The public relations industry is undergoing a seismic shift, driven by artificial intelligence, hybrid work, a changing media landscape, and deepening political divides.
Across four generations — Gen Z to Baby Boomers — PR professionals are navigating these transformations, each with unique perspectives on where the industry is headed.
On the next episode of PR Explored, we’ll discuss the findings of this year’s USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism‘s survey, as compiled in its Global Communication Report.
“The future of the PR industry depends upon how tomorrow’s leaders tackle the critical issues we are beginning to face today,” said Fred Cook, director of the USC Annenberg Center for Public Relations and chair emeritus of Golin.
Cook is my guest on this latest episode of PR Explored.
Show summary:
In this episode of ‘PR Explored,’ host Michelle Garrett, a PR consultant specializing in B2B PR, interviews Fred Cook, director of the Annenberg Center for Public Relations at USC and Chair Emeritus of Golin.
They discuss Cook’s extensive background in PR, his research, and the annual ‘Mind the Gap’ survey, which explores generational views on public relations issues.
They discuss the latest trends and challenges in the PR industry based on the findings from this year’s survey conducted by the Annenberg Center, titled ‘Mind the Gap.’ The survey examines generational differences across four key disruptive trends: AI, hybrid work, changing media landscape, and polarization.
Key insights reveal surprising shifts in attitudes toward corporate social responsibility, the adoption of AI tools, and the growing importance of hybrid work environments. They also touch on the evolution and relevance of press releases, the impact of AI on PR, and the future outlook for the industry.
The discussion highlights the importance of adapting to changing trends and the significant role of Gen Z in shaping the future of public relations.
00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:41 Fred Cook’s Background and Career
01:55 Annual PR Survey Overview
02:31 Generational Gaps in PR Perspectives
03:35 Key Survey Findings and Surprises
04:07 Polarization and Corporate Social Responsibility
09:21 Hybrid Work and Flexibility
14:23 AI in Public Relations
23:36 Future of Media and Press Releases
31:57 Optimism for the Future of PR
35:00 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Show notes:
Fred Cook on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fredhcook/
USC’s 2025 Global Communication Report: https://annenberg.usc.edu/research/center-public-relations/global-communication-report
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
The Future of the Public Relations Industry with guest Fred Cook
Michelle: [00:00:00] Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of PR Explored. This is the video podcast where we delve into trends and topics related to public relations. I’m your host, Michelle Garrett. I’m a public relations consultant and writer, and my guest today is Fred Cook. Welcome Fred.
Fred: Thank you, Michelle.
Michelle: Thanks for being here. Fred is the director of the Annenberg Center for Public Relations at USC, and he is Chair Emeritus of Golan. And I’m so excited to have you here today, Fred. Thanks so much.
Fred: You’re welcome. I’m happy to be here.
Michelle: Do you wanna tell us, I know I read a very brief introduction, but do you wanna tell us a little bit about your background and what you’re up to these days?
Fred: I sure can. I, as you said, I’ve been at USC for the last 10 years. I teach in the Annenberg School a leadership class based on a book that I wrote called [00:01:00] Improvise. And I’m also the director of the Center for pr. And we do, we probably do more research about the PR industry than anyone in the us.
And before that I was the, I worked at Golan for 35 plus years and started in Los Angeles and then when I became the CEOI moved to Chicago for 20 years, and now I’m chairman Emeritus. So I’ve had a lot of experience in the agency. Worked with a lot of clients like Amazon and Starbucks and McDonald’s, and you name it, I’ve worked on it.
And I’m really having a great time at USC. Great students, great school, great dean, and it’s really fun.
Michelle: I think it’s incredible and I always look forward to the research that you do there. I think it’s really important and I really am hoping to shine a light on it a little bit because I think we need we need that and there aren’t a lot of great resources for it.
