By Matt Shaw, Vice President, Council of Public Relations Firms

It turns out that when advertising grows up it wants to be public relations.

There is mounting evidence that the public relations toolbox is being pilfered on a regular basis—and it's not necessarily being called public relations by the perpetrators.

Last year, more than half of our members reported facing competition from other marketing services firms, in everything from crisis work to blog creation to managing events.

On this matter, I heard a genuine cautionary tale from one of our members just the other day.

It involved an ad agency pitch for a large client, and his firm was given the rare opportunity to watch the pitches. Three ad agencies presented that day, and three agencies trotted out … you probably guessed it: buzz generation, publicity, influencer outreach, blogging, viral online activity; you name it, they did it. The "earned media"—what we might think of as the public relations part of the recommendations—took up the first half of one agency's presentation, before they even got to advertising creative.

This is a long way from the PR tactics occupying the last three slides of a 50-slide advertising capabilities presentation.

I work for an association that represents public relations firms, so my focus is necessarily fixed onto things that impact their business. What I'm seeing these days is a lot of coveting (and more) of our turf. There have been many pieces written in the past year or so on why this is the right place, right time for public relations firms to excel. In large part, it's because public relations is the one business discipline that has always been about social influence. The global world of commerce is coming around to public relations, recognizing that social rules—transparency, relationships, meaningful conversation—favor public relations practitioners.

While this has been an opportune development for our business, this has also proven to be the right time and place for others to co-opt public relations offerings as their own.

Larger market and social forces are shaping this transformation, and it appears to be manifesting itself with some urgency in the ad/marketing world, where they are looking far beyond their own sandbox for new ways to generate revenue.

Meanwhile, the impact of these variables is starting to be quantified in positive ways for public relations, for example:

• Public relations firms are taking in more business. Our data and other projections show that the health of the industry is quite good. The council's end of year survey and Veronis Suhler Stephenson annual report (VSS) both estimated a 13.9% industry growth in 2006. VSS is projecting compound growth of 11% through 2012.
• Two weeks ago, AdWeek published a story reporting that headcounts in the public relations sector have increased 44% since 1990, more than three times faster than that of advertising.
• The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) conducted a survey of its members last year that reflected public relations' rising stature in the marketing mix. Respondents characterized the value to their business of each of a dozen different marketing disciplines—and PR scored the highest. Fifty-nine percent rated it as "very important" and another 30 percent rated it as important.

These points are indeed revealing. But this is only tells part of the story.

The Virtue of Change

So it would appear the barbarians are at the gate. The public relations industry is well-positioned to out-maneuver its competition, but doing so will require it to embrace the game-changing elements taking root in the marketplace.

The nature of change is often incremental, and hard to detect. It brings to mind the animated frog scene in "An Inconvenient Truth."

A possible glimpse into the future was posited to me last month by a consultant from a marketing association, in the form of a rather bold prediction. He said that the changes taking place in communications, marketing and media are so dramatic, so pervasive and so fundamental, that public relations firms, for example, won't even be referred to as "PR firms" in 15-20 years—that they will have morphed into something new.

It's a pretty radical notion, but it is provocative. I suggested that the same tumult is just as likely to morph others into public relations.

Be Bold. Be Smart.

During a discussion on the future of the business at our "Critical Issues Forum" last fall, Lou Capozzi (Publicis Public Relations Corporate Communications Group Chairman Emeritus) challenged his peers to "add a zero to the (public relations) budget and call advertising a public relations tactic."

This should also be the type of paradigm-shifting thought process that starts every brainstorm and all new business pitches. Staying the course is not an option.

The simple truth is that clients want the best idea. Period. If it comes from their PR firm, ad agency or their next door neighbor, it is the breakthrough idea, not the messenger that is essential.

The public relations firms that are excelling, and there are many, have several key things in common: forward-thinking management, motivated staff and extremely grateful clients. They are all inextricably linked, but the first point is the engine. Firms that are bold and not afraid to take chances, and that provide their employees with the knowledge and tools that will create those breakthrough ideas … those firms will win more than their share of turf battles.

Matt Shaw is the Vice President of the Council of Public Relations Firms, the national trade association for the public relations industry. He can be reached at mshaw@prfirms.org.

Reader response:

Great piece. The ad folks may be able to talk a good game, but very few can deliver on genuine PR strategy.—M. Hawkins

There's way too much whining about ad agencies poaching on PR turf and vice versa. Too many agencies, especially on the PR side (which I'm on) are more consumed with protecting our turf than we are with the reason we have turf at all—the clients. Is it a good idea that builds the clients' brand? If so, then it shouldn't matter whether it's labeled advertising or PR, or even who comes up with it.—Lawrence Tate

However, new media demands two-way communication, and this is basic to the public relations practice. Could we begin to brand PR agencies as the guru for new media two-way communications? Or, do we need a completely new label to break us out of the box?—Judy