Where do we go from here?
This week, Keith O'Brien's "What goes online" column in PRWeek discusses how the expectations that public relations firms would die off at the same rate that media outlets did (or somewhere therabouts) is off base, and that adaptation and re-focusing would keep many firms is on point. I won't comment too much, as this piece stands alone, but to say that the ship has definitely sailed when you have an executive of a Fortune 500 company say to O'Brien that agencies "don't have to maintain their own blog, but if I say, 'Technorati,' and they don't know what I'm talking about, the interview is over." Wow. In a way, I'm not surprised, and pleased to hear that at least one person out there has this kind of knowledge and knows how to utilize it to his or her company's benefit when assessing the abilities of a public relations firm.
Earlier in the piece, O'Brien says:
First of all, the PR spend is miniscule compared to ad buys. True, public relations has traditionally experienced difficulties with measurement, but technology is changing that. CEOs have begun moving communications professionals to the C-suite at such a rate that PRWeek have the words "newly-created position" as a keyboard shortcut. And yet, communications expertise is still currently undervalued. Marketing budget-conscious Fortune 500 would be foolish to slash PR budgets in half (from high seven-figures to low seven-figures) while keeping a $40 million ad spend. The marketing shave, if any, will come from traditional advertising.
This definitely echoes some of the sentiments I had heard while attending an Association of National Advertisers (ANA) event last summer. Ad spend is down for some companies, or at least is shifting from traditional (read: broadcast and print) to interactive / online / mobile opportunities. It was stated by more than one executive speaking at the event that outreach and relationships were a necessity in today's world, which is where, for the most part, public relators (actually a word!) and corporate communicators will come in.
