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Media Intelligence
The “Convergence” of PR and Marketing: 6 Trends to WatchBy Fred Cook, Director of the USC Annenberg Center for Public Relations
All business sectors are subject to the inevitable changes that come along with advancements in technology, improvements in education or perhaps macro-economic disruptions. But every once in a while, an industry undergoes a major sea change that has the potential to redefine the category itself. This is the case today with the public relations profession.
The very nature of public relations and what it means to “do PR” is changing underneath our feet right now. Corporate clients are increasingly focused on executing integrated marketing campaigns that can be more precisely monitored, tracked and evaluated for direct return on investment. In the digital age, that has translated into blurred lines between previously distinct professional disciplines such as advertising, marketing and public relations.
The result is that we are now seeing “convergence” of PR and Marketing—
The idea that two previously independent disciplines are now merging into a single unified profession.
Monitoring this trend toward convergence, and understanding its implications, is one of the most critical issues facing the public relations industry today; if not identified and navigated pro-actively, it has the potential to diminish the role of the PR professional.
The purpose of this eBook is to document the convergence of PR and marketing, identify six specific trends for PR professionals to contemplate as they plan their response to this convergence, and then take a glimpse into the future to assess where we might be headed as an industry.
The Convergence Train
The PR/Marketing convergence train has been coming down the tracks for a while now. Those of us who study the public relations industry from both an academic and a practitioner perspective (in addition to my role with the USC Annenberg Center, I’m also the chairman of Golin) have seen it by the changes in the content used in RFPs, the eyebrow-raising conversations with clients, and the rapid transformation of the media industry from an easily defined world of print and broadcast to the vast digital landscape we have today.
In 2014, Weber Shandwick released a global study (“Convergence Ahead: The Integration of Communications & Marketing”) that explored the convergence phenomenon by interviewing chief marketing officers in companies of all sizes, from all industries
87%of PR pros
worldwide believe the term “public relations” won’t
even describe the work they will be
doing in five years.
and from multiple countries. They concluded that the dual-structure of corporate communications and corporate marketing was losing its relevance and efficiency in a digital world, noting “companies are responding by merging their communications and marketing functions to respond more quickly and strategically with one voice.”
In 2017, Nasdaq Corporate Solutions released its CCO Measurement Survey, which concluded that the metrics used by chief communications officers further illustrate the convergence of public relations, corporate communications and marketing. Specifically, the most frequently used KPIs were focused on marketing results, such as website traffic, search ranking and sales/lead conversion. Noticeably absent were traditional PR metrics—e.g., reputation, awareness, share of voice, etc.—let alone alternative measurements for PR outcomes related to government relations initiatives or other discreet efforts.
The USC Annenberg Center for Public Relations produced the most comprehensive research on this subject in 2017 with the release of our second annual Global Communications Report (GCR17),
a comprehensive survey of more than 800 public relations executives from around the world. The report also featured insights from almost 700 public relations and communications students, along with in-house marketing executives, to provide a more robust overall assessment of the state of our industry. This study delivered some startling findings, such as the discovery that 87 percent of PR pros worldwide believe the term “public relations” won’t even describe the work they will be doing in five years and that just 8 percent of PR pros believe that PR will be a distinct and separate function.
As the convergence train moves on full speed ahead, there are six key trends that PR professionals need to be alert for and be prepared to navigate. These takeaways are drawn from the GCR17 research published by The USC Annenberg Center for Public Relations.
Just 8% of PR pros believe that PR will be a distinct and
separate function in five years.
6 TRENDS TO WATCH
Mixing PR and Marketing
Almost half of PR professionals and more than 60 percent of marketing executives believe
that their two disciplines will become more closely aligned in the next five years. Some think PR will dominate. Others think it will be dominated. Perhaps the reality is somewhere in between.
How this trend plays out may be the most critical issue facing the PR industry. Currently, 55 percent of corporate communications departments report to the CEO/President, but 18 percent now report into marketing. If that number grows, will their influence decrease? Similarly, PR agencies now report into marketing 21 percent of the time. If that number grows, will their bottom lines increase?
1 18% of corporate communications
departments now report into
marketing.
21% of PR agengies now
report into marketing.
