S5 E12: PR Trends for 2025 with Gábor Jelinek

Adrian McIntyre: 00:00:01

From the Public Relations Global Network, this is PRGN Presents. I'm Adrian McIntyre.

Abbie Fink: 00:00:07

And I'm Abbie Fink, president of HMA Public Relations in Phoenix, Arizona, and a founding member of PRGN. With public relations leaders embedded into the fabric of the communities we serve, clients hire our agencies for the local knowledge, expertise and connections in markets spanning six continents across the world.

Adrian McIntyre: 00:00:28

Our guests on this bi-weekly podcast series are all members of the Public Relations Global Network. They will discuss such topics as workplace culture, creative compensation and succession planning, the importance of sustainability and environmental, social and governance programs, crisis communications, and outside of the box thinking for growing your business.

Abbie Fink: 00:00:47

For more information about PRGN and our members, please visit prgn.com. And now let's meet our guest for this episode.

Gábor Jelinek: 00:00:59

Hello and welcome, everybody. This is Gábor Jelinek, Executive Director of PRGN. I've been in this role for about six years now, and this is probably the fourth time we're doing the predictions for the next year with the members. So really excited to talk about this today.

Abbie Fink: 00:01:16

And we really felt like it was a perfect concluding episode for the current season, to take a look at what the year ahead is going to be and based on conversations from within the members of the Public Relations Global Network. But it's important, I think, before you look forward that you might want to look backwards a little bit. So what happened this past year? How accurate do you think we were in our predictions coming into 20 24?

Gábor Jelinek: 00:01:44

Yeah, that's a very good point, Abbie, and I'm glad you brought this up because I think as in PR—and not just in PR, but mostly as I work with PR practitioners, I hear it from them—everybody talks a lot about trustworthiness and authenticity.

And I think if we want to talk about our predictions into the next year, we want to have that kind of authority that, you know, the PRGN members have been doing this for some time and they weren't so bad.

So before starting predictions for '25, let's see how we did with the predictions for '24. And if you don't mind, let me start with you, Abbie. You said a year ago that focus will be more on more comprehensive and integrated services. And, you know, how true and just very interesting.

As I was preparing for this podcast, I stumbled onto a recent report that was originally done by McKinsey which says that B2B marketing now manages an average of 10.2 channels in 20 24, which is double from eight years before. So there you go. I mean, that's a very good prediction. And maybe it was not just for '24, but earlier and later as well.

It is true that PR practitioners and comms people now manage more and more channels. So to be successful you have to be comprehensive and integrated.

Of course, already last year there were a lot of comments about AI and how the applications will proliferate and be more and more reliable and easy to use. I mean, that's covered now. Basically everybody talks about using AI on a daily basis.

LinkedIn was brought up by, by one of our members as being a powerhouse, especially for self-publishing. We definitely saw that in 20 24, so that's another prediction that fared really, really well.

Well, we weren't always 100% true, and sometimes maybe the predictions go a little further than just the next year. Here's a prediction that was in our list last year, and I was thinking a little bit about it, how true it is for this year—but maybe it will come through next year in 20 25.

So the prediction goes, "as employees cancel their jobs more easily, PR firms should be more and more straightforward and even cancel contracts if they see that they're not a good fit for the agency."

As I said, I'm not entirely sure PR firms were really in the position to do this in 20 24, but maybe this is coming for '25 and definitely it's a trend with the workforce.

People are taking it easy, and they quit easier and leave jobs easier. And also more straightforward on what they want to do or can do or cannot do. So I think this will definitely force PR firms to handle clients and opportunities the same way.

Another member mentioned three things last year: measurable results, that they will be key for success; integration, as mentioned already; and AI. I think all three have come true.

And here the new part is a measurable results, and I'm seeing the agencies talk more about results and being able to show the results as an integral part of being successful with the client.

Here's another one from one of our members in Asia putting an emphasis on data-driven storytelling as it will be increasingly important. That's true, and just as a reader reading newspaper articles, I can see more and more data-driven pieces and articles in newspapers.

