With 2011 nearly complete, and thoughts (and client budgets) turning to the New Year, we continue our tradition of annual PR industry prognostications. This year, we feature contributions from 12 creative thinkers in public relations. We asked for insight into trends they believe will fundamentally change the PR industry in 2012.

Below is a compilation of their thoughts. Starting Jan. 3, 2012, and running for 12 consecutive business days, we will publish each trend as a full blog post.

We hope you find value in reading these predictions. Please add your own in the comments below or by using the hashtag #PRin2012. We’ll capture the best contributions and publish those in a special baker’s dozen post in late-January.

Related: Read the top-11 PR trends for 2011 in this Dec. 22, 2010, PRSay blog post.

The Predictions

1. Business Increases its Voice in the Digital Space

If 2011 was the year of brands getting their owned-media properties in order, 2012 will be the year of PR professionals empowering business leaders and experts to get involved. As we look to the year ahead, it’s important for communicators to understand the methodology and value in this and be prepared to work with business leaders, decision makers and subject experts to get them up to speed and involved on digital platforms if they aren’t already. (Aedhmar Hynes, CEO, Text 100)

2. Convergence Continues

The recent news about Johnson & Johnson appointing Michael Sneed as vice president of global corporate affairs, overseeing global marketing and public relations, stands as yet another indication that brand and reputation continue to converge and create the need for joining forces. Always a hot-button issue in PR, the reality is that organizations will continue to merge their brand management functions (marketing) with their reputation management functions (PR).

If PR professionals are going to continue to work closely with their marketing brethren and generate significant results for clients, they need to get more comfortable with analytics. (MaryLee Sachs, former U.S. chairman, Hill & Knowlton; author, “The Changing MO of the CMO”)

Continue reading " #PRin2012: 12 Trends That Will Change Public Relations "

Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post from Elliot S. Schreiber, Ph.D., a leading expert in corporate brand and reputation management. He previously blogged for PRSAY about reputation management, communicating executive pay and the changing nature of corporate trust.

The Harvard Business Review article by Michael Porter and Mark Kramer, “Creating Shared Value: How to Reinvent Capitalism—and Unleash a Wave of Innovation and Growth” is a must read for all public relations professionals.

Porter and Kramer suggest that companies are well equipped to handle a multitude of social problems, but that the best way to get them involved is to show them that there are profits to be made in doing so. The argument is that social, as well as economic issues create markets and market opportunities, and that companies can both make profits and advance their reputations by finding and solving social problems. Social engagement becomes an investment with a return to the company, not a contribution. As a result, there is real motivation for the company to get involved and continue to find ways to solve social issues.

Companies need to recognize that there are penalties and costs for not finding business solutions to social problems, including loss of global competitiveness, lagging technology, greater waste, more regulation and possible erosion of the market or supply chain.

For example, Coca-Cola and Pepsi cannot survive as businesses if they do not help to invest to solve the world’s shortage of water. The upside for them and others is the potential to develop new technologies, solve social problems, develop new markets, and build a strong, differentiated reputation that attracts top talent and capital.

Continue reading " Shared Values — A More Sustainable Approach to CSR "

In the past year, leading business minds including Michael Porter and McKinsey & Co. have been extolling the virtues of multi-stakeholder value. A new report from Dalberg Global Development Advisors seems to throw us back in time.

According to the report, “the real social value comes overwhelmingly from what companies do through their core business, the skills and supply chains built up around them, and then the revenue that comes into government as a result of their profitability.”

The report goes on to suggest that “soft” concerns like CSR and “triple-bottom line” are diversions from value creation and should be dismissed unless they can be shown to “redound to the bottom line”.

This report is extremely shocking. Dalberg is a firm that claims to “raise living standards in developing countries.” Yet it almost parodies Milton Friedman, who believed that the sole responsibility of companies was to create wealth for investors. Period.

The public relations industry bears a large responsibility for the mistaken belief that reputation and CSR are “soft.” PR professionals often talk about such investments as ways to build “esteem,” “trust banks” or “do well by doing good.”  To many executives, these sound like homilies, not business guidance.  Investments in reputation do “redound” to the bottom line and do create differentiated value when they are strategically employed.

We must be able to show these, and we can.

Continue reading " Dalberg Report is Wrong on CSR’s Value "

Some years ago, I was traveling several hundred miles away from home on company business. At the end of a long day of events, I slipped away to a local styling salon for a much-needed hair cut. I was reclining in the salon chair, head tipped back into the sink, when I became aware of someone standing over me. This individual proceeded to ask me about one of my company’s recently-publicized events and wanted to get my take on what had happened.

After the conversation ended, I wondered how this person had known who my employer was. I chuckled to myself when I realized that my employee ID tag had been peeking out from beneath the plastic cape draped around me. The experience was a great reminder that, wherever we are and whatever we’re doing, employees are always company ambassadors.

I was able to respond to the question asked of me that day because my company had regularly and thoroughly communicated about that issue to all its employees. We, the internal audience, hadn’t been a communicational afterthought, copied on an email (or worse, reading it in the news) only after the customers and the shareholders had already been informed.

This attention to employees is a key tenet of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). As companies strive to help address social challenges, maintain sustainable environments and contribute to strong economies, employees need to be aware of and engaged in those efforts. When it comes to CSR, what employees don’t know really can hurt.

Employees expect — and need — to be a part of their companies’ CSR efforts. In fact, CSR can be a driver of employees’ job-acceptance decisions.

Continue reading " 24/7 CSR: Employees Are Always Brand Ambassadors "

Google “environmental conservation,” and the search results run into the millions.

Like the countless individuals, organizations and causes that fill those pages, PRSA — with the support of its board of directors — has been working to minimize the environmental impact of its operations. Our efforts are a vital concern for PRSA Members, who want to be part of an organization that does its part for the world we share.

The 39th anniversary of Earth Day is a perfect opportunity to reflect on some of our conservation efforts at PRSA. Our initiatives are both large and small, understanding that even small measures will add up over time.

Continue reading " PRSA Greens its Routine "