Recently, two major holding companies “bundled” their PR agencies with their advertising agencies to provide clients with a more integrated solution. Internally, some companies are restructuring their marketing functions to include public relations. Will these changes expand or diminish the role of the PR professional?
Become more closely aligned with marketing
Play an increasingly important role compared to marketing
Play a dominant role over marketing
Become a distinct and separate function from marketing
Become a subset of marketing
45%
23%
12%
12%
8%
47%
29%
12%
7%
5%
PR Professionals Believe Public Relations Will...
Agency In-House
Redefine or Rename?
As noted above, 87 percent of PR executives believe the term “public relations” won’t accurately describe the work they will be doing in five years.
About half of them believe PR needs to be more broadly defined, while the rest think the name should be changed.
Who should answer this question? The Arthur Page Society is doing a heroic job defining the role of the CCO for its members. The PR Council and PRCA are trying to do the same for their agencies. But who is responsible for educating the rest of society?
2Fewer than 20% of students think the name “public relations” needs to be changed and most are pretty comfortable explaining it.
87% of PR pros worldwide believe
the term “public relations” won’t
even describe the work they will be
doing in five years.
Interestingly, not-yet-jaded students are far more comfortable with the current terminology than seasoned pros. Fewer than 20 percent think the name needs to be changed and most are pretty comfortable explaining it. Maybe we should all stop worrying and just get on with it.
Digital Storytelling
When it comes to trends that will be most important over the next five years, digital storytelling ranks above all others with PR professionals, followed
by social listening, social purpose and big data. The dynamic combination of these items illustrates the rapid change that the PR industry has seen in recent times. Fortuitously, these happen to be the same tactical initiatives that students are interested in pursuing.
For the uninitiated, digital storytelling is a short form of media content that allows people to share aspects of their story. The media used may include full-motion video with sound, still photos, audio only, or any of the
3“Digital
Storytelling” will be the most
important trend with PR
professionals over the next 5 years.
other forms of digital media that can be used to tell a story or present an idea. It is an innovative format for communicating a corporate narrative, which sits right in the wheelhouse of what PR professionals do best.
Interestingly, emerging technologies—such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence—are far down the list of key trends that PR pros believe will play a vital role in the coming years. And get this…fake news and Donald Trump are ranked at the bottom.
Important Trends Impacting the Future of
Public Relations
Public Rekations Professionals
Marketing Professionals
Digital Storytelling
Social Listening
Social Purpose
Bid Data
Behavioral Research
Influencer Marketing
Real Time Marketing
Branded Content
Live Streaming
Artificial Intelligence
Virtual Reality
Fake News
Donald Trump
80%
88%
73%
63%
51%
68%
69%
67%
52%
38%
26%
34%
39%
88%
82%
71%
70%
65%
64%
62%
61%
56%
43%
35%
36%
25%
Media Shifts
It’s hardly a professional secret that the amount of revenue PR professionals are able to generate
from “earned media” campaigns are in decline—this trend is likely to continue over the next five years. Meanwhile, revenue from “paid, shared and owned media” will likely increase. Corporate media budgets are moving even faster toward the “owned” and “paid” categories.
Supporting that direction, 60 percent of all PR executives believe that branded content and influencer marketing, which are both primarily paid and focus on the exploding channel of social media in particular, will be important trends in the next five years. This changing media mix creates an opportunity and a challenge.
460%
of PR executives believe that
branded content and influencer
marketing will be important trends in the next five years.
The opportunity is to move aggressively into paid content, an arena long dominated by advertising. This will require PR professionals to master media buying, which currently ranks last on the list of skills they think are important to the future. The challenge is that more than half of PR executives believe the consumer of the future will not make a distinction between paid and earned media, while another one-third disagree. The answer to that debate has profound ramifications for everyone in the industry.
Changing Metrics
In the USC study, we asked PR executives how they felt public relations could increase
its value inside the organization. Interestingly, measurement of results was not their top choice (34 percent). Overwhelmingly, they selected demonstrating how PR achieves business objectives (77 percent).
Of course, this requires measurement, but a more sophisticated variety that focuses on less-tangible variables, such as brand reputation and purchase intent.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the value spectrum, PR executives also rank leadership (52 percent) and creativity
577%
of PR executives believe that demonstrating
how PR programs achieve measurable
business objectives is the best way for PR to
increase its value.
