What Brexit taught us about the Opportunity for PR

WHAT BREXIT TAUGHT US ABOUT THE OPPORTUNITY FOR PR Rob Brown

The narrow margin by which the Remain campaign lost the referendum came as a surprise to the majority, including many of those who voted to leave. It was a highly complicated question which was in turn both simplified and distorted. PR and communications can play a role as strategic lead; making sense of complexity, managing reputation and telling the organisational story and we are now at a time and in a place where it is vital that it does so. 

You’ll learn:
•    Following the EU referendum, we face incomparable levels of uncertainty
•    The PR profession must take a lead in guiding business through the challenges of effective   communications in indeterminate and unpredictable times
•    In order to deliver on this obligation, there is an onus on us all to ensure that the profession is properly equipped

Uncertain times

The narrow margins of the referendum vote have laid bare a divided society in which trust in politics, politicians, journalists and the corporate world is at low ebb. Fragmented relationships in society have created divisions which transcend traditional demographics.

That trust has been eroded because society finds it increasingly difficult to know where to turn for accurate information. There was a refrain that rang out constantly during the campaign and that continues to resonate: we are supposedly living in a ‘post-factual democracy’. 

It’s not difficult to see what’s meant by that. Promises to deliver £350 million a day to the NHS evaporated the moment the polling stations closed. It wasn’t just a vain promise, the figure was a fabrication in the first place. 

The day after the vote Donald Trump tweeted “Just arrived in Scotland. Place is going wild over the vote. They took their country back, just like we will take America back. No games!” He seemed unaware of the fact that north of the border the Scots had voted 68% in favour of remaining. That said, using Donald Trump in any argument feels like ‘reductio ad absurdum’.

In a world where it’s difficult to know who to trust, public relations professionals could play a vital role in helping organisations and businesses navigate the tempestuous waters brought about by the Brexit vote. 

We still have a PR problem

There is a problem here however. Many business leaders and journalists would break into howls of laughter and derision at the notion that PR people deliver information that is both truthful and accurate. We haven’t yet shaken off the reputation that the PR industry has acquired for spin and obfuscation. 

Those of us practising PR have no doubt that we can bring clarity in complex and opaque times but we need to do more to persuade the wider community.

Public relations is about building trust and reputation and that begins with listening and understanding. Whether we work in house or for agencies we are effectively mediators with the responsibility for promoting mutual understanding between organisations and their public. It’s an old definition of PR but it still holds true. 

Often that means doing our part to promote transparency and accountability within organisations. The reality is that in a world where everyone can publish, secrets are more difficult to keep; putting a gloss on a story does more harm than good. It is increasingly the job of PR professionals to explain that reality to business leaders and organisational heads. 

We still have some way to go to shake off the image of Siobhan Sharpe, Patsy and Edina and Malcolm Tucker. We can however achieve that and the more we talk about standards of professionalism the greater the opportunity. 
 

Professionalism is key to unlocking the opportunity

The current climate demands a renewed focus on professional development. PR people need to evidence the fact that they have the skills and credentials to meet the challenges of communicating in uncertain times.

We can’t help in our duty to provide strategic counsel and support organisations in making sense of themselves and the world around them if we don’t build trust. In order to build that trust we must demonstrate that we are as committed to professionalism as any other profession. 

Having served as President of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), I believe that the industry is grasping that nettle and professional bodies have a vital role to play. More than ever practitioners are seeking to demonstrate their commitment to ongoing professional development. The renewed focus on Chartered Practitioner status is clear evidence of that. The CIPR’s goal is to have half of our 10,000 strong membership becoming Chartered Practitioners within a decade. I believe it is one that we can realistically achieve and it is important for the reputation of the industry that we do so. 
 

What have we learned?

The lesson from Brexit is that the establishment and the business world, the majority of whom were Remainers, did not get their message across. We have also learned since the vote of the vast uncertainty that awaits us. Much of this was barely discussed in the campaign:

•    How will we manage our borders, in particular in with Ireland?
•    What will our trading relationships look like?
•    How will we manage needs of the beneficiaries of EU subsidies?
•    How will we allocate the EU subsidy that we no longer pay?
•    How long will it all take?
•    Will our passports be black again (and will we have to surrender the red EU ones)? 

We know that in times of confusion and ambiguity communications plays a paramount role. The opportunity for public relations is therefore very significant. 

If we are to take that opportunity and deliver, we need to do our own PR and this includes raising the reputation of the industry. I honestly wouldn’t hang about, the time is now. 

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Rob Brown is Managing Partner at Rule 5 and President of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR).He is author of the best-selling ‘Public Relations and the Social Web’ (Kogan Page) and has both edited and contributed to numerous books on PR. Rob is listed in the PR Week Powerbook 2008-2016 and the Global Powerbook 2016. 

Twitter: @robbrown
Online: www.rule-5.co.uk

Strong Together: Working Towards A Community Of Theory And Practice In Public Relations

STRONG TOGETHER: WORKING TOWARDS A COMMUNITY OF THEORY AND PRACTICE IN PUBLIC RELATIONS Stephen Waddington

Academic colleagues are enabling greater understanding in every area of practice. Meanwhile practitioners challenged by the pace of innovation are reaching out to theory to help make sense of the changes in practice. Here we explore practical ways of improving the relationship between scholars and practitioners in public relations.

You’ll learn:
•    Examples of contemporary public relations research that have an immediate application in practice
•    The opportunity to advance practice and develop as a profession through improved collaboration
•    A toolkit of eight practical ways to improve collaboration developed over the past 18 months from a CIPR project and BledCom workshop


If you want an immediate insight into the chasm between public relations theory and practice head to Google Scholar.

Enter a phrase or term relevant to your day job. Try agile management, crisis communications, public relations measurement, or your favourite form of social media. You’ll be presented with the headline and synopses of recent academic papers.

Google Scholar is a project built by the search giant to organise and query academic papers and content from scholarly books. I’ve set up alerts for public relations, social media, Facebook and Twitter, among others.

You now face two challenges that both relate to accessibility, in different ways.

First, many of the papers are published in academic journals and typically cost $30. My work around is to go direct to the author via a LinkedIn or Twitter search, and politely asked for a copy of their work. It almost always works.

Second, once you get your hands on a paper, the copy is usually presented in more than 20 pages of dense prose. It takes perseverance to extract insights relevant to everyday practice. It’s almost always worth the effort. In the last six months this approach has turned up numerous papers that have informed my work at Ketchum. Here are three examples.

#1 Data and ethics

In ‘Datafication: threat or opportunity for communication in the public sphere’, Derina Holtzhausen argues that public relations practitioners need to get involved in decisions on how algorithms are developed and targeted.

As we delegate responsibility for daily tasks such as search, pricing and publication to computers, this issue will become more acute. In the near future algorithms in driverless cars will be called upon to make life or death decisions.

Software developers who write algorithms must be held to account on behalf of the public. Practitioners need to work with colleagues in technology to educate themselves about the potential of algorithms and data.

#2 Investigating gender in public relations

An ongoing research project by Liz Bridgen at Sheffield Hallam University, shows that there are no easy answers to gender parity in public relations. Her work has implications for anyone responsible for hiring and the retention of talent in a public relations function.

Much of the existing research focuses on women continuing to work in the profession and has led to the broad view that they cannot combine family life with working in public relations.

Through interviews with women leaving public relations, Bridgen found the overriding reason for women leaving the profession was because they saw a lack of meaning in the work that they were permitted to carry out. She found that peers, and those outside the industry, did not take them seriously and this caused the women to suffer a lack of self-belief in their own skills.

