The decline of traditional outlets, the rise of social media and influencers plus increasing audience diversification has changed how public relations practitioners work. Now they’re more proactive – and multi-skilled – than ever.
A key skill of the PR practitioner in 2024 is the ability to keep pace with an industry moving at lightning speed.
“If your head is not around it, you’ll get left behind,” says Heather Claycomb, Director of Waikato-based communications agency HMC, and Chair of the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand (PRINZ).
When Claycomb set up HMC 20 years ago from her home in Hamilton, she only needed her brain, a computer, a tiny little Nokia and a love of telling stories.
While the necessary equipment hasn’t changed significantly since then, the technological capabilities and the number of ways to reach people certainly has.
“I recently hired two new people and I had to think about what software products do they need to know? It’s a tech-savvy job, there’s so many ways to get the message out there,” says Claycomb. “We’re story creators but we have to be good at tech too.”
She finds irony within this discourse, however: “We’re relying on tech in jobs, but humanised stories will be more important than ever… That won’t change, and robots can’t do that.”
The way PR practitioners have had to evolve with the way consumers receive and engage with news and brands continues to develop.
Especially with the recent rise of influencer-led content, which can have more power over consumers than some media, says Georgia Coleman, General Manager of Tonic Communications.
Throughout her career, and now at Tonic, Attivo Group’s trans-Tasman offering for integrated PR and marketing services, Coleman has made a point of staying on top of social trends, because she knows how influential they are.
“Originally, social media was a tick box, and now it’s so integrated that PR practitioners should have a very thorough knowledge of socials and current social trends.
“Equally, a social media manager should have the same level of knowledge about what makes something newsworthy.”
When she started in PR in 2010, the industry was already moving away from a media-first approach and social media was becoming more prominent.
The way it lends itself to a conversation between brands and consumers was and still is exciting, says Coleman.
“I think it’s an incredible way to communicate with your audiences – at the time I would use Twitter if I couldn’t get hold of someone and they would respond immediately.”
In a world where anyone can go viral, the most successful campaigns become part of culture, says Coleman, “playing on that to create a moment to get your brand in there in a really authentic, organic way”.
In a truly integrated campaign, you’re thinking about all of the potential touchpoints to reach your audience – whether that is LinkedIn, an email newsletter, a billboard or a news outlet, she adds.
“Some clients want to do a little bit of everything, but I highly recommend to just do less better. Ask the why – you don’t necessarily need to be constantly doing everything or leaning on every reactive moment.”
She regularly sees news and trends breaking on TikTok. Her recommendation? Surround yourselves with the Gen Zs of the world. “They are the ones leading the way,” Coleman laughs.
But despite the technological advancements, the heart of PR remains the same – it’s still about building trust in an organisation or a person, says Claycomb.
“The discipline or purpose – the ‘why’ – hasn’t changed, but ‘the how’ is incredibly different.”
This rings true for the team at One Plus One Group, a independent corporate communications consultancy that recently won gold for PR Consultancy of the Year at the PRINZ Awards, alongside Special PR.
“Our core skill is telling a really great story on behalf of a client that’s strategically informed so it delivers a business outcome for them,” says One Plus One General Manager Max Burt.
Historically, that story would have focused on landing a piece of earned coverage in a traditional media outlet.
“But if that’s the only thing we are doing, we are not going to grow and we are not going to be ultimately helping our clients,” says Burt.
“You’ve got traditional media changing, but then also this proliferation of all these other channels. If you come back to what our core business is, we’d be doing our clients a disservice if we weren’t helping them show up in all of those spaces as well.”
In the past year, One Plus One has designed and placed billboards, built websites, created video content and managed social media channels for clients.
Burt still gets a thrill from writing a media release or op-ed on behalf of a client, but loves the broad scope of his work.
Corporate communications is One Plus One’s bread and butter, but there’s an expectation now that most agencies can do a bit of everything, he adds.
“To be successful in this day and age, you need to be a Swiss Army knife. You need to be able to execute in lots of different channels, in lots of different ways with lots of different audiences and make complex things simple for clients.”
Keep it clear
To prevent a jack of all trades, master of none scenario, Burt says agencies must be clear about the core proposition.
“Commercial storytelling is our heart, and the process of telling that story could be anything.”