So I, we appreciate that. And I’m gonna share today we’re talking about you do a survey every [00:02:00] year. Yes. I’m always excited to see the results and and hear the presentation. When you present those results this year it was framed a little bit differently, so let’s talk a little bit about how it was set up this year.
Fred: We worked with Xeno Group and IABC this year to create a survey, which we call Mind the Gap. Here’s a copy of it, and we stole that from the British Railway system. But instead of the gap in the railway, it’s a gap about generational gap. Because we wanted to see, there’s four generations working in PR right now, and we wanted to see if they viewed some of these serious issues that we’re facing differently.
And we also thought, we’ve done research about activism, about technology, about ethics, everything at the center for the last 10 years. But we wanted to look at, this is the most disruptive time we’ve ever experienced, and we wanted to look at four trends that we thought were really disrupting our business.
One is ai, the second [00:03:00] is the hybrid workforce. The third is the changing media landscape, and the fourth is polarization. So we ask four different generations what they thought about the future of PR based on these four topics.
Michelle: Yes. And the general generational differences are very interesting. Of course, as we would expect there are some differences in the way that depending on, what age you are, how you view the the industry.
So that will, we’ll get into that a little bit too. So what were the biggest takeaways that you saw? I’m, we’re gonna look at some of them that I found interesting, but I wanna know when you got the results and were looking at them, what were some of your biggest kind of aha moments?
Fred: We anticipated there would be gaps. There definitely we thought there would be between, people been doing this for a long time and people just starting out. But the gaps aren’t bad. That doesn’t mean that’s [00:04:00] bad. It’s they’re just, anytime you have differences of opinion, that means that you’re making progress.
So we were pleased about that. I think the biggest surprise to me was the drop in under the polarization banner, the drop in the number of PR people who believe that companies should be engaged with social issues. That had plummeted from 89, 80 9% three years ago to last year was 85% and dropped 40% down into the fifties.
So the idea of speaking out about a public issue has been has fallen off a cliff, and I was surprised it was that dramatic. But the interesting thing was that Gen Z still is very much believes that companies should have that responsibility, but the older pe, older generations of people in PR have been come a little disillusioned about purpose oriented [00:05:00] communications.
That was a big, that was a big disappointment for me.
Michelle: Yeah. Why do you think that is? ’cause I have a, I have ideas, but why do you think that is?
Fred: I think it’s just the, we’re so polarized now that companies are afraid to say anything because they think that it’s gonna alienate part of the population or the president himself and that kind of thing.
And it’s very politically driven. But we, it is almost, we’ve studied polarization for years at that, at our center, and it’s almost to the point where it’s carved in stone. It’s not moving. And people don’t even wanna talk to one another about their political views anymore. And I think that’s a little dangerous in my own opinion.
And companies have decided it’s in their best interest just to, to be quiet and wait this out and hunker down and not talk about. Things that are gonna be considered woke or be misinterpreted as something that will anger their employees or their customers or the [00:06:00] government.
Michelle: Yeah. I don’t think it reflects necessarily their own personal views.
It’s more about the company they work for, the organization they work for,
Fred: and we’ll see what happens. I don’t know whether this. 75% of PE of the Gen Z that believes that we sh should be speaking out more often, whether they’re gonna change that dynamic. Or were, they’re gonna become over time disillusioned the same way the older generations have.
Michelle: It is interesting to watch and see I have two two young adults and in the house. And it’s an interesting conversation always about this because they do have very strongly held opinions and yeah, it’ll be interesting to see if they’re able to, take those into their Yeah.
Professional life. So I hope
Fred: so. I’m hoping so. I have a lot of confidence in Gen Z. I think they’re that our surveys show that they’re the, going to be the leaders of our industry in the future, and I think they have a pretty good grasp on where we’re headed.
Michelle: Talk about that a little bit. Why, what makes you say that?
I.
