Casino Club, Chicago
Remarks by Ray Kotcher, Senior Partner and Chief Executive Officer, Ketchum
December 13, 2006
Thank you and good evening. I am very honored to be here today.
When Ron Culp and Bill Parks asked me to talk with you today, I jumped at the chance to address an audience of the public relations business leaders in Chicago. I also was flattered to be considered a PR legend. As I look around the room, there are many here tonight who certainly deserve this recognition well before I do. We all have in common one of my great passions – in addition to the Bears – and that, of course, is public relations – a profession and a business, for those of us on the agency side, that is undergoing profound change. I like to say we’re at a tipping point and I would like to use my time today to tell you why.
To keep it brief, allow me to walk you through seven headlines from 2006, as they tell the story well.
First, to put it plainly, in 2006, new media became a big deal. And with the advent of the new media, we in public relations have our best opportunity ever to produce content that is two-way and engenders conversations and dialogue – time-honored public relations skills. Even in declaring 2006 as the year new media became a big deal, I admit it sounds like very old news. But it wasn’t in January. As a matter of fact, it was only six months ago that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation bought MySpace for more than half a billion dollars and only two months ago that Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion. Why did these highly strategic companies buy these sites? Because they realize that user-generated content, two-way interaction, self expression, call it what you will, are the wave of the future. Personal media doesn’t just allow two-way interaction – they demand it – and this is the cornerstone of the new age of the creator. As the Institute for the Future puts it, this truly is a revolution without bystanders.
Second, 2006 is the year that saw the globalization of the public relations business. The world has been evolving into an interconnected place for some time, and while you could point to global public relations programs that took place before this year, the rate at which they are popping up today tells us that companies are realizing the great convergence of issues, challenges and opportunities. As a result, we in public relations are operating on a more global platform. Just three examples of assignments we handled this year emphatically make this point: the Global Health Initiative for the World Economic Forum, the launch of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and the Russian presidency of the G8. It doesn’t get more global than that. Today we live in an incredibly interconnected world. Everything spills into everything else. And this leads to the next headline of 2006.
Third, 2006 continued to underscore the immense volatility that exists and the critical role corporate social responsibility and public relations play. Last spring, I gave the commencement address to graduating seniors at Boston University’s College of Communication. I advised the graduates to “Join the Conversation.” Today I urge you to join it as well. Don’t be isolated within your particular company or firm but broaden your world and make a difference. Successful global companies will be those that recognize that corporate social responsibility is not optional. It is an essential driver of business success also referred to as purpose-driven organization. And in that spirit, I highly recommend the recent Michael Porter article in the Harvard Business Review on corporate social responsibility. Again, according to the Institute for the Future, by the end of this decade, we can expect these headlines:
- Biodisaster – natural or human-made – lurks on the horizon.
- Extreme meteorological and geological events continue to threaten human life.
- China’s rapid growth redraws global economic, political maps.
- Megacities leave giant ecological footprints as they sprawl across the developed and developing world.
- Tech innovations spur even greater fervor and zeal and a deep personalization.
While we will be facing challenges tomorrow, we can begin to help shape and, perhaps in some cases, prevent them today.
Which prompts headline number four. In terms of any one audience group, 2006 was the year of the employee, or the year of employee engagement. The employee is the ambassador for the brand and for corporate reputation. Too often companies neglect their own people. Employees today must be engaged in the programs you devise. They must be actively involved in helping develop and cheerlead for the programs. Which means they must understand your objectives and initiatives and actively buy into them. Our change management group, Stromberg Consulting, helps clients deal with building internal brand ambassadors all the time. There are many fresh and innovative ways to engage your employees. Being open with employees, communicating swiftly, is what gets them engaged, and engagement is what helps with both recruitment and retention.
So to build on headline four, let’s look at the fifth headline, just one word, which strikes fear in any manager today – talent. The fifth headline faces all businesses today, not just public relations – recruiting and retaining top talent. But let’s focus on how and why this impacts public relations. Frankly, our industry has matured to the point where we need a more diverse skill set than ever before and this at a time when the war for talent has become increasingly intense. The flight of key talent to fresh challenges, the attraction of different geographies and the lure of a new industry often cause the best and brightest to leave a company. Perhaps today, it is unrealistic to think we will hold onto them. But we certainly want to! Regardless, I believe we must consider a few different options. Option one – we have to work at retaining the best and brightest public relations professionals within our own company first – and we do that through the employee-engagement program I talked about earlier coupled with strong HR programs and remembering we are all a part of HR. Option two – we have to work at retaining the best and brightest within our industry, continually underscoring why this industry is critical to the future. And finally, option three – if they have left both our company and our industry, we need to consider whether there is another role for them perhaps as a business partner or influencer. In today’s world, in which competitors band together in joint ventures, it definitely is time to think about talent differently. Having said that, I must admit I’m somewhat optimistic about attracting people to our industry. This is an extraordinarily exciting time for our particular industry. It strikes me it’s the best of times.
Headline six – PR is measurable. One of the largest marketing organizations, Procter & Gamble, is telling us in PR that we deliver the best bang for the buck on a return-on-investment basis. Tie this in with the fact that P&G has realized they no longer own their brands – consumers do – and you realize quickly that public relations is the best tool to help companies help consumers manage the company’s products. See headline one – new media became a big deal. Yes, it all ties together.
Which actually reminds me of the media study Ketchum just completed with the University of Southern California Annenberg Strategic Public Relations Center. We termed it “Media Myths and Realities.” The main finding really shows that all media matter. For example, one of the findings indicated that nearly half of all women and 39% of all men rely on word of mouth from family and friends when gathering information to make a decision. Another showed that social networking sites like YouTube are used by 19.4% of women and 14.8% of men. And another found that nearly three-in-four consumers rely on their local TV news while nearly 70% depend on their local newspaper. Traditional media still remains very much in the mix.
And then there are influencers – those people who shape consumer views about what we purchase and how we think about products and services. They use media, traditional and new, at much higher levels than the typical consumer and thus serve as the public’s editors and multimedia “minders.” That makes this an extraordinarily exciting time for our particular industry.
Which brings me to my final headline from 2006. Our collective work has extraordinary relevance today. Here are just a few examples of projects Ketchum was involved in during 2006. In addition to working with the World Economic Forum and the Russian presidency of the G8, we supported an investor relations program for China Construction Bank following its historic IPO. We helped the Louisiana Recovery Authority start rebuilding New Orleans and, to show our commitment to that city, we brought our partner group to New Orleans a couple of weeks ago and donated more than 200 hours to help build houses in that city’s devastated Ninth Ward. We helped corporations rebrand themselves, including right here in Chicago where we helped Federated rebrand Marshall Field’s as Macy’s. But this headline isn’t about Ketchum. It underscores the bright future of the public relations industry. An industry growing in both size and stature. I’m glad to be in it with each of you.
And perhaps that is the best place to end. As Gandhi said, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” I look forward to moving boldly into 2007 with a clear vision for our industry and working together to Join the Conversation that’s taking place in the world today.
Thank you.
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