PR Gets a Boost

January 19, 2010 | Posted by: Melissa Chadwick

Although I somewhat resent The Economist’s implication that the PR industry is benefitting from others’ pain in the story headline, “Other firms’ suffering has bolstered the public-relations business,” the article does point out some exciting and positive happenings in the PR industry during this down time. 

According to the article, spending on PR in the US was up nearly 4% in 2008 and 3% in 2009, while advertising decreased almost 3% and 8% over the same period.  Other PR services such as blogger outreach was up more than 10% this past year.  I was a little surprised by these numbers, but not totally.

Why? I may be biased here, but PR firms are uniquely positioned to deal with the changing media landscape.  We’re morphing with the industry into new territory that has traditionally belonged to pure advertising or marketing shops.  But PR firms making this transition have an advantage.  As the owners of “the story,” PR pros know what it takes to create compelling content and communicate the right message through the best channels to reach a targeted audience.  Pure-play advertising firms may be able to develop a pretty ad, but will the message resonate?  As our universe of publications continues to shrink, we (PR people) – as the article points out – have been very flexible in our ability to adapt and find new and creative avenues to get the news out to reporters -- and even customers directly.

It will be interesting to see how PR will continue to evolve and an industry and how firms will juggle and position themselves as the competition heats up – and not just between PR firms, but advertising and marketing shops too.  The key will lie in smart people who can own the story, adapt to the changing ways information is consumed and execute with laser precision on behalf of clients who need to get their stories told more than ever.  

As a PR practitioner in danger of giving my industry too big of pat on the back, I’d love to hear your thoughts.