Fred: Well, [00:07:00] when you look at AI and you look at the changing media landscape and you look at working hybrid work their responses in our survey, were they overindexed on all of those things? They’re much more comfortable with the changing media landscape. They’re already, as Wayne Greski said, they’re already where the puck is.
They’re very comfortable with social media. They’re not worried about, as worried about the decline of. Traditional legacy media as older people are they’re, they think that the change is taking place on that in media with influencers taking more, having more influence, and social media being the dominant outlet for information is positive, very positive.
And older people are a little less keen on that. I think also in, in the hybrid area. They’re very flexible about their work, working environment. It’s not that they don’t want to go to the office, they’re happy to go to the office, but they like a little flexibility in the way that they work. And and in ai, they’re all over ai.
They [00:08:00] love the idea that. Artificial intelligence will be part of our future, and they’re learning about it at the same time older people are, and I think that’s gonna be a, a big part of their work workplace experience is gonna be based on using artificial intelligence.
Michelle: There’s, that’s a, we’ve got a lot to dig into.
Yes. But yeah I just on the point that the younger communicators feel that it is important to address the social issues. I remember just a few years ago when there were, big companies, I believe it was Koch, I believe it was one of the airlines, maybe Delta, that was, they were really very active, politically and speaking up. So it has changed quite a bit and but I don’t know if we, if it will stay the way that it is.
Fred: So that’s what we’re, that’s what we’re find gonna find out. I think that during Black Lives Matter, almost every company spoke out about their approach to the diversity and inclusion.
And now that’s a four letter word. And,
Michelle: yep,
Fred: and [00:09:00] nobody’s talking about it. So it’s been a big shift and we’ll see whether pendulum swings back or not.
Michelle: Yeah. Yeah. It’ll, we will see.
So let’s see. We, you mentioned, we were just talking about the there was a finding about how. A lot of the PR pros that took the survey would accept a pay cut to work remotely. Yeah. And I don’t know if people understand the importance of this to workers and to attract, the best talent.
Yeah. You have to offer flexibility, don’t you think?
Fred: It’s interesting. This all started with a pandemic, obviously, and Right. And people started working from home and at first they weren’t, didn’t like it and they got it and over time they got adjusted to it and they now they love it.
And there is in the PR industry in particular, there’s a lot of passion about this topic. And only we ask people whether they thought they’d be working in five [00:10:00] years in a hybrid environment or not. 75% said they thought they would be working hybrid in the future. So it’s no longer the exception to the rule.
It’s really an expectation on most people’s part. But there are CEOs that are, that think that people should be back in the office and they have good reasons for it because I think culturally it’s probably better for the company. But from a morale perspective, we have found that it is, people are happier.
We’re having this flexibility. I. And so when we asked people if they take a pay cut, the PR industry, a lot of people said yes they would. Especially the younger people. The older people, baby boomers were less enthusiastic about that. But it, but I think that it doesn’t mean that, like I said, they don’t wanna be in the office.
They just like having that flexibility. So I think companies that offer flexibility are gonna have an advantage in attracting the best talent in public relations and agencies and corporate. I. And it was interesting the corporate respondents to our survey [00:11:00] were almost double more twice as willing to take a pay cut as agency people, because I think agency people have more flexibility than the corporate people.
So it’s gonna be something, we’ll see how it plays out, but I think that people wanted and expect to have some sort of flexibility in their schedule these days. And they’re not gonna give it up easily.
Michelle: It is really interesting because, one of the reasons I wanted to work for myself was because, yeah, I didn’t feel like I had to sit in a queue from, eight to six every day to get my so I just, it never made sense to me. And yes, it took, the pandemic to really, bring it to the forefront. But it’s just crazy to me that anybody ever, that this wasn’t happening before. I. I don’t see it going away. And I feel like it seemed like a couple years ago, the workers had more pull, and now I feel like the companies of course, have more pull because we know a lot of people are having trouble, they’re getting laid off, having trouble finding new jobs.
