“Agencies need to listen to what clients want to buy and how and when they want to buy it”

Recently, a white paper has backed up a viewpoint that I’ve held for some time: PR agencies are modernising rapidly; they’re embracing new skills such as those in data, research and paid media, and they are investing intelligently in creative teams.

If we take a look at the recent output of our industry, the Cannes Lions, the PRCA National Awards, and Communicate’s awards, we see evidence of just this. No wonder then that the industry’s profits are buoyant and the market is growing extremely healthily. What’s more, there’s a great deal of innovation in practice from right across the industry.

The source for these insights is the #FuturePRoof white paper, ‘Exploring the Public Relations Agency,’ which has been developed as a think tank publication for the PRCA and ICCO. But the white paper also pointed out an issue which is a little less inspiring, both from an agency and in-house point of view: billing models.

As Alison Clarke puts it in the #FuturePRoof report, “Clients need flexible, fluid consultant relationships that are available 24/7 but purchased on an ad-hoc and project basis much of the time”.

However, this growing need goes directly against the agency world’s fixed cost heritage and structure. Many agencies continue to be chained to the old structure of fees charged by the hour, albeit on a retainer or project basis.

With this by-the-hour format, there is a worry that PR agencies can be appointed on the basis of misperceived value for money instead of the brilliance of their creative ideas. However, to move away from this format throws up a lot of other issues. As Ruth Allchurch, managing director of Cirkle, asks, ‘How on earth do we monetise a creative process where the output is so subjective?’ And, an even more thorny issue: will procurement ever be able to embrace this approach from agencies?

The white paper suggests some interesting alternatives. Laura Richards, the marketing and PR manager of Northstar Ventures, explains how her venture capital firm is starting to offer PR as part of a range of centralised support services – including HR – to its portfolio companies. The platform services model, where in-house specialists are made available to their portfolio companies, is already an established approach within venture capital firms, but wrapping PR into that is in its infancy.

Agencies need to listen to what clients want to buy and how and when they want to buy it. And as Renee Wilson, president of the PR Council in the U.S., puts it – if PR firms are only answering the brief, then that adds up to little more than ‘hygiene factor.’ What clients want are agencies to add to their brief, to go beyond and think into the future.

The three-month project, led by Ketchum’s Stephen Waddington and SHC’s Sarah Hall, saw 17 agency leaders contribute, sharing insights into ways they are innovating in response to the dual drivers of client requirements and media change.

The next #FuturePRoof project will focus on mental health, progressing the work carried out by the PRCA in 2015.

Contributions are welcomed from anyone with experiences they would be willing to share, either publicly or anonymously, as well as those employed in the field of mental health who could provide resources/policies or work with the team to develop these. While the spec for this second initiative is currently being agreed, the intention is to look at the wider issues creating poor mental health within public relations, share case studies and create best practice guides to help address this growing issue.

Francis Ingham is director general of the PRCA and chief executive of ICCO