The economy seems to be coming out of its three-year coma and that's encouraging for senior communications execs whose budgets could use fattening and the PR agencies that want
to share in the wealth.
For PR pros, however, any good financial news is tempered by two trends that will continue well into '04 despite the Dow's flirtation with 10,000 and positive economic
indicators: Suspicion of corporate America is going up and the public's trust of companies, organizations, et al. is going down.
Then there's the insatiable media maw, which these days resembles Audrey II -- the deceptively appealing plant in the hit Broadway show "Little Shop of Horrors" -- and its
constant cries of "Feed Me, Feed Me!" On stage, it's hilarious. Applied to the real world, it's deadly.
"It's getting hard to find any respect no matter how good the company is performing," says Jim Lukaszewski, president of the Lukaszewski Group, a management consulting firm
with several Fortune 500 clients. Lukaszewski is betting that the pattern of corporate chicanery seen in the last few years will continue, meaning communication execs must
sharpen their radars for any potential landmines. "Companies have to think preemptively."
What's more, you now have the specter of federal (Securities and Exchange Commission) and state prosecutors tripping over themselves in efforts to fight alleged white-collar
crimes.
"Businesses rarely learn their lessons until they are forced to," Lukaszewski adds. "We're the ones as communicators who have to point out [to upper management] that these are
the potholes that will get you into trouble. And this isn't necessarily about having a 'corporate conscious.' It's about practical, strategic concerns that can help make the
business run more effectively."
Striving for transparency (Sarbanes- Oxley, Reg FD, etc.) and crisis communications are two of the biggest challenges senior PR execs face as they brace for '04. Also on the
short list: addressing diversity, improving CSR efforts and paying more than lip service to PR measurement. In addition, media campaigns will have to be sliced even thinner, what
with a shrinking news hole due to the Olympics and the U.S. Presidential election.
PR execs will also have to deal with the uncertainty tied to the situation in Iraq and the war on terrorism. "There are so many external factors," says Tom Hoyt, associate
director of Public Affairs at Ford Motor Co., who works in the office of Ford CEO Bill Ford, Jr. "As communicators, we have to be flexible and be ready to respond to just about
anything...All of the corporate scandals have created an environment where it's even more important for us to know the values of the organization so that stakeholders can better
understand them."
Mike Herman-president-COO of PR agency Epley Associates and the incoming president of the Counselors Academy, a division of the PRSA whose 700 members own or manage PR
agencies, says one his goals in '04 will be to make PR pros more "comfortable in their own skin" vis-a-vis upper management.
"As long as we aspire to just making sure we get the names spelled right, we're pretty much useless to the C-suite," he adds. "We have to pay more attention to showing our
value and how it impacts the company's ability to do what it does." Indeed, learning how to take on more of a leadership role will be the theme of the Counselors Academy annual
conference this April in Orlando, Fla.
Diversity is another issue the industry can no longer afford to give short shrift. "There's a complacency that things are going along pretty good but the reality is they're
not," Herman says. "It's not a matter of how many African-Americans [you have on the staff] but a lack of understanding of all the different cultures we need to dialog with."
For Peter Debreceny, VP of Corporate Relations at Allstate, complying with new financial regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley (See page 2), looms large. The regulations -- combined
with the increasing enormity of the Web -- are changing the nature of how to communicate business information. "The relationship with stakeholders is leaning more toward
individual than institutional," he says. Anyone with a laptop "can get anything so we have to make sure the information is easy to understand."
Measurement and research/evaluation remains a critical component in PR executives' ability to prove their value to the C-suite. There's still a significant number of Fortune
500 companies that do not measure their PR efforts, according to Mark Weiner, Executive VP/Chief Executive, Delahaye Medialink, which provides a variety of media analysis and
survey research services to the communications field and whose clients include GE and AT&T. "Companies measure the weather but they don't track PR," Weiner says. "Most people
still consider clip counting to be a meaningful form of measurement."
One factor that may contribute to companies starting to take measurement seriously is the accelerating velocity of business, which, in turn, will fuel more integrated
marketing. "Companies have to figure out where to put their PR resources as they relate to the rest of the marketing mix," Weiner says.
Jerry Schwartz, founder and president of PR agency G.S. Schwartz & Co., who was recently named chairman of the Council of PR Firms' marketing committee, is celebrating his
35th anniversary in PR in 2004. He has seen business cycles -- and strings of corporate scandals -- come and go. "We're doing a better job of communicating what we do than we
did five and ten years ago," he says, "and we'll probably be doing a better job in ten years than we're doing right now."
Contacts: Peter Debreceny, 847.402.3111, [email protected] ; Mike Herman, 919.877.0871, [email protected] ; Tom Hoyt, 313.323.8143, [email protected] ; Jim Lukaszewski, 914.681.0000, [email protected]; Jerry Schwartz 212.725.4500, [email protected]; Mark Weiner, 203.663.2446, [email protected]
Go Figure Some key 2003 stats concerning corporate communications execs:
14% Change in 2003 compared with 2002 for IABC members who work in a corporate communications role, including media/investor relations, internal communications, etc.
There wasn't much of a departure in 2003 compared with 2002 in the top five industries for communications execs:
|
November 2003
|
|
| Consulting: |
9%
|
| PR Agency: |
8%
|
| Finance/Banking: |
7%
|
| Medical/Healthcare: |
5%
|
| Education: |
4%
|
| Source: IABC | |
|
November 2002
|
|
| Consulting: |
8%
|
| PR Agency: |
7%
|
| Finance/Banking: |
5%
|
| Medical/Healthcare: |
5%
|
| Insurance: |
4%
|