Public Relations Market Overview
The APAC and parts of Latin America are expected to be the growth-driving markets for public relations services until 2020. The strength of digital spend continues to be the major growth driver in the PR industry globally. The industries with most growth potential are technology, healthcare, and BFSI.Regions such as Western Europe, North America, and some parts of APAC, such as Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore are well-established markets for PR.
The report identifies the global PR drivers and constraints as well as the opportunities and challenges that impact of the public relations industry in the regions of LATAM, North America, APAC and Europe. It also covers a regional public relations market overview of the public relations industry in the U.S., Canada, Europe, UK, APAC, Australia, LATAM, and Africa. The report further includes elaborate supplier profiles and key global supplier analysis in the PR industry such as Edelman, Weber Shandwick, Fleishman-Hillard, Ketchum, and MSLGroup. The report covers public relations industry analysis, procurement best practices, cost structure analysis along with an end-user industry update on the sectors associated with the maximum PR growth.
Beroe gathers public relations intelligence through primary sources that include industry experts, researchers, and consultants, as well as current suppliers, producers and distributors. Secondary sources can include business journals, newsletters, magazines, public relations market research data, company sources, and industry associations. Following data collation, analysis, and strategic review, the Final Research Report is published on Beroe LiVE.
Public Relations Market Trends
Category Intelligence on Public Relations covers the following
- Information relating to market, supply, cost, and pricing analysis
- Hard to find data on cost and TCO models, supplier details, and performance benchmarks
- Macroeconomic and regional trends impacting cost, supply, and other market dynamics
- Category-specific negotiation and sourcing advice
Industry Outlook & Drivers
Public Relations Market Analysis and Global Outlook
Public Relations Outlook
- The global revenue of the top 250 PR agencies was valued at $16.5 billion in 2020 from $15.5 billion in 2019. Based on the annual ranking of the top 250 PR firms, the global PR industry grew by 6 percent in 2019
- Regions, such as Western Europe, North America, and some parts of APAC, such as Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, have a high market maturity
- APAC and parts of Latin America are expected to be the growth driving markets for PR services until 2020
- The strength of digital spend continues to be the major growth driver in the PR industry across regions
- The industry sectors with most growth are technology, healthcare, and BFSI
Public Relations Global Market Maturity
- The public affairs agency and specialty market (agencies specialised in a particular PR service area or business sector) in Latin America is still in the evolution phase, with the presence of very few specialised PR agencies
- The major challenge in European and North American markets is to find and retain critical talent at a time when the need for talent to manage specialised areas, like digital PR, is increasing
Public Relations Industry Trends
- The North American and European markets for public relations are mature, with ongoing mergers and acquisitions to increase geographic reach, industry-specific expertise and service execution expertise in areas such as media relations and digital and social media
- As expectations increase for demonstration of return on investment for all communications spending, there has been (and will continue to be) an increased focus on measurement and evaluation, where most of the buyers are investing 5–7 percent of their PR budgets in measurement. However, measurement and evaluation remains a weakness of the industry overall, and buyers are looking for improved methods for public relations to be viewed credibly by other functional departments, such as marketing, sales and financial
- Acquisitions or new strategic alliances and partnerships have been robust in the Latin America and Asia Pacific regions, such as Edelman’s purchase of the Colombian firm Position and acquisition of the Brazilian PR firm Ideal by Hill+Knowlton Strategies. The PR industry has been growing significantly, especially as consumer buying power has been rising in Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Columbia
- Recent geographical expansions of PR agencies reflect a trend that indicates that buyers are looking at reducing roster size and want to have global contracts with incumbents
Public Relations Industry Drivers and Constraints
Buyers are looking to work with their incumbents to create measurable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), which take into account both quantitative and qualitative variables. However, the difficulties in measuring and evaluating agencies would remain a major constraint for the PR industry Sources: Primary Expert 1 and Beroe Analysis.
Rapid Use of Social Media:
- Increased adoption of social media is leading to increased spend in digital PR, with earned media being the dominant revenue driver Growth Driven by Content:
- A majority of the top buyers estimate that future PR growth is mainly derived from creating relevant content on traditional and digital mediums with an objective of building reputation among various stakeholders Rise in Technology Adoption:
- The PR industry is experiencing changes in response to new technology, expansion of new communication channels and greater use of data analytics
Constraints
Talent Crunch: PR Firms are not Mastering Digital and Other New Technologies
- There is a growing need for diverse talent among resources to meet the PR agencies' demand for skilled resources in digital mediums
- Digital agencies are increasingly preferred over PR agencies for any of the digital PR requirements due to the PR agencies' lack of digital expertise
- In North America, agencies are recruiting from rival firms due to the lack of skilled resources in the industry. Mid-level talent is cited as a major concern in North American agencies
Constrained PR Budgets
Client-side budgets increased by an average of just 3–5 percent in 2017, and budgets are expected to increase even more slowly during the next five years, by roughly 2–3 percent per year. This is mainly due to the difficulties in measuring and evaluating the results of any of the PR campaigns
Sourcing Models: Comparative Analysis
- The sourcing model would differ based on the type of PR service and the objectives of the PR campaign. For certain specialized services, such as digital PR and public affairs, buyers look at following the unbundling approach
- Adopting a selective sourcing and unbundling approach provides the buyers with maximum cost-saving opportunities with no execution risk and higher quality
