Corporate communications with Matt Hurst, VP of communications at Nielsen

In this episode, Matt Hurst, VP of Nielsen Communications, joins host Jason Mudd to discuss corporate communications. Tune in to learn more about Andy Jassy’s three-hour-long keynote speech, working with busy executives, how to produce meaningful keynote speeches, tips on crisis communications, and much more!

Watch the episode here

5 things you’ll learn during the full episode:

1. Matt Hurst’s efforts on Andy Jassy’s three-hour-long keynote
2. Advice for working with busy executives
3. Current corporate challenges for Nielsen
4. Corporate crisis tips
5. What to read to stay on top of corporate communications

Resources

Disclosure: One or more of the links we share here might be affiliate links that offer us a referral reward when you buy from them.

• Listen to more episodes of the On Top of PR podcast
• Find out more about Axia Public Relations
• Find Matt Hurst on Twitter
• Connect and learn more about Matt Hurst on LinkedIn
• Visit Nielsen for more information.
• Additional resources:
• Andy Jassy's three-hour-long keynote speech
• Additional resources from Axia Public Relations:
• Axia’s keynote services
• 5 tips for managing a crisis

Highlights

[01:49] Three-hour-long keynote speech

• Matt was working on the Amazon Web Services PR team and received an invitation to work on Andy Jassy’s annual keynote speech, which lasted three hours.
• The speech was referred to as the state of the union for all of cloud computing because of AWS’ leadership status.
• It was a seven-month process of continuous editing, writing, and working
• The speech addressed the state of the AWS business, cloud computing in general, and specific areas of computing such as databases, machine learning, breakthrough technology, etc.
• This was Andy Jassy’s most-watched keynote.

[05:06] Advice for working with executives and producing meaningful keynotes

• Storytelling: Never lose sight of it.
• Know your target audience because you're telling them the story.

Matt: “You're trying to write a press release or you're trying to write a social media post or internal communications, but at the end of the day, the way we should all view ourselves is as storytellers.”

• Executives set a high bar, and you should set a high bar for your work too.
• Be human. Be gracious of other people’s work.

[09:08] Matt’s current role

• Matt leads external communications at Nielsen.
• He’s excited to learn new things, as he was originally a sports writer.

Matt: “No day is going to be exactly the same. You wake up and you're like, OK, am I in proactive mode today for communications? Am I creating big strategic plans? Am I in the weeds on understanding how some of these measurement ratings work, and how do I communicate that? Or am I putting out a fire based on crisis comms or some backlash that Nielsen may be facing for whatever reason?”

• He loves being on the front line of telling Nielson’s story even though it’s a legacy company.

[11:35] Nielsen’s target audience

• It depends on what Nielsen is communicating.
• Usually B2B
• Nielsen communicates with a lot of marketers and advertisers.
• Nielsen also extensively works with the media.

[13:53] Nielsen One

Matt: “(Nielsen One is) the forthcoming launch of this new cross-platform measurement that Nielsen is developing and will roll out later in 2022 to better capture the way that people are viewing and consuming media. The new updates will specifically refer to social media, digital media, influencer marketing, and in-game and in-mobile app advertising.”

• Matt is excited about how the company is evolving to its audience’s needs.

Matt: “I love being a builder in communications.” 

[16:22] Current challenges

• Nielsen has a lot of competitors and noise within the industry.
• Working at well-known brands means those brands get a lot of assumptions about their companies

[19:23] Crisis tips

• Stay calm.
• Find the truth.
• Build a trusted tight group of people.
• Be honest.

Matt: “If you find out that the cover-up was worse than the crime, you're in another crisis again, and it kind of continues to unravel.”

[22:34] Things to read

• Morning newsletters
• Daily clips about your company, competitors, and the industry
• The New York Times' morning briefing

About Matt Hurst

Matt is a data-driven and results-oriented communications professional who someone described as "a triple threat" due to his leading work across external, internal, and executive communications. He has more than 20 years of experience in global communications across a number of industries with proven experience in building high-performing teams, integrated communications plans, and corporate messaging and narratives. He is a principal adviser, speechwriter, and chief spokesperson for leaders of high-visibility organizations.

