Public Relations as we once knew it has since been dead and buried. Even as a newbie PR associate consultant in 2018, I cringed when a client expected me to focus on print, online and social media alone. They were mere means to an end.
Three years ago, rapid technological growth, dark social, an audience that didn’t want to be ‘PR-ed’, information overload and mediocrity, were some of the problems of PR. These still form a part of the issues today. But in a year we will have a new set of challenges, especially for practitioners that are insistent on using a ‘formula’.
The biggest cause of the problem will be the unidentified young customer. We have always been taught that to solve a problem, you need to first understand the root cause. But, with the world shrinking at breakneck speed due to technological advancements, and people under 30 amounting to over 3.5 billion of the world’s population – growing in far removed realities from previous generations, their interests are becoming more ambiguous. The COVID-19 pandemic has further aggravated the situation – even more trends and habits will begin to form.
So, how do you communicate with a generation that can barely keep up with communicating with itself; that is discovering new realities and forming strong and vehement opinions on every issue; that can spot a PR stunt or piece from a continent away?
In another ten or twenty years, media and communications will no longer be what we see now or envision. A foreshadowing of this occurred at the 2010 International Newsroom Summit in London when Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., former editor of The New York Times said, “We will stop printing the New York Times sometime in the future, date TBD.” Communication will have metamorphosed in ways we cannot begin to imagine.