The Truth Advocates Urge Brands to Integrate PR Marketing and Communications for Greater Impact

As a former brand and marketing manager, I have always viewed PR through the filter of ‘communications’ – encouraging clients to remove the siloes between agencies, allowing us to collaborate effectively and focus on strong, strategic narratives that create a golden thread across owned and earned media. For me, true ROI comes from aligning marketing, PR and overall communications into a cohesive strategy.

As media, business and technology has changed and evolved, that advice has become even more essential.

We live in an age of information overload and misinformation. Readers, listeners and viewers are spoilt for information choice! As a result, they create their own personal algorithms that feed them content to align with what they wish to see, hear and read. Whilst convenient, these data-fed information streams also result in vast amounts of misinformation and behavioural manipulation being fed to devices and brains.

As a result, the PR sector has shifted for us as practitioners. Whilst we have always understood the power of communications and have been offering comprehensive communication services for some time, the growing threats to credible journalism, the flood of misinformation and the resultant decline in critical thinking among many audiences have made it essential to fully integrate stakeholder engagement – both internal and external – into communication strategies, social media strategies and reputation management.

Our primary objective for all our clients is not only to cut through the noise but also to serve as purveyors of verified information, ‘truth valuers’, and to take responsibility for delivering genuine, value-based content across all channels.

That said, we must mention AI – a powerful and valuable tool. The philosophies mentioned above must incorporate these large learning models. Both agencies and clients require AI charters and policies, along with confidentiality assurances and disclaimers whenever AI is used. Conversations around productivity, value and cost estimates related to AI are appropriately increasing.

We all need to walk the talk

Which brings us to why we love what we do. Probably more now than ever.

We have found that PR and communications now have a seat at the executive table. We are consulted and listened to, with the value of communications increasingly acknowledged and our value rarely questioned any longer.

There appears to be a greater understanding of the power of communications – not just to provide leads for sales, but to strategically and ethically communicate. As clients have started using AI, this is even more prevalent. There is a realisation that the expertise that sits behind even the use of such a powerful tool is essential. If AI is fed inexperience, it will produce the same.

We are also in the very rewarding position of working with extremely organised non-profit organisations, academics and passionate individuals who see the power of communications to shape perceptions, steer behaviour and create awareness of landscapes outside of personal comfort zones. They are disruptive without being scaremongers and informative without provoking doom-scrolling. Behavioural science comes to the fore! And to be cheesy – PR for good.

We were asked by Bizcommunity what our biggest achievement to date is. We can honestly say that it is to remain ethically strong. Since the beginning, media have been our respected clients and they continue to be just that, but even more so, we view target audiences as our clients too. We have a responsibility to be guardians of the truth – for everyone that our work touches.

And as to what role Bizcommunity plays in that? It’s a respected media channel for B2B – with their own role in truth guardianship!