#3 Wikipedia woe

In ‘Public relations interactions with Wikipedia’, Gareth Thompson explored the relationship between the public relations profession and Wikipedia. He found a simple reason for Wikipedia’s failure to move closer to the demands of the public relations business – it doesn’t need to.

Wikipedia is an open source community, or public. Contributors are motivated by Wikipedia’s purpose of creating a comprehensive compendium that contains information on all branches of knowledge. It consists of more than 20 million topics in 285 different languages, and is frequently the start point for online research.

Critics claim that Wikipedia has become too powerful and that it operates without the recognised processes or oversight common for more traditional media. This is the issue that often puts Wikipedia in conflict with the public relations industry. Errors in traditional media can be dealt with swiftly through well-established processes.

Changes or additions to a Wikipedia article require engagement with the community and, crucially, adherence to its rules. It’s a process that works but is unfamiliar to the public relations business.
 

Back to school for public relations

Public relations is practical. We should learn from the body of knowledge that academic colleagues are investigating and apply it to our day jobs.

Academics are enabling greater understanding in every area of practice. Meanwhile practitioners challenged by the pace of innovation are reaching out to theory to help make sense of the changes in practice.

A close working relationship between academia and practice is a hallmark of any professional discipline – enhancing real-world practice with research, reflection and theory.

In public relations this relationship is limited, and without the historical perspective and insight provided by academics, practitioners lack rigour and are limited to trading in simple crafts and tactics.

As a business in the midst of rapid fundamental change, bringing these two communities closer together is crucial to us realising our future potential.


Work in progress

The accessibility of public relations research by practitioners was one of the themes raised in a project I led as Past President of the CIPR last year.

An online community of practitioners explored issues relating to the accessibility of research; teaching and learning; and shared media and platforms.

A workshop at BledCom, the international research symposium in Slovenia in July 2016, explored these issues and sought practical solutions. Indeed, many of the contributors to this edition of #FuturePRoof proposed content for the project during the event.
 

Public relations theory and practice toolkit

The BledCom workshop concluded that there are eight areas where academics, scholars and practitioners could work better together to share knowledge and advance the public relations profession.

#1 Awards

Invite a mix of practitioners and scholars to participate as judges on industry award schemes. Add reciprocal categories that recognise excellence in research and practice.

#2 Accessibility of research

Open source publication of a single-page summary of academic research papers for practitioners to improve knowledge exchange. Google Scholar is useful for signposting original work.

#3 Conferences

Promote a greater diversity of academics attending conferences and speaking at industry events. BledCom is a good example of the benefit of this cooperation.

#4 Industry initiatives

Improve the representation of academic and practitioner interests in industry associations and initiatives. The Barcelona Principles and Global Alliance Global Capabilities Framework both worked on this basis.

#5 Media: HBR for PR

There’s a clear opportunity for an HBR-style publication for public relations. Communication for Leaders (Norway) and Communicatie NU (Netherlands) are both good examples. Funding is a challenge.

#6 Reciprocal guest speakers

Practitioners speaking on university courses; and academics speaking at agency and community team meetings. There are lots of examples of this happening from practice-to-university at an informal local level.

#7 Residencies

A scholar or practitioner in residence would be good way to develop a working relationship, and provide a route for sharing knowledge and influencing research topics.

#8 Alumni networks

University students graduating into practice provide a potentially strong connection between theory and practice. Motivated scholars maintain relationships via a shared form of media such as a Facebook or LinkedIn group [7].

The business of public relations will not realise its full potential as a management discipline until practitioners and scholars work closer together. The opportunity for collaboration is clear and the project outline in this chapter signposts practical ways forward.

Sources

[1] Google Scholar - http://wadds.co/2aJqWAk

[2] Datafication: threat or opportunity for communication in the public sphere, Journal of Communication Management:     Vol 20, No 1 - http://wadds.co/2aJoFVK

[3] Liz Bridgen: The Lady Vanishes: The missing women of public relations, Sheffield Hallam University - http://wadds.co/2aJml19

[4] Public relations interactions with Wikipedia: Journal of Communication Management: Vol 20, No 1 - http://wadds.co/2avnkoJ

[5] Working towards a community of practice in public relations, Stephen Waddington - http://wadds.co/1Gz6lLB

[6] Letters to BledCom: Towards a community of practice in public relations, Stephen Waddington - http://wadds.co/292TumU

[7] Public relations theory and practice toolkit

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Stephen Waddington is Partner and Chief Engagement Officer at Ketchum helping clients and colleagues to do the best job possible engaging with the public. He is responsible for driving the integration of digital and social capabilities in client engagements across the agency’s international network. He is Visiting Professor in Practice at the Newcastle University supporting the university and students through teaching and mentoring.

Twitter: @Wadds
Online: www.wadds.co.uk

Commanding the respect of the business community and the pitch to employers

COMMANDING THE RESPECT OF THE  BUSINESS COMMUNITY AND THE PITCH TO EMPLOYERS
Francis Ingham

You’ll learn:
•    How the PRCA is helping prove the value of public relations to employers and the wider business community
•    About the ongoing drive towards greater ethical standards
•    How public relations practitioners can benefit from a new initiative designed to raise standards of practice
 

Public relations may be a growing, dynamic, successful industry but there is still work to do in terms of demonstrating our value, ethics and standards of practice if we are to realise our full potential.

Let me get an awkward truth out of the way: PR and communications professionals will never be loved. As a professional calling, we should not expect to be. But we can and should be respected. And that respect depends, it seems to me, on three factors:

1.    Proving the value of our work.
2.    Proving that we have an ethical compass.
3.    Proving that we are committed to the highest of professional standards.

But let me also put the challenge we face in proving these three factors into context: ours is a growing, dynamic, successful industry. 

How many times over the past nine years as Director General of the PRCA have I written those words or similar? Probably hundreds. Yet they continue to be needed, because we still beat ourselves up all too often - frequently because of this desperate desire to be ‘liked’ or indeed ‘loved’.

The figures speak for themselves. This summer’s PRCA PR Census told us that we are worth £12.9 billion; that as an industry we comprise 83,000 professionals; that we grow by about ten percent every year – in the good times and in the bad times alike. 

If we have been this successful so far, how much more successful could we be if we got our act together?

To address those three challenges in order:

Proving the value of our work

We know that our work has value. The great majority of professionals I meet take justifiable pride in their work. They are proud of the change they deliver - whether to share price; or to societal behaviour; or to awareness-raising; or just in helping sell stuff. 

And all of that fundamentally is about reputation management, even if many within our industry would describe it in more prosaic terms. 

A report earlier on this year by the Quoted Companies Alliance and the accountants BDO estimated that a listed small to midcap company loses up to £90m if its reputation is destroyed – that’s £1.7 trillion. It also reported that a third of such companies have no plan to manage it. 

The PRCA Reputation Matters report led by Lanson’s Tony Langham told us that corporate reputation is the third most important factor would-be employees look at when making career decisions – behind salary (naturally), and close on the heels of stimulating work. 

So we know that reputation has an effect on the bottom line, and on the quality of employees attracted. And by bottom line, I mean that in the broad sense of ultimate result – later this year, we publish research into the effect of reputation on the outcomes of public sector campaigns. And believe me, the impact of our industry is even starker there. 

So what will the PRCA do? 

We need to hammer home these statistics at every opportunity we have. We need a cross-industry campaign between all of the membership bodies that represent our industry. And I will commit the PRCA to being an integral part of that. 

But we need to go further. So along with the publication of this latest edition, we will circulate to the industry a monthly case study, piece of data, or other compelling research, to make the case for our value.

Proving that we have an ethical compass

An ethical compass is, in and of itself, a good thing. 

