The public relations function is increasingly used by a wide variety of interests. Following in the footsteps of advertising agencies who gained great riches and new respectability when many became publically quoted companies, public relations as a business 'came of age' in the early 1980s when the first consultancy went public on the Unlisted Securities Market. Since then others have followed suit. This is bringing increased respectability to public relations as a worthwhile commercial undertaking with a stability and purpose in the world of business. It must be said, however, that this emerging new image for consultancies has been helped enormously by the fact that these quoted consultancies are substantially based in financial public relations which, of course, the City of London, Merchant Banks, and business interests in general do understand and accept as a legitimate part of their world. Gradually the business community as a whole will accept that such service industries, in spite of the constant winning and losing of clients, are here to stay and probably are a permanent part of that constantly expanding commercial sector, communications.
Today there is a very mixed bag of public relations workers and organizations. There are the consultancies. These may be small operations with one or two senior public relations executives with a shared secretary, with sufficient turnover to make a good living. There are medium size consultancies, many of which specialize in consumer, industrial or financial clients. The large consultancies, employing from 50 to 100 people, have all the trappings and functions of any sizeable modern company. With bigger overheads, these have to charge economical fees and can often be undercut by the medium agencies in doing exactly the same program of work. Small consultancy operators and free lancers dart in and out, bringing a highly personalized service and offering what may appear to be a cheap rate for the job. Often these operators do one off projects as these can be uneconomical for larger outfits. Some public relations consultancies belong to advertising agencies.
In the future, consultancies which are established specialists in one kind of public relations service may well emerge as the most profitable of operations, just as financial PR has proven the money spinning PR specialty of the 1980s.
The function of public relations
Public relations are the most flexible communication method available to management. It can communicate across a broad and general spectrum, or it can operate very specifically as a corporate, management or marketing tool.
The primary purpose of any public relations program is to act on opinion. It does this by communicating messages from the company to defined publics. These messages have one or more aims. They may seek to:
Change a widely help opinion, if this no longer reflects the true status or position of the company and its products.
Create a new opinion or attitude, based perhaps on new products or to pave the way for the introduction of long term plans.
Reinforce those opinions and attitudes already held where they still reflect what the company wants them to be, and thus protect the status quo.
Correct an opinion, which has altered from either failure to reinforce it, or from greater activity from third parties, notably and usually competitors.
Public relations is thus concerned with a company or brand reputation which must be such that it gives people confidence in the company, providing the company with total credibility.
Who works in public relations?
The abilities, education, talents, and ages of the people who work in public relations could not be less standardized or more dissimilar. When you first look around at the staff of a public relations consultancy, you might think 'what a motley crew this lot is'. You could be right, for many people have drifted from one job to another and finally ended up in public relations. A closer look, however, would probably show you that each of these people has some talent or experience that is useful either in carrying out public relations or directly relevant to the client for whom they work.
Today, there are ex advertising, ex Army, ex secretarial, ex industry, ex legal, ex everything people in the public relations business. But it is increasingly a professional and commercial business where "amateurs' are not welcomed. The younger the persons in public relations the more likely they will have a university degree or other higher education qualification. They may have risen through the ranks of secretarial work or come from journalism. Until the mid 1970s a great many public relations workers came from the media. It was a favorite thing to hire journalists for they presumably knew how to write good press releases and would have excellent contacts in the media world. In fact, a journalism background was once one of the qualifications for public relations. Now that public relations is such a highly skilled management tool, consultancies are demanding and getting graduates, some with doctorates, and those qualified in other professions such as the law. Public affairs, local authority, government, financial, and charity public relations all call for different talents so the people working in these areas often have very different educational backgrounds and work experience from those doing consumer public relations.