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Transcript

- Hello, and welcome to On Top of PR. I'm your host, Jason Mudd. Today, I'm joined by Matt Hurst. Matt is vice president of communications with Nielsen, and formally, he is our head of global sports marketing and communications for Amazon Web Services. Matt, welcome to the show. We're glad you're here.

- Thanks Jason, it's a pleasure to be here. Happy to talk to you.

- Yeah, I'm glad to be here too. Glad to be joined by you. I'm going to read your short bio here and then let you add a little bit to it. So you (started) off your career as a sports writer, worked your way up to become head of global sports marketing and communications for Amazon Web Services, or AWS, before eventually taking your current role as VP of communications at Nielsen. What else would you like our audience to know about your background?

- That it's a securest path to where I ended up. As you say, I started as a sports writer, and who knew that about 10 years after exiting that, that I'd be working side by side with AWS CEO Andy Jassy, who's now the Amazon CEO, to deliver a keynote speech about cloud computing technology. So I think just in general, the opportunity to continue learning and continue evolving as a communications professional can really put you in some unique situations that add to your career and to your life. It's really served me well and allowed me to take on bigger, larger responsibilities at Amazon, and eventually come over to a pretty large leadership position here at Nielsen.

- So as we were talking before we pressed record, you were talking about this keynote speech that apparently is three hours long. Why don't you tell us why and who it was to, and, you know, were they still alive at the end of this three hours?

- Well, yeah, you know, to answer the last question first. Yes, they were. And a lot of applause, if you will, for the folks that tuned in. I was tapped. I was working on the AWS PR team at the time and was internally recruited actually at Amazon to come and work on Andy Jassy's keynote. And he delivers an annual keynote address that lasts three hours at the time for AWS before he moved on to becoming CEO at Amazon.

- [Jason] Mm-hmm.

- And because of AWS's leadership position in the cloud computing space, it's not only just a long keynote and involved keynote talking about customer solutions and product announcements, but it's really delivering state of the union, if you will, for all of cloud computing because of the leadership spot that AWS had.

- [Jason] Right.

- It's to develop a three-hour keynote takes a lot of time. It was about a seven-month process of continually editing, writing, working throughout the organization. And in those three hours, Andy talks about the state of the business, the state of the AWS business, talks about cloud computing in general, and then dives into specific areas. You know, we're talking about databases, and we're talking about machine learning, and we're talking about breakthrough technologies and all of those things. And, you know, once it was all said and done and recorded and put onto YouTube – which I also played a part in the editing process there – it was viewed at the time by over a million people. And at that moment, it was the most-watched keynote that Andy had put together. So took a lot of pride in that, took a lot of pride in doing the job and being internally recruited to do the job and working with a small team to do it, but also working at the highest level of leadership at AWS and getting to learn so much from Andy and how he operated and what he wanted, and at the same time learning so much about technology in the business. I mean, we're talking, Jason, we're talking about a sports writer, a guy who was covering Major League Baseball, who all of a sudden is helping write scripts about machine learning a few years later. So, it was a huge opportunity for me. And just as a side note: I initially declined the opportunity to go do it. I was very happy doing what I was doing with the AWS PR team and told the hiring manager. I said, “No, thank you.” And she bought me another cup of coffee. And then I talked to my wife and my wife said, "Matt, like, how often do you really have this opportunity to work at the Andy Jassy level? Like, it's going to be a grind. I love you, I support you. I'll handle the kids and family and all that good stuff, like, go grind because you don't get these opportunities handed to you."

- [Jason] Yeah.

- And so I did, and it was one of the best career moves that I had made.

- Nice, well, so having gone through that, you know, on the other side, what's some of the advice you would share with our audience with working with busy executives and producing meaningful keynotes and other executive communications?