And I don’t know how much leverage people have as far as [00:12:00] making not making demands, but like making requests like that.
Fred: They may not have as much leverage as they did before because of the job market, but. It’s I think the best people are always gonna be attracted to by, they’re companies are always gonna be attracted to the best people.
And if flexibility is something that they want, they’ll move for that because it’s important to them.
Michelle: And that’s what I just think it’s, if you’re a company, you’re not considering like how much it widens your talent pool. If you’re only pulling from your little metro area, that’s, it’s, it’s an interesting idea. That was the beauty
Fred: Of the pandemic is people hired employees from all over the country and and it made them a, they had access to talent no matter where it was, so you could get really great people just because they didn’t work in your own city didn’t matter.
Michelle: Yeah. And I know some companies for example, I know somebody who works for Apple, who lives here in near me in Columbus, Ohio, but they, that’s, then, that’s been going on for a long time. So some companies [00:13:00] get it and have gotten it for a long time. Other companies not.
Fred: We also found that there’s a misconception of people who work from home, people who work in the office.
Have this idea that people work at home are doing the laundry and, out gardening and going to the grocery. And it is just not true. The people that work from home are often working longer hours than the people in the office. They’re just not commuting back and forth. But I think that if companies, what we found in a different survey, we found that companies viewed working from home as a temporary thing during the pandemic, and they didn’t really have the.
Infrastructure in place to, to help support people working from home and to monitor their productivity or anything. They were just waiting for it to go away, and now that it’s not going away, they need to have, they have to figure out ways to manage this process. So they know what’s going on a little bit more effectively and they can help the people understand what their expectations are.
Michelle: Yeah. If you take away that commute, I would [00:14:00] think, especially in Yeah, bigger metropolitan areas that would allow the people, the workers more time to spend doing their jobs. Definitely. It makes a lot of sense. Plus you don’t need the overhead, the building and the, equipment and the, all the, all of that.
It makes a lot of sense. A lot of
Fred: benefit, a lot of benefits from it, for sure.
Michelle: So let’s see here, what else? All right, let’s get into ai. I’m reluctant, but I know we have to talk about that. One thing that I thought was interesting was that 40% of the PR pros surveyed predict that AI will lead to increased misinformation, and we already see that happening, right?
We’re seeing that right now so let’s talk about that a little bit and just in general, what, how, what is the generational difference on AI in. Our profession.
Fred: Everybody puts misinformation at the top of their list of the [00:15:00] things they’re worried about. It’s probably that’s where it should be.
What we found was that the older generations are more worried about it than the younger generations. And I think that the reason behind that is that the younger people have been living online for a long time. That’s where they get their information and I think they have a better sense of.
What is real and what is not real. Because of that experience and older people are a little less discerning or a little, they have a harder time discerning between fact and opinion than younger people. So I don’t think there’s, it’s a concern for the younger generations, gen Z. But it’s not as much of a worry as it is for people who are less familiar with online. So I think over time. We’re gonna develop tools that will allow us to fact check more easily and determine whether information is coming from the right sources. But right now, I think that there’s an instinctual difference between generations [00:16:00] in terms of how they perceive the credibility of what’s coming to them on their phones.
Michelle: Yeah. AI wise, and I didn’t, I don’t, I didn’t pull this out, but what are people, how, are most of the people surveyed? Did you ask about how many people are adopting AI based tools to help them with their research and other aspects of their work?
Fred: We did, and the numbers are not enormous.
Okay. We ask where they were using AI and different activities. And then the most common was social media and using AI to work on social media to place content or to create content or to monitor it. And about half of the people we surveyed said yes to that. And there’s some areas like internal communications where it’s much lower numbers, but I think this is.
This is happening very fast. We did a survey in January and I think the numbers would be higher. Now I, we were working some AI projects at USC, and [00:17:00] I think that we’re gonna see a rapid adoption of all the different tools that can be used for creativity, for content creation, for synthetic audiences.