The ones that can keep that clear concept at the heart of everything they do, but still be flexible will continue to do well.
One Plus One founder Kelly Bennett agrees, saying it’s a “pretty simple industry”.
“I had a boss who used to say, ‘We’re not curing cancer.’ We’re corporate storytellers, we exist to help companies with communications challenges.”
The media headcount in Aotearoa has been reducing for several years, but this year’s Newshub closure and cuts to TVNZ’s current events shows hit hard.
It means the selection of media targets for agencies has to be more considered, Bennett adds.
Where audiences are is shifting, and it’s an agency’s role to connect with them, says Burt. He mentions a client One Plus One recently got to feature on a trade-focused podcast – a niche slot but well-listened to by the client’s key stakeholders.
“So we’ve gotta be smart about how we do that and be energised, because ultimately if you’re defeatist and you’re telling clients it’s really hard to reach your audience, then why are they working with us?”
Having many interesting and creative ways to specifically target your audience is great, but there still remains a need to speak to Kiwis en masse, Burt adds.
In the past, you could safely rely on reaching half the country at once with a story on Seven Sharp, or an ad during an episode of Friends, but this has changed dramatically with the decline of appointment viewing.
“You used to be able to reach the mass audience much more simply, whereas now you probably need to show up in five or six different ways at once… which is actually quite a cool and fun challenge – it’s not one people should be despairing about.”
It’s a challenge that requires agencies to be more forensic, finding where people are and reaching them in an authentic way, says Bennett.
The end of collective experience
This death of monoculture is something the team at Pead speak to as well. The independent full-service agency has been operating in Auckland for more than 20 years.
“We used to have a lot more collective experiences as a nation,” says partner Louisa Kraitzick.
“There were really clear inroads to reach Kiwis, but now we’ve diversified and our experiences are more complicated.”
Not everyone is sitting down to read the newspaper or watch TV, so agencies must focus on who truly matters, what it knows about them and how it can reach them, says fellow partner Anna Farrera.
“The demands of knowing your audience is much higher… People remember how you make them feel.”
To that point, the diversity of the communities in Aotearoa can no longer be ignored, says Claycomb.
Outlining your audience is becoming harder as increasingly people don’t want to be defined by their gender, age or religion – choosing their own identities instead.
The act of defining people might be an uncomfortable topic, but for the PR practitioner it’s paramount to build relationships, gain feedback, distribute information and encourage conversations, says Claycomb.
Looking to the future, Burt and Bennett agree the PR industry will always be about storytelling – but how those stories are told will continue to change, much like it has done so far.
“Gaming is the biggest form of media in the world. You could conceive that in the very near future, agencies like ours are spending much more of their time trying to help our brands show up inside of games,” says Bennett.
But practitioners like himself and Burt will continue to feel that rush of adrenaline when they create outcomes for clients, whether it’s through earned, social or owned media.
“That’s what we delight in. That’s what makes us keep coming back for sure, I can’t see that changing in the next 10 years,” Bennett adds.
Along with an increase in social media platforms, the industry has also been contending with the rise of artificial intelligence and what role it will play in future.
Claycomb’s suggestion is to embrace it, saying tools like ChatGPT can help with the creative and planning processes.
One Plus One agrees AI will become a major player, but until then, its almost too early to truly say what impact it will have on the industry.
“I am sceptical of people who purport to be able to predict where it’s all going. I think it’s going to be highly unpredictable,” says Burt.
Show up in real life
And as a discipline, PR remains predicated on personal connections and reputations – and those can’t be digitally manufactured.
“Reputations – how people in the companies they represent show up in real life, what they do, how they act and how they sound… All of those can’t be engineered by AI,” says Bennett.
This is a point Jane Sweeney makes too: in an increasingly virtual world, people are searching for authenticity and transparency over anything else.
Alongside Carolyn Kerr, Sweeney founded Auckland-based communications and marketing agency Anthem, which recently celebrated its 10th birthday.
What they’ve found in that time is “there is no place to hide”, says Sweeney.
Anthem encourages clients to embrace any opportunity to be open and honest – whether that’s sharing lessons from a crisis or issue, or a more positive insight.