- A couple of things. The first one is storytelling in the sense that I think a lot of communications professionals view themselves as storytellers, you know? And that's part of what gets all of us into this business, you know, one way or another as a writer or a verbal storyteller, and that's what's interesting to us, and it's easy to sometimes lose sight of that in the sense of, “Hey, you're trying to write a press release or you're trying to write social media post or internal communications,” but at the end of the day, the way we should all view ourselves is as storytellers. And that's what the keynote was. It was telling stories through customer lenses on how customers were facing issues and facing problems and how the new solutions that Andy was announcing and releasing were helping solve those problems and being able to tell those stories. And so I took that as a big part of it. Like, no matter what type of communication I'm trying to do or produce, you're telling a story. And, you know, obviously, you're trying to understand who your target audience is and you tweak it based on that. You know, that three-hour keynote is maybe not going to be as well received by people that are interested, and maybe where I work now at Nielsen, but at the same time, you know your target audience and you're telling the story to them. Another big lesson that I learned from that opportunity that I've carried forth is, you know, I've always viewed myself as having a pretty high bar in terms of just quality and what you put out there, especially if you're going to put your name next to it. It's just something that I'm proud of about myself, but Andy's bar takes it to a completely different level. And that's obviously why he's where he is, and the push that he would make and what he would stand for in terms of the amount of excellence you would have to bring into the room and bring in terms of your writing and conversation was otherworldly, and it's allowed me to take what I already felt I had as a high bar and push it even higher, and ideally, it creates a ripple effect around you that if you're striving for this high bar, hopefully, that helps others do the same thing. And then another thing too is despite that high bar and how Andy wants or expects things to come to him, is that he's a very gracious human being. He's a really nice guy and he's a tremendous leader. And so even sometimes people get into a situation where they're working with leadership and CEOs, no matter what company, usually have that high bar, but sometimes might not be the most human about it, and could be really driving for results at the sake of the human touch. And Andy didn't lose that, you know? He was gracious. He would thank you for your hard work because he knew, you know, he understood what was going into it and all the people you had to talk to and all the things you had to read and all the areas you had to understand to bring that out. And so that's absolutely something that I've tried as my career has grown and my leadership has gotten bigger in terms of people that I work with that you can still be gracious, that, you know, you can take an extra beat in that email. You can check in with people and still have that human element to it as well. And it's important not to lose sight of that. And especially after the last couple of years what the world has gone through, you know? To still have a gracious side and still be human in how you communicate. So I'd say that, you know, storytelling, high bar, and being a good person were some of the big lessons that I got from that experience that I've tried to carry forth.

- And we'll be sure to put a link to the keynote on YouTube, assuming it's still available, you know-

- Absolutely.

- For our audience in the episode notes. So kind of tell me about, Matt, your current role and you know, what your day to day is like.

- Yeah, the current role now leading our external comms at Nielsen is exciting in the sense that I get a, well, again, you go back to learning, right? And I talked, that kind of made the joke about being a sports writer and learning machine learning. Well, at the same time now, I'm in this completely new field and new business and learning about TV ratings and streaming ratings and also marketing solutions that Nielsen is providing and the metadata that's powering all the entertainment we consume, right? And learning new industries and learning new ways to do things is super exciting to me, super fun. And that's what makes the day to day unique. You know, no day is going to be exactly the same-

- [Jason] Mm-hmm.

- Which is exciting because you wake up and you're like, OK, am I in proactive mode today for communications? Am I creating big strategic plans? Am I in the weeds on understanding how some of these measurement ratings work, and how do I communicate that? Or am I, you know, putting out a fire based on crisis comms or some backlash that Nielsen may be facing for whatever reason, right? And so there is some excitement to no day is the same, and also empowering my team to do great things and own their areas of the business as well. And so, what's exciting is being able to tell that Nielsen story. And even though it's a legacy company, I mean, it's nearly a hundred-year-old company that there is still a lot of new future-looking growth that Nielsen is doing, and to be able to be on the front lines of telling a company story and developing that story is tremendous, and to be able to do it in different fashions, and whether it's that metadata that I talk about, or whether it's these marketing solutions, or whether it's through what you know, people know Nielsen for in terms of audience measurement. To be able to do that and talk about it is pretty cool, to be honest – to not sugarcoat, it is pretty cool. So it's fun, and to be able to work across teams and be able to craft those stories allows me to see a lot of different ways that we can do it and to get out there.

- Well, speaking of, so who is your target audience when you're communicating on behalf of the company?

- Depends on what we're communicating, to be honest. I think a lot of it though is B2B. However, when we talk about Nielsen impact marketing solutions, we're talking to marketers, we're talking to advertisers. You know, when they're going into their media buy and they're planning, you know, what Nielsen Solutions are they able to use to understand that they get the most bang for their buck? And then on the back end of that, what were the outcomes? Did they reach their target audience, right? And so that's an opportunity where we're talking directly to marketers or to advertisers when it comes to talking about audience measurement, for instance. That's obviously something that the networks care about, that the media cares about that-

- [Jason] Right.