In one sense, of course, we each possess one, whether that compass leads us towards respectable or unrespectable outcomes – in a Kantian world, the bad man is as ethical as the good one after all. But that’s not what I mean – I mean rules of behaviour and practice which we can be judged against, and which make us accountable. 

And in the modern world, a world marked by transparency, by the inability to hide, such a compass has another attribute – it is a licence to practice in some areas, and a competitive advantage in others.

I believe that the majority of industry practitioners adhere to high standards. That they deliver excellent value work to clients and colleagues (frankly, the value is frequently too excellent – as an industry, we undercharge significantly). That they make value judgements about which clients and which organisations they will and will not work with. 

But nonetheless, as part of our plan to be respected more, we need to be respected more for our ethical standards. 

Last year, we expelled Fuel PR in what PRWeek termed ‘Sweatygate’. We did so with regret but also with a profound sense of satisfaction. It was a member in good standing with us; its MD was a PRCA Fellow. But they had misled the public, and abused their staff. So they had to go. And the reaction from the industry and others alike was highly appreciative and positive.

So what will the PRCA do?

A few things. We’re publishing a new PRCA Professional Charter this summer. Making it easier and quicker than ever before to complain against members and to resolve those complaints. For the first time, I, as the PRCA Director General, will have the ability to instigate complaints proceedings for example. 

But we need to do more. We need to be willing to call out bad practice far more than we do; and we need as an industry to stop turning a blind eye to the partners, affiliates, bosses and colleagues who don’t meet our standards. And to make that easier, we’ll be introducing an anonymity route – if you don’t want your identity to be revealed, it won’t be. 
 

Proving that we are committed to the highest of professional standards

There are no barriers to entry to PR and communications. In many ways, that’s something I welcome. We are no closed shop. We are open to the brightest and the best regardless of background or resources. And yet…

To gain the respect of the business community, and to make our pitch as compelling as possible, we need to embed common standards; a shared resolution to attain the highest standards.

So what will the PRCA do?

In October, we will launch the first PR and communications industry-wide Continuous Professional Development Programme. 

It will recognise each and every single valid source of development, from every relevant membership body that wishes to take part; every industry service provider; every other training provider; every employer.

We will be deliberately generous. This programme will not scream ‘only PRCA training is good enough’. We will explicitly say that there are plenty of excellent sources of learning out there, and as long as you commit to them, well, that’s just fine by us. 

Because our mission is not self-serving. It’s to do the best by our industry. And in doing this, we will create and raise common standards of practice.

So to summarise. PR and communications is in a good place. No. In a great place. But until we prove the value of what we do; make clear our commitment to ethical standards; embrace and embed and standardise professional ones, we will not achieve our potential. We will be less than we could be. Second best. And who wants to be second best? Not me.

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Francis Ingham is Director General of the UK & MENA Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA), a role he has held since 2007. He is also Chief Executive of the International Communications Consultancy Organisation (ICCO). 

In addition, he is Master of the City of London Company of Public Relations Practitioners; a Trustee of The Speaker’s Corner Trust; and External Examiner of The American University At Richmond. 

Twitter: @PRCAIngham
Online: www.prca.org.uk

#FuturePRoof: Edition Two launches with 39 new essays from authors around the world

Corporate investment in people and technology and an individual focus on continuous professional development (CPD) will drive the public relations industry forward.

This is the key message from #FuturePRoof: Edition Two, published today [Wednesday 7 September]. 

The book continues the discussion around key opportunities facing public relations, from convergence and skillset to Boardroom recognition and the pace of change.

Its aim is to assert public relations as a management discipline and demonstrate its value to organisational success. 

Topics include audience insight, employee advocacy, influencer relations, tools and technology, agile strategy and business models. There is also a clear prompt for practitioners to challenge management teams more and be much less risk averse. 

The second edition builds on the success of the first #FuturePRoof guide, launched in October 2015, which secured over 2,500 sales and downloads.

Agency owner and CIPR President-Elect candidate Sarah Hall is #FuturePRoof's founder and editor. 

She said: "The success of #FuturePRoof shows that public relations practitioners are aware of the direction of travel and are no longer prepared for other disciplines to eat their lunch. The public relations fight back starts here and now.

"Demand shows professionals want to close their competency gaps in order to provide strategic advice at management level. 

"What's more, the public relations industry is waking up to the fact that if we are truly guiding organisational strategy, it is common sense that other disciplines answer to us within the corporate hierarchy. I expect this narrative to get louder and louder.”

#FuturePRoof: Edition Two is dedicated to Dr Jon White, a guiding force and inspiration for the project. His book How to Understand and Manage Public Relations celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.

#FuturePRoof is available in hard copy via www.futureproofingcomms.co.uk and on Kindle via http://tinyurl.com/j8ocm4z.

Launch drinks are taking place at the PRCA in London from 6.30pm on Wednesday 7 September with all welcome.

To join the conversation follow @weareproofed and join the #FuturePRoof community on Facebook. 

#FuturePRoof 2 - call out for contributors

The #FuturePRoof 2 spec is now complete and we're looking for contributors.

The outline is below. If you'd like to write one of the chapters or you think there's a subject we need to cover, please get in touch with editor Sarah Hall at sarah@sarahhallconsulting.co.uk.

It's an ambitious production schedule and we'll be strictly adhering to the deadlines. We're asking for submissions by Friday 5th August, with the aim of publishing in early September. Chapters need to be 800-1200 words in length - full details will be supplied to those involved. 

We already have a number of authors signed up so if you'd like to join the #FuturePRoof community, please get in contact with a strong pitch to avoid disappointment. 

NOTE as of 05/07/16: Many thanks to those who pitched. The response has been overwhelming and we have some great content coming. We're now closing the pitch window unless you can contribute to the chapters still needing authors. Cheers, Sarah