All of these things are gonna be really valuable for communicators in the future. It’s just we are not we’re not. Picking up on it probably as quickly as we should, but I think it’s gonna have to happen with everyone.
Michelle: Yeah. I think, I do think though that there’s a need to just be, careful about how you use it because I think people, maybe there are people that are using it, that are telling the truth about using it in the surveys that I’m seeing, and I’ve seen that as a trend as well, that people are using it, but they’re not admitting that they’re using it because they know the perception might not be great.
Fred: Even in the setting, there is a question. We’re part of a journalism school at USC and there’s a question, particularly on the journalist side, should AI be something that the students are using to create content? [00:18:00] And they’re, and they wanna know whether an assignment was where they used AI to create it, or they used AI to improve it and how AI was involved.
But I think that’s a short term situation. I think in a couple of years, AI is gonna be like spell check. In terms of content creation and, nobody asks you whether you looked up a word in the dictionary, you spell check, but, and I think so AI is gonna become so ingrained in what we do that people won’t even they won’t be interested in knowing whether this is created by ai or if you use AI in this way or that way.
It’s just gonna be part of everything that we do.
Michelle: I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel about that.
Fred: But there, there are e everything, every new technology has it’s upsides and downsides. So there are definitely things with AI that we need to worry about. We need to worry about the accuracy.
We need to worry about how it’s being used to communicate false information. We need to worry about fake [00:19:00] videos. But I think for the most part, people are gonna figure that out and they’ll have technology that helps you figure that out. So I don’t think we need to be overly concerned about ai.
It, our survey did show though that people think that it will reduce staffing and and I think a lot of people are overlooking that at the moment that they’re saying that AI is not gonna. Cause any layoffs or cause people jobs to be replaced. But I think that that, that may happen in a lot of different industries and PR may be one of them.
Michelle: Again, I think we know that AI can, share misinformation. It pulls from sources that may not be credible. And of course it can just give you results that may not really be. Always accurate. So I think we just have to be really careful about it. I’m sure that there are ways, especially with agencies that are, trying to handle, a heavy client load, doing research and figuring out, the media databases are often outdated, so we need better [00:20:00] ways to do that kind of research, I think.
But I don’t know. I don’t know, but
Fred: I think people give AI a personality and I think it’s a thing that’s gonna do. Act on its own. It’s a tool. It’s a tool just like anything else. And we you use that tool you can use it effectively or you can use it ineffectively depending on your intent and your knowledge.
So I don’t think you need to think of it as some ominous thing that’s gonna take us over. It’s something we use and and how we use it is really important. And we have to train people. And what we saw in our survey. Is that the training is the biggest opportunity. People don’t expect young people to come into an agency or job knowing that much about ai, but they’re not prepared to train them on ai and the universities are uscs.
We’re working really hard to incorporate AI in our classes. But there’s a lot to learn, and I think the biggest opportunity is where is that training gonna come from?
A lot of people are just figuring this out on their own [00:21:00] by experimenting with different tools and and learning on their own time.
But I think companies and agencies and schools have to begin training people how to use all these new tools, but it’s happening so fast. It’s hard to keep up with. It’s a little overwhelming right now.
Michelle: Yeah. I would say for for colleges, it must be very difficult to figure out how to incorporate that because I think for a while it was like we don’t want students using it, but now we have to teach ’em how to use it and how do we do that?
And so I’m sure that’s
Fred: no USC, we’re embracing it. We’re embracing AI because our students need to be as familiar with it as they can be. And we’re, next year we’re setting up a course. In the PR program, that’s an experimental lab that’s just going to expose people to all the new products and have them work on them and get familiar with ’em so that when they’re out in the workplace, they can, they know what’s happening and they can keep up and use these tools as as they come online and as they get better and better.
