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New media a game changer for PR industry

SINGAPORE — The rise of digital media is threatening traditional public relations (PR) practices, such as the dissemination of press releases and embargoes on news announcements, and the industry has to innovate to stay ahead of the game.

SINGAPORE — The rise of digital media is threatening traditional public relations (PR) practices, such as the dissemination of press releases and embargoes on news announcements, and the industry has to innovate to stay ahead of the game.

The Internet has made it possible for anyone to circulate news around the world almost instantaneously, making it harder for companies and PR professionals to keep information flows under control.

“It used to be that you could put a journalist under embargo. You could say, hold this news and most of them did, so there’s a predictable release of that piece of information. Most journalists I know now won’t hold these under embargo anymore,” Mr Pete Pedersen, Global CEO of award-winning communications consultancy firm Grayling, told TODAY. He was in Singapore recently to visit Grayling’s local office.

“The idea of a non-disclosure agreement is antiquated. Why? Because there are always people who operate outside of professional journalism who are going after the same information,” he said.

As a result, more is required of PR professionals to come up with ideas to fit the new information consumption pattern. From what used to be a local campaign, PR professionals and advertisers now have to take into consideration the global impact of an event.

“You could have a news event in Singapore or Hong Kong or New York, and you could keep it quite contained, quite local. But there’s no such thing as local anymore, everything is a global story,” said Mr Pedersen, who took over as Chief Executive at Grayling in March.

“As marketers and communicators, we not only have to think how (the news) is going to land with people here, but how it’s going to land with somebody who’s 9,000 miles away now, because it moves that fast.”

Grayling has more than 1,000 employees across over 40 countries in the United States, the Asia-Pacific, Western and Eastern Europe and Africa.

The UK-based firm, a unit of London-listed international communications group Huntsworth PLC, has won multiple awards since its inception in 1981, including the Agency of the Year at the 2011 European Excellence Awards.

With 20 years experience in the PR industry, most recently as the Global Chair of Edelman Technology Practice, Mr Pedersen noticed that skill sets in the industry have expanded over the years. Besides good writing skills and expertise in a particular subject matter, individuals who possess data analysis and visual skills are increasingly favoured by PR firms.

“The fact of the matter is we’re creating more data today than we have in the past two to three years. If we’re smart about how we capture the data and analyse the data, we can learn an awful lot about behaviours, about the world around us, about patterns. I think as marketers start to really understand how to use that power, it’d become more effective,” he said.

But the explosion of digital media has also brought with it issues, such as privacy and transparency in data usage, a topic that has been under much debate after the leak of top secret mass surveillance operations in the United States by National Security Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden.

In the wake of the revelation, many have called for tougher data protection laws that require Internet companies to reveal details about who receives personal information from them.

Such debates make managing and tapping on the digital landscape more challenging, but it is “fascinating” for the PR industry, said Mr Pedersen.

“Just navigating the complex landscape of privacy policies is in itself a big job, it’s good business for people who can help companies to do that. For the marketer and PR guy, it’ll be interesting to see how they can harness this, I think we’re just at the starting point of this right now,” he said.

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