New Era of Public and Media Relations Emerges as Advertising Stress Mounts
Rising Costs, Declining Returns and Brand Protection Fueling Pivot to PR
We are on the cusp of an emerging renaissance for Public Relations and Media Relations. It is back to the future for investing in comprehensive and some would say ‘traditional’ pr programs that address various target audiences and focusing on cultivating media relationships with outlets that are meaningful and strategic for the brand and its messaging.
The resurgence is by necessity in an environment where advertising is becoming less reliable and consequential as costs to participate keep rising while returns are increasingly viewed as underwhelming. Legacy media in its waning days, despite far less readers and viewers, is attempting to squeeze every penny from advertisers in media channels that always required long-term commitments for significant results.
Digital advertising has been the natural beneficiary of declining legacy media and rising dominance of mobile technology where tablets, phones, and other hardware including VR sets as well as other gaming consoles have been seen as a marketing dream to reach people faster and more effectively. That ‘dream’ also originally included a less demanding investment of capital.
The overall rising cost of digital advertising has not necessarily come with improved results for many organizations and the ad rates of leading sites has at the very least caused concern if not outright pause or search for less expensive alternative outlets.
Add continued frustration of the black hole experience in digital advertising. Metrics often fall short of producing tangible and believable data producing doubt if the target demo was indeed reached, unreliable click-through rates, and lack of confidence in brand safety as advertisers continue to see their brand next to or within content objectionable to them has only caused more hesitancy or pullback. Ad fatigue has also entered the conversation as consumers are increasingly put-off by the relentless and invasive volume of ads they are subjected to and grow ambivalent or hostile to the marketing.
Two stalwarts of recent advertising trends, social media and influencer marketing, have also begun to show weakness. Newly published research from Taboola and Qualtrics reported nearly 75% of spenders are seeing diminishing returns on their social media efforts.
Industry media outlet Campaign reports more than a quarter of marketers surveyed communicated diminishing returns are impacting a significant portion of their budget as they realize increasing ad spend on social is not delivering any improved results.
“Social media accounts for a large portion of performance advertising budgets, but many marketers have hit a wall,” said Adam Singolda, CEO of Taboola. “More spend just isn’t translating into better results. Marketers are looking for solutions to overcome that barrier.”
Search advertising is having its own drama playing out too as continued poor experiences for advertisers are generating consternation as their ads are appearing next to content, search results, or on alternative websites contradictory to their messaging, values, and audiences. In addition, it is very possible the world of search is about to undergo seismic changes and segmentation as the US Supreme Court appears to moving to break up Google’s search dominance or at the very least long-held practices to foster more competition.
A steady stream of industry news lately has only confirmed the perception advertising is facing a serious decline this year.
Research firm Guideline reported that advanced bookings for advertising in April and May were up just under two percent (versus 5.8% one year ago) and that the second quarter might usher in the first ad recession since early 2023. Particularly noteworthy was the firm’s report that local television bookings are down nearly 25% year-to-date. This news comes on top of weak first quarter ad sales as 2025 began. MoffettNathanson Research added that national broadcast and cable advertising revenue declined seven percent in the first three months of the year while total streaming advertising revenue was up more than 25%.
PwC reported that internet advertising increased nearly 15% year-to-year in 2024 but that the largest companies accounted for most of the increase, especially companies ranked the 11th to 20th largest spenders.
Meanwhile, New Street Research published its outlook for the remainder of the year and opined that total advertising will fall nearly six percent this year. This highly unwelcome news comes as Warner Brothers Discovery’s cable networks have already experienced a total decline of 16% in revenue, while Paramount cable fell 21% and it’s CBS network dove 41%, although that is a year-over-year comparison that includes the network’s carrying of the Super Bowl last year, per MoffettNathanson Research.
Pivoting to building, rebuilding or expanding public relations and media relations programs is the smart play today and the advantages are numerous:
· more cost-effective, budget can be allocated more widely and multi-purposed
· more control, tighter reins on messaging, brand distribution and channels
· easier to manage, greater agility to concentrate quicker on important issues, goals, and messages
· multichannel and multiple target audiences more easily managed and executed
· longer lasting results and greater brand or messaging endurance per campaign
· significant more control over distribution of owned content, brand identity and communications
· greater potential for internal collaboration, strategy, and responsiveness
· easier performance monitoring, goal identification, KPIs, and investment accountability
· much longer ‘shelf-life’ for earned media wins, owned content distribution
· in-house department of professionals provide easily transferable skills to benefit enterprise and generate additional savings and greater return on investment
Today, an organization’s public relations and media relations efforts can be more easily and rapidly aligned with changing needs of the business. Unlike advertising, most of the coverage or content produced by these programs last longer and offer greater internal control, execution and collaboration that more closely aligns with corporate objectives faster.
Public Relations can be as comprehensive as an organization needs. It can include wide-ranging external communications that encompasses community relations, government relations, investor and partner communications, events, sponsorships, and internal communications in addition to executive communications.
Media relations does not have to be limited as well. Besides the traditional earned media method, which today does better in building credibility and relationships with strategic media than a purely commercial strategy, an organization has greater potential today to become a trusted and reliable source of content that is both beneficial to the media outlet and business.
Earned media, shared media, and owned media can all be a part of a media relations program. All can be posted on an organization’s website, repurposed for various audiences, and create a deeper, more strategic, and legitimate presence online.
Considering today’s economic climate of growing instability, inflation, consumer stress, and advertising fatigue, establishing and executing a public relations and media program is the long-term, budget-friendly solution to steer the ship through these stormy waters.
Post-published notes:
NBCUniversal reports its American Q1 advertising across all networks such as NBC, USA, CNBC, and MSNBC fell seven percent from last year same time as ad volume continues to decline.
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