Michelle: There are a lot of options on the tool side, so [00:22:00] that’s, sure. I don’t think they’re all gonna make it. So that’s another area where you’d have to be ready to, exactly, figure out which ones to jump in on and which ones to kinda hold off. But we,
Fred: The interesting thing, we did another survey about AI separate from this one and it said that the employees who are working with AI felt more excited and more valued in their work.
There is a benefit besides the efficiency and the, what AI does is it makes people feel like they’re doing something valuable and they feel more more important. It’s a nice side benefit.
Michelle: I, but it’s interesting then when we look at the flip side and how many people are not really embracing it.
So I think, I think the, it’s great that, that you’re trying to get students on board with it because maybe that will help, the rest of us who are maybe not, maybe more reluctant to get excited about it.
Fred: I think the people that, that’s why I’m [00:23:00] encouraged by the Gen Z because.
They’re not as worried about. A lot of the things that people that have been in the business for a long time are worried about. They’re ready for the change and they’re part of the change. They’re actually one of the reasons that things are changing. They they’re not as interested in pitching stories to legacy media as they are and creating content for new media, social media, because that’s where they live.
Yeah, they’re not buying magazines. They’re not watching television news. So they’re it’s they’re causing the change as much as they are reacting to it.
Michelle: Yeah, that’s another, that’s an issue that would be on my mind is just where, where is media headed as far as, where I don’t think it’s all bad that we are, that clients may not be saying I wanna be in the Wall Street Journal.
That’s the cliche, right? That every client wants that
Fred: we ask. We ask what the ideal marketing campaign would include each generation. And the New York Times used to be like the. Holy grail of a [00:24:00] PR campaign.
And and it still is for the older crowd. But for Gen Z, getting an endorsement by Taylor Swift was much more desired than getting a story in the New York Times. So it just shows you what a shift has taken place in terms of where people get their information and what’s more powerful.
Michelle: Yeah. And I that’s an interesting question as far as like, how do you advise clients on, which, media to, to spend time reaching out to?
It’s always about where the audience is, so I think that’s figuring that out and then going from there. But I’m, I, for one, I’m not gonna be sorry if clients are not always asking about, wall Street Journal and the New York Times, those are still
Fred: important and they have a big ripple effect because those are played out across social media.
But a lot of them have paywalls and things like that, which restrict their people’s ability to view them and and I understand why that exists, but I don’t think long term that’s gonna be a viable strategy because you’ve got, a hundred, few hundred thousand people reading [00:25:00] the Wall Street Journal.
And then on TikTok you have a billion people watching TikTok. So the numbers are astronomical in terms of social media reach and it’s gonna be hard to compete with that.
Michelle: Yeah. And again, with my B2B clients, it’s trade media because they’re not going to pay well. AI is ingesting the information, so it’s very important for them to be showing up there because they’re being pulled as sources to answer questions.
AI based,
Fred: the traditional media is still very important to companies and to clients, and and it is it will remain so for quite some time. But I was in a class where they did, they were all the students, four groups were. Creating campaigns for a product and it was a, an experiential class, whether it was a real product, real company, and I saw all the presentations that they gave and not one of the four mentioned any traditional media in their campaign.
It was remarkable. And they talked about social, they talked about experiential, they talked about different events that they would do, [00:26:00] but nobody mentioned a magazine or a newspaper or a television program at all. It’s quite surprising. But
Michelle: you think that’s a mistake, right?
Fred: I think that they’re overlooking it, but I’m just saying that in terms of where we’re headed I think that’s where we’re headed, because if they’re not even thinking about it, it’s because they’re not consuming it. They’re not consuming it. And that’s an interesting and the, my favorite question in this survey that we did was because everybody’s getting their information from different sources.
We thought, let’s ask them, which generation do you think is the best informed about social, political, and issues. And every generation picked themselves as being the most informed. And I, that was really funny because they all thought they were way more informed than the other generations based on the information that they’re getting.
