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The Future of the PR Industry - Jane Howard, Mandate
INSIGHT ARTICLE
Communications: from Media Relations to Strategic Advice
Jane Howard is Chairman of Mandate Communications
Twenty-five years ago, life as a PR consultant meant that you would be confident in your role as a media relations expert and would be esteemed by outsiders for this ability.
AGB Communications, then leading market-researchers, found that employing a PR consultancy brought the advantages of “greater expertise and better knowledge of the media than in-house departments.” The 155 directors interviewed for this survey spoke of their “belief that the profession of PR has matured.” The outputs from PR consultancies were not seen to be measurable, but this did not appear to diminish their popularity.
Since then, the PR consultancy sector has thrived, growing from annual fees of around £25 million in 1985 to £342 million in 2009. Its business base has expanded, from media relations skills to a broad range of communications intelligence, including strategic advice.
This evolution, however, has not been easy, nor have consultants always maintained their earlier confidence and esteem. Understanding why this is may help us to manage future challenges and opportunities better.
This change has three key factors and the first of these is the vastly increased number of PR practitioners in the UK market.
In 1985, the demand for PR consultancy services was limited, but then so was the number of PR consultants, many of whom had come to the sector from working a journalist or a secretary. This shortage of trained professionals ended in 1987 when the first university course was established at Sterling. After this, demand for all levels of university education in PR was strong and now the University Careers Advisory Service offers more than 230 degree or postgraduate courses with “Public Relations” as a component. On-the-job training has also increased with a wide range of seminars being offered by the professional and trade bodies, the sector's media and former practitioners.
PR Week said that in 2007 consultancies employed 7,990 staff, a four-fold increase from the 1,942 employed 25 years earlier.
However, most of the UK's PR practitioners do not now work in consultancies. The Chartered Institute of Public Relations' research in 2005, “The Economic Significance of Public Relations”, found that 82 per cent of UK PR people were employed in-house.
Not only is there now a much-increased supply of PR professionals, but the majority of them work outside the PR consultancy sector. The “greater expertise and better knowledge” that PR consultancies once held exists no more, but is shared among organisations of all types. Given the number of people now trained to practice PR, it is not unreasonable to argue that public relations is oversupplied.
The second factor forcing consultancies to evolve is the range of services now available to monitor, interpret and help manage clients' communications.
There are now suppliers offering editorial and writing services, press release distribution, automated media selection, monitoring and evaluation, analysis and planning. There is web-casting, broadcast consultancy and access to social media “libraries” and to digital techniques to optimise web exposure. Among many other services, there is market research, events listing by sector and calendar, venue finders, promotions execution and fulfilment.
These process efficiencies have been adopted by all, so expectations of what can be delivered at a given level of resource have constantly risen. In practice, PR consultancies compete among themselves to sell media campaigns ever more cheaply.
The desire to evaluate and quantify success has not only bought transparency to PR campaigns but has also removed any earlier mystique from the PR practitioner's “art”. Instead PR consultancies operate with a set of skills and a range of metrics that are available for all to see and comment on.
The final factor in this evolution is the impact that procurement professionals have had on consultancy profitability.
The result of applying procurement formulae to PR campaigns is that measurements of success became focused on those elements that are simple to analyse, for example, the amount of coverage, the number of contact calls, or of targets met. Taken alone, these metrics tend to illustrate the process of the campaign, not its impact on the organisation's goals. This focus on the tactical and lack of seeing a bigger, longer-term picture has helped to commoditise media relations and so force down its price.
As consultancies' media work is no longer a profitable niche, nor is its media output valued as highly by clients, then how can PR consultancies continue to provide premium services?
There are several ways, including transitioning from a “editorial expert” to become a “content expert” for all stakeholder and across all media especially experiential and social. This is a skill that other consultancies, including advertising and digital, also aspire to provide, so PR consultants must now compete with new and different sets of expertise and analytical tools.
However, in order for PR consultants to be able to solve business communications problems, they will need to assemble teams from backgrounds formerly considered to be outside their own consultancy's core. So, not only must PR consultants compete with other marketing disciplines, they must also be able to draw on a wider range of expertise from within their own organisations.
To achieve this, consultancies must be able to attract top talent not only from the PR practitioner and marketing services sectors but from an increasingly wide range of external business disciplines.
Linked to being the executor and manager of stakeholder relationships, is the need to provide forms of evaluation that describe the impact of the PR consultancy's work on the client's strategic goals. Measuring a standardised media relations service is increasingly irrelevant to many businesses.
Finally, as organisations have become more accessible and accountable, safeguarding brands and corporate reputations is crucial. Both are known to be vital, impacting current value and future success. The strategic advice that PR consultants bring is an important tool in effecting this stewardship. It is an area of massive, potential growth, yet often unbranded, unmeasured and consequently, often given away.
It is time for PR consultants to re-define their skills and to stop concentrating on areas of our business where perceived value and thus profitability is low. We need to be confident about the quality and value of the strategic advice that we bring. We must start to brand and charge for it.
