The rise of short-form, real-time content

The global accolades keep coming for Ogilvy SA. As if their ever-growing amount of shortlisted work for Cannes Lions 2016, taking place this week, wasn’t enough, Oosthuizen has also just been named as part of PR Week’s 2016 Global Power Book.

Here, she elaborates on the ever-changing dynamic of the PR and content landscape as well as how the future of PR and earned media is evolving.

Oosthuizen

Oosthuizen feels truly humbled on being included in the books, as it’s such a large sector, and she’s grateful to have such an incredible team that she says deserves it as much as she does. It also means a great deal to Ogilvy Public Relations overall with three additional global employees included in the Global Power Book: Sharon Murphy, director and head of consumer in Dublin; Saada Hammad, regional director MEMAC; and Michael Frohlich, EMEA CEO. Oosthuizen says, “This demonstrates to our clients the depth of senior counsel.”

Local PR confidence

In addition to this, there were five people in the Global Power Book for Africa, which Oosthuizen feels should give local clients and the local industry, “confidence that our experience is at a global level to support in these markets.”

It’s a worthy sentiment as the audience for The Global Power Book largely comprises senior executives in both agencies and clients, with the purpose of the initiative to recognise talent globally and networks that benefit the industry as a whole.

So while Ogilvy Public Relations in South Africa has invested a great deal in content development as Oosthuizen calls this “the future of public relations”, she feels that, as an industry, public relations is evolving into a more storytelling approach founded on content which was mainly long-form, commonly known as a press release. Now we find that we have moved into short-form real-time content, which uses the news cycle to earn brands the right to matter.

She concludes that PR has become more about influence than ever before, which has transpired as a result of social media and various digital platforms.

Get ready for the changing face of PR…