And that’s that’s funny, but at the same time it’s problematic because, older people, baby boomers are, think [00:27:00] that they know more than what’s going on because they’re reading the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times than the Gen Z. So they think Gen Z’s not in tune with what’s happening in the world because they’re not using, getting consuming the same media.
Gen Z on the other hand, feels like the older generations are uninformed because they’re not on social. And continuing to the greater, to such a degree as they are. So there’s a misconception on both parts that that they don’t know what’s going on, that the older people think the younger people don’t know what’s going on and vice versa.
And I think that’s a problematic when they’re should be working together to create solutions.
That work for everybody. And they have to understand that there is a. My son is 27 and he’s doesn’t watch TV news. He doesn’t read the newspapers, he doesn’t read magazines, but he knows way more than I do about what’s going on just from social media and the different things that he has at his access, at his fingertips.
And it’s a mistake to think that the younger people aren’t aware [00:28:00] of what’s happening because they’re not consuming the same media that we were accustomed to.
Michelle: What I worry about though, with that, with people getting their information from social, we know that YouTube is one of the, the places where people go, TikTok, there’s a lot of misinformation out there.
So you have to remember that the person consuming it also has to be discerning about who, what sources there? Because those people are not trained journalists that are
Fred: a lot of No they’re often they’re not. But there’s a lot of misinformation in the legacy media these days too, because it’s because of polarization.
There’s a lot of opinion out there that people are thinking as fact and they’re being fed that because it gets ratings and people will be attracted to people, to media outlets that. Reflect their own views and that causes a lot of misinformation as well. And it’s, you can see that on cable TV is so obvious.
But that, so it’s not just social media where misinformation is being promoted.
Michelle: That’s an [00:29:00] interesting point.
Fred: Yeah.
Michelle: Let’s talk for a minute about I know everybody’s favorite topic, press releases. Yes. Those are still relevant, right? Isn’t that what the survey showed?
Fred: Yeah, I think so. The number of press releases that are being distributed every year is enormous and hundreds of thousands. And so I think that there’s still a value for them, although it may not be the way to announce news to the media. I think that that, that has become.
A little tired. I think as a news distri distribution tool, social media is much faster and much easier and has a broader reach. But the press release still is a way to get your your information on the internet to make sure that it’s out there in an accurate form so people can find it if they need it.
And I think that and also the press release is a great way to. To formulate your messaging and decide what it is you [00:30:00] stand for and what your company is about. I’ve talked to entrepreneurs who use press releases as a way to build their brand and a way to, to communicate what they’re all about, even if they’re not ending up in print.
They’re still important. Amazon uses what they call A-P-R-F-A-Q. For every new product that they release. Instead of doing a business plan, they write a press release and put Q and a together. Because that’s such a valuable tool in figuring out what it is that you wanna say to the consumer and what it is the consumer is gonna ask you about this new service or new product.
So I think it’s a, it’s important, but it’s, press releases are important, but not for the same reason they used to be.
Michelle: No, but I agree with you. I’ve always thought that there are a way to get everybody on the same page. Yeah, exactly. Because you pull different people into the process of putting one together and everybody’s, singing from the same songbook and all of that.
So I think in that way they’ve always been important. And now I feel like with all the misinformation, they might even be more important ’cause they’re the official [00:31:00] word from the company. Exactly. So
Fred: I don’t think they’re going away.
Michelle: No. And also the AI based search the search platforms pull from press releases.
Exactly. And I know people will write a press release just for AI based search, which is certainly not the way that we used to write them. I. But again, that might be something to consider. I dunno.
Fred: Yes. I think you’re right. I think it’s all different, but it’s still, it is still important and Gen Z recognizes it.
They put more relevance, value on a press release than anybody else.
Michelle: Oh, that’s good.
Fred: Yeah.
Michelle: I just know so many people who want them to go away, and I’m like, but why? They’re a tool. They’re another tool that we can use. They’ll just be
Fred: writing them with ai. That’s the only difference.
