After tallying the faxes, e-mails and voicemail votes that came our way, we're delighted to announce that Margery Kraus, president and CEO of APCO Associates Inc., was voted PR NEWS's 1997 PR Professional of the Year. Kraus left a career in education and fundraising for the nonprofit Close Up Foundation when she was recruited by the law firm Arnold & Porter to start APCO in Washington, D.C., in 1984. APCO, a firm concentrating in public affairs, government relations, strategic communications and international business, is a member of the Grey Advertising family of companies. We caught up with Kraus by phone last week while she was traveling in Asia.
PRN: Since you don't come from an agency background and you pretty much segued into PR, do you think that affects your insight and positioning as a communications pro?
Kraus: I do think that your background and work experience conditions you, and for me, that conditioning is tied to the fact that APCO was started inside a law firm. This kind of beginning gave us a unique view, and that view wasn't only about the value of PR but more about the way public affairs can enhance marketplace knowledge about an issue. And because of that start, I've thought about this business in a very integrated and non-traditional way.We've tried to grow our business out of a very common-sense approach, and some of the things we do are very atypical: we haven't ever had profit centers according to discipline and we don't break our expertise into specialties. We also place a premium on the written word because of our lawfirm heritage and we're very careful about the language we choose and use.
PRN: Considering that you're in Hong Kong as we speak and the hand-over to China is still relatively new, you've had a front-row seat to observe whether or not the business economy is changing: is there any evidence yet of what PR's place is?
Kraus: I think it means a big role for PR because the stability of Hong Kong will be based in part on the confidence of the business leaders and policy makers around the world. Confidence can be greatly influenced by perception, and PR can help create the right perception. When we announced that our Asia headquarters would be in Hong Kong, many people questioned our judgment. They believe that, since the hand-over, Hong Kong would no longer be a friendly place to do business. In fact, this a great misperception - a misperception that can be changed through PR and creating a better understanding of the enormous business opportunities in this market.On this trip, we met with the chief executive of Hong Kong, C.H. Tung, and learned a lot about what is going on in the region. We're also seeing that because Easterners and Westerners do business differently, there will always be a need for translators, and that's what PR essentially is - translation.
PRN: Speaking of markets, what's been the response to the plunge the market took and what is the mood of the economy in Hong Kong?
Kraus: It feels very exciting to be here now. I think the difference in the economy is that there has been a correction in an inflated market - not that suddenly communism took over. This drop is about natural devaluation, not of money, but of things like the price of property and the expense of living and working in Hong Kong. The PR challenge will be to make sure that people realize that this economic change has nothing to do with the hand-over although the instinct will be to blame it on that.
PRN: Tomorrow [Wednesday, Oct. 22], you'll journey to Beijing as part of APCO's alliance with Consultec, the Chinese international trade consulting organization. What do you think the greatest obstacle will be in translating the worth of public affairs - which primarily has roots in the Western world - into another culture?
Kraus: We went into Russia in 1988 when Russia was just moving toward capitalism and fresh blood was entering the market, and we learned that the hardest thing about international relationships is not only making sure that you're speaking a common business language but that you both understand what the expectations are. To do that, you have to have a lot of patience as well as tangible things [success indicators] to look at to make sure you both know if goals are being achieved. When we first went into Russia, we were talking about sharing profits and how that was going to work but as we got more and more into this we realized that their definition of profits was revenue and I had to give them a quick lesson in economics.For now, the focus of the work we're doing with Consultec is going to be based on facilitating business and market research and understanding this region.
PRN: When it comes to PR's place in the global market, is there one particular region, CIS for example, you think will undergo the most transition in the millennium?
Kraus: I think in a way it's the United States. I believe the U.S. is going to be greatly impacted by the challenges of new technology. How that relates to PR can be seen in many ways: through the speed of information and the power of one person on the Internet doing either a lot of good or a lot of damage. I think other countries will mostly be focusing, in the immediate future, on PR in the traditional sense and it will take them a while to catch up so they won't be facing that challenge at the same pace we will. My sense is that with all this talk of globalization, the biggest challenge is going to start at home.
PRN: Do you think the PR profession will ever be as saturated as the legal profession, and are you convinced that PR will be riding this crest for a while?
Kraus: It depends on what the definition of PR is. There's an aspect of PR that's more of a commodity business, the things that a company could do for itself but it doesn't have enough arms and legs to do. You have to separate that kind of PR from value-added communications - corporate positioning, crisis avoidance and stakeholder relationships. This type of communications is a growth industry. Companies will always be looking for people who understand how the world works and can bring their judgment and experience to the CEO and his or her peripheral vision of where the business is going. It's those people who are also the hardest to find. Companies have a lot less tolerance for firms that get assignments and have those assignments undertaken largely by junior people. In order to provide clients with value-added services, it is essential to have people on the team who have sat in the seats of the clients or the people you are trying to reach with your message. The PR services that will succeed will be those that can provide integrated resources and make sure their staff members aren't working in silos.
Kraus will be at the conference and we hope readers will be able to meet her. APCO's number is 202/778-1000.