So obviously if PR has to catch up with that kind of content, PR has to do more storytelling based on data.

So I think overall, and not to make this part too long in today's podcast, I'd say our members have been pretty spot on with most of the predictions they did last year.

Abbie Fink: 00:06:41

Well, and I think the benefit of the types of conversations that this sparks and that if we as an entity, as PRGN and then as we manage our own individual firms, thinking about what the year started looking like and where we wanted some things to be, and if we're using some of these ideas as guideposts, we can make good decisions about how we manage our agencies, how we manage our relationships with our clients, how we understand what our potential target audiences are needing from the information storytelling, data-driven, trustworthiness, credibility, authentication, I can never say that word, authenticity. And that all is such a cornerstone to the work that we're doing.

And the benefit of the network and our resources is really this global approach to looking at our industry. So many opportunities exist, and when we think about them across our different regions, it's fun to look at what's trending or being predicted happening in, say, the North American region versus what is happening in Europe.

And I know you did a little bit of an analysis on what we saw regionally, so maybe before we dig into some specifics of what we're looking ahead, were there some trends that you noticed from a regional perspective that are interesting to highlight?

Gábor Jelinek: 00:08:20

Definitely. And interestingly, the difference already started with some of the predictions for last year, a year ago, and it was interesting to watch now, especially predictions about ESG, sustainability and the connected topics.

It was really interesting to see that members from Europe and in some parts of Asia were predicting more changes in this area in the direction that more and more companies and brands will be putting an emphasis on sustainability and ESG. Members and agencies in the US, not so much.

And I think this is really shaping up and this is probably a difference that will continue to stay with us in 20 25, as there are cultural differences there, perception differences on what these really mean and what needs to be done in those areas. So I think that's one area that I would definitely highlight.

And also this will be a trend that continues to be different in 20 25 as well, because recent changes and upcoming changes in US politics will shape the approach to sustainability and climate change. And most members expect changes there.

And that means agencies will need to support the brands and clients they serve with the right advice on how to navigate in this environment. Whereas, for example, in the European Union, which is always very advanced in terms of regulating markets, the regulations are going to stay in place.

So it will be an interesting situation to watch. Companies in any parts on the globe that want to do business with companies based in Europe will have to comply with a lot of ESG rules. Because this is part of the regulation in Europe that companies need to disclose and not only what they do, but what their suppliers do. So while this is going to impact everybody from Asia to the United States, the local tendencies in the US may not be so strict.

And we'll see how the sustainability and climate protection part will play out and how much that will influence brands and their behavior and what they will need from the PR firms to consult them.

Abbie Fink: 00:11:15

And then our favorite topic of AI, as you pointed out in some of the notes as we were preparing for this, that 20 25 may not be, may not be technological expertise, but the uniquely human ability to build trust in a skeptical world. And we've talked a lot about trust in general, trust in brands, trust in our elected officials, trust in the media.

And with AI being such a dominant tool in how we are looking at information, evaluating information, gathering information, I think the responsibility continues, as we've said, with I think all kind of technology, there's a responsibility involved with utilizing it and putting it to good use to recognize that we have to build an authentic and transparent and trustful, trustworthiness as a result of using this type of technology.

And it appears in some of the predictions from our members across the world that the value of the technology is there, but we can't dismiss the human component of it.

Gábor Jelinek: 00:12:35

Yes, yes, Abbie. This is, I think, the conclusion that many of our members dealing with AI and preparing for AI or just simply seeing the proliferation and the widespread use of AI are saying. And this is why I think that AI is a topic and it's not a topic, because it's so much of a topic.

Maybe it sounds strange, but what I mean by that is, and especially on speaking about the predictions for next year, there's so much talk about AI that I don't think we need to necessarily focus on it, but we have to focus on it.

So my analogy here is that AI will be just like the weather. What does that mean? It will stay with us. It will stay in our daily conversations and everybody will have to deal with it, just like the weather. So AI will become an everyday thing, and people will work with it.

