US PR on the upswing

Some excerpts from Council of Public Relations Firms: Press Releases

LOS ANGELES, CA (May 23, 2005) - 2004 was a "Bounce Back" year that saw strong growth in many key indicators of health for the PR profession, according to GAP III, the third annual Public Relations Generally Accepted Practices Study, published by the USC Annenberg Strategic Public Relations Center (SPRC) and sponsored by the Council of Public Relations Firms.

“While one year doesn't make a trend, our findings indicate that PR is not only doing very well as compared with past years, it may actually be entering a new era of vibrancy and maturity,” said Jerry Swerling, Director of the Strategic PR Center and Principal Investigator on the Generally Accepted Practices (GAP) study.

“That dramatic increase, which may be attributable to the transparent, communications intensive environment in which we now find ourselves, is an especially strong indicator that PR might have achieved a new level of both accomplishment and self respect,” Swerling observed.

Some findings in brief were:

* Budgets grew.
* PR staffs grew.
* PR's recommendations were taken more seriously.
* PR contributed more to strategic planning.

The study found that the characteristics that distinguish Fortune 2000 "Most Admired" companies from others include these:

o Their PR budgets are bigger.
o They saw themselves as being more "Proactive" and "Democratic" than all others.
o In addition to having bigger internal staffs, the "Most Admired" also make greater use of outside PR agencies. 81% of them use outside agencies, as compared with 71% for all other Fortune 2000 companies.
o The "Most Admired" also spent more on PR measurement and evaluation (as a percentage of their total PR budgets) than did non-"Most Admireds." "Influence on Corporate Reputation" remained the most commonly cited metric.