It’s something a lot of companies are cautious about – they don’t want to seem like they’re not on top of things.
But this level of honesty has become even more important, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic which triggered conversations about reputation, fairness and whether what a company says lines up with its actions, says Sweeney.
“We are trying to promote this idea to companies that you really need to think about your reputation through a lens of fairness… What’s fair to the customer, what’s fair to your communities and how do you show up not only through the good times, but the tough times?” says Sweeney.
The two are proud of Anthem’s integrated communications approach, which works to create cohesion in their clients’ companies.
“We have clients who say they feel safe on our watch because we do everything from complex corporate comms right through to product launches. We see the whole of the client’s business,” says Sweeney.
When asked about favourite campaigns, Anthem’s work with transport company Dopplemayr, that won gold at the 2023 PR Asia Awards, springs to Kerr’s mind. It presented a compelling case for aerial cable cars as an urban and public transport option – one now being considered at a local and national government level.
“You can really see the impact of communication, engaging the community at all levels in different ways over time, with a shared purpose to actually help deliver transport solutions that have environmental, social, economic benefits for the country.”
For Sweeney, it was getting a better outcome for older New Zealanders, including achieving pay parity for aged care nurses, and getting into the coalition government agenda a plan to improve the aged care funding model.
“You feel like you’re making a real difference for older people, but also for communities where resources are better utilised. It’s very satisfying.”
It was a complicated story that took two years to tell, using everything from economists to billboards to microsites to government engagement to earned and paid media.
“So long gone is the total balance of media relations. But interestingly, the role of media has become even more important to us, especially with it reducing,” says Sweeney. “We are very respectful of our relationships with media… Understanding what they want and forming a relationship.”
Let the PRs pay
While all of the agencies NZ Marketing spoke with lamented the declining media landscape, Leni Ma’ia’i was
the most concerned about the impact it is having on the PR industry in Aotearoa.
Head chef and founder at DIG PR, Ma’ia’i says aside from the journalists themselves, PR has the most to lose.
His solution is a simple one: PR agencies pay an annual levy to keep journalism running effectively.
At DIG PR, media relations is the heart of what he and Sous Chef Daniel Smith do. They both take a more journalistic approach to their work and Ma’ia’i gets his kicks from delivering yarns on difficult topics.
“Engaging in a more meaningful and more powerful way… Those sugar hit stories just don’t resonate. Society benefits from clear communications, and people who work to push the envelope.”
While he’s not a stalwart that remembers “the fresh newspaper smell”, he’s learnt enough from his career to know the numbers on the graph are going the wrong way – without a well-functioning fourth estate, the media in general becomes less potent.
“Media relations is pretty important… Owned media pales in comparison to someone else verifying what you say is correct.
“You can’t recreate the total excitement of gathering around the TV to watch your campaign on the news… People are not framing a piece from an email newsletter, but their piece that made The New York Times.”
What this means for DIG PR is good storytelling remains at the forefront of what they do.
Ma’ia’i recollects favourite campaigns: launching fusion energy company Open Star in Wellington – which saw DIG land a long-form piece on TVNZ’s Sunday, a piece in the Listener and one of Kim Hill’s final interviews on RNZ – as well as launching the K’ Road perfume with advertising agency Motion Sickness.
“We did bugger all ads for it, it resonated as media stories and we had people queuing up at local pharmacies to buy the perfume. It created the hype to get people to visit the street, which was the goal.”
But for him the best campaigns are actually the ones that might never see the light of day – the ones that protect the reputation of a brand, or the crisis management – essentially “stopping issues before they become issues”.
In general, he finds the industry is scarcely understood – no mother of a PR professional can explain what their kid does, he laughs.
But that is his favourite part: it’s vague, weird and difficult to explain and requires a broad scope and vast tool kit to deal with a wide spectrum of issues. “Organisations and people appreciate your work, you help them solve problems they wouldn’t have solved on their own.”
Pead partners Farrera and Kraitzick say as PR practitioners they thrive in an environment of change.
“When it comes to news media outlets, it’s not the end, it’s evolving. Video didn’t kill the radio star, and it’s really important for brands to understand how many relations need to evolve in their strategy.”
This was first published in the 2024 June-July NZ Marketing Magazine issue. Subscribe here.