Chapter titles and outline topics

1. PR as a management discipline; commanding the respect of the business community and the pitch to employers - Francis Ingham
2. Stronger together; closing the gap between theory and practice and the benefits of academic-practitioner engagement - Stephen Waddington
3. What #Brexit taught us about the opportunity for public relations; PR's role as strategic lead, making sense of complexity, managing reputation and telling the organisational story - Rob Brown 
4. Entrepreneurship, social dialogue and public relations; is PR a management discipline with strategic aims or an activist behaviour with social aims? - Ezri Carlebach
5. Serving the membership - is it time for the PRCA and CIPR to come together? - Richard Houghton
6. A CEO's view of public relations; the value it brings and the weaknesses practitioners still need to address - Matthew Hopkins
7. Engaging stakeholders in your organisation's purpose - a radical approach - Sean Trainor
8. Human resources; utilising HR in the drive to professionalism, raising standards and closing the gender pay gap - Liz Baines
9. Social mobility in PR; a career open to all. Diversity and widening access - Sarah Stimson
10. PR as the organisational conscience; PR's role in helping organisations find their place in society, ethics as part of daily practice and the death of CSR - Karan Chadda
11. Ethical comms; stories versus facts. Do communicators have a personal responsibility to ensure the public isn't misled? - Stuart Bruce
12. Lifelong learning; professionalism, CPD and the changing face of learning - Sally Keith
13. Employer branding; the employee journey - Bea Arnoutse
14. Employer expectations; beyond formal qualifications and the characteristics of the future employee - Tim Hudson
15. Delivering a 24/7 service; introducing an agile model, how to do this and the benefits - Dualta Redmond
16. Managing the integration of businesses; merging companies, disciplines and cultures - Ella Minty
17. Agile strategy development - Betteke van Ruler
18. Out of hours community management; what best practice in social media management and disaster planning looks like - Nathaniel Cassidy
19. Insights; audience led communications - Sarah Clark
20. Procurement; speaking the language of procurement and building a relationship outside of the marketing team - Tina Fegent
21. Client contact; building strong relationships and managing risk (bridging the gap where the main account handler sits outside of the senior team) - Farzana Baduel
22. Managing client expectations; solutions for managing financial negotiation and in particular over-servicing - Andrew Reeves
23. Staff salaries; handling wage inflation and salary bandings - Steve Earl
24. Incentivisation; how to empower employees and increase accountability and personal decision making so they buy into the wider company vision, while also reducing churn - Alicia Mellish
25. Company culture; managing always on and stress, middle manager presenteeism, management burn out and mental health - Paul Sutton
26. Leadership; how to identify and nurture rising stars, developing the leadership skill set and mentoring others - Flora Wilke and Lucia Dore
27. Internal comms; the changing face of internal comms, a potted history and emerging trends - Rachel Miller
28. Workflow; tried and tested campaign planning tools, with agency workflow diagram - Frederik Vincx
29. Influencer relations; future trends - Scott Guthrie
30. Employee engagement; how to use the latest technologies to achieve this - Ciara O'Keeffe 
31. Video as a communications channel; how corporate comms teams are missing a trick - Dan Slee
32. Live streaming tools; the strategic application - Leonardo Stavale
33. Public affairs; overhauling public affairs, much needed modernisation - Iain Anderson
34. Public consultations; ten steps to success and key learnings - Emily Osborne
35. SEO; where it fits with public relations - Darryl Sparey
36. Crowdfunding / crowdsourcing campaigns; using these as means of public engagement - Paul Cockerton
37. Horizon scanning; the latest emerging industry trends and shifts (AI, health and ad blocking) - Stephen Davies
38. Creativity; are practitioners successfully harnessing the power of storytelling and narration? - Andy Green
39. Measurement and evaluation; AMEC toolkit and PESO - Richard Bagnall
40. The importance of thanks - Dr Nicky Garsten

Video: #FuturePRoof editor Sarah Hall talks to Dr Jon White about the opportunity for PR

Are we going back to the future?

In 1999, Dr Jon White presented a paper to the Swiss Public Relations Society that stated the future was bright for PR practitioners. 

This was dependant on practitioners recognising 'the opportunities presented by the environment and management needs' and taking 'steps to educate and train themselves', as well as making 'full use of communication technology, to provide reliable, if not indispensable, services to managers as they seek to deal with complexity and manage successful businesses'.

Very little has changed.

Here #FuturePRoof editor Sarah Hall speaks to Dr Jon White about what has stopped the majority of PR practitioners making the most of that opportunity - and how we can do that now.

Dr Jon White is a consultant and visiting professor at Henley Business School and Cardiff University's School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies (JOMEC). You can follow him on Twitter: @DrJonWhite.  

You can read Jon's original paper: Innovation and the future of public relations practice: Beyond integrated marketing communication here.

Listen to #FuturePRoof with news from #PRfest and #AMECsummit

Here's the very latest #FuturePRoof podcast with Stephen Waddington and Sarah Hall.

On topic today: a run through of #PRFest, Scotland's first ever festival of public relations, organised by Aura PR founder Laura Sutherland. Tickets are still available for Friday's sessions and you can look up the details here.

And healthy debate around AMEC's new Integrated Evaluation Framework and resource designed to help communicators prove their value, which went live this afternoon. All the details can be found on the dedicated website.

Last but not least congrats to the twenty people including Stephen appointed to Ketchum's new Global Council, which replaces its previous Executive Committee. Really positive to see an equal gender split and truly global representation within the management team.

Podcast: #PRCensus, #WPRF2016, mental health, #BledCom, #PRfest, second book, and more…

Sarah Hall and Stephen Waddington talk about the latest data in public relations, industry projects and conferences.

PRCA PR Census shows growth in public relations, signposts challenges
The PRCA’s PR Census 2016 shows that public relations is booming but that there is no room for complacency on issue such as modernity, ethnicity and diversity.

#FuturePRoof mental health initiative for ICCO and PRCA
The latest #FuturePRoof project for ICCO and the PRCA is focused on mental health. It aims to characterise the issue and signpost to best practice, guidance and support. We need individuals and employers to share their experiences. Please contact Sarah if you’d like to get involved.

Global Body of Knowledge competency framework
The Global Alliance Global Body of Knowledge (GBOK) project published the third version of the Global Body of Knowledge framework. The work is being continued by the Professor Anne Gregory at University of Huddersfield.

Community of Practice, Bled
Sarah and Stephen will host a workshop with Dr. Jon White on 2 July at Bled to explore ways of improving dialogue between academics and practitioners. We welcome your ideas in the form of a letter to the conference.

AMEC Measurement Conference, London
The 2016 AMEC International Summit takes place in London 15 to 16, June. An updated framework for public relations measurement is expected to be launched.

Second #FuturePRoof book in the works
Combined downloads and sales of #FuturePRoof have topped 2,000. Sarah has started working the specification for a second book. Watch out for an invitation for contributions in the next month or so.

PR Festival, Edinburgh
Scotland’s first public relations festival will bring together thinkers and does in public relations on 16 and 17 June. Speakers and workshops will focus on the future of our business.

Further information
If you’d like to get involved in any of the #FuturePRoof initiatives please contact Sarah Hall; follow @WearePRoofed on Twitter; or join the Facebook community.

Platform services: public relations

A North East based venture capitalist adds value to investments with services such as public relations. Laura Richards, Marketing & PR Manager, Northstar Ventures, explains how.

Profile: venture capitalist offering agency services to portfolio companies

Insight: portfolio companies in a group benefit from centralised support services
 

Northstar Ventures is a venture capital firm dedicated to supporting high growth SMEs and high impact social enterprises. We employ a full time Marketing & PR Manager to look after all in-house public relations activity. In addition to traditional in-house public relations,we also offer public relations support to our portfolio companies, as part of our developing venture capitalist platform services.
 

The platform services model

The platform services model is already comfortably established within leading venture capital firms. International venture capitalists such as Andreessen Horowitz and Index Ventures make in-house specialists available to their portfolio companies to support with functions such as HR, recruitment, marketing and public relations, and business development.

These specialists are employed by, or on retainer for, the venture capitalist firm with services available to all investees for free or at a reduced cost.

At Northstar Ventures we are beginning to develop similar resources, initially offering the support of our Marketing & PR Manager to the companies we have invested in. In time we plan on developing this service to include not only committed support for public relations activities, but also functions such as finance and HR.
 

A resource for portfolio companies

Since beginning to offer support with marketing and public relations, we’ve seen interest predominantly from early stage companies who are either focusing on scaling their businesses, or launching a specific product or service.

Companies are typically only beginning to think about public relations strategies; some do not have the resources to hire someone in-house or pay for agency support while others are uncertain about what support they need.

In the last six months Northstar has provided support by way of: training on specific skills (e.g. writing and distributing press releases); advice on developing annual public relations strategies; hands-on support planning and implementing media and content strategies; signposting relevant training and agencies; and recruitment advice.
 

The dynamics of deal flow

The market for deal flow is very competitive: venture capitalist firms compete to attract the best companies looking for equity investment. One of the reasons we are developing a full range of platform services at Northstar is to establish us as the venture capitalist firm of choice to start-ups.

The most significant challenge with developing platform services is the time and resources required to implement them properly. As we are in the early stages of testing the demand for this additional support, the responsibility for all activities lies with our in-house Marketing & PR Manager.

Thus the challenge is to ensure that there are no conflicts of interest and that Northstar’s own public relations activities are not neglected.

