Seize the opportunity and ensure that PR rules, says Bell Pottinger’s David Wilson

This wonderful industry of ours is standing on a precipice. PR has a rare chance to prove itself for what it is – the most potent and influential discipline that an individual, a business or a government can invest in. But are we about to blow it?.

PR has a unique opportunity to straddle and add value to every element of a client’s needs. Far more than even the greatest award-winning advertising campaign, we PR practitioners have the ability to provide a genuine strategic contribution to success.

We work with many clients by using cross-group teams (both from within BPG and from across our wider Chime Group sister agencies) to bring integrated solutions to clients. And as PR specialists we’re leading the way, ahead of ad businesses, with many of these multi-disciplinary strategies. It’s not just about working on the execution. Instead we are right at the heart of creating a company’s business, corporate brand, messaging and values.

PR can also be supremely tactical when required. Take Apple’s release of the latest iPad. The late Steve Jobs, who described himself as a marketer, was a natural when it came to PR. Every major launch in the past decade was executed perfectly to ensure that hype and availability were imperfectly matched. Is there any better PR trick in retail than the one where hungry consumers already know beforehand that they have to queue to buy the new gadget on launch day? And that even if they do queue, there’s recognition that stocks may well be too restricted for them to get their hands on the item on its launch day?

This growing recognition of PR’s capability to build and defend corporate reputations, to identify imminent, but avoidable crises, and to lend effective management skills when a crisis does occur, all point to a greater opportunity for PR and comms. Such skills have always been a part of PR practice perhaps, but with the marketing pendulum swinging our way, I see PR adopting a far greater understanding of disciplines such as brand management, digital content, sponsorship and even advertising. Just in time, perhaps, as many of the smarter advertising agencies are parking their tanks on our lawns by building PR and digital/social media capability, either organically or by acquisition.

While this growth in our standing may be just my own point of view, there is wider evidence; it seems to be demonstrated by a growing belief on the ground. From an agency perspective there is a great deal of “new business buzz” around at the moment, even in (or maybe because of) these uncertain economic times. I see our people walking around with smiles as they fire themselves up for countless new pitches, while existing clients are entrusting us with ever more responsibility.

At such a time it seems bizarre and slightly counter-intuitive for industry bodies on both sides of the Atlantic to be finding so many other things to concentrate on.

The PRSA, the US equivalent of our industry bodies here, recently completed a large-scale consultation to narrow down a new definition for PR. The idea seemed that a new definition would make it easier for agencies and in-house communications people to explain and sell their skill sets.

Here in the UK a debate has raged in our trade press over whether we need two separate industry bodies, or if our needs would be better served by one integrated body. Does it really matter?

Such navel-gazing while the world continues to turn on its axis ever faster, presenting new kinds of multiple-layered problems for businesses and other organisations to worry over, is not a great advert for PR.

The best way we could equip ourselves right now for a new era of potential domination by PR is to paint ourselves as the experts in getting things done. Agencies must sell to potential clients our expanded expertise, our skill and creativity, our values, our people and our work. But we also need a pragmatic perspective that says whatever the problem, we are best placed to help find the most effective and creative solution.

The best way to grow our influence is not to talk about it, but to go ahead and prove that we already have it. Frankly, if we are still spending time defining our industry or squabbling over turf then we’re probably wasting time, and indeed the opportunity for a greater future.