PR will re-emerge from COVID-19 leaner, smarter and better connected

Koray Camgoz, the PRCA's head of communications and marketing, shares a vision of collaboration and community as the PR industry heads towards COVID-19 recovery.

By Koray Camgoz

You can watch something from far but it never prepares you for how it feels when it shows up on your doorstep.

Nothing primed us for the seismic pressures COVID-19 has placed on our professional and personal lives..

The crisis shone a harsh light on the privileges we’ve taken for granted; from healthcare to food security. It fractured the seemingly impenetrable pillars of society and forced us to reassess our priorities, both as individuals and a society. 

Economic truth

The crisis has had a profound impact on our industry. Let’s start with the bad. 

60% of employees have been furloughed and 50% of PR businesses expect to make redundancies. There’s no getting around the fact that this crisis will blow a hole in our industry. 

Government funding may mask the damage in the short-term, but the true economic cost will rear its head in the months and years ahead. 

But there is cause for hope.

As an industry we’ve adapted incredibly well in a short space of time. Business outcomes inevitably differ vastly by sector, but by and large the industry has shown resilience. 

Tried and trusted areas of practice like crisis communication have, unsurprisingly, been called upon to help businesses fight fires. But it’s our ability to think strategically, take a birds-eye view, and mediate the expectations of organisations and stakeholders that puts us in a strong position. 

Now more than ever, organisations need to understand how their actions impact their stakeholders, and in turn, their reputation. 

Take public sentiment, for example. Gauging it accurately is now a business imperative. At our Virtual Summit, Kiri Sinclair shared an example of a make-up company in Hong Kong who were criticised for publishing advice on how best to apply eye make-up when wearing a face mask. It was deemed insensitive and opportunistic. 

And yet - a couple of weeks later - the same campaign from a different organisation in the same region won praise for empowering and uplifting citizens in the face of COVID-19. Context is king. Understanding the public mood has never mattered more.

Fostering collaboration

We’ve become physically distant but we’ve embraced digitally.

I’ve spoken to more colleagues around the world in the past two months than I have in the last two years. The crisis has cultivated a collaborative spirit in public relations that spans the world.

Even now, we continue to receive emails from professionals from every continent, all asking the same thing: ‘How can I help?’

Our Global COVID-19 Communications Taskforce - led by Tony Langham - now comprises 120 PR professionals from around the world. It’s the embodiment of productive collaboration. 

The Taskforce has partnered with international associations to deliver a free support service, a series of Live Forum events, and it’s also working on a Global Observatory project to crowdsource and share the long-term lessons for the industry. These are cost-free and available to anyone, anywhere in the world. 

Closer to home, we’ve undertaken research and represented member views directly to the Government to ensure the industry and its freelance community secures the support it needs. And we’ve partnered with the CIPR to raise these issues with the Chancellor. 

Finding purpose

As a professional association, we’re privileged to be in a position to help others. In April we offered six months’ free membership to anyone adversely hit by the crisis. More than 150 people took us up on our offer. We held a zoom call with more than 50 of them a couple of weeks ago and listened to stories of how bad luck or timing had hit practitioners. We also developed a free training package for furloughed staff to keep them plugged in while absent from work.

Working smarter

I’m consuming learning material more frequently than at any period of my career. Virtual working has opened a treasure trove of high-quality, cost-free learning.

At midday on Thursdays I chair an industry call where we invite speakers from around the world to share the lessons they’ve learned from the crisis. They’re a great chance to exchange notes and share data with colleagues. Do let me know if you’d like to join us.

Last week we held our first-ever Virtual Summit bringing together 750 delegates from 35 different countries across two days. That’s not something we’d have envisaged a couple of months ago.

This crisis has helped us to realise what we’re capable of achieving as a global community. 

We also understand our colleagues better than ever. The curtain separating our professional and personal lives has been ripped away. Seeing your colleagues beside their children (or pets) rather than in their cubicle humanises working relationships and helps build empathy. 

We’ve been banging on about transparency to clients and organisations but this crisis has forced us to become more transparent about who we are as individuals. 

What next?

Yes, there are tough times ahead. But we’ve already proved we’ll emerge from this crisis leaner, smarter and better connected with the rest of the world. 

We can stop asking when things are going to go back to normal. They aren’t. But the positives we take from this tragedy can help us to build a stronger future.

About Koray Camgoz

Koray Camgoz is the PRCA’s head of communications and marketing, the world's largest PR professional body, representing more than 30,000 practitioners.