On the flip side, the main benefit of offering platform services is in helping early stage businesses access skills and knowledge they may not otherwise be able to access; in demonstrating the value of public relations to early stage start-ups, we can encourage them to build it into their business development strategies.

Additionally there are opportunities for us to increase awareness of Northstar Ventures itself, either through direct mentions of Northstar in portfolio public relations activity, or via word of mouth recommendations.
 

Adding value to investments

Northstar Ventures currently pays for our in-house Marketing & PR Manager, covering the cost for time spent with portfolio companies.

The value to Northstar is two-fold: firstly as we have invested in all the companies we offer public relations support to, their success has a direct impact on us. By providing additional services that can help investees better run their companies, we increase the likelihood that we will see a return on our investment.

Secondly platform services help Northstar establish ourself as a ‘value added partner’ to the firms we invest in, helping to differentiate us from other investors in the region. This can increase the value of our portfolio by positioning Northstar as the first choice for companies seeking investment. 

Recognising the value of results through smarter measurement

Colin Cather, Creative Director, Bottle, believes smarter forms of measurement may offer agencies the potential for alternative, reward-based, billing models.

Profile: brand communications agency that specialises in public relations

Insight: measurement is the barrier to innovative billing models
 

We don’t have payment by results, yet, but we do have an increasingly clear view of the results we can achieve, and a sense of the relative value of those results to clients. 

What are the results? Well, I think that’s quite easy to describe. We create stories designed to make people care more about the brands we are working for. We build meaningful brands. 

We aim to create long-term shifts in perception and salience. Who else tries to achieve these results?

Advertising, that’s who. 

By that, I mean that some advertising, and the version of public relations that we are delivering, are both trying to build brand value. We want to grow awareness and reach new audiences with stories that forge a stronger connection between the brand and the audience. And to strengthen the brand connection with existing audiences.

But how do we measure those results? I think they are equivalent to advertising value. 

We are trying to shift the same needles-on-dials that advertising is trying to shift. The real problem, for me, is that even advertising doesn’t have a good measure of its own value.

If we are to solve the problem, public relations should have shared language with the rest of marketing disciplines.
 

Marketing vs. public relations

I have met some - both long-in-the-tooth leaders and fresh-faced graduates - who don’t even see public relations as part of the marketing function. And, problematically, I have met prospective clients whose public relations function is detached from the marketing function. 

That can’t work. We are trying to achieve the same things - the same results - by different, complementary, means. Usually in different channels, and with different forms of content.

Public relations often has to persuade intermediaries to tell a story for us such as bloggers and journalists. But that doesn’t mean we need our own language of reputation and trust.
 

Measuring the value of public relations

If we are talking to the client’s finance director about where they can see this value added, then it is in the brand equity. It’s on the balance sheet, and not the profit and loss account.

It’s in the share price, not the sales volumes. 

It’s in the share of market, which is why setting a measurement dial on share of voice (SOV) has some appeal because there are proven links between these two.

But because the channels we often operate in represent ‘infinite’ space, then it’s not an absolute measure of SOV. But it can be a relative measure.

And because SOV is too crude, it doesn’t measure the quality of the story, then it needs to be SOV on meaningful topics and themes, versus competitors. All of this is measurable. 

I know this shouldn’t be the only test, but we have found that clients - right up to board level - understand these things. The measures have face validity, and they help us to have integrated and purposeful discussions with the other agencies we are working with.

Then together we can get a shared set of measures, of our combined added brand value. And then we can begin to talk to clients about linking reward to results.

Three drivers of change for agencies in public groups

Three separate forces are working in tandem to drive network agencies to integrate operations and services with other members of the larger, publicly-listed group of marketing companies to which they belong, says David Gallagher, Senior Partner and CEO EMEA, Ketchum.
 

Profile: international agency offering an integrated solution within a holding company

Insight: large agencies are using the advantage of networks and scale to drive efficiencies and tackle integrated opportunism
 

Clients and shareholders

One is a push for greater efficiency, which comes from clients and shareholders. Clients expect agency fees to reflect the value added to their own services, products or reputation, with little appetite for contributing to agency overhead and profit.

Shareholders have expectations for consistent, profitable growth of revenue, keenly interested in keeping operating costs to a minimum.

While clients and shareholders have always had these interests, the market now seems acutely sensitive to inefficiencies. This may be due to relatively slow or weak economic growth generally, a growing supply of lower-cost digitally-enabled service providers, and the potential of big data marketing services to reduce or eliminate unnecessary costs.

As a result, many agencies are already integrating back-office operations – HR, IT, finance, real estate, among others - while quickly mobilising to offer clients low-fat service propositions that reduce redundant management touch-points, automate reports and slash commissions or extend payment terms.
 

Expert knowledge: sector and skills

A second driver is specialisation. Generalist public relations services of the past have fragmented into highly specialised areas of knowledge (including industry, sector and market expertise) and skill (including project management, research and analysis, creative development, content creation, and community management, among many others).

No one agency can develop the specialist expertise required by today’s client quickly enough or at sufficient scale on their own, so they seek complementary partners to offer integrated service propositions.
 

Tackling integrated opportunities

And a third force is opportunity. Practitioners that look at communications challenges holistically and objectively recognise a market open to finely tuned solutions – those that include the best mix of earned, paid, shared and owned content.

The challenge is to offer a perspective beyond a native discipline or expertise that sees and applies the right combination and sequence of activities across channels. 

Groups like ours deliver this by offering learning and networking opportunities across the network to raise capabilities generally; through specially selected and trained accelerators to manage integrated assignments; and now, increasingly, by physically locating agencies together in campus-like spaces to make collaboration easy and efficient.

Even with these features, integrating operations and services isn’t easy. Client priorities vary widely and make a ‘standard’ approach difficult, and while there’s a lot of talk about moving beyond an hourly-based fee structure, few viable alternatives have emerged.

The biggest challenge may be the insecurities or arrogance of practitioners as we contemplate a market in which what we know or do, won’t always have the same value as it once did, at least in comparison to experts from other disciplines.

Performance public relations

Manifest is making a bid to break away from the fee based business model and apply performance marketing techniques to public relations. Here Alex Myers, its Founder and Managing Director, shares how they’ve done it.


Profile: integrated social media, content marketing, inbound marketing and video production

Insight: creating a new business is a way of incubating a new proposition and business model
 

In my chapter in the original #FuturePRoof book, I asked the question how do you charge for awesome?

Although deliberately flippant, this question is something I had been struggling with for a while. In an industry where ideas matter most (and will continue to do so as the ‘arms and legs’ of the industry become less valuable), it seems odd we all get paid by the hour.

We win a pitch because our strategy and ideas are the best, and our clients judge success by the business impact of our work, yet our fees are dictated simply by how long it takes us to deliver the campaign. We are a creative industry that charges like a cleaner.

As with so many things, we face a simple binary choice in this business: change the status quo, or become it. So how are we introducing new billing practices at Manifest?
 

The making of Naked & Famous

Naked & Famous is Manifest’s sandbox. It’s a testing ground for new billing models, new ways of working with clients and challenging the norms of the industry. When young brands or startups want us to work with them, Naked & Famous offers an affordable and versatile option.

They just need to be willing to try something new. We’ve stripped back the traditional agency structure, offering full transparency across everything (that’s the naked bit), and we focus purely on the specific business results the client wants to see (the famous bit). It means we don’t bill by the hour, we bill by how effective the campaign is.
 

Reward by revenue-share

Closed on Monday is an amazing male grooming brand and one of the first clients to take us up on our Naked & Famous service. Without any other external marketing behind them, we knew the business growth of Closed on Monday would be largely driven by PR, especially in the US where the brand has no resident management team.

