✅ Making sense of the UK market for corporate communications and public relations
Your week ahead in management, media and public relations
We’re launching a new data project next week that aims to improve the quality of data about the health of the market for corporate communications and public relations.
Employment data is a valuable economic indicator. However, there’s no single source for the market for talent in UK public relations and corporate communications.
The nature of the market itself complicates the situation. It’s highly fragmented. Attitudes to professionalism are mixed.
It’s also highly dynamic.
Anecdotally, we know that as many as a third of practitioners change jobs yearly and a significant freelance component exists.
Our purpose is simple.
We want to build a dataset that helps understand the corporate communication and public relations market.
We want to answer questions about the relationship between public relations and the economy, barriers and opportunities for progression, and salary levels.
There’s also a media opportunity to create an aggregator or jobs board for the industry for employers and anyone looking for a new job.
The project aims to compile a monthly Jobs in PR newsletter of as many jobs as possible. In time, the dataset will tell a story of the UK's employment market for corporate relations and public relations jobs.
We’ve built a minimum viable product, starting with large agencies because that’s easiest, but we plan to develop the scope over the year.
Thanks to the Hard Numbers team for helping build the dataset and Reuben Sinclair for its market knowledge.
If you’re looking for a job, please subscribe to the newsletter. We’ll publish the first edition on Wednesday, 13 March. And if you want to submit a job to be included, please fill out this form.
Thank you for your support. Have a great week.
Media
📰 AI NEWS TEST: Google is paying independent news publishers to test an unreleased suite of AI-powered journalism tools. Google says the tools help under-resourced publishers efficiently create aggregated content by summarising publicly available data, but critics argue it could negatively impact original content creators. Source: Adweek.
Artificial intelligence
🧑⚖️ MUSK SUES: Elon Musk is suing OpenAI, accusing it of abandoning its founding principles by transforming into a for-profit company focused on commercial interests rather than ensuring AI benefits humanity. Musk claims OpenAI breached their contract and violated fiduciary duty through their exclusive partnership with Microsoft. Source: New York Times.
⚗️ AI PILOT: The BBC has outlined 12 pilot projects exploring generative AI technology in areas including translation, personalised marketing and streamlining content. It has also updated its editorial guidance on AI usage to ensure transparency with audiences and active human oversight over any AI applications. Source: BBC.
🚫 GOOGLE AI SETBACK: Google's new AI image generator Gemini has come under fire for generating politically correct but absurd and inaccurate images, such as depicting German soldiers from World War Two as a black man and Asian woman. Fixing the issues with Gemini's biased training data and algorithms will be challenging. Source: BBC.
Best and bad practice
🏎 MOTORSPORT TRANSPARENCY: Mercedes and McLaren are urging Formula One and the FIA to intervene and provide greater transparency over the investigation that cleared Red Bull team principal Christian Horner of misconduct allegations. The teams want the sanctioning body to ensure proper processes were followed before drawing a line under the matter. Source: Motorsport.
🥣 CEREAL STORM: Kellogg's CEO Gary Pilnick suggested people eat cereal for dinner to save money, prompting criticism that he was out of touch given he made $4 million last year while many struggle with high grocery costs. Pilnick defended the "cereal for dinner" concept as a budget-friendly option but faced backlash online from those calling the remarks insensitive. Source: Sky News.
Industry
🤝 UPDATED CHARTER: The PRCA has relaunched its Client Consultancy Partnership Charter, a framework for developing collaboration and effectiveness within the public relations industry. Changes to the framework, originally developed in 2013, include AI and other technologies, diversity and flexible organisational structures. Source: PRCA.
🏘 COUNCIL COMMUNICATIONS: As more councils face financial challenges in-house communications need to proactively manage potential reputational damage and public perceptions around financial management and decision making. This is important for maintaining trust, credibility and public confidence. Source: The Guardian.
♻️ MARKETING LESS: Can Marketing Save the Planet? by Michelle Carvill and Gemma Butler argues that marketers must embrace sustainability, providing 101 practical ways to drive positive environmental impact through their work. It provides tools and resources to help communications professionals advance the climate change agenda. Source: Wadds Inc.
Social media and platforms
📱 LINKEDIN TWEAKS: LinkedIn is rolling out a new "suggested posts" feature that will promote users' best content to targeted audiences for months or years after initial posting. The platform is also expanding tools to help users grow their audiences. Source: The Entrepreneur.
I'm heading to Edinburgh on Tuesday evening at the kind invitation of the CIPR Scotland community to talk about artificial intelligence (AI) and its implications for management and public relations. The session will run 6-8pm. Please come and join us.
Thank you to the following members of the House of Marketing & PR community of practice for sharing and debating stories covered in the newsletter over the past week: Alan Morrison, Nigel Sarbutts, Andrew Bruce Smith and Sarah Waddington CBE.