- I think just humans care about, like, do I watch shows that millions of other people are watching, right?

- [Jason] Mm-hmm.

- But really it's identifying when we do that, a lot of my work would be towards the media in terms of how do we tell that story and who consumes it, right? Whether it's trades or whether it's tier-ones like The Wall Street Journal, for instance.

- [Jason] Mm-hmm.

- So I think we have a few different levels of audience, of target audience, that we're communicating to at Nielsen. I will say a lot of my focus is probably working with the media, helping them understand things. And how do we produce content that they're interested in writing about or talking about as well?

- Right, absolutely. Matt, we're going to take a quick break and come back on the other side. I'm going to ask you some more questions, and we look forward to it.

- [Narrator] You're listening to On Top of PR with your host, Jason Mudd. Jason is a trusted adviser to some of America's most admired and fastest-growing brands. He is the managing partner at Axia Public Relations, a PR agency that guides news, social, and web strategies for national companies. And now, back to the show.

- Welcome back to On Top of PR, I'm your host Jason Mudd, and we're joined today by Matt Hurst. And Matt is with Nielsen, and we're talking about a lot of things about corporate communications here, Matt. And so welcome back. I want to ask you, what are you working on today that's got you excited and enthusiastic?

- Honestly, there's a number of things, but if I were to pick one, it would be Nielsen One. And that is the forthcoming launch of this new cross-platform measurement that Nielsen is developing and will roll out later in 2022 to better capture the way that people are viewing and consuming media. You know, you think about it: There's linear television, there's cable television, there's connected TV, there's streaming, there's, you know, on different devices. And Nielsen One is the measurement, the cross-platform measurement, that Nielsen is putting forth later this year and (I’m) excited about. So what makes me excited about that is the way that the company is continuing to evolve, to meet the needs of how people are consuming media and ingesting, you know, "television" these days. But because of that, not only when I talk about storytelling or communicating, you know, I talked about Nielsen being a nearly 100-year-old company.

- [Jason] Right.

- The fact that you can almost rewrite the script a little bit. Like, how often do you get to build foundational messaging on new things that are going to be transformational for the company? And that's, to me, I love doing that. I love being a builder in communications. You know, I don't want to say that any comms job is easy because we're all faced with a number of challenges and ways to bring it to market, no matter what you're doing or what story you're telling, but when you're able to build something and run it through all the traps and then eventually see that in market, whether it's through a keynote speech, whether it's through the media, whether it's through speaking opportunities, whatever, to sit back and be like, you know what? I built that, and it was a grind or it was fun, whatever it was, to see it come to life, like, is kind of fun. That's something that excites me just in general-

- [Jason] For sure.

- About our communications. Maybe, I guess, I'm Dr. Frankenstein in a way.

- No, no, it's true. You know, my PR agency was involved early on in helping a community nonprofit build a community skate park, and, you know, to be able to physically see it being built and kids using it, you know, almost 20 years later is pretty exciting, and something you can point to and say, “We did that,” that hopefully will last for many more decades to come. So let's talk, you know, what are some of the obstacles that you're facing in your current role? What are some of the challenges?

- Yeah, there's been quite a few, to be honest. You know, Nielsen has gone through a kind of a, I don't want to say tough, but a trying last six months or so. There's a lot of competitors in the space. There's a lot of noise within the industry in terms of, you know, Nielsen has been this legacy company that has been synonymous with the media industry and TV ratings for such a long time. And there's always going to be competitors, I think, in any space that you work in, but the competitors have gotten louder, you know, as people's way of consuming media through things like Netflix or Amazon Prime, or watching on your tablet or your phone evolves, you know, there's going to be different ways to measure it. And that gives competitors more room to kind of elbow in and work in with against Nielsen. So there's a lot of noise in the industry that Nielsen is working against, and also towards, you know, in developing that Nielsen One solution. And so we think about it, it's not just: “Hey, I work at Nielsen, it's this really well-known company. And I come from Amazon, it's this really well-known company.” And, you know, you think like, just on paper, well, that looks kind of easy. Like he works at these places where people are familiar with it. It's a known brand, but because of that, like, you deal with a lot of competition, a lot of industry noise, and a lot of assumptions, right? That people assume they know what your company does and assume they know what your product is being launched. So being able to tell those stories and get out and have the relationships with media and being able to properly identify and talk about what that is-

- [Jason] Right.