Rather than suggesting a retained fee, we asked the guys how much of the cost of a product they’d be willing to pay for someone to buy it. To use an analogy with online businesses, we were co-creating a cost per acquisition (CPA) rate.

We were then able to map out the projection of fees alongside sales, and overlay our expected minimum cost to agency for delivering a campaign. There’s no cap on how much we can get paid, but importantly this billing model focuses our attention on delivering a creative campaign with optimal return on investment (ROI).

We also feel we can move outside of our traditional remit if needed, or if there’s an opportunity. We can appoint third parties or commission research with our portion of the revenue share if we can see the numbers adding up.

It makes us feel differently about the money we’re earning. It also means the end of the client/agency relationship; this is a business partnership. We’re both working together to sell more products and build advocacy from the brand’s customer base.
 

Innovation: making it up as you go

I freely admit that we’re making this shit up as we go along, which might sound scary or lacking strategic calculation, but something I’ve come to realise is that this is how it feels to do something for the first time. Like it or not, experimentation is the only way anything new comes about. Someone has to be the one to ask, “why not?”

When I asked James Adkin, Director, Closed on Monday about how he sees things working, he said, “The way our Naked & Famous billing is structured is a perfect demonstration of Manifest’s alternative way of approaching any challenge – we have a revenue share agreement in place, replacing traditional billing practices and remarkably replacing the traditional client/agency relationship with something far more akin to a business partnership.

“There is a genuine sense of collaboration flowing through everything we do. It shows an agency confident in its work, trusting in its approach and willing to invest in a long term relationship.”

Will revenue-sharing replace our traditional billing structure? Probably not alone – but offering it as an option for relevant briefs means that when we smash expectations, our fees surge accordingly, instead of hitting the glass ceiling of the hours we agreed we would spend on things.

We have certainly been involved in campaigns for the likes of BrewDog and Samsung where a revenue share would have better rewarded our creativity, and because of the way revenue shares restructure the working relationship, I don’t think it would have had a negative impact on our relationship or perceived value-for-money.

Combining content marketing and public relations to deliver results

Julius Duncan, Director, Remarkable Content talks through how in the last two years Remarkable has evolved from a PR agency focused primarily on media relations to a full service agency with storytelling, creative and content at its core.

Profile: content marketing and public relations agency

Insight: every organisation needs to tell its story in a creative way across different forms of media
 

In 2014 Remarkable Group brought together a range of different communications specialists to create content marketing and PR agency, Remarkable Content.

A core skill set in the team remains public relations but focusing on creative solutions that drive media coverage, prompt direct public engagement, and protect reputation.

This storytelling core has been strengthened by the integration of a creative director, digital strategists, social media managers, content marketing strategists, designers, coders, videographers, copywriters, animators and sound engineers.

The decision to create Remarkable Content was in response to the market’s demand for a smarter and more measurable type of content-led communications.
 

Moving on from media relations

The number of clients that will accept the vanity metric of media coverage as proof of value is shrinking rapidly. Smart and progressive clients want integrated, cross channel campaigns built around long-lived creative ideas that can tell a story over time.

They also require a clear and measurable link from this activity back to improved business results.

Building content and production skills in-house

Running an integrated agency model like this and keeping the team well utilised is a more involved challenge than feeding a simple public relations model. One thing you have to get right is a business development approach that creates the profile of work where all specialists can be well utilised. Of course many agencies manage this utilisation challenge by taking the freelance route.

However, we believe it is important to have core skills amongst the full time team. This not only provides assurance on quality but creates a team with real skin in the game, and builds an environment where knowledge sharing and inspiration can thrive.

Managing a project with a blend of digital production, social media management, design and media relations takes more rigour in the planning and project management phase. To achieve success it’s important to have experienced, broadly skilled people who are experts in project management.

The benefits for clients are content-led campaigns that reach and then influence the behaviour of audiences across multiple touch points - social, print and broadcast, digital and real-world. Without a broader skill set, and broad mind-set, this cannot be achieved.

For one of our clients, a London based property developer, the benefits are stacking up. This company had the foresight to seek a content-focused communications agency that could get a splash in the Evening Standard but also thinks more broadly. A content strategy workshop at the outset of the campaign created a consistent customer journey across the website, social channels, paid media, earned media, and at events.

By creating this joined up customer experience we are achieving greater engagement rates and Google Analytics show that visitors to the developer’s website from social media are converting into enquiring customers at a higher rate than any other traffic source.     

This type of measurable return on investment (ROI) is possibly the greatest benefit of running a fully integrated model. It enables us to prove to clients that taking a progressive approach to communications creates business value, and drives their commercial results. 

Integrating paid media into the traditional earned agency model

Jim Hawker, Founder and Director, Threepipe candidly shares his story about the challenge of modernising an agency from earned to paid, shared and owned.

Profile: digital marketing and public relations agency

Insight: integrating paid and earned across all types of media delivers strong results
 

In 2013 we made the decision to change our public relations agency model. This has been a costly and at times a pretty painful experience. It has meant learning to work with very different types of people and personalities and a very steep learning curve on all sides that had to be overcome.

In the process we have lost clients, lost pitches and at times even lost ourselves within the marketing mix.
 

All change: clients and media

At no time have I regretted it though as I passionately believe that the old ways of doing and measuring public relations are becoming redundant and even the least knowledgeable of clients recognise the need for change.

As I write this the news is breaking that The Independent newspaper is going digital and that the Trinity Mirror Group has made most of its local paper photographers redundant, in favour of taking more User Generated Content from social feeds.

It was Gini Dietrich that first devised the Paid, Earned, Shared and Owned (PESO) model and that has become the central part of how we are organised internally and how we aim to create client campaigns. If you wander around Threepipe you may at first glance not notice anything particularly different from most public relations agency offices.
 

Dual screens: data and content

Look more closely though and you will see half our team pouring over dual screens, churning through client data, as half of our agency income is now derived from paid media campaigns running through paid search and display advertising.

These campaigns demand people who understand data and analytics to very high degree and way above what you would expect from a public relations professional.

Having these data and analytical skills within Threepipe has become massively important in enabling us to be able to create a more data led and integrated approach to our work. Increasingly we are running native advertising and social commerce campaigns through the content we are creating and the channels we are managing for our clients. None of this would be possible without the paid media skills within the company.

Paying your way

Paid media allows us to extend the reach and improve the targeting of the content we are creating. This combined with the data and analytical skills allows us to demonstrate impact and value of the client work in a much clearer way.

I meet many public relations professionals who shudder at the thought of a paid approach. But I increasingly wonder how they are running their campaigns. Even at the most simple level, if you want to run social media campaigns you need to spend money for that content to be seen and targeted.

Increasingly the social influencers who delivered earned media coverage are now being represented by agents who are demanding fees for content to be created because they know the value of their own networks.

As we enter 2016 I see media buying agencies pitching and winning social media accounts and I see search agencies winning public relations business. Both these disciplines understand the power of paid media which makes them a big threat to the public relations industry.

Public relations professionals need to be more open minded to the impact a paid approach can have, before another agency eats their lunch.

Agency basics: clients and people, hours and fees

Ruth Allchurch, Managing Director, Cirkle believes agencies are simple businesses that are well understood by clients. Here she explains why innovative business models threaten clarity and risk confusion.

Profile: consumer brand public relations agency

Insight: procurement-led client relationships leave limited opportunity for business model innovation

In an increasingly cost conscious, post-recession landscape, clients are consistently looking for efficiencies, economies of scale and value for money with their third party partners.

The role of procurement within businesses is increasing and they are flexing their muscles more within the public relations agency market.