(38 percent) above basic measurement. These territories provide fertile ground for future growth, but they are even harder to quantify. In the years to come, convergence of PR and marketing is going to force us into some difficult conversations about the most useful metrics to measure the effectiveness of what we do.
Effectively Demonstrate the Value of Public Relations
Marketing In-House Agency
Demonstrate how PR programs achieve measurable business objectives
Deliver creative solutions
Work across all departments and business unit
Address the wants and needs of all stakeholders
Improve measurement of results
Improve measurement of results
89%72%
80%
33%
44%
17%
30%
42%
32%
43%
33%
32%
53%32%
46%
48%
36%
60%
The Client-Agency Dynamic
Looking to the future, PR agency leaders are much more optimistic than in-house
executives. Almost all (92 percent) of agency executives predict some growth in the next five years, while 70 percent of in-house communicators predict an increase. A mere 43 percent of marketers predict any sort of growth in PR spending.
At the same time, the number of clients who rely on a single agency of record continues to decline and is now below 20 percent. Thirty-eight percent of in-house PR leaders say they will use more agencies in the next five years, while 34 percent of in-house marketers say they will use fewer.
6Almost
of agency executives 92%
predict some growth in the next five years.
Creative thinking and strategic insights are top reasons clients hire PR agencies, while research and analysis is last. Almost everyone agrees the PR industry will continue to grow, but these apparent contradictions make it hard to plan for the future.
Clients are relying less on a single agency of record and expect to use
more agencies over the next 5 years.
So Where Are We Headed?
The past year has given us more reason to reflect on the financial implications of these issues. As an industry, we experienced a slight dip in spending on “marketing services” in 2017. This was no doubt influenced by macro factors such as the ongoing disruption caused by direct-to-consumer e-commerce and renewed questions about how to quantify the bottom-line value of media coverage generated by PR campaigns. But perhaps the most important factor was the even greater scrutiny of the return on investment for every dollar spent on corporate marketing of any kind—and this is where the convergence trend is playing out in real time for our industry.
The proliferation of social media, dynamic websites and innovative digital media platforms provides us with an abundance of channels
that can be used to directly engage with consumers in ways that were never before possible. With this wealth of communications avenues,
however, will come a growing insistence by corporate marketing executives that we deliver more precise and measurable results for their investment in our
services.
One way that information service providers, such as LexisNexis, are collaborating with PR professionals to help rise to this challenge is by leveraging the power of
technology to improve how we monitor, track and report the results of our work. For example, some new tools allow for monitoring and analyzing
both “traditional” media and digital media in the same platform. Other new tools in development will help us report performance
in formats that are based on the evolving responsibilities spanning across PR/Marketing/Advertising, a reflection of the fact that those
roles are becoming less siloed and more integrated.
In the end, there is no point in wasting our time with hand wringing about whether the public relations profession will retain its historic distinction as a stand-alone discipline. Convergence is happening, like it or not. The question is whether we will evolve our thinking fast enough and develop new skills successfully enough to help lead this change or to be run over by it; and whether we will place ourselves in the driver’s seat to access much deeper corporate marketing budgets than we could in the past or be swept up and relegated to the budget allocation appropriate for a bit player on the team.
These are some of the critical questions about the future of communications and the role of the PR professional that will be answered in the next five years. But one thing is perfectly clear:
There’s never been a more interesting time to work in public relations…or whatever we will call it in the future.
About the Author
Fred Cook is director of the USC Annenberg Center for Public Relations and chairman of Golin, a global public relations firm. He is one of the leading voices in both the academic and professional communities on the subject of PR/Marketing convergence and its potential implications for the public relations profession. For more information, please go to www.annenberg.usc.edu.
About LexisNexis®
After nearly 40 years providing solutions that help organizations harness the power of information, LexisNexis® remains dedicated to developing innovative tools to support data-driven decision-making. Our commitment extends beyond comprehensive content and outstanding search technology to world-class client service support, ensuring that our clients gain maximum insights—and value—from LexisNexis solutions. LexisNexis offers a full suite of media intelligence solutions including LexisNexis Newsdesk®, its flagship media monitoring and analysis platform.
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01/2018