The document discusses the major issues facing the public relations industry in 2011. It notes that while global PR saw modest growth in 2010, the UK market was hit hard by declines in the public sector. The top concerns for the UK PR industry were the economic conditions, attracting talent, and competition from other marketing disciplines. Five key issues to watch included the continued rise of digital PR, the collision of marketing and PR fueled by social media, managing crises exacerbated by social media, tapping emerging international markets, and heightened focus on ethics in public relations.
Introduction Thanks to PRCA and to all of you for attending today My turn – I found this process – coming up with these ideas – interesting and I hope you do too.
I’d like to start by way of a little context, mostly drawn from our Global Rankings report for 2010. We get a lot of financial information from agencies all over the world for this – and we use this to rank agencies and also to estimate the size and growth of the global PR industry. 8% drop – 2009 was a tough year. I don’t know if it was the toughest year ever – but one thing we can say is that PR budgets – for perhaps the first time – were not cut quicker or more brutally than other marketing disciplines. This is encouraging news. Contrary to some of the popular opinion you hear out there, I don’t think the PR industry fared much better than other disciplines – the figures demonstrate the 8 percent decline was broadly in line with other disciplines. The good news – 2010 was considerably better. We won’t have figures until later in the year, but we forecast single digit growth globally. The UK we feel is broadly in line with that, as it was with the global decline in 2009. Crisis and corporate – accentuated by the some of the financial issues out there. Digital growing rapidly, albeit from a small base.
Next – as part of this report we surveyed around 500 agency heads worldwide – and I’ll introduce a few of the findings for you. We asked people how optimistic they were and then compiled an optimism rating out of 10. And then we compared the rating with the last time we did this exercise at the end of 2008 which if, you’ll recall, was the perhaps the lowest point in terms of the economy. Global, slightly up. The PR industry is naturally optimistic, people don’t have too much trouble putting the best spin on things. UK – fairly encouraging jump there, but still lower than the global average, so a little caution around. NA – the US has rebounded strongly, an optimistic country. And for a little schauenfreude at the expense of our friends on the continent, Western Europe is the only region were optimism has dropped for obvious economic reasons that remain pressing.
Talent – that might seem high but that is actually lower than the global average – the UK is pretty well stocked with good PR talent. But then I suppose I have to say that standing here today… Competition from other marketing disciplines – very interesting, a fast riser this one and something we will come too later. Measurement – lower than you might think. Why? I think measurement is on of those issues that might stop the PR industry growing long-term, but isn’t going to make it shrink short-term. And it’s pretty difficult to resolve.
Last set of findings. Clients – Fair reflection of the UK. The case for PR as a boardroom issue has largely been made, and made successfully. Media – Although I’m sure that doesn’t include the 3 journalists here today. Growth – CSR is interesting because that disappeared a little during the recession, so it’s nice to see it come back. W-o-m which is pretty much referring to digital.