Straightforward businesses

Agencies need to maintain profit margins in order to survive and there needs to be science and rigor applied to managing each one and its people. This is where, in my opinion, maintaining a healthy 55% staff cost/income ratio is critical and where charging an hourly rate can be enormously beneficial as it is an effective way to keep track of client spend and man hours within the agency.

Clients know exactly what they are getting for their investment in terms of time and the agency knows exactly how to track capacity within the team, if the fee estimate is right from the off.

The traditional agency model of charging by the hour has allowed for and continues to allow for accurate costings and budgets to be presented to clients in a language that they understand. Clients can compare and contrast agencies before they appoint who they want to work with based on cost alone.

But this is a dangerous strategy, no? Surely one hour spent on coming up with a killer strategy or brilliant creative idea is not the same as one hour spent selling in a press release – or is it? How can we estimate effectively for the creative process? Immediately this throws up a flaw within the traditional model. Should we be vetted on cost alone?
 

Standing up for value

It is far too tempting for clients to hone in on our rate cards and be clouded by what they perceive to be better value than another agency. There’s a need for a wider context and I believe this requires confidence to stand up for our discipline and educate clients on the power and real value of public relations.

Some very profitable and successful public relations agencies have taken the bold step to move away from selling time to charging for insights and ideas.

So, is that working? Well they are making a profit so it must be, surely? But I don’t believe it is that clear cut.

The first issue is how on earth can we monetise a creative process where the output is so subjective? It shows confidence and puts a different value lens on our industry, which I’m 100% in support of.

However, only certain clients are going to buy this approach. I’m not convinced that procurement are ready to embrace this approach from agencies due to its ambiguity and lack of transparency. I also feel that it is inherently risky for agencies, not least because a client can always change the goalposts and require endless re-writes if they so desire. The impact on profitability could be fatal. 

I think the model will change over time as it needs to. We should constantly innovate and push the boundaries as an industry and our pricing structure is no exception. Neither approach is foolproof but we need to find the confidence to approach our discipline from two perspectives – both value and time.

Size isn’t everything, it’s what you do with it

Small agencies with a strong proposition can compete nationally and internationally, say Dieter and Pam Lloyd, Founders and Directors, PamLloyd PR.
 

Profile: food specialist agency based in Bristol, UK

Insight: clear focus provides discipline, expertise, excellent work and longstanding client relationships
 

In the dozen years since Facebook launched, we’ve lived through the financial crisis, and the landscape has changed. Agency models, their people, skills and clients have all evolved. They’ve had to.

These changes have brought large, medium and small agencies into closer orbit.

Small agencies have developed a stronger consultancy offering by partnering with providers from other marketing disciplines. Larger agencies have developed low or no frills offers to enable them to compete at lower rates.

Some aspects of being small and sector specific remain, continuing to differentiate small outfits from medium sized generalist and large corporate consultancies.
 

Flat model, skills agility

Agility is much overused, but agility in a small agency is demanded every day. Despite the changes in the competitive environment, the small agency structure remains flat because it has to. Small agency teams are widely skilled generalists. Everyone is involved in project implementation every day.

Focus on marketing expertise

Making the decision to stay small and sector specific has other advantages. If the business objective is to develop team expertise through continuous learning, rather than growth for its own sake, the specialist agency can disregard projects outside its sector. It keeps the agency proposition simple.
 

Client acquisition and retention through focus

Agencies have been under pressure to skill up on all things digital. The dominance of online media over print media fighting to keep its place and the power of social channels mean that those who failed to adapt have failed to survive.

There is renewed opportunity for specialists. Prospective clients are uncertain about customers' behaviour and worried about market disrupting competition. They are often reticent about committing to a full campaign. Instead they have demanded ad hoc, project based services from sector specialists delivered using newly acquired skills.

The smaller budgets associated with projects also seem to militate against changing agencies for each project. The investment from both client and agency to understand each other leads to follow up work, shared learning and combined skills development which strengthens the relationship.
 

Skills development

The threat to small sector specialists now comes from skills specialists in other marketing disciplines - SEO, design, experiential - all claiming to tell the product or service story like public relations through content creation and dissemination while also offering paid media experience, data analysis and insight. To compete small public relations agencies have had to acquire these skills.

Flat and agile is likely to remain the prevalent small agency model. Partnerships with skills specialists (SEO, research, data science) will also be important to improve the combined competitive offering to clients.

The pressure is now to recruit skills outside media relations. In a specialist agency each team member needs firstly to be enthusiastic about the chosen sector. Traditional public relations skills are still relevant combined with new disciplines which are now equally important.

The desire to learn, the right attitude and organisational ability remain vital. Recent recruits to PamLloyd PR come from recruitment, film making, fashion and the public sector; united by a common love of food.

Our most pressing challenge is talent retention. Small sector specialist agencies are not for everyone.

In the past five years experienced professionals have left our business and exited the profession entirely for one or more of the following reasons – more money, less money, less stress, more stability. The tasks we face are how to retain multi-skilled people and continue to evolve our offer to keep existing clients and attract new ones.

Building the world’s biggest virtual public relations agency

George Blizzard and Nicky Imrie, Founders and Directors, The PR Network explain how their network of freelance practitioners provides the expertise, flexibility and scale to work with large clients.
 

Profile: virtual public relations agency

Insight: a virtual agency made-up of independent consultants offers clients a breadth of flexibility


The explosion of the custom built economy means that businesses can no longer dictate their terms. Whether it’s a suit or a car - customers know that someone, somewhere will be able to give them exactly what they want.

We used that insight as the bedrock of our thinking when we set up the PR Network in 2005. Instead of starting with a particular model, we started with a bunch of great independent consultants, and let our clients decide how, when and where they wanted to use them.

For ten years we have worked in a variety of ways, here’s four of the most popular:
 

#1 Classic retainer

Amongst our many retained clients, we are the agency of record for Zipcar in the UK. Part of our appeal to a young, dynamic company like Zipcar is the breadth of talent to continually evolve our team to meet their needs e.g. having won the business to raise their profile amongst b2b and b2c audiences, we seamlessly switched to provide a public affairs programme to lobby Parliament. We’ve also launched the brand in Spain and advised on European strategy for public relations and public affairs.
 

#2 White labelling for agencies

We work with a growing number of UK and US public relations and advertising agencies. Some outsource particular areas of specialism to us where they don’t have the in-house capabilities to cover a particular opportunity. A great example here is a UK tech agency that used us to help win and retain a brief to represent an African Government.

More commonly agencies will use us to provide a white labelled global or hyper local outreach, using our international and regional teams. Examples here include launching a major mobile phone network upgrade across major UK cities; and launching a ten country consumer campaign for a major automotive company. All behind the scenes.

#3 In-house extension

One of our clients is a major car manufacturer. Whilst its experienced in-house public relations team has the car industry media licked – it wanted to increase its profile in the luxury and consumer tech space. Having pitched against traditional agencies they chose us because we could integrate our team on site with theirs – reporting into our central team for support and guidance.
 

#4 Hub and spoke: international team

Most of our international work involves providing a central point of co-ordination. A great example of this is when Viagogo hired us to promote the brand in the Netherlands, Japan and Central / South America during The World Cup. With minimal internal resource to manage the team we also provide a UK-based hub to direct the team and provide one point of communications for the client. This test project was successful and we have worked subsequently with Viagogo on other multi-market projects.

We believe that versatility in terms of a broad range of skills and expertise, together with the ability to adapt to different client structures and resource needs will shore agencies up for the future, making agencies truly #FuturePRoof. 

PR Freelance: independence and freedom of choice

Personal empowerment and excellent work are the qualities of a micro public relations agency. But it’s not for the faint hearted, says Ella Minty, Reputation Management Consultant.