- Is super important. So, you know, that's an obstacle, and because of where Nielsen sits in the industry and some things that have happened over the past few years and during the pandemic, there's been a lot of opportunity for others to make some noise and get loud on some things. And so being able to fight back on that is certainly a challenge that Nielsen's been facing and, you know, kind of in the trenches on some days where you're really working to identify things, not to go out there and mudsling or try to redirect, but to tell the truth and get out there and say, look, this is what it is, you know? Versus what you may be hearing.

- Yeah, you're reminding me of a few things, you know, I mean, it's always relative, you know, big brands, billion-dollar companies, they belly about how tight their budgets are, and I'm like, well, it's all relative, you know, when you're speaking to an audience of small businesses or something like that and you're somebody from Amazon or, you know, General Motors is like, well, budgets are tight, we don't have a big marketing budget. It's like, eh, really, you know? So, everybody struggles to get it. And then, like I said, the … grass is not always greener. Are there any kind of crisis tips that you feel like would be valuable to our audience?

- Oh gosh, where do you, I can go back to my Mars days when I was working at Uncle Ben's and we had a crisis where some schoolchildren ingested rice that was actually over-nutrified, had too much nice in it. And you know, you want to talk about crisis, you talk about kids getting sick at school based on your product. Like, that's never fun.

- [Jason] Yeah, that's not good.

- But I think the biggest thing in a crisis is to try to stay calm and find the truth, right? And that's always difficult because, you know, if you're working at a company or a brand that you believe in, that you trust in, you're going to get upset. And that's probably the first, like, correct reaction is like, oh my gosh, like, how could they do that to my place, right? This company that I believe in, that I'm working for, but you can't let that out, right? You (have to) be stoic and you've got to be calm even if the fire in your stomach is just really burning into lava, right?

- [Jason] Right.

- So being calm, and then having trusted people. I can't emphasize that enough. You know, in a crisis, you want to keep your group tight.

- [Jason] Right.

- You want to keep the sources of information coming to you tight, knowing that you're relying on other people too, maybe people that are really involved in the product that might have "broken" at least momentarily. How do you find out what happened, and how do you dig into that information and then relay that outward? You know, you don't want 13 products people in the room because they might all have 13 different stories. You want to have one person that you trust, that can go find those 13 stories and develop it into one, and then you work with them.

- [Jason] Sure.

- So keeping the circle tight, staying calm, and then being honest, right? Because what do they say sometimes? Like, the coverup is worse than the crime, right?

- [Jason] Yeah, right.

- If you find out that the coverup was worse than the crime, you're in another crisis again, and it continues to unravel. So, you know, sometimes, you’ve got to take your lumps. You know, I think that's part of any crisis, but the amount of honesty you can provide and the amount of, what's the word? I'm missing a word here, but-

- [Jason] Transparency?

- Transparency is a good one. I was thinking humility, was the word escaping. The amount of humility, like, you know, hat in hand. I would never say this in a comms, but “Hey, we screwed up, and this is why we're going to make it better.” Like, that's ultimately, I think, what you want to get to, right? In being honest and being humble about it. And you know, the quicker you can do that, the quicker it goes away. Not that it ever goes away because the internet doesn't forget, right?

- [Jason] Yeah.

- But at the same time, the quicker you can move forward in terms of telling the stories you want to tell, versus being on your back foot and trying to respond to something that absolutely needs the attention.

- Yeah, that's good, man. Thank you for sharing that. I want to talk, ask you quickly. Do you have any favorite tools or resources in your toolkit that you find very valuable?

- In terms of like my day-to-day work, I would honestly say like, I open Microsoft's Word probably first thing because I'm constantly writing, and you know, I'd almost rather write a lot in there with the chance to delete and edit and all that versus in an email that might accidentally get sent. So that's probably my No. 1 tool. It sounds so basic, but it's very useful. In terms of, you know, I think a lot of the comms work that I do is pretty tried and true, you know, through PR Newswire Cision or, you know, a lot of the other tools that are out there. I don't necessarily have like any great secrets-

- [Jason] OK.

- On tools that I use, but-

- [Jason] Yeah.

