Angela, what you really seem to be complaining about is that the days of the big PR outfits charging obscene retainers for the barest minimum of work are over. The smaller companies are hungrier, more creative and more geared to giving value for money. The dangerous waters that you allude to are really the fact that corporate South Africa in general is starting to wake up to the scam that has been perpetrated on them for years in the name of PR. They are now wary of the industry in general, and are looking for demonstrable business value. The challenge is to go out and justify your fees, and work for them, and find creative ways of showing how you added value to the bottom line of the business. If competition from the small operators is what it takes to shake up this moribund industry, then bring it on!

I agree that the market in Johannesburg could be saturated. There is definitely a proliferation of many small agencies. The question again arises, though, about quality and professionalism over price. Only when clients are educated to select on quality and professionalism will they stop looking only at price.

For all agencies, I don't feel that it is necessary or advisable to cut fees beyond that which will make the business sustainable, since every enterprise is in business to make money, not to put itself out of business!

The large agencies by necessity of overheads and costs have to charge larger hourly fees in order to be sustainable. Smaller agencies have more flexibility, but I think the point that is being made here is that by under-cutting too much, it is detrimental to the entire industry, large and small.

It may be that those who offer cut-throat rates are not able to offer value-for-money quality or professionalism to get the work and so the way to get the work is to be cheaper than everyone else. The way I was taught - in PR speak - cheaper is a dirty word.

So, in my opinion, all agencies, small or large, should be committed to professionalism and quality first. Be prepared to invest time and money into adhering to industry standards. If that puts them out of business, it does so for a reason.

Bring on regulation,yes, but bring it on in the form of assessment for quality, professionalism and CPD and this is what will make the industry raise its standards. Because of sustainability issues, the price will naturally follow.

It's the same as most things in SA - We keep getting ripped off because we are stupid consumers. It's that simple.

SA is the best market in the world for car manufacturers and offers more models than any where else on earth. They are also sold for more than any where else. Why? Because we are idiots and keep buying them regadless of the inflated price.

The same goes for other products and 'services'. I say 'services' because the levels here are so notiriously bad that a new term needs to be coined. As a business owner, I expect service providors to jump IMMEDIATELY if i request something, but it just doesn't happen. I have better success requesting quotes of wompanies abroad than down the road from my office! No bull - I've requested info of local and foreign firms at the same time and had the UK firm PHONE me back within 3 minutes whilst the local guys don't bother at all.

PR companies and other service providers should make the customer (better word than client) feel like they are the only customer that exists and cherish every morsal of business that is bestowed upon them. This is how my customers expect to be treated and are treated.

Phone me back instantly. Answer my mails instantly. Give me real service. Then we can talk about doing some business.

this calls for industry engagement and regulations

I agree that large organisations use to charge ridiculous prices, as we are still finding potential clients that never received a return on investment but paid top dollar.

However, there are people entering the PR market that don't have any experience and gives PR a bad name. This contributes to the factor that corporates aren't seeing the value of PR anymore and also the cut in spend that they allocate to us.

The PR industry should stand together and emphasise how important experience is!!!! And not the cost, however I don't see the use of charging a R100 000 monthly retainer for a client that only gets 80 hours per month and no measurement to show what value the PR Company has brought to their organisation.

My experience has led me to believe that clients actually dont know what PR is all about and what it can do for their business. They are quite happy to give the big spend to Advertising Agencies, but limit PR spend. This may be because PR companies do not educate their clients as to the benefits of PR and how they can add value to their marketing spend by investing more in PR activities. A PR Strategy is important for all businesses and before implementing any activities PR companies should ensure that their clients have one before embarking on any events or campaigns. Often clients do things on an ad hoc basis and expect the returns of a sustained campaign. If we educate them as to the benefits of having a long term PR Strategy then maybe they will see the value of retaining an experienced PR company that knows its business and can deliver on the expected exposure. All too often, clients see a PR company as an Events company and just grab the first (and cheapest) one around. Although the importance of events cannot be underestimate, this is not the main focus of PR. I think an industry association for PR companies is very important where one could debate issues like this and formulate guidelines for the industry. However, smaller companies are hungrier and will always be around, this just means that the we have to must work smarter and deliver better products and services to clients. At the end of the day as they say "if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys".

Interesting. I remember similar sentiments being expressed in the 1980's I believe it is PRISA's job to position itself as a professional representative body to industry.It should be PRISA's goal to entice corporates to contract "Members Only".
How?
Develop a strategy. Are we not communication strategists?

What a load of bollocks. The reason PR companies are struggling is because there is no such thing as 'demonstrable value'. In other words, nobody knows if PR actually works. So basically 'educating' your clients means trying to convince them, through some sordid sales pitch, that PR actually works. This usually leverages on the clients innate vanity. It's like vanity publishing. Client thinks "oooh my name in print... wow!" and hey presto it's called PR, but with no real business value. And all of it nicely wrapped in marketing-speak with the favourite word "strategic" doing the rounds. It's an utterly vacuous and impotent means of communication. Direct marketing? Now there's demonstrable value.

Simple supply and demand economics should mean that you don't need to "educate" your client. Companies aren't stupid. They know what they need and what works. If PR cannot demonstrate how/if it actually works then it is worthless.