Profile: freelance agency

Insight: independent practitioners can operate at the highest levels in practice and are limited only by personal ambition and skills
 

Being a freelancer in public relations is not a career choice contemplated by many although it should be. It comes with a distinct set of challenges and, at the same time, an abundance of opportunities and multitude of stress-tests.

To begin with, you need to have a very strong character and be an articulate individual: of utmost relevance is your ability to relate not just to the teams you are a part of or lead but, also, to weigh in the various agendas at play in a project.
 

Skills and continuous learning

Your listening and analytical skills are far more important than your oral prowess and a cautious yet polite approach to team and leadership dynamics will serve you best.

Being a freelancer is about independence and freedom of choice - the former comes from the lack of conventional office restrictions and latter from being your own master: you choose which clients you want to take and which projects to work on.

You don’t necessarily have to be self-employed: you can hold a full-time/part-time job and freelance, too; sometimes you may even have another business to run.

Freelancing provides you with that special position to do what you want, how you want it and for whom you choose to do it.

You can’t be a successful freelance without a very solid educational background and relevant training: you need to constantly study, read and keep abreast with the latest developments in your specialism.
 

Senior staff expectation

Freelancing comes with very high client expectations, generally surrounding you hitting the ground running: you are not a trainee nor can you be a junior. Clients and their staff look up to you and bring you in for your expertise – you need to prove your value and remember that you have no safety blanket nor an agency to back you up: you’re on your own.

Freelancing has its challenges: you work, lead and steer through different corporate and individual cultures, you manage in-house teams and direct agency staff, you become privy to all sorts of office politics and you may not have someone to pilot ideas or brainstorm with.

You need to be a self-starter and a very accomplished, self-sufficient individual. The most important part is to steer clear from egos.

Opportunities are never scarce when it comes to freelancing: you work on different projects, you get almost constantly professionally and ethically challenged and you need to quickly learn where the barriers are.

In doing so, you build some incredible networks that are much stronger than the usual coffee room chat and have much longer shelf-life. You also have the opportunity to assess your own knowledge gaps and those of others while mentoring, coaching, developing and setting up various corporate structures and teams.

The best part of it all is that, sometimes, when you look back and take stock of the impact of your work it can be hugely satisfying.

Evolution of the agency business

Alison Clarke, Principal, Alison Clarke Communications believes that there’s a chasm emerging between the business model of traditional agencies, and the demands of modern clients. Smart agencies are building businesses in this space.

This industry faces the biggest challenge in its history. Our business model was built on the premise of strong, creative talent bringing contacts, ideas and expertise to help solve client problems. All this was in return for an on-going relationship fee calculated on time.

It’s an incredibly simple model and yet it has witnessed a paradigm shift that threatens its future. The fundamental elements of the model present a contradiction that we need to resolve – and fast.

We operate a fixed cost base of talent working in offices with technology and an infrastructure. Clients need flexible, fluid consultant relationships that are available 24/7 but purchased on an ad-hoc and project basis much of the time.

It’s worth reflecting on the component parts of the model to see why a commitment to evolve is the only way to survive.
 

Talent: generation gaps

We have nothing to offer if we don’t attract and retain the best talent. But this is an industry led by Baby Boomers at the top of the major holding companies and Gen X in the smaller independents. It has much to learn about how to motivate and inspire Gen Y, millennials and beyond.

The cost of talent acquisition is so much greater than talent development that we have to make it a priority. We still need to find new models of engagement with those generations that goes beyond flexi working and duvet days.

But it’s not without its challenges. One consultancy statistic on churn revealed that over 60% of departures at junior to mid-level had left the industry altogether. This isn’t just about promotion, pay and progression. This profession is tough and demanding and not as appealing to all as some of us might think.
 

Client need: knowledge, project driven

As in-house practitioners and departments become ever more sophisticated their demands and needs are changing. They want sector expertise, in-depth knowledge and understanding and increasingly they want to buy this on a project and ad hoc basis.
 

Commercial reality

Overlay the talent challenge and flexible client needs with a fixed cost heritage and structure and you can start to see the tension. This challenges growth, margins and both staff and client retention.

We need to re-examine our offer as a matter of urgency.

As all sales best practice knows, this isn’t about what we have, where we are and what we offer. It’s about listening to what clients want to buy and how and when they want to buy it.

If we understand that we can start the process of redefining how we work, how we’re structured and how we engage the finest talent in order to make us truly #FuturePRoof.

Redesigning the public relations discipline at US agencies

Renee Wilson, President, PR Council sets out how public relations is outsmarting rival disciplines through innovation, helping clients build better organisations, and how this is how and where its future and huge value lies.

Is your public relations firm prepared to navigate uncharted territory? Does it have the courage to move from its comfort zone? If not, it had better learn quickly. Clients are expecting it.

According to a 2015 survey of global marketers conducted by Relationship Audits & Management, clients feel that answering the brief is often simply a ‘hygiene factor’ of the engagement.

“Many clients are looking for the agencies firstly to add to their brief, and go beyond and think into the future,” said Simon Rhind-Tutt, the company’s founder and managing partner.

“This is one of the things that differentiate agencies that are successful versus those that are not, that is the ability to lead into the future.”
 

Fit for the future

Design thinking is a hot area in business strategy, and for good reason. By putting an emphasis on future conditions rather than current needs, this approach can rewire an organization to compete at the highest level.

More and more US public relations firms are harnessing the power of design thinking, through the lens of the client; from the service they provide, to the products they offer and to the culture they’re building.

They are being more creative, more analytical; they’re embracing complexity, engineering innovative partnerships and building opportunities for those who come after us. They are embracing breakthrough innovations such as programmatic buying, which has the potential to turn great content into commerce.
 

Designing better businesses

As a result, US firms that are moving quickly to evolve are gaining a greater share of the marketing and communications pie. You don’t have to look hard for examples.

• 95% of PR Council members report that clients are asking them to lead in content marketing; 70% say clients are asking them to lead in creative, and 34% of our members are now getting the opportunity to lead in paid media, a percentage that is surely to grow in years ahead.
   
• Last year, in a joint PR Council and Association of National Advertisers (ANA) survey of senior marketers, nearly two-thirds (63%) said their top priority was Integrated Marketing. That might explain why our members are working with CMOs – in addition to CCOs - more often; in a 2015 survey, nearly half of our members (45%) said that working with CMOs was becoming a more common part of their job (up from 34% in 2014).
   
• Before I joined the PR Council, when I worked for an agency, I recall being in various client meetings watching in dismay as our strongest ideas got shunned simply because they were delivered by an account director rather than someone with creative or strategic planner in their titles. 

Until recently, most public relations firms didn’t have the planning department, or strategic insights personnel to support their strategic thinking. We knew how to create big ideas but not necessarily how to present them in data-driven, insightful ways. We do now. Not only is the planning function now evident in large multinational firms, but in the US, midsize and boutique firms are adapting similar structures. Agencies can now compete on their own, or fit easily into other structures.
 

Beyond amplification

The power of earned influence and earned media has never been greater, and no discipline is more hardwired than public relations to orchestrate conversations. Many organizations are finding their most powerful integrated communications platforms are built from the core of PR.

In the age of ad blocking, which hovers over other disciplines like the sword of Damocles, we’re marching forward because we have the ability to create, own and amplify persuasive content that reaches influencers across all media.

No matter what an agency calls itself these days – PR, integrated communications or digital ninja powerhouse – those that possess public relations thinking at their core are in a position of strength.

If we can lead our clients on a path toward a redesigned discipline, we will go a long way to securing our future.