I worked for 12 years in a public relations consultancy. Throughout those years, a recurring source of frustration was the poor level of understanding, appreciation, and respect for public relations among many marketing managers. It often felt like public relations was just an afterthought. Advertising – the more flamboyant, better-known cousin of PR – usually came first, and ad agencies called the shots. Media-buying would swallow most of the campaign budget, and PR only got leftovers.
In most cases, PR would be allocated less than 5% of total marketing communications campaign budget, and PR people were barely involved in the planning of the overarching marketing strategy.
This fight for better understanding, respect and recognition by management is one that public relations professionals have been fighting for decades (see Stephen Waddington’s doctoral research).
Unfortunately, while PR practitioners are making efforts to raise the profile of PR, there’s still a huge gap in knowledge within general marketing practice. And if marketers don’t fully understand PR, they won’t give it its deserved chance in the Marketing Mix.
In my view, half the blame goes to business school educators for not shining enough light on public relations in marketing curricula (i.e. key concepts, principles and strategic role of PR in organisational management). The other half goes to PR practitioners for historically failing to do enough PR for PR. Compare and contrast with advertising where you have all the colourful festivals/prestigious awards like Cannes Lions, the Hollywood hype and inspiring storytelling (think ‘Don Draper’ and Mad Men), and larger-than-life personalities (Ogilvy, et al) who’ve glamourised the profession for decades.
What makes marketers’ underutilisation of PR particularly worrying for me today is not that PR will continue to lose out, but that marketing too will suffer for it. This is because marketing practice is now in desperate need of the principles extolled by public relations, and the skills PR practitioners excel at.
Marketing needs the weapons of PR for today’s warfare.
A quick assessment of the landscape gives one a sense of what marketers are up against: legacy media structure with gatekeepers and one-directional messaging is now broken. Public trust in institutions (big business, government, media) continues to collapse (see Edelman Trust Barometer). More and more people are tuning out promotional marketing messages (Kantar says 31% of UK adults use ad blockers; usage among 18-to-24-year-olds is as high as 50%).
Meanwhile, AI is simultaneously the leading source of some of the most useful content and most deceptive lies ever (50% of internet articles are now AI-generated– this one is not, LOL). Add an unhealthy obsession with social media influencers among teens, pseudo-philosophers spewing hate and ignorance on podcasts, normalised political extremism in mainstream media, and a news cycle that feels more like 24 minutes than 24 hours resulting in a population that’s overstimulated with information.
These are some of the realities of modern life that marketers and communicators must confront and navigate, and it’s not getting any easier.
Some interesting stats from the last few years suggest a shift might already be taking place.
The IPA Bellwether Report showed that PR investment hit a record high in Q3 2024, while advertising spend declined. A similar observation was made during the covid pandemic when businesses needed to be seen as ‘caring’ and empathetic, and not just all about the profit. An Edelman Study also found that 98% of corporate communication leaders now see their relationship with the CEO as being more important than ever. These would suggest that business leaders are beginning to pay more attention to PR and comms, as audiences lean more towards credibility, peer recommendation, and believable storytelling – areas where PR naturally shines.
More recently, a report from PRCA and the CBI puts PR’s contribution to the UK economy at over £7 billion. The report argues for PR to be approached as a strategic business function with significant measurable economic impact, rather than just communications.
Could it be that leaders are slowly realising how critical communications counsel is for organisations dealing with highly skeptical and vocal publics? If chief executives are now trusting their corporate comms and PR advisers more with strategic decisions, then marketers really need to pay attention.
Earned media, a key PR output, has definitely become more valuable in the face of mass skepticism driven by perceived corporate insincerity, and a wave of anti-establishment and anti-consumerist ideologies. In a low-trust environment, earned coverage and third-party validation carry such weight that paid placements simply cannot replicate. Think of the power of an honest testimonial on a trusted platform, a thought leadership piece signalling domain authority, an independent advocate with influence (real influencers, not ‘influenza’).
Public relations tools like media relations, human-angle storytelling, brand journalism, thought leadership, third party advocacy, community relations: these can no longer be seen by marketers as ‘soft extras’ or ‘add-ons’ at the end of an integrated campaign. They are fundamental legitimation tools that help organisations earn the permission to speak, to sell, and to shine within society. They should be integral parts of the long-term strategic marketing programme.
As more and more people struggle to distinguish credible information from disinformation (no thanks to the ubiquity of AI slop), organisations will have to lean more on their brand equity, brand trust, reputation, and goodwill, beyond paid visibility.
There’s another broader point worth making here. As generative AI continues to commoditise aspects of the marketing and communications workflow (like copywriting and creative production), and as media buying gets increasingly automated and programmatic, some of the activities that will remain out of the reach of algorithms are the primarily human-led endeavours. Think stakeholder engagement, relationship marketing, community relations, public affairs, perception management, issue management and crisis communication, navigating cultural and political disruption, and telling stories that connect humans to humans.
These are some of the things that public relations people are really really good at.
Marketers need to recognise that today’s chaotic world is handing public relations a moment that advertising or media buying cannot fully handle, and they should do more to embrace the core principles and practices of PR. Marketers who recognise this opportunity will win. And if PR fails to meet the moment, then the profession will only have itself to blame.
Happy World PR Day!
Leave a Reply