At the moment it’s common to know people that have been made redundant, especially if you surround yourself with bankers or traders – although there are plenty of other professions just as badly affected.
I’m increasingly bumping into people at parties who are no longer in work as a direct result of the nasty financial mess that we’re all in. The conversations that I’ve had with these people is leading me to ask when we in PR are going to feel the effects of the stock market slump, the credit crunch, the fiscal flop – whatever you want to call it.
The common consensus in PR appears to be that the eye of this crisis will pass us by. We might feel a tightening of client budgets, hell we might even lose a few, but largely we’ll get by and we won’t need to lose any staff. Apparently clients rate the value of PR far more highly than they did last time. Apparently the industry has moved on and PR is far more measurable than it was in the days of column inches, OTSs and AVEs. Apparently there’s a pig flying past my window.
Now I can’t say for sure whether PR is in a better state than it was before, after all I wasn’t there - I was in short trousers playing conkers and tipping cows. All I can say, on the basis of looking at plenty of other industries that have suffered during this current economic downturn is that if we think we’ll sail through then we’re idiots. Not recognising this will only make the consequences for everybody worse.
David Brain, what an apt name for a very clever bloke, wrote a post a while back saying that PR agencies need to re-evaluate client rosters in a downturn. Much like sorting out the attic, every agency needs to look long and hard at each of its clients and ask, “do I really need this?”
It’s one thing to arrive at the edge of a precipice and recognise that you’re going to start travelling downhill really quite quickly. It’s a very different story if you find yourself in the same situation carrying a ton of over-serviced accounts and unprofitable clients. If you throw them off the edge first you’ll probably still end up pitching down the slope, but you’ll slow your rate of descent.
My point is let’s accept that bad things are going to start happening and most of them won’t give warning that they’re about to smack us in the face. So let’s accept that we’re in the middle of a stormy patch, batten everything down and throw off the excess weight. Who knows, it might just stop PR in the UK from going down all hands on deck.
2 comments:
Did you really tip cows when you were younger?
Nice post, and good (correct) usage of precipice too.
You've raised some interesting issues here mate. The banking industry is very different to PR, it doesn't have the flexibility and freedoms which PR firms have. Although, of course, the industry is not immune to the global hangover taking place but I don't expect it to fall apart.
Nah I didn't tip cows, I used it as a bit of flavour for the piece.
Well I have to say that I disagree with you entirely as will anyone else who lived through the dot com boom. I know of agencies that I used to work for had to sack 50% of its staff overnight.
I'm not saying that's going to happen now but we have to be aware of the possibility at least.
Nice blog yourself chopper, I shall become a regular reader.
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