The Innovator 25:

David Richeson

Managing Director, Marina Maher Communications
New York

Insight-based, Real-time Holistic Communications

Recognized for delivering outstanding creative and award-winning work for MMC's P&G portfolio, while also developing advanced analytics and insights methodologies and a real-time engagement model.

Where does the PR industry need to innovate the most?
Social media & Community engagement. The entire communications industry needs innovation. The disciplines cannot be seen in silos anymore.   Influence comes from using analytics to benchmark the current attitudes of your target audiences and garner insights about the landscape. The holistic engagement strategy should be developed from the insights. These insights should be used across the communications spectrum, using modern tools to engage in the conversation and connect with your audiences in real-time.   Earned endorsements that fit with your engagement strategy can be amplified using targeted paid media, and the impact of your efforts can be measured against your benchmarks.  

How innovative do you think the PR industry currently is?
Lagging other marketing disciplines. PR needs to get back to being in the business of influence rather than the business of media and publicity. Media is an incredibly powerful tool for influence, it is one of the many tools available. We need to use modern tools to benchmark current beliefs, execute strategies that shift belief and then measure the shifts caused by our efforts.

What is most important for the PR industry to do to foster more innovation?
The entire agency model should be disrupted. Our business processes and staff should change to become more focused on generating measurable business results through influencing target audiences.

The most innovative PR/communications campaign in the last 12 months.
"The Real Cost of Cheap Clothes" was an effective way to get their message across and to get people to act for their cause.

Brand or agency with the most innovative approach to communications. 
Burberry, Gatorade, Oreo, and Coke are some of my favorite companies to watch for innovation.

Describe a moment in your career that you would consider to be 'innovative.'
I thrive off of innovation and seek to consistently create it in my career. I am actually in one of the most innovative periods of my career right now. The rise of Social CRM tools (e.g. Salesforce and Sprinklr) and targeted methods to amplify earned media (e.g., native advertising and whitelisting) has opened completely new possibilities for our industry.   I continue to be amazed by how much can be learned through social listening data. We will continue to discover ways to use multiple sources of data to create increased ROI for our clients.

How do you inspire innovation within yourself or to your team? 
Innovation is in my DNA. One of the things that I love about my job is that there is always a better way to solve a challenge than there was a year ago. I am consistently thinking about how to apply modern technology, media channels, analytics methodologies, behavioral economics techniques, etc. to improve the effectiveness of our campaigns.  I am excited about the possibilities in this new era of communications, and I bring that excitement to work everyday. My team loves to learn and to create new communications methodologies together.

In your opinion, what's the most innovative place in the world? 
Silicon Valley

What's your favorite time of day and why?
6:00 - 7:15 AM. I work out and meditate during this time. Clearing my mind every morning gives me a positive attitude and helps me think of new ideas more easily.