Michelle: I don’t, I again, I’m not sure about that, but and we, you touched on this a little bit, I think earlier about the outlook that people have in the industry about our profession.
The finding was that [00:32:00] 74% of PR professionals hold a positive outlook toward the future of the industry.
Fred: Yeah, we asked, that was a very basic question we asked at the beginning. With all these challenges, do you still feel positive about the future of pr? And 74% said strong. They very much so are somewhat positive.
I. That’s a good number. It’s not an overwhelmingly exciting number, like 90% or a hundred percent people feel good about it, but it’s still a majority and it was all generations felt pretty much the same. So everybody had about the same number. So it’s, I think if you at USC at that number would be like a B maybe.
But nobody gets BS at USC, but it would be a B or B minus. So it’s not. Wonderful. But it’s encouraging that we’re we feel good about where we’re headed. Other professions are, challenged, journalism is very challenged right now. Because of the changes in media.
Yeah. So that I think that PR is, I. As a career is still an exciting opportunity for college [00:33:00] students. Lots of people major in it and a lot of different colleges. So we’re producing a lot of young, excited PR people, and I think they’re gonna have a good careers in our business.
I think it’s really it’s, I’ve loved every minute of it, and I think they’re going to too.
Michelle: I, this is graduation season, right? Yeah. So I’ve been talking a lot about about, two graduates and with graduates and I think it is a really interesting time to be entering the profession.
And I do think that PR is I. More needed than it’s ever been because, we see the communicators as going up the ladder because you need those skills to really lead and keep yourself out of trouble and protect your reputation. So I feel like it’s having a little bit of a heyday but I was surprised that it was this high of a number.
’cause I think a lot of people. That are having trouble finding jobs might not be positive about it.
Fred: It’s not easy getting a job. I teach, that’s what I teach in my class when I teach. It’s a lot about [00:34:00] getting a job and I help a lot of students get jobs. There’re out there, there are jobs and definitely available, but you have to, getting a job is a job in itself.
You’ve gotta, you’ve gotta almost work it like a real job to get one. And I help people figure that out. But I think this industry is, Jane Fonda spoke at our Annenberg graduation and I know Jane Fonda is not everybody’s cup of tea, but she said you’re graduating in the most one of the most difficult times ever our country’s ever experienced.
And I think she’s right that communicating in this environment is so tricky that you have to be very skilled at it. So I think the role of. Of the public relations professional is more important than it’s ever been, and it’s gonna continue to be. I think it will as an industry, we’re gonna continue to thrive as, even though we’re not communicating as much as we probably used to be or should be.
Michelle: Yeah. [00:35:00] No, I think that’s a really positive note to to wrap up on. And what other, are there any other findings or things that you think are important for people to look at? I hope everyone looks at the survey. I’m gonna put the link in there again.
Fred: Yeah, you can pick it up at the USC Center for pr website.
I think the overall finding was, from my perspective, is that the future is in good hands. But we’ve got to engage with Gen Z more often we’ve got to support their ideas with better and we’ve gotta support them more in with their ideas. And I think that the older generation sometimes needs to get outta the way.
We’ve gotta realize that that they know what they’re doing even though they may not be consuming the same media we have or sharing the same ideas we have. They know where this business is headed. And they’re already there waiting for it. So I think it’s encouraging. We should be excited about the future and we should be ready to turn over the [00:36:00] reins to the younger people who I think will get us there.
And so that’s a good note. I think the the people that are gonna lead this industry know where it’s going.
Michelle: That is that’s, that is a positive note and we need those right now. Yeah, we
Fred: do.
Michelle: Yeah. I really appreciate you being here, Fred, and I appreciate the research you do and all the work you do at USC Annenberg, and I hope everybody checks out the results of the survey and I thank you again for being here.
Fred: Thank you. And fight on.
Michelle: Thanks, Fred. Bye everybody.
