Current Status of the PR Industry The world’s Public Relations agency field has been rapidly growing and PR is quickly evolving, encompassing extensive functions and emerging as a vital component in the industry. What initially started with overseeing media relations and employee communication, Public Relations is now increasingly used for crisis management, strategic communication, customer relations and brand building as well. The medium used by the consumers and the media business is changing, and so are the PR practices. More people are catching up on their daily dose of news online. Most of the PR mediums have gone digital and offline is losing its charm, slowly becoming obsolete. The biggest change has been brought in due to the alarming rise of social media popularity. Social Media has been leveraged by PR to connect with a wider audience and spread message effectively. Social media provides the advantage of responding spontaneously to real-time crisis, critics, accidents, recalls and any other emergencies. Industries have been using social media to monitor media activities, and the hottest trends and respond effectively. Public relations consultancy is continuing to benefit from social media and digital activity. And according to the Word Report, conducted by The Holmes Report and the International Communications Consultancies Organisation, 72% of the respondents reported that digital and social media were one of the top three growth drivers. Also, in terms of agency growth, the study shows that the marketing communication has surpassed corporate reputation. A recent study on the PR industry has brought to light certain shifting trends.
There has been a steep decline in the Agency-of-record relationship. What had been more than 50% of companies reporting an AOR relationship has now been reduced down to mere 15%. An increasing demand for specialized and regionally focused agency has been reported for the past few years and still remains on a high. These agencies offer marketing insight, unique perspective and strategic point-of-view to the companies and are becoming instrumental to sustain in this highly competitive period. With companies re-considering the importance of Public Relations and Communications, it has become a vital component in the business development. They are more focused on improving their Public Relations and hence there is a rise in budget allocated management and evaluation. The companies are also putting in extra effortto improve their customer relations. Public Relations has also been increasingly implemented to establishing strong internal communication. Focused more on the customers and employees, there is a relative decline in marketing and product PR.