeted um something like, you know, we absorb uh you know, kids absorb this while we're still seeing imagery like this, you know, we're not gonna, you know, we're not gonna improve. I can't remember exactly what the word was, but it was basically said, you know, reference the Me Too movement. And that and that you used the hashtag. And um the our the evening chronicle, you know, the Ronegill um rang me and asked me about for a comment. And you know what? It the way they put it was and like I know the team there, so this is not a this is no reflection on them. Um just asked me about it. And so I gave them a very innocuous comment. I was actually in the gym at the time.

The Tweet About Consent

Sarah Waddington 4:12

I remember clearly I came out of a class because I spotted the number, I was like, hi, how are you doing? Deal with it all the time. And it got picked up by the syndicated across, and then it went across every single tabloid, and then it went- Were you thinking, oh no, what's going on? Well I told him, do you know what the best thing was? I ended up on the when it actually went wild. I was by that point, I was in London, and I think it was, it must have been just before I was becoming CIPR president, and I was in a board meeting. So I think it was like before it actually started my year as president. And I sat, I'm sat in this role, and my friend just started going boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And eventually I said, I'm sorry, I have to, I'm just gonna have to go and deal with this. There's something blowing up.

Chris Norton 4:52

Yeah.

Sarah Waddington 4:52

But it was hilarious because I was but all these comments people were on the table. No, nobody had noticed that that something was going on, like the in the news headlines. And um, so I went out and I'd literally gone globally viable because all those classic common commentators had given me the this stupid woman trying to ban fairy tales. It's just not where it's a good thing.

Will Ockenden 5:11

Pierced Hawkins weighed in and Katie Katie Hopkins.

Sarah Waddington 5:15

I mean, he literally retweeted me and sent a whole pile of people's my way. And um, all I'd said, all I'd said, including to the chronicle, was that um fairy tales have always been meant as but back to storytelling, we're just saying, oh my god, Martin Sovell I've come up, but I've just realized in my head I've come a 360. Storytelling is gonna hold me forever. I basically said, storytelling and met, and you know, like fairy tales were always used to warn young people. They've been a great way of making sure that people understand about risk and what have you. I said, but in this situation, you know, I think this would have been this would have been really good in a couple of years' time because actually I could then have been talking to my kids about consent, but they're just too young. So like that's that was the premise of my argument, right? Just like this isn't an appropriate picture. But actually, fairy tales are really important because that they have a really good use and actually a useful parenting tool. Not so, according to the media. So not one of them fact-checked, it was just crazy Northeast mum wants to ban fairy tale. But it didn't just go across the UK. I

Tabloids, Syndication, And Pile-Ons

Sarah Waddington 6:15

mean, I was I it was just absolutely crazy. It went everywhere, like everywhere. I had courts from Australia, I had calls from Denmark, I had everywhere you can think of. Red Joe Four today wanted me on, they wanted me on this morning. Like literally everything.

Chris Norton 6:28

Or did you did you just think I'm gonna do this? Or did you think shit about a retreat and hide in a tortoise show?

Sarah Waddington 6:33

Well, it was awful, right? So I've got three stepkids, and that was a relatively new relationship. I didn't, and I was a bit like, oh god, am I mortifying them? Thankfully not, they were they were fantastic and really supportive because actually quite quickly there were some other voices that came out in support. So when Jared Street Porter, but there was then like Lad Bible and some really very came out on my side. So like all of a sudden it was like, oh right, maybe she's not completely mad. Um, but it was really, really painful because um, you know, my uh ex um

Personal Fallout And Support

Sarah Waddington 7:05

was very private person and he was terribly uncomfortable with it. Um they as we know the media can be very unscrupulous of being to the house, they've been through the bins, they'd gone down the street.

Will Ockenden 7:15

So this really, this really spiraled. Yeah, just uh my girl.

Sarah Waddington 7:19

They went to they they found the head masters, they had had the kids and they were in like a Capital junior school, they found their head teacher's address and door knocked his wife. That's horrendous. I got and I still get them from time to time. This is how crazy it is. I got death threats, rape threats, um, told that people were gonna report me so they should have my kids taken off me. Um Holly Willaboobies. Yeah, yeah, that's a reference of a prior age, right? But Holl Holly Willoughby, um, who named her daughter after Disney princess, gave it what for.

Chris Norton 7:53

Really?

Sarah Waddington 7:53

Oh, oh yeah.

Will Ockenden 7:54

I mean and and it's it's half everyone's acting on half inf half a story at the end.

Sarah Waddington 7:58

Well, that's that what's that um expression, something about the uh like in trouble twice round the wood uh round the world before the truth gets its boots on or something? All right.

Chris Norton 8:06

She was kind of cancelled off the back of her. Oh, still, oh yeah.

Sarah Waddington 8:09

And then and so how because I always people that I worked with forever in the in the Northeast marketplace, yeah, or who are known for a long time, because it's a small community, going, oh you stupid. I used to get you stupid girl. And then what was really interesting though, I had a raft of community right behind me going, you go, go, that's absolutely right. You keep that tweet because people kept saying, just take the tweet down and they can't use it. But no, because fundamentally it's what I believe is my value. So I'm not not doing that, it's true. Yeah. And what it's the misreporting, isn't it? So did I challenge it? Did I go onto any of those things? Because loads of people said, you know, you could probably end up as a like an influencer on the bottom of these.