- Yeah, sorry to disappoint you on that one.

- Do you have any, you know, besides On Top of PR, do you have any other favorite podcasts or things you tune into or that keep you sharp and you know, insightful of what's going on in the marketplace?

- A lot of reading actually, and I know, you know, other than On Top of PR, I'm not a huge podcast guy. When I'm listening to things, it's going to be music. I'm a huge music lover, but what I like to do is I like to read. You know, and whether it's quick hits, you know, with morning newsletters or it's the daily clips that we put out that not only cover Nielsen but competitors, but also industry news. You know, I'm a big, I read the New York Times morning brief every morning. You know, I get my news from on my phone – my phone's disgusting in the sense that I'm constantly getting pop-up alerts from all kinds of news sources.

- [Jason] Right.

- So with just a quick, like little flip on my lock screen, I can get the headlines of what's happening in the world, whether it's industry-related or not, what's happening with my favorite sports teams, et cetera.

- [Jason] Yeah.

- And so that's kind of how I keep up to date through a lot of things news-wise, utilizing the technology that's handed to me in the best of my abilities.

- Sure, sure. Are there any books that you would recommend to our audience that our fellow public relations professionals or marketers or corporate comms folks?

- Yeah, you know, honestly, when I read books these days, because I have two kids and a tough job, it's usually for fun. And I don't mean that PR books aren't fun. I try to like, get my mind completely away from work. You know, I've read a few leadership books recently, just especially taking on the past few roles that I've had, you know, in terms of how you lead or different ways to lead. But there's nothing like, there's no like executive book or PR book that like, springs to mind. You know, I was actually just talking to one of my buddies about books to recommend, and they were all, you know, memoirs, or I really enjoy Jon Krakauer's books, you know, like “Into the Wild” and “Into Thin Air,” you know, things like that. So when I'm reading, it's trying to get away from the day to day of what I'm working in and using it as an escape.

- [Jason] Yeah.

- Again, I'm sorry, Jason, probably another disappointing answer.

- No, not at all. I mean, I'm a big believer that, you know, reading, you know, fiction and even historical … books and things like that are very interesting and keeps you sharp. And I'm a big believer in consuming information from various sources and industries and topics and to keep yourself sharp. So I've got an eclectic mix myself, you know? To keep me fresh and aware and alert and mindful of things that normally wouldn't be on my radar or colleague's radar, so, yeah. Well, Matt, I appreciate you joining us on the show. It's been a pleasure to have you. And if a member of our audience is intrigued by what we talked about today and wants to make connection with you, what's the best way for them to reach you, Matt?

- Yeah, thanks, Jason. Thanks so much for having me. It's been a pleasure to be a part of it and to chat with you. The best way to reach me would be to find me on LinkedIn. Pretty visible, pretty easy to find. And you know, I believe my URL is Matthew Hurst, you know? Like, I'm in trouble. My mom's yelling at me with my full name-

- Right.

- But I go by Matt. So, you know, I should be easy enough to find on LinkedIn, and please feel free to reach out and connect.

- Well, we'll also put a link to that in the show notes and probably put a quote in there about the coverup is worse than the crime. I think that's something that's a really good quote that I hadn't heard in a while, but it's good for us to keep that in mind as well. So, Matt, again, it was a pleasure. Thank you for joining us. And with that, I'll wrap this up. You've been tuned in to On Top of PR, where we do our best to help you stay on top of PR. I'm Jason Mudd, your host with Axia Public Relations. I want to thank our guest, Matt, and our team at Axia that worked so hard to put this podcast together. We appreciate you, and we appreciate them. And with that, be well, thanks for tuning in.

- [Narrator] This has been On Top of PR with Jason Mudd, presented by ReviewMaxer. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode, and check out past shows at ontopofpr.com.

Sponsored by:

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About your host Jason Mudd

On Top of PR host, Jason Mudd, is a trusted adviser and dynamic strategist for some of America’s most admired brands and fastest-growing companies. Since 1994, he’s worked with American Airlines, Budweiser, Dave & Buster’s, H&R Block, Hilton, HP, Miller Lite, New York Life, Pizza Hut, Southern Comfort, and Verizon. He founded Axia Public Relations in July 2002. Forbes named Axia as one of America’s Best PR Agencies.

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