PR as agent of sustainable change

We live in very volatile times. The business landscape changes as quickly as public opinion swings.

Confronted by a myriad of products and services dressed in sexy advertising, our consumers are more fickle than ever today. As a result, brand affinity and brand loyalty are harder for a company to achieve.

The role of public relations has never been more critical and more essential in a business than now.  Consumers will only part with hard earned money in brands they can trust, made by companies they believe in.  In managing the issues that our company faces, we need to be circumspect and responsive. In relating with our consumers, we need to be limber and creative. Indeed, our profession is an art and a science.

I was in marketing for over a decade until my appointment in corporate affairs.  From a controlled means of communication, which is advertising, the task of getting your message out correctly based purely on messaging and good relations, which is PR, is truly a challenge.  To try and influence stakeholders to recognize your point of view is positively daunting.

The theme of the recently concluded 20th National PR Congress, “From Ripples to Waves: PR as Agent of Sustainable Change,” underscores our inherent power as communicators to be catalysts. Gone are the days when we communicated only to sell our products. Today, we communicate to add value to our business, to shape public perception, and to create preference for our brand. Herein lies our responsibility—to communicate with our publics with integrity.

Our challenge as communicators is to continuously engage our stakeholders, to help them understand our business better, and ultimately, to build lasting relationships with them. We are more than just official spokespersons. We are strategists. We think ahead. We help ease our company’s foray into the future by generating goodwill and public support. We are here for our stakeholders for the long-term even after our campaign ends. We are agents of change.

From citizen journalism to issues management, from crisis to internal communications, from traditional to new media, from creating meaningful brands to effective (corporate social responsibility) CSR—we were fortunate to have revisited these old fundamentals and explored them with new eyes, with the help of the distinguished speakers featured in the PR Congress. They put the spotlight on the role of PR in today’s rapidly changing business affairs, how PR is key in making a company sustainable, and how we can strategize acts that can ripple and effect waves of change.

We make a difference in our own companies, in the business of our clients, and in the wider society. It is indeed a good time to be in PR.

(The author is a Board Member of the Public Relations Society of the Philippines (PRSP) and Chairperson of the 20th National PR Congress)