Jane Howard is Chairman of Mandate Communications
Twenty-five years ago, life as a PR consultant meant that you would be confident in your role as a media relations expert and would be esteemed by outsiders for this ability.
AGB Communications, then leading market-researchers, found that employing a PR consultancy brought the advantages of “greater expertise and better knowledge of the media than in-house departments.” The 155 directors interviewed for this survey spoke of their “belief that the profession of PR has matured.” The outputs from PR consultancies were not seen to be measurable, but this did not appear to diminish their popularity.
Since then, the PR consultancy sector has thrived, growing from annual fees of around £25 million in 1985 to £342 million in 2009. Its business base has expanded, from media relations skills to a broad range of communications intelligence, including strategic advice.
This evolution, however, has not been easy, nor have consultants always maintained their earlier confidence and esteem. Understanding why this is may help us to manage future challenges and opportunities better.
This change has three key factors and the first of these is the vastly increased number of PR practitioners in the UK market.
In 1985, the demand for PR consultancy services was limited, but then so was the number of PR consultants, many of whom had come to the sector from working a journalist or a secretary. This shortage of trained professionals ended in 1987 when the first university course was established at Sterling. After this, demand for all levels of university education in PR was strong and now the University Careers Advisory Service offers more than 230 degree or postgraduate courses with “Public Relations” as a component. On-the-job training has also increased with a wide range of seminars being offered by the professional and trade bodies, the sector's media and former practitioners.
PR Week said that in 2007 consultancies employed 7,990 staff, a four-fold increase from the 1,942 employed 25 years earlier.
However, most of the UK's PR practitioners do not now work in consultancies. The Chartered Institute of Public Relations' research in 2005, “The Economic Significance of Public Relations”, found that 82 per cent of UK PR people were employed in-house.
Not only is there now a much-increased supply of PR professionals, but the majority of them work outside the PR consultancy sector. The “greater expertise and better knowledge” that PR consultancies once held exists no more, but is shared among organisations of all types. Given the number of people now trained to practice PR, it is not unreasonable to argue that public relations is oversupplied.
The second factor forcing consultancies to evolve is the range of services now available to monitor, interpret and help manage clients' communications.
There are now suppliers offering editorial and writing services, press release distribution, automated media selection, monitoring and evaluation, analysis and planning. There is web-casting, broadcast consultancy and access to social media “libraries” and to digital techniques to optimise web exposure. Among many other services, there is market research, events listing by sector and calendar, venue finders, promotions execution and fulfilment.
These process efficiencies have been adopted by all, so expectations of what can be delivered at a given level of resource have constantly risen. In practice, PR consultancies compete among themselves to sell media campaigns ever more cheaply.
The desire to evaluate and quantify success has not only bought transparency to PR campaigns but has also removed any earlier mystique from the PR practitioner's “art”. Instead PR consultancies operate with a set of skills and a range of metrics that are available for all to see and comment on.
The final factor in this evolution is the impact that procurement professionals have had on consultancy profitability.
The result of applying procurement formulae to PR campaigns is that measurements of success became focused on those elements that are simple to analyse, for example, the amount of coverage, the number of contact calls, or of targets met. Taken alone, these metrics tend to illustrate the process of the campaign, not its impact on the organisation's goals. This focus on the tactical and lack of seeing a bigger, longer-term picture has helped to commoditise media relations and so force down its price.
As consultancies' media work is no longer a profitable niche, nor is its media output valued as highly by clients, then how can PR consultancies continue to provide premium services?
There are several ways, including transitioning from a “editorial expert” to become a “content expert” for all stakeholder and across all media especially experiential and social. This is a skill that other consultancies, including advertising and digital, also aspire to provide, so PR consultants must now compete with new and different sets of expertise and analytical tools.
However, in order for PR consultants to be able to solve business communications problems, they will need to assemble teams from backgrounds formerly considered to be outside their own consultancy's core. So, not only must PR consultants compete with other marketing disciplines, they must also be able to draw on a wider range of expertise from within their own organisations.
To achieve this, consultancies must be able to attract top talent not only from the PR practitioner and marketing services sectors but from an increasingly wide range of external business disciplines.
Linked to being the executor and manager of stakeholder relationships, is the need to provide forms of evaluation that describe the impact of the PR consultancy's work on the client's strategic goals. Measuring a standardised media relations service is increasingly irrelevant to many businesses.
Finally, as organisations have become more accessible and accountable, safeguarding brands and corporate reputations is crucial. Both are known to be vital, impacting current value and future success. The strategic advice that PR consultants bring is an important tool in effecting this stewardship. It is an area of massive, potential growth, yet often unbranded, unmeasured and consequently, often given away.
It is time for PR consultants to re-define their skills and to stop concentrating on areas of our business where perceived value and thus profitability is low. We need to be confident about the quality and value of the strategic advice that we bring. We must start to brand and charge for it.