Will Ockenden 8:44

People springboard a whole entire career on their basis, don't they?

Sarah Waddington 8:47

But you know what? Um, I just was very considerate of the people in my life around me. Like Stephen walked into the office the next day, he was working at Ketchum at the time. Yeah, I remember. And they have like a row of papers out, and I was on the front phone. Oh my god. I mean, he wasn't bothered, he was phenomenal. It was fucking fantastic. I mean, like he propped me up because it was all

Shame, Recovery, And New Work

Sarah Waddington 9:06

I cannot tell you how old I've do you know what it is, and there's a book about this, and I'm trying to rock my brain to think of the name of the author, and it'll come back to me. But there's a book about people who've who've gone violent and been shamed, and the the shame is real. Like it took me a long time. And even now I feel a little bit prickly behind me, like because it's like it's so thing. But then while I lost a piece of work, I then got three pieces of work because people went, love you, love your values. I'm backing you. Yeah, I'm totally, totally yeah.

Chris Norton 9:33

And so they should. I mean, if if if anybody you should be in a relationship with, it's a good time for it. It's another successful PR person, isn't it? Like, because if I got if I did something wrong, and let's face it, it's been pretty close on this podcast. If we ended up going back, he wouldn't back me, he'd just dump me down the down the. I'd have to have any got my wife to talk. So she's not she's not a professional communicator, you know what I mean?

Sarah Waddington 9:55

Although, genuinely, uh, would I change it? Uh it was really hard. It was really, really hard. And um I I've there's still some scars. But you know what? I'm a much better practitioner for it, and I get a lot of shit in this role. You know, like there's a lot of troll. We had a stalker for three years, a genuine stalker. It went to You did obviously Stephen and I for three years.

Chris Norton 10:19

From both of you.

Sarah Waddington 10:20

Yeah. There's a lady we used to volunteer with who stalked us, and it went to the Met. The Met cocked it up, so the CPS couldn't, we couldn't get a tourt uh and to get a restraining order put in place. But this was our life. But thankfully, because of the experience I had, that was more manageable. And this role, you know, you put your head again, and you know, naturally, with that role, you have to be prepared for challenge and for conflict and some trolling. And I there is somebody in the US that trolls me absolutely regularly. And while there are some days it absolutely bothers me, I I there are actually also days where I just think, if that's the best you've got, you know, I've been through an awful lot worse. And and also what I when I was in still in an advisory position when I was in agency, it meant that I could speak with authority on that subject.

Chris Norton 11:05

Absolutely, yeah. 100% that's what I was thinking. Like, no one can you've been through that process. You can advise somebody who's really struggling through horrendous, horrible. So it's the that's the worst worst side of media. And the thing about social media is it promised such a great thing, and it's actually a lot of the stuff that you've talked about while you've been sat here, is all the bad side of social media because the Americans not the whole Americans, but the divided about digital PR. The billionaires, the billionaires behind the social platforms have pushed it towards advertising, polarized everything, and it's created the the trolling side of it, is the stuff that I absolutely hate. But you're right, you can't. The problem is when you're well known, whatever it is through fame or through infamo infamous, what's the word? Infamy. Infamy. Um you're not gonna not everyone's gonna like your view, are they?

Sarah Waddington 11:53

No, and you know what? Sometimes it's good because you'd be doing if it's certain when we launched Socially Mobile, um, our community interest company, um, and uh it talked about it being for underrepresented groups, but particularly those from um lower socioeconomic backgrounds,

Trolling, Stalking, And Resilience

Sarah Waddington 12:11

said more disadvantaged people. Um, and I talked about the high prevalence of um independently school people in PR. So it's like 27%, the national average is 7%. It's exceptional, right? Um it's making it very difficult for people to get into this career. Um, the point is that sometimes you know you're doing the right thing when you're annoying the right people. So I got loads of people coming out, angry white men who were in droves going, you again, stupid girl, because that comes up a lot, you're a stupid girl, we don't need this, you're tilting at wimmels. I mean, I was just like, oh like once you get them, you know. You know you're doing it. So you know you're up to the right thing. But then, you know, people are allowed their view. I often find that if I've got someone who's incredibly challenging, you know what? I want to hear it because they're doing it because they care. Like if you get someone who's constantly griping out something, you've got to give them the time. Then there are some people that you'll never suit, and you've just got to say, do what you like. And and that kind of thing, it's like when you've got a new new baby and everybody's full of advice, it's like smile, nod, move on. That's the reason.

Will Ockenden 13:09

I read somewhere that um I understand what I think, I want to understand what they think. And that's the you know, that's that's the reason,

Polarised Platforms And PR Reality

Will Ockenden 13:15

for example, I read um all media. I need to understand what everybody thinks. And as a PR professional, you you need to understand. That's Brexit. Yeah.

Sarah Waddington 13:25

We were in all in our little echo chambers. Brexit. And that you know, that's exactly what happened. People weren't listening to those other views. And again, back to what I'm saying, PR is in the perfect place for brokering understanding. We don't have to broker agreement, we have to broker understanding.