And I just came across a very interesting number today, courtesy of the Section School in New York, that AI is forecasted to eliminate 85 million jobs and create 97 million more.

And this underscores what I've heard from some of our members and also beyond our membership from PR practitioners that the difference will not be between AI and people. So essentially PR people will not lose out to AI, but PR people who don't use AI will lose out to the PR people who use AI. And I do believe this is true.

And what it means is that when we talk about predictions, I would put the emphasis not necessarily on AI because it's just so much given, just like the weather. It's given. You have to deal with it, you have to work with it on a daily basis. You have to have your umbrella, your raincoat, your warm hat. But it's a thing that is there every day.

Abbie Fink: 00:14:57

I really like that analogy because I think that does, it just speaks to the power of it. But the fact that it is going to be so much and is really so much of our daily operations.

And I think that statement in terms of the creation of efficiencies and therefore it's creating new opportunities in the workforce, I think that's a universal statement across any industry.

We're certainly, you know, the companies and organizations that we represent that are adapting to this technology within their workforce are seeing efficiencies and opportunities for growth because they're shifting resources.

And you know, you are 100% correct. We're all going to have to know how to use this and what it means and how to effectively incorporate it into the work that we're doing, whatever it is, the work that you do. And those that recognize that and move forward from it will continue to find success.

I don't believe it replaces the human component. It just makes the humans more efficient and more resourceful.

So if we kind of benchmark against the smart things we said in 20 24 and the very smart sounding things that we have coming up in 20 25, are there any other general or regional ideas that came across from our members that that are things to pay attention to?

What should we be listening to from our members in terms of what might be happening in our industry or lessons learned from this past year that we're going to apply into the new year?

Gábor Jelinek: 00:16:42

Oh, yes, definitely. And I don't want to remain on this very general level. As you said, some of the comments are true or can be applicable to other industries as well. Of course PR and communications is a very labor focused and labor heavy industry. So obviously any disruption or efficiency that AI brings will be heavily felt here.

But of course, and as you said, there are other areas. So let me just give you a selection of some of the best ideas I've highlighted from this year's predictions into 20 25. Again, data-driven communication, ethics and transparency in communication, the surge of owned channels, kind of an omnichannel communications. These are all key highlights in the topics predicted to be of key importance in 20 25.

There's a piece—and it's funny, it's not coming from you, Abbie, so we can't be charged by saying we're biased—that podcasts and storytelling will be coming up. So this is good news for us, for what we're doing today.

Others again, for example, in Europe, in the eastern part of Europe, say political and economic uncertainty will increase the importance of good crisis communications capabilities. I think that might be true for Latin America or Asia as well, but it just came from one of our members in Eastern Europe.

Also, the connected world and connectivity in the world are key terms and key trends and they will shape how communication will be done. This is a prediction from one of our members in the US.

Others put emphasis on the need for thought leadership and education. And I think it comes hand-in-hand with the AI proliferation, because AI will make things much more efficient, but at the end of the day you want to be able to show the differences between your brand and another brand. And if basically everybody uses the same AI tools to produce content, then there's a tendency for very generic content. So the human color and the human touch will be needed increasingly.

Probably the last thought—and specifically I wanted to leave this to last because I think it just works so well with our industry, with the PR sector—is that staying nimble in an uncertain word will be an asset for PR firms. This comes from our UK member. The UK has gone through tremendous political change and uncertainty, so probably it's no wonder it's coming from that area.

But I do think that this is a key to success and efficient strategy for PR firms to stay nimble in an uncertain world where clients will need counsel more and more and more than ever.

Adrian McIntyre: 00:20:23

Thanks for listening to this episode of PRGN Presents, brought to you by by the Public Relations Global Network.

Abbie Fink: 00:20:29

We publish new episodes every other week, so subscribe now in your favorite podcast app. Episodes are also available on our website along with more information about PRGN and our members at prgn.com.