News that LG Electronics Australia has shifted from one multi-national PR agency to another as part of an international re-alignment, apparently without a pitch from either of the agencies involved, or indeed any other local Australian PR agency, is a further signal as to how much PR in Australia is becoming driven by international factors.
Moves of this nature, as a consequence of ‘global decisions’, are not unusual in advertising. But this is a reminder as to how much PR is following in the advertising slipstream.
I’ve seen this move towards internationalism at first hand. During my last 10 years in the ‘agency world’ my agency was an independent that was able to ‘act local’ for several multi-national clients. But as the Australian associate of an Omnicom agency we were also at times the grateful recipient of international business that we won by overnight email, out-of-the-blue from New York or London.
Both worked – depending on the client. But PR is not like advertising. Advertising is still about buying platforms and delivering consistent messages. PR, on the other hand is about developing relationships.
The former can be orchestrated from anywhere – and the buyer can be changed without too much disruption. The later need connected people on the ground, who are able to build and sustain long-term relationships. In the old adage’ think global, act local’ advertising is the former while PR is the later.
Most Australian PR Manager’s of multinationals that I’ve met have been sceptical, suspicious or resentful of the increasing multinational approach to PR.
From my experience issues that arise to irk PR Managers include.
1. Relevancy. What works in other countries is often not appropriate for Australia – and it can take a hell of a fight to be the exception.
2. Budgets. Local budgets are often not adequate to tackle the tasks that Head Office is implementing and wants its Australian operation to duplicate.
3. Endorsement. Local internal management can often have more of a sales perspective which can leave the PR people bereft of local endorsement.
4. Process. Marching to the international drumbeat can result in a large proportion of scarce internal and local agency resources being chewed up in liaison and reporting with little left to actual implement the PR work!
5. Media. Trying to duplicate American and Asian media initiatives can be fraught with risk given Australian media that can be fiercely critical and frank at times.
There’s no point in shooting the messenger – the multinational PR agencies. Instead PR Manager’s need to be stronger and more proactive in protecting their patch and fighting for their independence (providing that they commit to following international policy and messaging).
One way is to bring more process and transparency into the PR agency selection process.
Too many Australian PR agency appointments are still made without a rigorous process. Multinationals would likely be less inclined to make arbitrary decisions in favour of multinational agencies if they knew that equal or superior local Australian PR agency talent was available – and their local PR Managers or Marketing Managers insisted on having a genuine competitive process.
LG has had its share of issues to handle in Australia and there have been some rumours that it hasn’t been the easiest client to work for. Nonetheless the agency on the way out -Burson-Marsteller -has done some major high profile work for LG and its likely that neither LG Electronics and Burson-Marsteller locally are too happy with having the rug pulled out from under their feet.
The only one smiling will be those in WPP because the irony is that both the present and new PR agencies (part of Ogilvy) are owned by WPP. So it doesn’t matter one iota to them.
Welcome to the new world of international PR.
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