Over the next five years, marketers intend to spend more on public relations and boost internal staffing according to a new report conducted by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and the USC Center for Public Relations at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism based on a survey. The survey which took place last winter aimed at finding out more about public relations perceptions of client-side marketers.
The survey produced quite interesting results with as many as 75% of respondents saying that they will spend more on PR over the next five years while 62% of the respondents said that they intended to increase internal public relations staffing over that same time period. Around 16% of respondents said they will increase internal PR staffing over the current year while 25% said they will increase spending on PR.
Bill Duggan, ANA group executive vice president, said, “Public relations as a discipline is clearly evolving and becoming more important to marketers. And PR is being fueled by the rise and omnipresence of digital communications. Digital has put PR front and center, as it allows immediate outbound communication and inbound feedback.”
Other interesting results of the ANA survey showed 54% of the respondents saying that public relations would change over the next five years and become “more closely aligned with marketing,” while 18% took PR to a different level, saying it would “become a subset of marketing.” The vast majority of respondents agreed that public relations can most effectively demonstrate its value.
An overwhelming 89% of respondents agreed that demonstrating the measurable business objectives of public relations programs will achieve that distinction. Most respondents referred to ‘social listening’ and ‘digital storytelling’ when asked to rank the importance of individual trends. The survey revealed that digital trends are critically important for the future of public relations.