IMHO.

The same phenominium has happened to advertising agencies. Too many of them chasing the same sized cake. What happened? The slices have got smaller, the agencies got more desparate and so they all started competing on price and so the agency world has fallen into disarray.

The big interantional agencies service their big multi national clients and the small agencies feed off the scraps off the main table. A few lucky ones manage a real big account - smart clients realise that they will get better service. But we continue to sell our souls and take on clients that have champagne dreams with beer budgets. It is the same scenario playing itself out.

'Educating clients' - words heard thousands of times. Yea yea. It's business people, clients have a budget and want it maximised. Deal with it, nobody said it was going to be esay. Those days ended in about 1983. Move on.

It is very sad to see some of the most renowned names in the Public Relations industry are going down slowly, or have gone down already.

Some of the reasons that may have triggered a sudden fall are

- Lack of intergrity and credebility towards clients

- Associating your brand with political figures (remember politicians will drive money towards you or your company only for a short period of time, when they still have access to it, but not a long term thing.

-Distrust and demoralisation of Previously Disadvateged People,it seems the is a lack of trust and perception of Inability to deliver from PDIs by owners of white owned PR companies, I once worked for a PR consultancy, I was taught many things which I am very greatful for, but I was never given a chance to practise them, I would always assist someone more "senior" account executive, who happens to be white, for this reason I was very demoralised and decided to move on where I could be given a chance to practise what I have learnt elsewhere.

My point is, we love Public Relations and the consultancy, but I think we need to revive the industry first by setting standards again maybe allowing organisations like PRISA to have more power to monitor the industry. This is not just for a certain company but the entire industry.

If we have regulatory body controlling the industry, it will even purge the many mushrooming unprofessional PR consultancies in the country that soil our industry

THIS INDUSTRY IS SELF DISTRUCTIVE. standards people,standards please.

I run a small agency which is owned by a very large one. On this issue, I must say I think it is about smaller agencies cannibalising eachother. Very large corporates, in my experience, like smaller agencies because they can exploit them. We have one whose retainer, monthly, is around R100k. The reality is that on an hourly basis we overservice by around 200%. That is not infinitely sustainable. So they will move on at some point, disgruntled because they get more junior staff because the senior ones no longer justify their salaries etc. Another agency will pick them up and the same thing will happen again. We are always pitching against other agencies that over-promise and under-deliver, all desperate moves to just win the business. Another aspect of this is that not all PR is the same. We do not ALL do media relations and eventing. Some do internal communications, media training, corporate reputation, marketing communications, brand PR etc. How do we value different services and different service levels? The simple truth is that people can charge what the market will bear and what clients perceive the value to be. Please guys - we are an industry that cannot even agree on how to measure our outcomes, how reasonable is it to expect us to agree on fees?

I worked for a small pr agency in sandton and the director's main objective was to win as many accounts as possible that had to be shared by two account managers and one trainee. We worked very had and had no incentives plus she treated all her staff like dirt. The outcome -pr managers resigned frequently leaving the director to explain why the person left and a new pr having to take over. Obviously companies get fed-up and resign accounts. The pr industry need rules and regulations as it is agencies like these who give the industry a bad name. By the way the boss never did any work herself.

That's the whole point of being the boss.

One of the reasons I left consultancy is because of the way I saw clients being serviced. The consultancy needed a bouquet of clients and just signed on clients willy-nilly. Eventually initial clients were completely forgotten or ignored because of the new ones that took up the executive's time. It's a massive pissing-contest with one PR consultancy showing off to another one while internally everything is a murky mess. There are laws that govern lawyers that state how many clients they are allowed to take on at a time and maybe PRISA should look toward that type of regulation.

The benifit to the small PR firm that takes on a massive corporate but eventually loses the account, as mentioned above, is that it provides rapid growth, good market positioning and attracts more clients. It is clearly then not all bad, which I'm sure the author recognises otherwise.

The other side of the coin is that small pr companies don't seem to be at all interested in the smaller accounts. I have been trying to get an agency to pitch for my business for the last month and have had no decent feedback. One did call to say that she was having trouble with her email, but would put something together and come back to me shortly... it's been three weeks.

Is business really THAT good? Perhaps I should change the focuss of my business...

This is another example of the total lack of service and wide scale incompetence resident in the new South Africa.

....otherwise they wouldn't bother is what I meant to type...

Small pr companied do not pick and choose. We're a small agency with 4 major account and 3 people servicing them from A-Z, we're not taking on too much instead we prefere working well with a small number of clients until we grow.

The thing about small businessess owners is that they don't know what they want, they do one of two things
1. You advise them and give them pros and cons...but the thing they don't know the difference between pr and marketing and most of all they don't understand how valuable pr is. they come to us seeking marketing solutions, when you advise them on pr solutiong with tried and tested positive results and the value of pr they get confused and run away.
2. They come bearing nothing but big ideas, and when you send them a relatively low budget (there are too many fish in our sea) they literally run away.

So to get this one account/event (we don't turn away business) you end up having to sell your soul. doing the job for next to nothing.

We are getting the short end of the stick!