PR has become a key cog in the wheel for brands: Atul Sharma

The start of a new year is seen as bringing in new operational efficiencies, stronger strategies, a far greater emphasis on building deep bonds with various stakeholders and consumers. In keeping with the current market ecosystem, technology and a human approach are seen as going hand in hand.

Adgully has approached key industry leaders to Crystal Gaze into 2023, as part of our annual Trending Now series, to highlight the major trends and developments that they see dominating the industry in the year ahead.

Atul Sharma, Managing Director, Ruder Finn India, speaks about the key trends expected to dominate in PR industry by categorizing it into People & Technology and Home & Office.

Further, he talks in depth about the major expectations in PR industry 2023. He also highlights Ruder Finn’s top three focus areas for the year ahead.

Key trends dominating the PR Industry in 2023

The year 2023 is set to be an action-packed one for the industry. Two broad hybrid trends will set the stage:

Technology and People

Brands and firms will leverage a hybrid of technology and people, and their effectiveness and efficiency in balancing the two will determine who stays ahead of the curve. Without a doubt, technology is the today and tomorrow of the industry, and innovations in the Web3 era will be as important as ever. Deep tech, data analytics, and data computation will continue to play a crucial role in delivering successful campaigns. However, even as new and advanced technology is adopted, human effort will also need considerable improvement. This year, the demand and influx of sector experts and specialists across the board will make the industry more heterogeneous and make PR campaigns smarter and sharper than ever before.

Home and office

The other hybrid taking center-stage will be hybrid working. In the last year, people returned to the workplace, once again allowing for meaningful connections between clients and firms, within teams, and even between firms and journalists. However, the pandemic brought forth the advantages of remote working, and it’s definitely not a thing of the past. Striking a balance between remote working and in-person attendance in order to maximize output and ensure employee satisfaction could go a long way.

Major expectations in 2023

If 2022 was marked by transition and reinvention, this year, the industry should take a giant leap forward in terms of overall business growth. Marketing efforts are increasingly being integrated, which means PR is a key cog in the wheel for brands. The value of earned media is steadily increasing in the eyes of the consumer and brands should reap the benefits by allocating more funds to public relations. Furthermore, latest data can back that PR has a high ROI making it a high-yielding investment for people and organizations. The industry has shown immense scope of growth and tapping into that potential this year will be worthwhile for the brands and corporates.   

Secondly, people world-over are increasingly becoming socially conscious, and so should brands. Being bold and taking a stand can be risky, but also extremely rewarding. If one looks at the leading global PR campaigns in the past few years, a large majority are centered around social themes like climate change, women empowerment, racism etc. Essentially, brand activism should be the buzzword while brand neutrality is made a thing of the past.

Key focus areas for Ruder Finn in 2023

At Ruder Finn, we endeavour to constantly challenge ourselves, our PR solutions, and industry benchmarks by asking – ‘What’s Next?’, which is also our theme for the year 2023.

Three focus areas are investing in new technologies, growing along with our people and prioritizing life over work.

This year, we continue to push boundaries, using data and creativity to drive engagement for our clients across technology, consumer, corporate, and digital practices. Particularly from a services standpoint, we are also looking forward to growing Web3 Connect, our latest vertical. Rooted in technology and dedicated to upcoming sectors like Metaverse and NFT, Web3 Connect is a special service offering inventive and impactful brand stories to clients in the sector.

Post the pandemic, we are also grateful to get face time with our clients and colleagues, and plan to maximize our potential through cross-team collaboration and upskilling. We hope to create programmes which will help in the development of our people and work on interesting and creative campaigns which can excite our talent.

We would also like to step back this year and ask our colleagues about that one thing that they would like to pursue in life, which is more important than anything else, even work. We would like to work closely with them to see how best we can help them to achieve the same.