Thanks to PRWeek for this, which talks about a new piece of research from YouGovStone which (apparently) shows that almost 25% of senior UK professionals (sample size 701 – senior professionals from backgrounds including politics, business, academia and health) believe that PR agencies are ‘all talk and no substance’. Further, only five per cent of those questioned regarded PR and communications agencies as vital.
A sad indictment of the industry, I am sure you’d agree, even if it is rather ‘one size fits all’. Who are these senior professionals? When they were asked to pronounce on the PR/communications industry, were they asked whether they had any specific agency in mind and, if so, in which sector did that agency practise and what were its areas of expertise? Did their opinions stretch to in-house communicators, as well as agencies – or just agencies? I’m sure all of this was covered – only, during my brief trawl of the internet, I’ve not been able to find any other reference to this new research.
Anyway, I bet the lovely folk at Finsbury, Brunswick and Edelman are mightily relieved (to the tune of their share of the $240m advisors’ fees) that Kraft and Cadbury are amongst the five percent.
As for the rest of us – I guess we’ve got some work to do.
thewordmonger 